In the following 1896 news article, it is reported that a schooner is haunted by a ghost. The ship’s captain believes it is the ghost of a man who drowned at sea.
Ghosts on Shipboard
Captain Parker Hall, of the lightship Robert King, station at the entrance of New Haven harbor, says there has been a ghost aboard his vessel all winter, and his crew have deserted the ship owing to the strange noises they have heard. According to Captain Hall’s story he and his men have heard the strange noises day and night.
The captain has been in charge of the Robert King five years, and says he has always had trouble with his crews. He never heard the strange noises until last winter, when one day, while he and one of his sailors were at dinner, a voice called him from the deck. He rushed to the deck and found it deserted. Sometimes, the captain says, the strange noise has called him in his sleep, but he has never seen the ghost.
He thinks that some time the schooner left a drowning man at sea when she could have saved him and that his ghost haunts the ship. He uses his schooner as a lightship in the winter and in summer engages in the coast trade.
Source: Waterbury Democrat. (Waterbury, Conn.), 08 May 1896.
