FL Ghost Stories: Writers Share Haunted Tales From The Sunshine State

FLORIDA — Just days away from Halloween, Patch asked Tampa Bay area history and nonfiction authors to share their favorite Florida ghost stories.

Here are some of the spooky tales from the Sunshine State that were shared by these Florida nonfiction writers.

Gaspar’s Ghost

St. Petersburg writer Lynn Waddell, the author of “Fringe Florida,” told Patch that her favorite Florida ghost story is that of Jose Gaspar, “a legendary pirate who supposedly haunts Tampa Bay and inspired the annual rip-roaring Gasparilla Festival. It’s a quintessential Florida story involving rogues, outrageous marketing and a hell of a party.”

In the early 1800s, Florida was still under Spanish rule, she said. “The lore goes that Gaspar and crew trolled the Gulf of Mexico robbing cargo ships and ransoming kidnapped travelers all in revenge for a variety of wrongs previously inflicted by the Spanish government. (What's a good ghost story without a morality tale?)”

Not long after the U.S. took control of the Sunshine State, Gaspar and his crew tried to pillage what turned out to be an undercover U.S. naval ship.

“Clearly outgunned, Gaspar refused to be taken hostage, and wrapped the anchor chain around his body and plunged into the depths of the Gulf never again to be seen alive,” Waddell said. “However, legend has it that if you stand alone on the deck of a boat in Tampa Bay, you might see Gaspar still wrapped in chain rise from the depths of the water. He may even attempt to drag you down with him.”

There’s no evidence that Gaspar actually existed, she added. “In true Florida fashion, it’s all fantasy, of course.”

The truth is that a writer made up the pirate in the early 1900s as a way of promoting the Gasparilla Inn in Lee County.

“But, hey, it’s Florida where we write our history on an Etch-a-Sketch and never miss an opportunity to create a yarn to lure tourists,” Waddell said.

Ghost of John Levique

Joshua Ginsberg, author of several books, including “Oldest Tampa Bay” and “Secret Tampa Bay,” has spent the past few months researching Pinellas County ghost stories and lore as he helped to create the Clearwater Jolley Trolley’s new “Boos and Brews” tour.

One of the stories that stood out for him during his research was that of the ghost of John Levique.

“Between these beautiful stately homes, you can see the dark waters of the intercostal waterway glistening under the stars,” he told Patch. “It puts one in mind of pirates, as well as ghosts, and it turns out that the two share close quarters in local lore.”

While the area’s most famous pirate is, of course, Jose Gaspar — known as “Gasparilla” — but his existences has been largely debunked, Ginsberg said. “This begs the question, if Gasparilla is fictional, who then is the ghost pirate that some claim to have encountered?”

The author said, “If you ask some of the longtime residents and shop keepers along the John’s Pass boardwalk, they will tell you it might be the ghost of John Levique, who was a very real resident of the area.”

Born in France, Levique took a job as a cabin boy on a Spanish ship around 1836. When the ship was captured by pirates, he was given the option of dying or joining the pirate crew, Ginsberg said. “(He) chose the latter option.”

Levique rose through the ranks to become captain of his own ship. He never relished the blood and violence of a pirate’s life, the way others did, the author added. So, he “managed to amass enough treasure to fill a small chest and keep him taken care of for the rest of his days.”

He retired to an island along the coast of Pinellas County, burying his treasure there, by the early 1840s. He also got into the turtle farming business, partnering with Joseph Silva. Their turtles were in high demand along the Gulf Coast, as they were used to make soup.

While he and Silva were in New Orleans in September 1848, a hurricane, one of the strongest ever recorded in the area, passed directly over Levique’s home, Ginsberg said. “When he returned, all signs of human life on the island had been erased and the island had been carved in two by the storm, forming a new pass between the Gulf of Mexico and Boca Ciega Bay.”

Levique was the first to ever sail through this new pass, which became known as John’s Pass.

“That probably gave Levique little comfort though,” the author added. “You see, the pass was located precisely where he had buried his pirate treasure. Levique continued to reside there until his death in 1873.”

Reports of Levique wandering the shore looking for his lost treasure are still common to this day, Ginsberg said. “He leaves no prints in the wet sand as he drifts along the water’s edge with a burlap sack in one hand and a long-pointed stick in the other, which he pokes into the sand from time to time, still hoping, it seems, to find the chest he buried.”

Thomas Rowe

Historian and author Deborah Frethem, who wrote “Haunted Tampa” and “Ghost Stories of St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Pinellas County,” has long been drawn to the ghost stories of The Don CeSar hotel in St. Pete Beach.

