Snakes in the Cellar: South Bass Island Lighthouse, Ohio

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 16, 2026 · How we verify

Two keepers went to the state of Ohio’s newest Lake Erie beacon in 1897, and within about a year both were gone: one into the water, one into an asylum. That single terrible week is the reason the South Bass Island Lighthouse turns up on haunted lists at all, because in every other respect it is a quiet brick house at the bottom of a tourist island, owned by a university and used mostly by researchers who are more interested in algae than apparitions.

Some orientation before the stories. The light stands on Parker Point, the southwest corner of South Bass Island, a short distance from the Put-in-Bay village that fills with day trippers every summer. It was entered on the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 1990. It is thought to be the only lighthouse in the United States owned by a university, and that university is Ohio State.

Why the Lighthouse Board Wanted a Light on Parker Point

The push for the station came from tourism rather than commerce. Increasing tourist traffic to the island in the late 1800s prompted the Lighthouse Board to approve construction in 1893, the new light intended to help mark the southern passage from Sandusky to Toledo alongside several other lights in the vicinity. A two-acre plot at Parker Point was purchased in 1895.

Then the project stalled. The original contractors failed to secure proper bonds, and the drawn-out result was that the light did not come into service until 1897. What they finally built was atypical for its era and is still the most striking thing about the site: a large two-and-a-half story brick Queen Anne house with a three story tower built into one corner, rather than a freestanding tower with a dwelling attached. It carried a fourth order Fresnel lens, lit by oil at first and eventually converted to electricity.

The Week of September 1898: Anderson in the Water, Riley in Sandusky

The tenure of the first keeper, Harry Riley, and his assistant, Sam Anderson, was brief and ended badly. Concerns about a smallpox outbreak on the island were realized in August 1898. As it happened the cases were mild and nobody died of the disease, but the fear did its own damage.

A newspaper report on September 1, 1898 described Anderson, who had been hired only the previous month, drinking heavily out of dread of smallpox and hiding himself in the lighthouse basement, where he kept a number of snakes. He came back out, threw himself into the lake shouting “God save them all,” and his body was recovered the following day. On the same day that report appeared, Riley was picked up by police in Sandusky, apparently insane. He was committed to the state mental hospital and died there in March 1899.

Those are documented events rather than legend, and they are grim enough without embellishment. It is worth being precise about what they are not: there is no record here of a smallpox death toll, no mass grave, and no contemporary account of anyone seeing either keeper again.

Charles Duggan and the Cliff, 1925

The station’s third tragedy came a generation later. In 1925 the keeper, Charles B. Duggan, was killed in a fall from a cliff on the west side of the island. No full date survives in the standard account, and no ghost story has attached itself to him in the way one might expect. He is simply a third keeper who died while holding the post.

Deactivation, Surplus, and How Ohio State Ended Up With It

In 1962 the light was deactivated and replaced by a steel tower standing right beside the old house, which is why photographs of the site show two structures competing for attention. The Fresnel lens was transferred to the Lake Erie Island Historical Museum, where it can still be seen.

Five years after deactivation the property was declared surplus. Ohio State, which maintains the Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island at nearby Put-in-Bay, saw an opportunity for expanded facilities. A thirty-year quit claim deed was negotiated, and when it expired in 1997 the university took permanent possession of everything except the replacement light tower. An automated NOAA meteorological station was added to the property in 1983. The house now lodges university researchers and staff, and its exterior is almost unaltered from the 1897 build.

What Is Actually Reported at the Old Keeper’s House

Here the honest answer is thinner than the reputation. There is no verified evidence that the South Bass Island Lighthouse is haunted, and no consistent named apparition, no widely repeated sighting, and no body of witness testimony of the kind that surrounds better documented Great Lakes stations. What circulates instead is general ghost lore of the sort that gathers around any old light with a keeper who drowned and a keeper who died in an asylum, plus visitors describing the place as eerie in the quiet of dusk.

Read that in both directions. It means there is very little here to chase with a recorder. It also means the 1898 story has not been inflated into a paid attraction, which is rarer than it sounds on an island that sells itself to visitors by the boatload. The basement where Anderson kept his snakes is a matter of newspaper record; anything said to happen in it now is not.

Visiting the South Bass Island Lighthouse

This is not a walk-in attraction. The building is working university property used to house researchers and staff, and it was only from the summer of 2007 that it was also made available for occasional tours. Access depends on the schedule set by the university, so check before traveling rather than turning up at the gate.

Reaching it means reaching the island first, by ferry to Put-in-Bay, then heading for the southwest shore. Come for the architecture and the lake view: a Queen Anne keeper’s dwelling with the tower folded into its corner is an unusual thing to see standing essentially unchanged. If you want the Fresnel lens that once burned here, it is on display at the Lake Erie Island Historical Museum rather than at the light.

See South Bass Island Lighthouse for Yourself

Sources

• South Bass Island Light: A lighthouse with a distinction
• Stone Laboratory Report, 2006-2014
• South Bass Island Lighthouse
• Inventory of Historic Light Stations: Ohio Lighthouses: South Bass Island Light
• South Bass Island Lighthouse: Ghost Stories
• Wikipedia: South Bass Island Light