The Isle of Bones

Without a doubt, present day ghost hunters are alive, well, and searching out the paranormal in Key West. Formally known as the Isle of Bones, the Old Town section of Key West has more ghost stories than a hayride on Halloween.

With everything from graveyards that give up the dead during hurricanes, to the original Elvira, the haunted back streets and alleys are just a side story to some of the creepier tales from America’s southernmost point and the Isle of Bones.

After cruising into Key West with a group of Marco Beach Boys and Girls, we gathered with fellow curiosity seekers and stepped into a walking ghost tour of old Key West and a search for the paranormal that certainly seems to be on the rise.

Our tour began at the Old Naval station and told the tale of the Seminole Indian wars and the relentless pursuit of Zachary Taylor upon the Florida Native Americans. Apparently, after a final standoff at the southernmost point of the Florida Keys, there were so many Seminole casualties the island of Key West became known as the Isle of Bones.

During that first stop on our haunted history lesson, we all began to recall the film Poltergeist and the idea that building foundations on old Indian bones was not the best method to ensure hallowed ground, good faith, or even good luck!

Our tour then traveled deeper into the legends of Old Town and stopped at the former home of Joseph Yates Porter. Porter was born in the house in 1847 and died in the same room in 1927. The old Porter House is located across the street from the original Key West morgue, and is a paranormal site previously used for séances. The Porter House is now one of the favorite locations to catch ghosts on film.

When several of our fellow ghost hunters dropped jaws after learning that it is not uncommon to capture ghostly activities with digital photography, our tour guide Elvira placed her hands on hips and leveled a knowing gaze. “How many of you have been on ghost tours before?”

Only two in our group raised their hands. This is when we learned that when taking photos at haunted sites, it is essential to take two photographs. Two photographs, one after the other, because on many occasions when “orbs” appear on film, they move!

Elvira then produced her photo album and proceeded to captivate our entire ghost-busting troop.

“The ‘orbs’ are ghosts,” she explained. “They show up better on digital, and more often at night, but even an old-fashioned camera can sometimes capture the egg-shaped, translucent spheres even in daylight.”

With everyone crowding around the tattered old book, Elvira began turning the pages of her photo album, and as we traveled from one haunted Key West location to the next, her photographic depictions of orb filed graveyards, haunted theaters, and faces etched in ectoplasm, somehow changed our tongue-in-cheek adventure into something much more. All of the Marco crew was suddenly impressed, amazed, and slightly unnerved.

As we continued by an old Episcopal Church and the neighboring graveyard, a sudden September cloudburst forced our ghost hunters under the shelter of an ancient tree. Huddled together under the protected branches, we listened to an eerie tale of German Royalty.

Count Von Cosel was a German immigrant who married Elena Hoyos even after she was seven years in the grave. Apparently, the fifty-five-year-old Count was smitten with the nineteen-year-old Hoyos who was dying of tuberculosis. The Count refused to accept his romantic loss even after the girl succumbed to her illness. After buying her a mausoleum, Von Cosel eventually stole her body and kept her secreted in his home for over seven years. Eventually, Hoyos sister came to dinner and was horrified to discover her taxidermy-style sibling, preserved, sitting at the table.

With perfect timing, and right on cue, the cloudburst ended as Elvira finished the tale with the incredible twist that even after grave robbing, the German Count could not be charged with stealing a corpse as the statute of limitations ran out after the elapsed seven years

“It’s not always Key West,” Elvira confessed, “Sometimes it's Key Weird!”

As the tour traveled onward under dripping trees and puddled streets, we came to an abandoned theater and the site of a terrible crime of arson. Apparently in 1832, fourteen children were having choir practice with the song leader of the St. Paul’s Church. While the children sang, the song leader’s husband, who was wild with unfounded jealousy, boarded up the building and set fire to the church. Every seven years after the arson, any building rebuilt on the site catches fire, and many have burned to the ground. To this day, the Chameleon Theater is one of the most popular sites where ghost hunters can capture floating orbs on film.

After a few creepy minutes standing under the portico of the burned-out theater, many of our ghost hunters experienced strange vibrations, a chill in the air, and overwhelming goose bumps.

After many photographs, our troop moved on to the Casa Antigua where locals claim an apparition can readily be seen even in the daylight hours between 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM.

We ended the tour at Captain Tony’s bar where the original Key West hanging tree is a gnarled and twisted tree trunk, still thriving and growing up through the ceiling of one of Ernest Hemmingway’s favorite haunts.

Our present-day Elvira, who was our tour guide, then expounded upon the ghostly tale of Elvira Edmunds. During the era of pirates in Key West, a young nineteen-year-old bride was playing cards with her husband and two local seafarers. An argument broke out, and before the drunken men could react, Elvira murdered all three with a dagger. She went to trial, was found guilty, and was sentenced to hang. The first attempt at hanging apparently failed and Elvira was taken down from the hanging tree and locked in shackles. The second attempt did little better, and because of her youth and fortitude, or the hangman’s inadequacies with knot tying, she apparently lived swinging from the gallows tree for over a week! Her grave is located inside Captain Tony’s under an iron grave marker on the floor.

After Elvira’s final tale about her namesake, everyone on the tour began taking photos; first of the hanging tree, and then of the grave marker. After a few minutes, one of the ladies on our tour gasped. “Look,” she said, as she began to offer the digital display on her phone for viewing.

Believe it or not, as Mr. Ripley is famous for quoting, but on that digital screen, just to the left of the hanging tree, was a floating orb just like the ones in our tour guides’ photo album. Happy October Marco, Goodland, and Isles of Capri!

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder—the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.