Fairport Harbor Lighthouse Investigation

The original lighthouse was completed in 1825. The tower stood thirty feet high, capped with an octagonal-shaped iron lantern. The lighthouse was accompanied by a two-story keeper's house. Due to deterioration the tower and keeper's house had to be replaced. Rebuilt in 1871, the tower now stands sixty feet high and has a spiral staircase of 69 steps which leads to an observation platform. In 1925 the light in the tower (a third-order Fresnel lens) was discontinued. It was replaced by a combination light and foghorn station which was built on the west breakwater pier head. The Grand River (Fairport Harbor) Light is located in the village of Fairport Harbor, Ohio. The lighthouse was built in 1871 and has a 60-foot tower with a detached keeper's house. The light was decommissioned in 1925, replaced by the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Light.

At one time the Coast Guard considered using the keeper's house to house their personnel and demolish the tower but a letter writing campaign by local residents prevented it from happening. In 1945 the Coast Guard turned over ownership of the light to the town.

The tower is open to the public and the keeper's house currently serves as the Fairport Harbor Marine Museum and Lighthouse (the first of its kind in the country), operated by the Fairport Harbor Historical Society. Visitors can climb the lighthouse for a view of the harbor. Founded in 1945, the museum features exhibits about the history of the lighthouse and its keepers, a Fresnel lens, lifesaving equipment, life on the Great Lakes, ship models and maritime artifacts. There is a gift shop. The former pilothouse from the Great Lakes carrier the Frontenac is attached to the museum's building. The museum is open seasonally.

Address: 129 Second St., Fairport Harbor, Ohio 44077

Telephone: 440-354-4825

Director: Mary Alice Gladding

Website: www.fairportharborlighthouse.org

Hauntings: In 1871, Captain Joseph Babcock was the Head Keeper of the Fairport Harbor Lighthouse. His family resided in the second floor quarters of present museum. His wife was bedridden so the captain gave her numerous cats to keep her company. After she died most of the cats disappeared except for the gray cat. Years later, a curator Pam Brent, lived upstairs in what had been the Babcock's living quarters. She reported seeing the ghost of a gray cat. She said "It would skitter across the floor near the kitchen like it was playing. I would catch glimpses of it from time to time. Then one evening I felt its presence when it jumped on the bed. I felt its weight pressing on me."

Time passed and the day came when Trustees decided to put in air conditioning in the museum. A worker installing the new system wiggled his way into a tight dark crawl space in the basement. He looked to see what his head was resting on and discovered the mummified remains of the gray cat. Those remains are enclosed in a glass case in the museum for visitors to get a glimpse of. No picture taking is allowed of the cat however the museum does sell postcards or even larger 8x10 pictures for sale.

It has been named Sentinel (The Ghost Cat) and has appeared on The Animal Planet’s “The Haunted” which aired January 29, 2010, the Discovery Channel’s “Weird, True and Freaky”. Since 2001, Sentinel has to date three cable television appearances and two local network segments to his credit.

Equipment setup: Since there were numerous places to investigate including the lighthouse itself, The Library upstairs and basement of the light keeper’s house no Command Center was set up; instead just handheld equipment was used that included: Tri-Field Natural EM Meter, K-II Meters, Trigger Ball (which lights up when it is moved), X-Cam SLS device, Nightshot cameras, digital tape recorders and cameras, REM Epod, EDI+ Meter, Ovilus X and Mini-Portal.

Experiments performed: EVP, Mini-Portal, Ovilus X, dowsing rod, ghost application tools and ghost box sessions were conducted at the top of the lighthouse, the basement of the light keeper’s house, The Library, on the first landing in the lighthouse and the Bridge Room.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Fairport Harbor Lighthouse June 30, 2018. Team members included: Kathi Para, Marge Sucha, Greg Kos, Katherine Meagher, Michael Wright, Barbara Meagher and Dale Kaczmarek

Personal experiences:

Greg Kos: The equipment that I used was my EDI+ meter, my IR camera and my voice recorder.

At one point in the investigation I used my K-II in a mockup of a bridge on an iron ore ship.

