National Historic Landmark lighthouse on Block Island's Mohegan Bluffs where a keeper's wife called Mad Maggie — a legend with no documented source event — reportedly locks male visitors in rooms and appears on the spiral stairs.
Mohegan Trail, Mohegan Bluffs, New Shoreham, RI 02807
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Tower climb tickets required; museum area included. Ferry from mainland required to reach Block Island. Check current pricing at the lighthouse site.
Access
Limited Access
Dramatic bluff-top setting; spiral stairs in tower require agility. Bluff path has some uneven terrain.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1875 · National Historic Landmark (1997) · 1875 Victorian Gothic construction · Major lighthouse relocation in 1993 — moved 245 feet inland to prevent cliff erosion loss · Active navigational aid managing Block Island Sound
Block Island Southeast Light was established in 1875 to guide vessels through the treacherous waters where Block Island Sound meets the Atlantic, a stretch of ocean responsible for hundreds of documented shipwrecks. The 52-foot brick tower was built on Mohegan Bluffs, a dramatic headland rising roughly 200 feet above sea level at the island's southeastern tip. The Victorian Gothic keeper's dwelling is attached to the tower base.
The lighthouse was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 in recognition of its architectural and historical significance. The designation came several years after a notable preservation achievement: by the early 1990s, erosion of the Mohegan Bluffs had brought the lighthouse to within 55 feet of the cliff edge, threatening the structure's survival. In a major engineering operation completed in August 1993, the entire lighthouse — including the brick tower and keeper's dwelling — was moved 245 feet inland on hydraulic dollies, one of the most ambitious lighthouse relocations undertaken in the United States.
The Block Island Southeast Light Foundation manages the structure as a museum and active aid to navigation. Tower climbs and museum access are offered to visitors during summer months. The island itself is accessible only by ferry from Galilee or Point Judith on the mainland, or from New London, Connecticut.
Sources
The paranormal legend attached to Block Island Southeast Light centers on a figure called Mad Maggie, identified in local folklore as the wife of a former keeper. According to the legend's most common version, Maggie was pushed down the lighthouse stairs and killed, possibly by her husband; her ghost is said to harbor resentment toward men as a result of her death.
The New England Lights blog's investigation of the legend is transparent on a key point: no newspaper account, keeper's log, death record, or other contemporary documentation of a violent incident at the lighthouse has been found. The murder story appears to be a retroactive folk explanation for a reported pattern of strange events rather than a legend growing from a documented death. This is worth noting but does not invalidate the reported phenomena, which come from multiple observers.
Reported activity aligns with the gendered legend. Male visitors and male caretakers have described being locked inside rooms in the keeper's dwelling, with doors that would not open from the inside, only to find them unlocked moments later with no apparent mechanism. The sound of pots banging and clanging in the kitchen — from the direction of what would have been the keeper's domestic quarters — has been reported when the building was otherwise unoccupied. Multiple people have described seeing an apparition, a woman's figure, on the spiral stairs of the tower.
Random Times published a second independent account of the legend in 2020, drawing on local interview sources and the general pattern of reports. The Block Island Southeast Light Foundation, which manages the site as a museum, does not actively promote paranormal programming, but the Mad Maggie legend is widely known among visitors and referenced in regional ghost tour materials.
Notable Entities
Guided climb of the 52-foot lighthouse tower with views across Block Island Sound from the top of Mohegan Bluffs. Museum exhibits cover the 1875 construction, the 1993 relocation of the structure from its original eroding site, and National Historic Landmark designation.
Walk the grounds around the lighthouse on the dramatic 200-foot Mohegan Bluffs, with views of the Atlantic and access to the bluff stairs leading to the beach below. The lighthouse grounds are accessible to visitors during open season.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Charleston, SC
Magnolia Plantation was established in 1676 by Thomas and Ann Drayton, English settlers from Barbados, and remains under the control of the Drayton family after fifteen generations. The plantation's wealth derived from Carolina Gold rice cultivated by enslaved Africans. Magnolia opened its gardens to the public in 1871, making it one of the oldest public gardens in the United States.
.jpg)
Winston-Salem, NC
The Salem Tavern was built in 1784 to serve travelers stopping in the Moravian settlement at Salem, North Carolina. The Moravian congregation built and operated the tavern — a common enterprise in Moravian settlements — as a source of revenue and a place of hospitality for outsiders. President George Washington lodged here in May 1791 during his Southern Tour, an event documented in his own diary.
Norwalk, CT
Sheffield Island Lighthouse was built in 1868 on a nine-acre island in Norwalk Harbor, replacing an earlier 1826 lighthouse that had guided mariners through the hazardous Connecticut coastline. The Victorian Gothic structure was decommissioned in 1902 when a newer light on Greens Ledge replaced it, and the island and lighthouse passed through several private owners before the Norwalk Seaport Association took stewardship and reopened it for public access.