Originally published Oct. 31, 1995

JENNIFER BARRS
Tribune Staff Writer

TAMPA - Florida is full of ghosts.

At least that’s easy to think, listening to tale after tale of ghostly apparitions and historic hauntings in the Sunshine State.

The Tampa Bay area seems particularly busy and no wonder. There are old theaters, old homes, old Indian burial grounds - and a population that apparently cherishes its spooky folklore as much as its natural vegetation.

Here are a few of the more famous tales. Just in time for Halloween.

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A HOTEL’S HAUNTING ROMANCE: Don CeSar and Maritana are characters in Vincent Wallace’s light opera “Maritana.” But they also are cast in the Bay area’s most engaging ghostly drama, a tale that begins more than 100 years ago.

Glynna Hanchette, a former employee of the Don CeSar Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach, has interviewed dozens of people, devoting years to the study of this romantic legend. She has written a book on the subject, as yet unpublished but titled “The Man in the Panama Hat.”

She speaks of it with reverence, delighting in the details of a love story that - through popular legend and periodic updates - lives on.

The story begins in the late 1890s with a young Thomas Rowe, who was finishing his education in England when he met a young woman named Lucinda. She was a dark-haired Spanish beauty whose immense vocal gift had helped her earn the title role in Wallace’s opera.

The pair fell deeply in love, and they expressed their passion with pet names - she was the opera’s heroine, Maritana, and he was its hero, Don CeSar.

Lucinda’s parents did not approve of the union, Hanchette says, so the pair met in secret, often near an elaborate stone fountain. Their conversations often centered on the grand hotel Rowe planned to build, a so-called castle by the sea.

Ultimately, Lucinda’s parents prevailed. The couple did not share the same religious faith; moreover, Lucinda’s parents expected their daughter to have a long and illustrious career.

Rowe was sent packing.

Letter after letter was returned to the jilted American unopened. About two years after their meeting, Rowe learned that Lucinda had died - and she had written him a deathbed love letter. In part, it read:

“Tom, my beloved Don CeSar ... This life is only an intermediate. I leave it without regret and travel to a place where the swing of the pendulum does not bring pain.

“Time is infinite. I wait for you by our fountain ... to share our timeless love. ... Forever, Maritana.”

Though little is known about his private life, Rowe eventually married. He moved to St. Petersburg in the early 1920s, and by 1928, he had opened the Don CeSar Hotel - an elegant testimony to lost love.

The architecture was Moorish, like buildings in southern Europe. The interior was dominated by a courtyard. And the courtyard was dominated by a fountain, reportedly, a reproduction of the lovers’ London retreat.

Hanchette says Rowe lived in the hotel and was often among the guests, circling the fifth-floor dining room and the ground-floor lobby.

Rowe died in 1940 and a year later, the hotel was turned over to the military. The Veterans Administration moved its offices there in 1945 and for the next 20 years, the building was renovated over and over - the lobby courtyard enclosed, the fountain destroyed. In the late 1960s, a Save the Don committee helped resurrect the hotel and it reopened in November 1973.

It was in the early 1970s, during the hotel’s renovation, that stories of Rowe’s ghostly return were heralded. Hanchette says workers reported seeing a thin, older man in an old-fashioned suit walk around the construction site - and assumed it was the manager or owner of the hotel. It wasn’t. In fact, Hanchette says, the Don CeSar’s new management did not appreciate the ghost stories nor encourage them.

They have continued, nonetheless.

During her 14-year tenure at the Don CeSar in public relations and promotions, Hanchette learned of many encounters with Rowe’s ghost.

Reportedly, he was seen in the lobby, in the dining room, in the elevator - and then he would disappear into a crowd. He would ask guests questions such as, “Are you enjoying your stay?” or “Did you enjoy your dinner?”

Other guests reported seeing a young man and woman - he in vintage clothing, she in elaborate theatrical costume - walking hand in hand along the beach and in the hotel.

Hanchette says crews from Southern Bride and Conde Nast Traveler magazines encountered Rowe during their stays in the early 1990s. Both were using the hotel as a backdrop for photographic layouts.