I was receiving responses back on the K-II on questions about the bridge and if they ever ate C-Rations. I also asked if He was a Captain.

The K-II responses and a few EMF readings on the bridge where the only evidence I captured.

I had no EVPs and no images were captured on my IR camera.

Barbara Meagher: During this investigation 4 EVP sessions were conducted, and several pictures were taken. No photographic evidence was seen.

1st EVP session lasting 10 min 32 seconds in basement, No EVPs were heard on review of the recording. Some EMF anomalies were detected.

2^nd EVP session was conducted in the library and lasted 10 minutes and 54 seconds. No EVPS found. There were several EMF spikes and once the ghost ball lit up apparently by itself. We could not recreate the event that caused the ghost ball to light, however it did not repeat itself.

3^rd EVP session was conducted at the top of the lighthouse lasting 10 min 11 seconds. No EVPs heard on review of the recording.

4^th EVP session was conducted outside of the museum lasting 3 minutes 54 seconds, no EVPS heard on review of the recording.

Katherine Meagher: I have never been to a lighthouse and was extremely excited. I have to say that I was glad it was not extremely tall lighthouse or I would have never made it up the stairs.

The history was very interesting. The woman that had lived there was very fond of cats. After the passing of the former occupants, the renovation reviled a mummified cat that had died in the home. The body of the animal is on display in a glass case.

The most exciting part of the ghost hunt was when we were in the museum; Barb had a ball that would light up if it were touched. The ball lit up. We tried to debunk it and no matter how hard we jumped and walked on the floor we could not get it to do it again.

Kathie Para: GRS had the opportunity to investigate this lighthouse and the old residence beside it. The lighthouse was operational for 100 years and has quite a bit of history. The light keeper’s residence is now a museum. GRS members attending were: Kat Meagher, Barb Meagher, Marge Sucha, Mike Wright, Greg Kos, Dale Kaczmarek and I.

We covered most of the building as well as the lighthouse, doing an EVP session at the top, middle and the bottom. Then in the residence/museum we did EVP sessions in the basement, main floor, including the bridge room, and the second floor.

There was K-II and other EMF meter activity in pretty much all of the areas along with interesting and sometimes relevant responses from the Ovilus, Mini-Portal and phone apps.

On the second floor something set off a trigger ball that was on the floor. Apparently one of the light keepers had a wife who had many cats so it would stand to reason a cat would approach the ball and bat it which would light it up. That was very interesting.

In the basement after the words “cold air” came through the temperature dropped ten degrees within about ten minutes, which was interesting.

Also in the basement the spirits got to show their sense of humor. There really wasn’t anywhere to sit down there during our EVP session. After a while a couple of investigators each took a 5 gallon bucket and turned them over to sit on. There were no more big buckets so I thought I could sit on a little bucket. I have knee issues and when I tried to get down to sit on the little bucket I knew it wasn’t going to work so I stood back up. Everyone was laughing at my dilemma and joking around. I decided to try it one more time but once again, after squatting so far I had to give up and stood up again. Of course we all cracked up, I imagine I looked like an idiot! Then the words “so weak” came through! Yes, the spirit was right.

Upon reviewing my audio I did get a whisper at the top of the lighthouse. I am including it in my report but need to check with two others who were also recording at the time to see if they also got it and also to make sure it wasn’t one of them whispering. It didn’t sound like any of them but I’d like to check.

This was my first lighthouse and it was as exciting as I’d expected. I had a great time exploring it.

Marge Sucha: The day we investigated it was extremely hot and muggy.

Equipment I used: Digital Voice Recorder, K-II meter, FLIR Camera

The Lighthouse is currently a museum. My first EVP session was that day was in the basement of the lighthouse residence. We had some activity with the K-II meter responding,

Upstairs in the residence in what is now referred to as the museum library, Barb had a ghost toy on the floor, (looked like a small plastic cat ball that lit up when touched.) At one point it did light up without anyone touching it.

Bridge room. This room was at the front of the house. Besides all the cool things in this room we noticed the temperature on the EDI+ had a sudden change. We asked if they could make the temperature go down. The temperature dropped several degrees.

