Every area has it tales of Ghosts and ghostly happening that have occurred. Emmet county in the Northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula is no exception. While there are several ghosts stories about this area one of the most interesting and amusing stories is the story of John Herman and his haunting of the Waugoshance lighthouse.
There are few records for this lighthouse, so much of the story is, as are all good stories, local legend. As the story goes John Herman was the lighthouse keeper for Waugoshance lighthouse for many years. John liked being a lighthouse keeper. He also enjoyed playing practical jokes, and drinking.
In fact, John liked drinking so much he was rarely sober. Not that stopped him from performing his duties or playing pranks on the various assistants he had over the years.
One night in 1894 quite inebriated, John Herman climbed the stairs of the lighthouse to where his assistant was trimming a wick, Herman decided that it would be fun to lock the poor assistant in the tower.
The assistant locked in the tower watched helplessly as John Herman staggered along the platform and fell into the water, never to be seen again.
After his death, various lighthouse keepers were hired, spent a short time working at the lighthouse, and then would suddenly quit. Locals claim it was because the ghost of John Herman continued to play the practical jokes that he so loved in life.
One reoccurring incident seemed to occur whenever a lighthouse keeper would fall asleep in a chair. No more would the poor man doze off and a fog horn would sound and the keepers chair would be kicked out from under him.
Empty coal buckets would also be mysteriously filled on occasion.
While good old John in ghostly form never actually harmed anyone, his jokes seemed to unnerve even the most courageous of the lighthouse keepers and they did not want to linger at the Waugoshance lighthouse.
The lighthouse was later abandoned and now sits empty. Not many people visit there nowadays except the Lighthouse Preservation Society president, Chris West, who checks out the site from time to time.
West did not report any ghostly happenings until 2001. On day he went out to the lighthouse alone to do some work on the property. The wind shifted, and so he decided to check on the boat he used to gain access to the lighthouse to make sure it was safe as it should have been pushed up onto the rocks.
However, when he got to where he had moored the boat it had been moved. Walking over the boat he saw that it had been retied with a knot he had never before seen.
Needless to say he quickly untied the boat and got away from the lighthouse as quickly as he could.
West has continued to visit the lighthouse property, but since that day on his last trip to the lighthouse for the season he brings a bottle of Jack Daniels with him and leaves it as a kind of peace offering.
Each spring when he returns to the lighthouse, the bottle of whiskey is in exactly the same place where he left it with the cap tightly on. However, according to West, the bottle is never completely full.
It would seem that John Herman plans on spending the rest of eternity at the lighthouse he loved, playing practical jokes on unsuspecting visitors, and enjoying his whiskey.
reference: The Graphic Weekly October 15, 2009
