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2. The Riverside House
This structure was originally constructed in the 1860s as a resort hotel known as the Rochester House. Originally located near the current intersection of Leila Street and Riverside Avenue in Brooklyn, the building shaded by wild orange, oak, and magnolia trees and known for its boating facilities and fishing. Guests came from New York, Rhode Island, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and other states to rent rooms for $2 to $3 per day. Mary Todd Lincoln may have been its most famous guest. Lincoln came to Jacksonville in late 1874 overpowered with grief and depression, following the death of three sons and her husband Abraham Lincoln.
While at the Rochester House, Lincoln became unshakably convinced that her surviving son Robert was deathly ill. Hurrying to Chicago in March 1875, she found him healthy. During her visit with him, she told him that someone attempted to poison her on the train and that a “wandering Jew” had taken her pocketbook. After she nearly jumped out of a window to escape a non-existent fire, she was institutionalized in an Illinois asylum.
We’ll never know what impact the Rochester House had on Lincoln, but many believe the building is haunted. The building was barged upriver to its present location on Riverside’s River Boulevard in 1911, and it is said that the ghost of a long departed guest came with it. Visitors have reported the apparition of a young woman in a long black dress, supposedly the bride of a Confederate blockade runner, and say that her footsteps can occasionally be heard on the third floor.
1. Old Red Eyes and the Ghosts of Kingsley Plantation
Kingsley Plantation, which features the state’s oldest plantation house, 23 residences for the enslaved, and associated buildings amid a pristine wetland, is one of Florida’s most important historical sites. As with many similar landmarks, local folklore holds that former residents still haunt the place. The plantation dates to 1797. From 1814 to 1837, it was owned by the South’s most atypical slaveholders: Zephaniah Kingsley and his wife Anna Madgigine Jai, a Wolof slave he married and later freed. The property came into public hands in 1955 and became a national park in 1991.
According to our research for our article “Old Red Eyes and the Ghosts of Kingsley Plantation,” legends that Kingsley Plantation was haunted spread just after it became a park. The plantation’s historic architecture and sublime surroundings encourage ghost stories, and its status as a national park gives it a core of dedicated caretakers who foster its lore and pass it to visitors. Easily the most famous of the plantation ghosts is Old Red Eyes, who’s been spotted since 1978. The story goes that he was an enslaved person who raped and killed girls in the slave quarters until the others caught him and lynched him from an oak tree beside the roadway. It has been said that his ghost still appears as a pair of glowing eyes in the woods. The legend relies on some nasty old tropes – mobs used stories like this to rationalize lynching. However, it’s worth noting that the legend portrays Red Eyes’ deeds as crimes against and avenged by slaves. This development may reflect the unusual social dynamic of the Kingsley days, a legacy the park’s staff fastidiously memorialize.
The legends and sightings extend well beyond Old Red Eyes. Staff have reported hearing a ghostly child crying in the well and encountering a turban-wearing African in the main house. Joyce Elson Moore, author of the Haunt Hunter’s Guide to Florida, snapped a photo she believes shows an ethereal “woman in white” – none other than Anna Kingsley herself. Zephaniah is also said to be present; the staff maintain a tradition of never saying “Goodnight, Mr. Kingsley,” as “something bad” may happen.
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Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com