Overall this place was pretty cool with a lot of history attached. I would love to explore it again someday.

Mike Wright: Took part in a few EVP sessions in the light house and the living quarters, there was quite a bit of outside noises in the Light House which made it difficult to listen for any EVPs. Went through the recording and did not pick up anything, one of the highlights of the evening for me was the motion sensor ball lighting up in the library. I did use dowsing rods during this investigation but the responses were very weak.

Dale Kaczmarek: This was the first time that the Ghost Research Society had officially investigated a lighthouse. I did, in the past, have the opportunity of visiting the Point Lookout Lighthouse in Maryland but no official investigation was done.

Climbing the stairs wasn’t too bad however you had to contort your body through a smaller opening to reach the very top. Once there, the view was fantastic from 60’ up, even though I’m not very fond of heights.

It appeared that whoever was there when we investigated the location wasn’t very happy with our visit. On at least four occasions devices said “Get out” or “Get out of here”, including when the name Joseph Babcock was mentioned while conducting an EVP in the tower itself! We were able to conduct two EVP sessions in the lighthouse, one in the basement and another in The Bridge area which was a mockup of an actual bridge of a ship.

There were a lot of trigger objects in the museum as well as the mummified remains of the cat found in the crawlspace many years ago. There were temperature drops in the basement and the Trigger Ball lit up in The Library.

Evidence collected:

Get out of here1 fairport.MPG – while conducting a Mini-Portal session in the library, the device says, “Get out of here.”

Get out of here2 fairport.MPG – while conducting a Mini-Portal session in the library, the device says, in a broken fashion, “Get out of here.”

Get out1 fairport.MPG – while conducting an Ovilus X session in phonetic mode at the top of the lighthouse, Para was reading from a list of past lighthouse keepers and asking, one by one, if they were around. A question was asked, “If any of those are your names, just yell out. Joseph Babcock?” The Ovilus responded with, “Get out!”

Get out2 fairport.MPG – while conducting a Mini-Portal session in the library, the device says, “Get out.”

Stairs fairport.MPG – while conducting a Mini-Portal session on the first landing in the lighthouse and just as the session was introduced, a clear voice comes through and says, “Stairs.”

Top of lighthouse whisper fairport.MPG – while conducting an EVP session at the top of the lighthouse, a comment was made, “…just so we can have a few words with you before we go down.” A male voice was recorded that says either, “I’m here” or “Up here.”

Words said by the Ovilus X:

Lighthouse top: Batteries and members in dictionary mode and “Get out” in phonetic mode.

The basement: School, tragic and task was heard in the dictionary mode while “eerie” was heard in phonetic mode (Lake Erie was in plain view from the lighthouse). A ghost application caught the most words: Harry, animal, nerd, shepherd, cold air, Zoe, strength, prayer, report, it is here, can’t remember, Norman and no camera.

The Library: Mini-Portal produced “Get out of here” twice and “Get out.” A ghost application caught the single word: Alone. The Ovilus X in dictionary mode said: Movie.

Lighthouse first landing: the Mini-Portal produced the word, “Stairs.” The Ovilus X in dictionary mode said: Probably, you, members, pop and while.

The Bridge Room: A ghost application produced the following words: Julia, belong, changed, control and young.

Conclusions: This will be one investigation that I will never forget as it was our first lighthouse ever investigated. Lighthouses are special places but sometimes can be hard to properly investigate due to interior going straight up. Sometimes that best that can be accomplished is to investigate the entrance, the stairs and the very top of the building, which is what we actually did.

It was an amazing place even though there weren’t a lot of paranormal events that have happened in the past. I wish we could have had a walk-through with some history and pinpointing the hot spots. The gentleman who was there was very pleasant but unfortunately not very knowledgeable about the location.

Being the beginning of a weekend and very close to the 4^th of July, there was very little in the way of contamination and fireworks that were heard during any of our EVP sessions. We had a good turnout of GRS members who helped with the investigation and it was a great trip and an awesome location! If you ever get a chance to investigate here, please do you. You won’t be disappointed.