Offshore Brick Lighthouse with the Legend of Ernie
New London, CT
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Boat-tour ticket pricing varies by operator; check New London Maritime Society for seasonal rates.
Access
Limited Access
Boat boarding; interior stairs and ladders
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1909 · National Register of Historic Places · Architecturally Distinctive Offshore Lighthouse · U.S. Lighthouse Service / Coast Guard Heritage
New London Ledge Lighthouse rises three stories from a concrete pier on the southwest ledge at the mouth of the Thames River, approximately three-quarters of a mile from the New London shoreline. Completed in 1909, the lighthouse was constructed to safeguard increasingly busy shipping traffic entering New London Harbor around a treacherous underwater ridge.
The building's distinctive design reflects an unusual demand from local residents. Affluent New London families with summer estates along the harbor petitioned the Lighthouse Board to construct something more architecturally refined than a typical iron caisson tower. The result was a square brick keeper's quarters in the French Second Empire style, capped by a mansard roof and a cast-iron lantern. The aesthetic compromise produced one of the most architecturally distinctive offshore lights on the Atlantic coast.
The United States Coast Guard assumed operation in 1939 upon its merger with the United States Lighthouse Service. The light was automated in 1987, ending nearly eight decades of staffed keeping. Active aids-to-navigation responsibilities continue, with the optic now drawing power from a solar array.
In 2015 the New London Maritime Society took ownership of the lighthouse through the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act. The Society operates seasonal boat tours and ongoing preservation projects. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Sources
Long before the New London Maritime Society began offering tours, the Coast Guard crews who staffed Ledge Light maintained an informal record of unexplained occurrences. The keeper at the center of the tradition is known only as Ernie. According to the version published by the Society and recounted in numerous regional histories, Ernie's wife left him for the captain of a Block Island ferry sometime in the mid-twentieth century. The keeper, devastated, is said to have taken his own life from the lantern gallery.
No death certificate has been produced corroborating the specifics of the legend, and the Maritime Society treats Ernie as folklore rather than confirmed history. The narrative nonetheless persists in part because the published Coast Guard logbook attributes a long series of small disturbances to a presence the keepers themselves named Ernie.
The reported phenomena are consistent and modest. Crew members described doors opening and closing without explanation, knocks on bunkroom doors during night watches, the television in the common room switching on and off, and bedcovers pulled from sleeping crew. Later visitors and overnight investigators have reported the foghorn activating outside of automated cycles and small boats moored to the station drifting loose overnight.
The Astonishing Legends podcast and several New England paranormal investigation groups have featured Ledge Light. The Coast Guard's documentation of the lore, even if framed informally, is part of why the legend has endured in regional memory.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A summer boat tour from New London out to the 1909 lighthouse on the southwest ledge at the mouth of the Thames River. The New London Maritime Society leads visitors through the three-story brick keeper's quarters and the lantern room, with discussion of the Coast Guard-era reports of doors opening on their own and television sets switching on at night.
Ocean Beach Park and the Thames River shoreline both offer distant views of the lighthouse for visitors who cannot board a tour boat. The structure is approximately three-quarters of a mile offshore.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Chicago, IL
Robert C. Givins, a Chicago real estate developer, built the limestone Beverly Castle between 1886 and 1887 as his personal residence. It is Chicago's last standing castle and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Beverly Unitarian Church purchased the building in 1942 and continues to occupy it today.
Paintsville, KY
Mayo Mansion at 405 Third Street in Paintsville, Kentucky, was built between 1905 and December 1912 for coal millionaire John Caldwell Calhoun Mayo and his wife Alice Jane Meek. The three-story, 43-room mansion cost $250,000 to construct. After Mayo's death in 1914, Alice donated the property to Sandy Valley Seminary. In 1945, the Sisters of Divine Providence established Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic School in the building, which continues to occupy it today.
Duluth, MN
Glensheen is a 39-room Jacobean Revival mansion on twelve acres of Lake Superior shoreline in Duluth, built between 1905 and 1908 for mining magnate Chester Adgate Congdon. The University of Minnesota Duluth has operated the estate as a historic-house museum since 1979. The site became internationally known after the June 27, 1977, murders of heiress Elisabeth Congdon and her night nurse Velma Pietila.