An editor with Southern Bride, Hanchette says, encountered Rowe in her suite and he warned her not to take a certain photograph in a certain site. The next day, a huge black crow interfered with the photo shoot, allegedly at the very spot Rowe had mentioned.

“I think that it is very possible that ghosts exists,” Hanchette says, “and you must remember that when he was alive, Mr. Rowe never realized his dream.

“So if there is such a thing as a ghost, Rowe is there at the hotel, looking it over, being a caretaker and enjoying it the way he wished he could in his lifetime.”

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TALES OF TAMPA THEATRE:  Thirty years since his death, Foster “Fink” Finley is still working at the Tampa Theatre - in a “floating” post that seems to have few requirements.

Fink was once the movie theater’s projectionist and now some believe he is its ghost, roaming the ornate, velvety confines of the 69-year-old dwelling in downtown Tampa. He may not be the only poltergeist, though. Employees and visitors still report ghostly activity, this from a former custodian.

The stories are told by Tara Schoeder, the theater’s public relations manager, who finds them fascinating and in keeping with the art, the style and the creativity one assigns to such surroundings.

“A historic theater, by its nature, seems to generate good spirits and good vibes,” Schoeder says. “Not to sound like a ‘60s reject, but I think that kind of thing lingers.”

What lingers in the minds of the chosen few are encounters with Fink, which usually occur in the projectionist’s booth. The projectionist or visitor will be alone in the room, Schoeder says, and a large door on the west side of the booth will open. This heavy door, the only portal to the building’s generators, normally remains closed. But person after person has reported seeing the door open and a fleeting figure emerge - then disappear quickly.

Immediately after Fink’s death in 1965, Schoeder says, patrons reported seeing an apparition float across the screen while a film was being shown.

The ghost roll call appears to be growing. Several theater workers, including Schoeder, have heard keys rattling throughout the building during the last few months. They assume it is a former custodian who, like Fink, was a dedicated employee.

In one instance, a Tampa Theatre worker came in early and standing in the vacant lobby, heard keys rattling on the mezzanine. He called out, expecting to hear a custodian respond. No response. He walked upstairs to investigate, still hearing the keys but seeing nothing. The employee, who Schoeder says “would like to believe in ghosts but needs proof,” was convinced he had encountered a poltergeist.

Schoeder, too, is convinced. A few months ago, she accompanied parapsychologist Andrew Nichols through the theater. Nichols, with Florida’s Center for Paranormal Activity in Silver Springs, was searching for clues with a tri-field meter, a device that detects electromagnetic waves. Within minutes, the meter was humming.

The waves were the type commonly associated with ghost phenomenon, Nichols explains. Schoeder says the machine “went nuts. It’s all part of the theater’s mystery.”

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THE GHOSTLY BROOKSVILLE BOUNTY:  There is nothing to look up - the old Hernando County Courthouse went up in flames during the 1870s, taking with it records that could possibly confirm the legend.

Were the children of Frank and Marena Saxon buried in the front yard of the house now known as the Stringer House? And if so, is that why the young girl Jessie May haunts the house, railing at those who trample on graves?

Jessie May died in 1872, but the story that surrounds her and the house in which she was born are stuff of Brooksville legend. The Stringer House at May Avenue and Jefferson Street is now the four-story, 12-room Heritage Museum. It is operated by the Hernando Historical Museum Association.

Virginia Jackson is the museum’s director and she is downright disturbed that the poltergeist has not made its presence known to her.

“I spend more time here than anyone else. It’s my home away from home,” Jackson says, laughing. “I sure wish she would talk to me.”

The words she refers to aren’t really conversations at all. Numerous visitors to the home say they have had encounters with the ghost, including museum board members who prefer to remain anonymous - at least on this subject.

Nonetheless, they all report a similar experience. They are alone in the house when suddenly they hear a female child crying. In a voice full of longing, she says, “Mama, Mama.”

According to her research, Jackson says four people died in the house, which was built around 1855 by John May. First, May died; then his widow, Marena, married John Saxon and had a son, who died in childbirth. In 1869, Marena died while giving birth to Jessie May, who lived only three years.

The stories surrounding Jessie May are well-known - that she was so grief-stricken by her mother’s death, she roamed the house crying. People assume Jessie May died of a broken heart.

