Government

So what’s Plum Island really like? One reporter’s inside tour

To the lighthouse

Plum Island has always been wedded to mystery. The island’s lighthouse — like most of these lonely beacon facilities — has an enduring story best told on late October nights. But even on a bright summer’s day, it can give you a chill.

Built in 1869, the lighthouse, some say, is the haunt of Colonel Thomas Gardiner, a Revolutionary War hero. At the lighthouse, Mr. Allen told the tale of how the colonel was to be buried on Gardiners Island, but because he died from an infectious disease, was instead buried on Plum Island, the only person interred on the lonely isle. Even then, Plum Island was a place for hidden maladies.

Early on, lighthouse keepers insisted they heard strange, other-worldly noises because the colonel was so unhappy about his final resting place, he did not rest.

A former lighthouse keeper, Rich Kenney, has reported that one of his first nights on the island, he and the man he was replacing were watching TV when they heard someone tumbling down the lighthouse stairs and out to a landing. But a subsequent search found they were the only two people on the island.

It wasn’t the last time he was spooked. He’d hear someone walking around the lighthouse attic while he was in bed at night, continually pacing and saying something he could never make out.

A good story, whether true or not, like most connected to Plum Island.

*This story appeared in the Aug. 14 Shelter Island Reporter.