4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL SEPTEMBER 13, 2017
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History: The Yaquina Bay ghost
N
ext time you’re in
Newport, on the cen-
For The Sentinel
tral Oregon coast, if you ha-
ven’t yet, take a few minutes
to check out the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse. It’s
the only lighthouse I know of, in Oregon or else-
where, that was saved from the wrecking ball by a
nonexistent ghost.
This ghost’s name is Muriel Trevenard, and she
was born on a dark and stormy night in the late
1890s, when Eugene resident Lischen M. Mill-
er — the sister-in-law of poet Joaquin Miller —
created her as a character in a story called “The
Haunted Light at Newport by the Sea."
In this charming and magnifi cently shudder-
some little 2,400-word story, Miller wove a grip-
ping story of a mysterious young woman left at a
Newport boarding-house by her seafaring father,
who plans to pick her up in two weeks. She takes
up with a group of tourists from the valley, who
are camping nearby.
One day the group of them decides to explore
the old Yaquina Bay Lighthouse — a small struc-
ture built in an unfortunate spot in 1871 and shut
down for good just three years later, to be replaced
by the Yaquina Head lighthouse a few miles north.
The story takes place just a year or two after that
closure — so, probably 1875. (By the way, "Ya-
quina" is pronounced "yuh-kwin-uh" — it's a Na-
tive American name, not a Spanish one.)
Inside the abandoned lighthouse, the adventur-
ers fi nd a secret door leading to a shaft that ap-
parently runs all the way down through the sandy
bluff to a sea-cave. A chill fog moves in and the
explorers decide to go, leaving the secret door
open behind them.
As she is about to leave, the girl, Muriel, re-
alizes she has left her handkerchief in the light-
house and goes back to get it. Shortly thereafter,
screams are heard; the party races back to the
house and fi nds the secret door closed and locked,
By Finn JD John
and no sign of Muriel save for “a pool of warm,
red blood.” The door is securely and unmovably
locked, the wainscoting is back in place — and
they never are able to budge it again, nor do they
ever hear anything more of Muriel or her father.
And as time goes by, everyone forgets all about
the incident — with one or two exceptions.
“But to this day it is said the blood-stains are
dark upon the fl oor in that upper chamber,” the
story fi nishes. “And one there was who carried the
little handkerchief next to his heart till the hour of
his own tragic death.”
Moreover, the lighthouse itself is, the story tells
us, haunted by Muriel’s ghost, which screams for
help in the night when “the fog comes drifting in
from the sea and completely envelopes the light-
house, and then stops in its course as if its object
had been attained.”
The story itself is very nearly perfect, with deft
touches of dread here and there, answering a few
questions and leaving many hanging cryptically
unanswered — what was at the bottom of that
well? Who was Muriel’s tall, dark, aristocratic fa-
ther? How did Harold’s hinted-at “tragic death”
come about?
Such realistic touches, in a fi ctional story, are
an invitation to the reader to wonder: is this really
fi ction I’m reading? Could this story actually be
truth masquerading as fi ction? Was there, truly,
a Muriel Trevenard? In writing this spooky story
of events long past, did Lischen Miller make it
all up, or was she writing down for posterity an
actual ghost story, whispered to her by one of the
tourists from the Valley?
Questions like these were in the air almost from
the start, when Miller’s magnifi cent little gem
was published in the August 1899 issue of Pacifi c
Monthly Magazine. And they’ve gained strength
and credibility with every passing year since. Vis-
itors to the lighthouse still ask to see the blood-
stains and the mysterious linen closet upstairs.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The League of Oregon Cities would like to publically thank
Senator Floyd Prozanski for his efforts during the 2017 legis-
lative session to protect parks and open spaces for the public’s
enjoyment and health. An adverse Oregon Supreme Court rul-
ing in March of 2016 exposed cities, as well as other public
and private land owners who allow free access to their land
for recreational purposes, to added liability that threatened the
closure of some of Oregon’s beloved parks and park features.
Thanks to Senator Prozanski’s leadership, an agreement was
reached on SB 327 to restore the civil liability protection that
allows the continued use and development of skate-parks,
trails, BMX tracks and innovative playgrounds was restored.
The League is grateful for the Senator’s thoughtful efforts.
Sincerely,
Mike McCauley
Executive Director
League of Oregon Cities
Something on your mind? Write in to
cmay@cgsentinel.com and we may print
your letter.
C
And, although most people famil-
iar with the legend don’t actually
believe it, there are those who do.
