Houses of Unrest: Jim and Lynn Farley

Many people have shared stories about inexplicable circumstances visiting Civil War sites, but none were as astounded as Jim and Lynn Farley. 

The Farleys were the quintessential golden couple, married for over 50 years. Lynn was a delicate, pretty blonde, and stay-at-home mother for their three children. 

Jim was a Ricky Nelson look-alike — tall, dark, and handsome — with a history of serving in the navy before joining the Fort Lauderdale Police Department as captain, then chief, as well as SWAT commander. 

In other words, he was not someone who was given to flights of fancy, nor one who scared easily.

After retirement, Jim and Lynn involved themselves in traveling. Jim, a huge Civil War buff, wanted to travel about the South, visiting several historic Civil War sites.  Lynn, although not as interested, joined along as his good natured companion. They found some memorable places, but second to none was the Island Hotel, a bed and breakfast in Cedar Key, Florida. 

Located on the Gulf Coast, the hotel is an old but sturdy wooden structure with a cistern, 12” thick walls, and creaky wooden floors that have since sloped from nearly two centuries of Florida’s notoriously fierce hurricane seasons. Impressive balconies with oak supports surround the second floor, and the Neptune Lounge below offers an elegant dining experience for visitors.

At various times, the Island Hotel has functioned as, among other things, a general store, a post office, and a speakeasy. It was also utilized by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War, to supply the soldiers with food and various provisions. At some point, Union soldiers overtook the hotel for their officer quarters, but in the end, it was reclaimed by the Confederacy.  

It also has the distinct reputation of being haunted; Aside from its paying guests, it hosts an array of spirits. Among them, as the stories go, are the following:

• Bessie Gibbs, the owner of the hotel from the mid 1940s through the 1970s. She perished in a fire at her cottage, but apparently, her spirit returned to her beloved hotel. Patrons who have seen Bessie relate that she continues to oversee the hotel and often interacts with the guests before disappearing through the walls.
• A Civil War soldier wearing a Confederate uniform, who apparently stands watch over the hotel’s upper floor.  
• An unknown young boy, whose skeletal remains were found in the cistern by hotel workers. Supposedly the boy drowned while hiding in the cistern to avoid the hotel owner, who caught him stealing. The boy’s spirit still haunts the basement to this day. 
• A female spirit who lingers in rooms 27 and 28, sometimes bidding any guests good night with a friendly kiss.

Jim and Lynn were intrigued and decided to include the Island Hotel in their travel itinerary. 

On their first evening, Jim and Lynn had a savory meal in the hotel restaurant. While chatting with their waitress, they learned that she had seen the Confederate soldier. She also told them that current guests in the hotel had taken pictures which showed orbs in their room. Jim took note and decided to keep his camera handy, just in case anything unusual showed up on film.

After dinner, when Jim and Lynn walked into their room, the light on the night stand turned on by itself. Jim leaned over and turned it off, and directly following that, another light that was positioned above a vanity lit up, and then another. Jim and Lynn turned off all the lights but one by one, they all lit up once again. The lights were left on until they re-entered the room later.

Later that evening, as Jim sat on the front porch enjoying a cigar, he began shooting pictures to see if he could catch anything on film, but shortly after, the camera froze. However, as soon as they got home, the camera was again in working order. While the film showed no spirits or orbs, the walls in the photo appear strangely warped, as if they were closing in on them. 

It served as a memento of Jim and Lynn’s two-night stay.

A second experience at another location left Jim with an eerier memory, one that he felt would haunt him to the end of his days. One summer, their travels led Lynn and Jim to spend a night at the historic Gordon-Lee mansion in Georgia. 

Gordon-Lee was an Antebellum mansion that had been captured and recaptured during the Civil War. It had a beautiful brick facade with huge, impressive columns in front that opened up to the front porch. French doors led from the balcony to the first floor library, which was used by both sides for surgery on the wounded troops. 

In fact, bloodstains are still visible on the walls and floors of this room, a testament to the agony and bloodshed suffered by the soldiers. According to the history of the mansion, wagons were stationed outside of the library’s french doors to cart away the limbs — and sometimes bodies — of the soldiers who were gravely injured or succumbed to their wounds.

Currently, the mansion functioned as a bed and breakfast that happened to be on the Chickamauga Civil War National Battlefield. Chickamauga was one of the bloodiest war sites in the history of this American tragedy, behind only Gettysburg in casualties. In fact, more than 34,000 soldiers perished on this particular battlefield. 

On the day that Jim and Lynn checked in, they had the entire mansion all to themselves. They were the only guests who had reservations that night and the owner lived off-site. 

As they made their way to the master bedroom — which had some well preserved period furniture, including a beautiful four-poster bed — they noted that the hotel, while modernized, was richly furnished with pieces from long ago, which added to the bygone atmosphere.

After unpacking, Jim and Lynn walked downstairs to relax on the front porch with some wine, fruit, and cheese provided by the owner to their guests. The battlefield itself is vast and silent, save for the occasional sound of crickets or a Great Horned Owl in search of sustenance. 

Sometime around midnight — long after Lynn had retired for the night — Jim was reading in bed when the quiet of the night suddenly broke with an inharmonious “BOOM.” A few minutes later, it happened again. And then again. It was a total of six times in all, and despite the thunderous outbursts, Lynn never awoke.

Jim and Lynn had both heard demonstrations of Civil War cannons being fired, so Jim was familiar with this particular sound. The battlefield, however, had long since closed to visitors for the night, and there were no railroads running through the property, nor any real explanation that Jim could conceive of to have created those distinct sounds of heavy artillery.

Careful not to wake Lynn, Jim stayed alert for any more sounds. He didn’t even realize he fell asleep until he woke again a few hours later with the powerful sense of someone or something else being in the room.

He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, he would see something so frightening he would never sleep soundly again. He kept his eyes closed and remained still, paralyzed with fear. 

The following morning, Jim went into the bathroom to get ready for another day of travel. Fortunately, the mansion had been modernized with electricity and indoor plumbing. As he washed his face, he could hear the property owner/caretaker moving around downstairs as he  cooked breakfast for his two guests.

Suddenly, Jim heard the distinctive sound of glass breaking at his feet, as if something had fallen on the tile of the bathroom floor. But when he looked around, there was nothing there nor anywhere else in the tiny bathroom. The only glass in the room was the mirror, which was fully intact. Lynn heard the sound as well, and asked him, “What was that?” 

Jim had no idea, and no explanation, so he went to the head of the stairs and called down to the owner, inquiring if he had heard it. 

“Yes,” the caretaker said. Jim asked if anything had broken down in the kitchen. A simple “No” was the response. Jim then asked the owner, “Is this place haunted?” There was a pause of about five seconds before the caretaker replied, “Well . . . not that I know of.” 

Frankly, Jim didn’t believe him; would you have?

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