It happened the year I turned sixteen. In those days, Mayport—once bustling with shrimp boats—had become a sleepy Florida backwater. People still came to eat at Singleton’s Seafood Shack or ride the ferry across the river to the white beaches of Fort George; but by and large, the town slept on in a moss-draped dream of older times.
My friends and I drove there on moonlit nights, sitting and smoking in the old cemetery. I found the teetering headstones, ancient trees, and starry sky soothing rather than spooky. But if ever we were in the mood for spooky, we knew just where to go in Mayport.
John King owned a haunted house. Not the kind of dressed-up fright house you find on Halloween, with smoke and scary music and kids jumping out at you in costume—but a genuine repository of spirits that had been documented by Duke University. It was a magnet for high school and college students; it was also the beginning of my mother's exploration of the paranormal. After I told her about one of my visits, my mother was excited to meet Mr. King.
We'd attended a Spiritualist church in downtown Jacksonville a couple of times, and Mom had become friends with a Spiritualist minister and his wife. Joe Dickenson was a large man, balding, beefy, and short of breath. He had a kind and buxom wife named Lilian. We'd seen Joe go into trance more than once and found the whole process astonishing. He had a young Pawnee "guide" who would speak through him and facilitate any conversations between the audience and their loved ones on the "other side." More about that stuff in another blog.
The King house as I remember it in the 1960s.
(Photo Anna Lane)
Late one summer night, a group of us stood before before Mr. King's three-story home, admiring its deep, columned porch and elaborate railings. There was me, my mother, the Dickensons, our hairdresser, Carl, and a psychic "talent scout" named Gail, who was visiting from New York.
Gail looked for people with paranormal abilities to train. Carl had shown some early promise in this regard; he often saw and heard inexplicable things. He was also an incredibly nervous young man and at this point was chain smoking cigarettes with a shaky hand.
We stepped onto the porch and knocked softly on the screen door; that was the routine you followed when you visited Mr. King. Bugs circled the yellow porch light and crickets shrilled from the bushes, but nobody came.
"Maybe it's too late," whispered Carl. "Maybe he's gone to bed. I don't see any lights on.
"It's always like that," I told him. "And we always come kind of late because you have to wait until it's good and dark outside."
Carl flicked his ashes into the flower bed below. A few moments later, there was the sound of footsteps inside the house and the front door edged open.
“Who’s there?” asked a soft voice.
“It's me, Mr. King,” I told him, stepping forward. “I’ve brought my mother and some guests to see your home, if that's okay. I said I would, last time I came, remember?” If too much time passed between visits, Mr. King forgot who you were—but not tonight. He swung open the screen and greeted me with a smile.
"Ya'll come on in. Glad to have you visit." He stepped back and let us pass into the cool, dim hallway. A staircase rose on the right, and there were open doors leading to rooms on the left. The hall went straight back into what I knew was the kitchen.
Back then, John King was in his sixties. He always dressed in a clean white shirt, a bow tie, and a pair of dress trousers, even on warm summer nights. His rubbery face was creased with lines, and his wavy hair was dark with hair tonic and carefully combed. A fat cigar was constantly in and out of his mouth; to this day, the smell of cigar smoke evokes for me the deep, dim recesses of that rambling house.
He ushered us into a large living room and told us to sit down. The electric lights were (always) off, but a silver candelabra flickered on the huge marble mantelpiece and votives shimmered around the room. After some quiet pleasantries, my mother persuaded him to recount the history of his house.
He’d moved in forty years earlier as a young man with his bride. They’d had two children, both sons; one died early from illness, the other grew up and moved to Pensacola. Eventually, his wife passed away and he remained in the house, alone except for a weekly visit from his cleaning woman. The majority of his company came from curious, thrill-seeking teenagers who’d heard about the ghosts.
“They started appearing about eight years ago,” he said, drawing hard on his cigar. “There’s a little man in a red velvet suit, cut Spanish style. Then there’s a woman in a high-collared black and lavender dress—she’s usually downstairs—a weeping bride in white on the second floor, a Seminole Indian, and an elderly gent. I’d say eight or ten spirits have appeared here over the years, but those are the most frequent.”
He paused while a deep, rasping cough overtook him.
“Doctor says I shouldn’t smoke such strong cigars, but I don’t listen.” He patted his mouth with a white handkerchief and leaned back in his chair. "A few years back, Duke University sent two experts down here to document things. They had cameras and tape recorders, all sorts of stuff. Stayed over a week and said they’d never seen ghosts as solid as the ones I’ve got. Their conclusion was that the reason for so many apparitions is because the house was built over an old Spanish graveyard. In fact, the original house burned down; the one we're sitting in was built around 1881."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Joe.
"Amazing," murmured Gail.
Carl looked more nervous than ever.
Mr. King continued. "One night, soon after my wife died, my cousin Cox Dunham came over to see me. I was in the kitchen fixing coffee and he was in here, on that sofa where you’re sitting. When I came back in with a tray he said to me, ‘John, there was a friend of yours here.’
‘A friend of mine?’ I said. ‘What did he look like?’
‘Why, he was an elderly man,’ says Cox, ‘with a shirt rolled up at the sleeves and black suspenders. He sat right down next to me and said hello, and asked if I was waiting for you. I said yes. Then he stood up and walked toward the back of the house. I thought for sure you’d see him on his way in.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘there isn’t anyone back there, Cox.’ But he didn’t believe me, so we went and had a look; of course, the back rooms were all empty.
‘Cox’, I said, ‘what you saw was a spirit. He’s been here before, I’ve seen him myself, plain as day." Mr. King paused and glanced at us, chewing on his cigar.
“I haven’t seen much of Cox since then,” he added slyly.
