Everyday Run-Ins with the Realm Beyond
By Tony Rehagen
Illustrations By Hokyoung Kim
Do you believe in ghosts?
That’s a question everyone asks themselves at some point, but it seems that Jekyll Islanders are faced with it more often than others.
Humans have inhabited this land for thousands of years, so it’s not unreasonable to think that some of these beings—be they Native Americans, French explorers, English colonists, enslaved Africans, or wealthy Club Era elites and their attendants—have left a spiritual or metaphysical part of themselves behind. And if the living truly share this isle with ghosts, then natural and supernatural are bound to cross paths occasionally. An eerie sound, a foreign scent. A strange shadow or perhaps a fully formed apparition. Or, it’s just a feeling of being watched or not being alone. A chill, a shudder, an experience
the rational mind can’t quite explain.
Mysteries at Moss Cottage
I am pretty sure there’s a logical explanation,” says Taylor Davis, historic preservationist with the Jekyll Island Authority. “But I don’t know what it is.” Davis is referring to an incident in 2017, when he and a guide were entering Moss Cottage in the Historic District. It was after hours, so the two had come in through the back door. When Davis tried to close the door, he felt the knob turn in his hand and the door pulled away from him. He paused, then jerked the door shut and locked it. “Whatever it was,” says Davis, “it needed to have the door open.”
Built in 1896, Moss Cottage appears to be an epicenter of ghostly activity, both man-made and mysterious. In the late 1990s, the green two-story building was set up as a Halloween haunted house. It was complete with an upstairs maze, a moving wall, and a guillotine.
But as Davis discovered, the Gilded Age abode didn’t need smoke and mirrors to be spooky. A tour guide once told Jekyll Island Museum manager Will Story that Moss Cottage spoke to them. “I
initially took that to mean that there was something about the building that appealed to him,” says Story. “But he said he heard actual voices, indistinct conversations when he was there.” Moss Cottage has never spoken directly to Story. However, once, when he was conducting a Saturday tour on the first floor, everyone heard footsteps and doors opening and closing upstairs. He assumed it was the collections manager rummaging through artifacts in second-floor storage—until Story remembered she was off for the weekend.
In 2023, Lucy Hatcher was in her first year as assistant manager at the museum, where she got to lead a ghost-themed tour of Moss Cottage. Because it was October, the staff had installed some special effects for guests on the tour, but the sudden slamming of the pantry door in Hatcher’s face, blowing her hair back, wasn’t one of the gags. “Whoever was in there was done with us,” says Hatcher. “I told them I was sorry, it was our last tour, and we’d be leaving now.”
Founder Frights at Dubignon Cottage
Of course, Moss Cottage doesn’t have a monopoly on Jekyll’s paranormal activity. “The entire island has a rich and varied past, so we can only assume that there are ghosts elsewhere,” says Story. “But many of the sightings seem to be concentrated in the Historic District.”
In one instance, Story was closing up DuBignon Cottage, the former home of John Eugene DuBignon, the founder of the Jekyll Island Club. He was turning off all the lights and locking the doors when he suddenly got the impulse to press one of the electric call buttons that once summoned servants from their third-story quarters. The buttons had long been disconnected, yet no sooner had he turned from the button than he heard a door open on the first floor. Story rushed down to find the entrance to the staircase that leads to the servants’ quarters wide open. “It was as if I had summoned the staff,” he says.
Barry Moore is familiar with DuBignon’s connection to the realm beyond because he lived there from 1961 to 1988 when his father worked for then Secretary of State Ben Fortson as a foreman for the state. He remembers his mother’s empty rocking chair constantly rocking back and forth by itself in the living room. His oldest brother recalls seeing the shape of a little girl playing with dolls on the floor of his room. Once, Moore was half-asleep when he heard his mattress squeak. He looked down to see the imprint of a body sitting on the bed, but no body. “I took my pallet and headed to the living room,” says Moore.
Historic District Hauntings
Paranormal activity has also been seen at Mistletoe Cottage. After Story had spoken at a gathering in the great room, a gentleman came up to him and told him that while he was speaking, a lady in an old-fashioned purple dress had been scowling at him. Unnerved, the man took off his ballcap, at which point the lady leaned forward to thank him before disappearing.
Once, a guest broke off from the tour group at Mistletoe Cottage and wandered upstairs to explore the second floor. When he returned, he told the guide that he had enjoyed talking to the costumed character about what it was like living in the house during the Club Era. Jekyll employed no such interpreter, and the second floor was off-limits to the public.
While Mistletoe’s paranormal residents have yet to be identified, locals know the lingering figure at Hollybourne Cottage too well. The late 19th-century home once belonged to Charles Maurice, a famous bridge designer, and his wife, Charlotte, who was famous for her hospitality and kindness. In the afterlife, Mrs. Maurice seems a bit of a trickster, turning the lights on and off while Jekyll Island Authority staff are visiting. Once in 2020, Davis walked into Hollybourne to work on a restoration project and noticed the alarm had already been disarmed. Thinking nothing of it, he continued stripping paint. He had stopped to wipe out his respirator when he dropped the container of disinfectant wipes, scattering them all over the floor. He reflexively cursed out loud, causing every alarm in the building to sound immediately. “I was telling the story to a guide, and they replied, ‘Well, did you apologize to Mrs. Maurice for the language?’” says Davis. “I didn’t, but I probably should have.”
Sentimental Spirits
Not to be outdone, Almira Rockefeller, wife of financier William Rockefeller, once welcomed Jekyll Island Authority archivist Faith Plazarin to Indian Mound Cottage with a reminder of the Cherokee roses she loved to grow. Plazarin was taking inventory of the books near the tearoom. She left to go to the supply closet, and when she returned, she found a single preserved rose petal in the middle of the tearoom floor. “It was real,” says Plazarin. “It could not have come from inside a book; they were too far away. And we never put plants in the cottages because of bugs.”
Most of these encounters suggest a population of good-natured spirits, albeit a few not above playing occasional tricks. Among the living, nonbelievers tune out or shrug off these incidents, while agnostics just try to coexist. But true believers understand they are sharing this space—and know what can happen if they don’t respect their phantom neighbors.
“When I was 10, my buddies and I were playing army,” says Moore. “My parents were away, and
we were slamming doors, running down the hall, and shooting these loud plastic cap guns. We got thirsty, so we left the guns at the top of the stairs and went to the marina to get a Coke. I locked the door. When we got back, the guns looked like they had been thrown from the stairs. They were broken in pieces by the front door. I guess we upset the spirits that time.”
