The Twelve Nightmares of Christmas, Day Three: The Phantom Lighthouse

So when is a lighthouse not a lighthouse?

Off the coast of Delaware, a tall cylinder of stone rises from the rocks at Cape Henlopen State Park. This rock formation has been psyching out sailors for centuries. It’s even picked up a couple of names over the years; some locals call it the Corpse Light, while others refer to it as the Bad Weather Witch.

The first disaster caused by the Corpse Light was on December 25, 1655. The captain of the Devonshire Man was piloting his ship through a storm, saw the glow of the stone cylinder, and steered right for it, thinking it was a lighthouse. The ship was wrecked on the rocky shore, killing nearly two hundred people. On May 25, 1798, the sloop De Braak was lured too close to shore and broke apart on the rocks. In 1980, the USS Poet, a 12,000 ton grain barge, vanished without a trace in the bay.

Local lore says that the phantom lighthouse is the manifestation of an old Delaware Indian curse that speaks of “a drum of stone signalling death” for all white men. The curse was invoked because British soldiers massacred a group of natives who were in the middle of a marriage celebration. The ghost of a Native American, standing alone on top of one of the rocks, was seen by multiple witnesses in 1800, right before an excursion barge smashed against the rocks, killing many of the people on board.

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