Marquette Harbor Lighthouse

A red lighthouse built in 1866 on the shore of Lake Superior, guarding the entrance to Marquette Harbor. The light has been an active aid to navigation for over 150 years.

The Marquette Harbor Lighthouse was constructed in 1866 on the shores of Lake Superior, its tower receiving its distinctive coat of red paint in 1965 that has made it one of the most photographed lighthouses on the Great Lakes. The lighthouse served as both a navigational aid and a family home for a succession of keepers and their families over the course of nearly a century. Within those walls, lives began and ended, and some of the people who died there appear to have stayed.

The primary ghost is assistant keeper Adam B. Sayles, the only person confirmed to have died inside the lighthouse. Sayles suffered a fatal heart attack in 1942, and his presence has been felt in the building by staff and visitors ever since. But Sayles shares the lighthouse with younger spirits whose stories are more heartbreaking.

Museum staff have identified a ghost they call Jesse, the spirit of a young girl from the early 1900s. Jesse allows herself to be seen mainly by women and children, appearing as a small figure in period clothing who watches from doorways and windows. Some researchers believe Jesse may be connected to a young daughter of a keeper who was badly injured when she fell on the rocks at the shoreline shortly after the turn of the century. Another child ghost, Cecilia Carlson, the daughter of keeper Robert Carlson and his wife Anna Maria, has also been suggested as a possible identity for the spectral girl. A third child spirit, a two-year-old boy named David who reportedly drowned in the lake near the lighthouse, is believed to have attached himself to the building because it was the nearest structure to where he died.

The emotional intensity of the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse haunting, with its multiple child spirits and the lingering presence of a keeper who died on duty, has made it a focal point for paranormal interest in the Upper Peninsula. The Marquette Maritime Museum hosts "Ghosts of Lighthouse Point" events featuring ghostly tours based on real people from the maritime history of Marquette and the Great Lakes. Many lighthouse keepers have unexpectedly quit their positions at Marquette Harbor soon after starting, though the reasons for their departures are typically left unexplained in the official records. The lighthouse stands on its rocky point overlooking the harbor, a beacon for ships and, if the reports are to be believed, a gathering place for the small ghosts who cannot leave the shore.