We were all silent for a long moment. The hair on the back of my neck rose up, as if someone was breathing gently on me from behind.
"Then there was the time a group of teenagers came to visit. I showed them around and everything was fine. When we were done, one boy went outside and got into his car. There was someone sitting in the passenger seat, a young girl who asked for a ride to the beach. But when he asked her name, she just disappeared."
"Oh, Lord," whispered Carl. "I might should leave."
"Don't be ridiculous," my mother told him. She stood up and smiled. "This gentleman,” she said, gesturing to Joe, “is a Spiritualist minister from Jacksonville. His name is Joe, and next to him is his wife, Lil.”
Lil dipped her head in greeting, while Joe lumbered to his feet and gave Mr. King a bear-sized paw to shake. “Honored, sir,” he boomed.
Mother stepped to one side, neatly drawing Mr. King’s attention back to her.
“And this is Gail Greenberg, who’s come all the way from New York—"
"—where I heard of your house from a colleague at Duke University,” finished Gail. My mother frowned; she wasn't sure she approved of this brash Northerner and her pushy ways.
I've always found it ironic that my mom, who insisted that women deserved to be strong, professional, and independent, loathed any female that fit the description and who tried to befriend her. Many times she told me she was "a man's woman" and that she couldn't bear the company of "wimpy little domestic wives." But she also pretty much couldn't take her own kind, either. There was only one queen bee in her circle, and that was herself.
Gail, of course, was oblivious to this nuance and kept talking.
“I am here from New York because of this young man," she said, pointing to Carl. "I am what some call a ‘psychic coach’—that is, I find and develop paranormal ability in promising individuals who have the sacred gift of communicating with spirit. Carl recently went into trance for the first time…”
“It was a terrifying experience,” blurted Carl.
Gail Greenberg stuck out her chin. “Because you didn't have a qualified trainer to coach you through the process,” she challenged. “Next time will be different.”
My mother stepped forward, interrupting Gail. "Anyway...Mr. King, if you wouldn't mind, we’d love to have you show us through your amazing home."
Mr. King seemed a little non-plussed by the conversation, but he scratched his jaw ruminatively, cleared his throat, and then said, “Well, why don’t we get started? I’ll make sure we’re not interrupted.”
He walked to the front door and flipped off the porch light.
“Kids know that’s a sign that I’m not receiving visitors,” he explained.
* * * *
The house had been added onto piecemeal over the years and was a rambling hodgepodge of rooms. Bathrooms were stuck in odd places and there were two kitchens, one in the house and another in an outbuilding connected by a covered breezeway. I noticed a rollaway bed in a corner; Mr. James said he frequently preferred sleeping downstairs, rather than occupy one of the many empty rooms above—especially when the bride was crying.
There was a whispering to our footsteps as we walked through his home, and a heaviness to the air, as if we were brushing through fine cobwebs. It was strange to see all those beds made up but never slept in, lying stiff beneath their tufted chenille spreads. Mirrors were flyspecked and the wallpaper was faded. Books and boxes of papers stood piled in the corners, and everywhere was the damp scent of mildew and the sea.
We circled through it all, even the large bathrooms with their claw-foot tubs and empty towel racks; but though the air was ripe with portent, nothing happened. No gauzy outline floated down the hall or through the walls. Once I thought I heard a sob, but it was just the breeze sighing through the shutters. I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
We finished our tour and broke apart as a group. I chatted with Lil in the downstairs hallways for a while, then headed for the second floor to see what the others were up to. On my way up the stairs, Carl rushed by me. I say it was Carl because, intellectually, I know that’s who it was; at the time I couldn’t have told you for sure—he was running that fast.
Mother and Joe were standing on the landing above, laughing.
Apparently my mother and Joe been circling back through the bedrooms, and when they came to the last one, they stopped. Joe said there was the spirit of a woman sitting in the room’s wooden rocking chair. He was just in the process of finding out who she was and why she was there, when Carl stuck his head in the door.
“Who are you?” Carl asked her.
“Agatha,” she replied, and began to rock.
It was then that Carl realized she wasn’t really there and rocketed past me down the stairs and out the screen door at the bottom.
"One young fellow was standing on the landing here, waiting for people to go downstairs so he could turn off the light. When he went to pull the light string, a hand clapped him on the shoulder from behind and he ran right through that screen door.” He gave a dry chortle. "I’ve had to replace it three times so far.”
Carl didn't break the screen door, but he also didn't come back in, then or ever. Mr. King told us that a distant relation was pitchforked to death in that rocking chair by her jealous ex-boyfriend. He said many people have seen the chair rocking—but I bet not as many saw the lady herself sitting in it!
I visited Mr. King several times in the two years we lived near Mayport, but I never did see anything. I've always wondered if my reluctance and fear prevented it. Though, even if I had, I don't know if I would've seen them as clearly as Joe and Carl did. That was their "gift."
I did have my own spirit encounters, but they were always via my "inner vision"—that combination of seeing and feeling with your mind instead of your eyes. More on that later.
Mother casually befriended Mr. King after that, and when we moved away, she'd send him bottles of port or a box of cigars for Christmas. The acquaintanceship gradually dwindled in the face of other moves, other relationships. When we returned, years later, on a holiday visit, we stopped to see Mr. King. He still answered the door in his white shirt and dress trousers, though it took him quite a while to remember who were were.
But as we drove away, I saw a carload of teenagers pulling up in front of the house. Nothing else had changed, it seemed.
(NOTE: Some details and names have been changed in this story, and some events have been condensed. It's my blog and I get to do that. But the weird stuff really did happen and the people I talk about were all there. Mr. King lived in the house until his death in the 1970s. You can find websites with information on the King house and there are some fictional novels inspired by it.)
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