They also assume that any time anything odd happens in the Stringer House, it is Jessie May’s doing, Jackson says. When small items are in one room and the next morning they are in another - Jessie has moved them. When lights come back on after museum workers turn them off - Jessie is responsible. When the burglar alarm goes off for no apparent reason - Jessie has turned it on.

Jackson says the Stringer House isn’t the only supposed haunted spot in Brooksville.

Locals have reported seeing a ghostly female figure standing in the front window of the Weeks House, now undergoing renovation by a private owner. The Chinsegut Mansion situated on Chinsegut Hill - the highest in Hernando County - also is rumored to be haunted. Same for the Scarborough House and the Fireside Inn restaurant, where customers claim to have seen the late Jean Truitt, a descendant of the old Hernando County clan, occupy a secluded back booth.

“I just think you hear about the hauntings ... because so many people died in houses back then,” Jackson says. “To this day, you can walk in certain places and feel a presence.”

Ghost stories and ghastly legends that haunt West Central Florida include:

* Falk Theatre at the University of Tampa - Bessie Snavely, an actor in the 1930s, hanged herself in a third-floor dressing room of the theater after being jilted by a lover. Today, people who use the theater report all kinds of activity there - rapid pounding coming from the deserted third floor, dressing-room doors that open and close in rapid succession, a cold temperature in the place where Snavely died.

* Oaklawn Cemetery in Tampa - Tampa’s oldest burial ground is more than just a vandal’s playground. Nighttime visitors to the cemetery at Morgan and Laurel streets have reported seeing glowing lights; others are spooked by the large number of bats.

* Biglow-Helms House in Tampa - Silas Leland Biglow, a Brooklyn native who moved to Tampa in 1884 and was a founding city council member, built the house in 1908 at Bayshore and Gandy boulevards. He died there nine years later but apparently never left. Visitors to the estate - which has been a residence, an artist’s studio, a hospital and a catering hall - claim to have seen the patriarch’s ghost. (Today the house is used primarily as office space.) Visitors says they have encountered other ghostly figures as well, and heard babies cry.

* Ships in Tampa Bay - Tampa’s oldest ghost story involves an Army troop stationed at Fort Brooke during the early 1800s. Officers reported seeing a fleet of ships in the bay and, believing it was a surprise visit from Southern military headquarters, the soldiers began to prepare for an inspection. A second scan of the horizon showed nothing, however, and the soldiers came to believe it was a mirage created by an approaching flock of sandhill cranes. Others weren’t so sure. They claimed it was a ghostly ship’s crew, murdered by pirates patrolling the bay.

* The Skyway hitchhiker - No sightings of this apparition have been recorded since the phosphate carrier Summit Venture crashed into the Sunshine Skyway bridge in 1980. Reportedly, a young female hitchhiker with blond hair was often picked up by drivers near the bridge. She would get in the back seat and then, when drivers asked her destination, she would disappear.

* St. Petersburg High School - No one knows why or where the ghosts originated. But many staff members say they’ve seen a strange thing or two in the three-story Bell Building: test papers floating to the ceiling, an empty chair rocking in the dean’s office, a face “with no recognizable features” peering around a door. All sightings are preceded by the slight scent of perfume.

* Trestle at Fish Hawk Creek - Some 100 years ago, a man named John died at this site near Brandon after being thrown from his horse into the creek. When his lover, Martha, found his body, she reportedly was so despondent she took her own life. Visitors have claimed to see Martha’s ghost here.

* Spook Hill in Lakes Wales - Now a tourist attraction, Spook Hill is the setting for a strange gravitational phenomenon - vehicles appear to roll uphill instead of down (if only by a few centimeters). Some consider this an optical illusion because of the angle of the road compared to a nearby hill. Others cling to the legend that a proud Seminole Indian chief is still protecting the land from intruders.

* Ghost Island - A headless ghost is said to roam this island on the west side of the St. Martin’s River, near Homosassa. According to legend, a ship filled with gold was caught in a hurricane during the early 1800s. Crew members jumped ship with the bounty and made their way to the island. However, they fought over the treasure and the captain murdered the first mate, cutting his head off with a machete. Hence, the headless ghost.