Its most notable ghost is that of its builder, Thomas Rowe. As a young man, while studying in London, he fell in love with Lucinda, a beautiful young opera singer.

“She was appearing in a production of ‘Maritana,’ a light opera that tells the story of a gypsy dancer and the Spanish knight, Don Cesar de Bazan. Although she returned his love, her parents did not approve and took her away. Thomas never saw her again,” Frethem told Patch.

After moving to Florida years later, Rowe learned that she died from consumption through a letter from her father, who also sent her obituary.

‘Her last note to Thomas said, ‘We found each other before. We will find each other again,’” Frethem said.

When Rowe built the Don CeSar — the huge, pink hotel — he named it after the leading character in the opera where he first saw Lucinda. And since his death, there are frequent reports of his ghost at the hotel.

“He is wearing his trademark white suit and Panama hat. But he is not alone. He is often seen in the company of a beautiful young woman with flowing dark hair, wearing the costume of a gypsy dancer,” the author said. “It seems Lucinda’s last wish has come true. They have indeed found each other again.”

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

Ross Tarr, founder of the Storytellers of Old Tampa Bay, has long been drawn to the haunted Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which boasts reports of multiple ghosts.

“It’s a tragic bridge with many, many ghost stories that go back quite some time,” he told Patch, “and being old, I remember when the Skyway Bridge actually fell down.”

The bridge, built in 1954, connects St. Petersburg and Pinellas County with Manatee and Sarasota counties to the south. By 1969, it was expanded to four lanes, he said.

On Jan. 28, 1980, an oil tanker called Capricorn and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter Blackthorn, headed for a refitting, collided in Tampa Bay near the bridge.

“No radio contact was made. Something happened that day, but nobody knows what,” Tarr said. “The Capricon blew short whistles — the standard maritime scream — and experienced officers didn’t know what it meant. Twenty-three Coast Guard officers lost their lives that night near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.”

Months later, a freighter, the Summit Venture, collided with a support pier close to the bridge’s center, causing it to collapse. Numerous cars and a bus plummeted from the bridge, making the “15-story drop to a watery death,” the storyteller said.

More than 30 people died in the accident.

The bridge has also long drawn people who wanted to take their own lives, Tarr said. “250 have met their fate, leaping from the bridge that stands today.”

With so much tragedy, there are a number of hauntings associated with the bridge, he added. “It’s said that on some nights you can see Coast Guard kids sailing on a stormy sea that never made it to a dock.”

Drivers also often report seeing a hitchhiking schoolgirl, “like the one on the bus that went down on the bridge that fearful day,” he said.

Some people actually pick her up, usually just past the toll gate heading south across the bridge, and the closer they get to the arch of the bridge, she becomes more agitated and afraid, Tarr said. “As they passed the crest of the bridge, she disappears, and no one knows why.”

Miami’s Biltmore Hotel

St. Petersburg writer Craig Pittman, author of “The State You’re In,” “Oh, Florida!” and other titles, and the voice behind the podcast, “Welcome to Florida,” told Patch that the state “has a lot of great ghost stories.

There’s “Robert the Doll and the sisters haunting the St. Augustine Lighthouse,” he “Plus, of course, there's ‘Spook Hill’ near Lake Wales.”

One of his favorite ghost stories, though, is about “Miami’s famous (and famously creepy) Biltmore Hotel, which is supposed to have more ghosts than guests.”

Of all the hotel’s ghosts, the one that stands out most for the author is that of “a mobster killed in a shootout in a secret gambling emporium — on the thirteenth floor (cue dramatic music,)” he said.

Pittman added, “I stayed there one night, and even though I looked on several floors and down in the lobby, I didn't see him or any of the other spirits. I guess that night, the haints were all ain'ts.”

Ringling College’s Keating Hall

Poet, journalist and educator Tyler Gillespie recently learned about a ghost at Ringling College of Art + Design, where he’s a first-year writing specialist.

One of his students taught him about the ghost that haunts Keating Hall, a residence hall at the college.

“One of the dorms used to be a hotel (and a sex worker is rumored to have hung herself,” he told Patch. “Now, she allegedly visits students — only male students — (and) leaves wafts of perfume (and) creases on beds.”

The ghost, Mary, worked out of the Bay Haven Hotel, which years later, when vacant, served as one of the college’s first buildings, according to the PSIResearcher blog. The building later became Keating Hall.

Mary allegedly fell in love with one of her clients, who was married, and became depressed, taking her own life by hanging herself from the hotel’s third-floor stairwell, according to the blog. Over the years, students have reported seeing figures of a woman dressed in different outfits, including flapper-style dresses. Some students even reported seeing a skeletal figure and feet dangling from the stairwell between floors.