Among those who believe the
story, the stories of Muriel’s ghost
don’t end with screams in the
night and mysterious lights guid-
ing ships at sea. Author Susan
Smitten, in her book about ghost-
ly hauntings, cites a 1975 article
in The Eugene Register-Guard
in which Lincoln County Histor-
PHOTO COURTESY FINN JD JOHN
ical Museum curator Pat Stone
This image of turn-of-the-century beachgoers on the dry sands of the
recounts the story of a young
beach at Newport around 1905 shows the lighthouse above.
hitchhiker who came through,
But Muriel Trevenard needed no help from
looking for work. Having nowhere to stay and no
Evan
MacClure for her greatest achievement: the
money to rent a room, he unrolled a sleeping bag
preservation
of the lighthouse. By the time the
at the lighthouse. That night, he said, a ghostly
1940s
had
rolled
around, the place was in awful
young woman appeared fl oating outside one of
shape,
and
wrecking
crews had it on the sched-
the windows. She told him not to worry, and that
ule.
In
response,
the
citizens
of Lincoln County
he would fi nd work the next day. And so he did.
formed
the
Lincoln
County
Historical Society
Probably the most intriguing derivative ghost
specifi
cally
to
prevent
it
from
being demolished
story, though, is the legend of Captain Evan Mac-
and
to
restore
it
—
which,
with
the help of Ohio
Clure, skipper of the whaling ship Moncton. And,
industrialist
and
Oregon
native
son
L.E. Warford,
in fact, it may be that the Muriel Trevenard story is
they
would
eventually
do.
derivative of it, rather than the other way around.
Meanwhile, to buy the additional time they
The crew of this whaling ship, according to the
would
need to complete their plans, a group of
story, mutinied and put him overboard in a small
the
citizens
actually had to form a human chain
rowboat just off the Oregon Coast in the early
around
the
building
to stop the demolition from
1870s. He was never seen again, but supposedly
proceeding.
there were a number of hauntings of houses and
Would all this have happened without the fame
taverns along the coast after that, by a red-beard-
and
narrative excitement generated by Muriel
ed skeleton-faced character prowling in search of
Trevenard
and her story? Possibly. It seems un-
someone to “join me in death.”
likely,
though.
In the 1940s, old buildings were
The theory is that Lischen Miller wrote her sto-
generally
regarded
very unromantically — even
ry with an eye toward supplying a dénouement to
old
lighthouses.
the Evan MacClure story — involving old Evan
Today, restored to its former glory, it’s a state
fi nally fi nding someone to take him up on his
park.
It’s also the oldest structure in Newport and
spooky offer. But, of course, it’s impossible to
the
only
wooden lighthouse in Oregon.
document which ghost story came fi rst, so we’ll
likely never know.
Dr. Fuhrman: Carotenoids and you
arotenoids are yellow, or-
ange, and red pigments
present in fruits and vegetables.
There are more than 600 ca-
rotenoids; the most commonly
consumed and well-studied ca-
rotenoids include beta-carotene,
alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxan-
thin, lycopene, lutein, and zea-
xanthin.
Some carotenoids are con-
verted to vitamin A in the body.
These carotenoids are important
for proper immune function. Ca-
rotenoids give the skin a healthy
glow and defend the body’s tis-
sues against oxidative damage,
helping to prevent chronic diseas-
es and premature aging.
The richer your diet in carot-
enoids, the greater the likelihood
of longer telomeres (DNA se-
quences at the end of chromo-
somes). The length of telomeres
is thought to be an indicator of
biological aging—the longer the
telomere length, the slower the
aging of cells.
Data from 3660 U.S. adults
were analyzed for serum carot-
enoids and leukocyte telomere
length. When they compared the
groups with the lowest and high-
est levels of each carotenoid,
they saw 5-8 % longer telomeres
for the groups with the highest
alpha-carotene,
beta-carotene,
and beta-cryptoxanthin levels.
Researchers think that higher
carotenoid levels may work by
protecting telomeric DNA from
oxidative damage.
Lycopene, a carotenoid found
in tomatoes, grapefruit, and papa-
ya, is concentrated in the prostate,
where it has potent anti-cancer
effects. Lycopene-rich foods also
protect the skin against ultravio-
let radiation from the sun. In one
study, after twelve weeks of to-
mato supplementation by healthy
women, reddening of the skin,
mitochondrial DNA damage, and
markers of skin aging due to UV
exposure were reduced.
Lutein and zeaxanthin, which
are found in leafy greens like kale
and collards, are the only known
carotenoids located in the human
retina. Light must pass through
lutein and zeaxanthin before be-
ing transmitted to the cells that
send visual information to the
brain. These carotenoids fi lter
some of the blue light that enters
the retina, and this function pro-
tects the eye from damage and
improves several aspects of visu-
al performance.
Get your carotenoids from
colorful vegetables and fruits. In
fact, supplemental carotenoids
are likely to be harmful. For
example, high serum beta-car-
otene has been associated with
decreased lung cancer risk, but
beta-carotene supplements may
actually increase the risk of lung
cancer, especially in smokers.
In addition to their own ben-
efi cial effects, carotenoids like
alpha-carotene, lycopene, and
lutein in the blood are markers
indicating the intake of thousands
of additional phytochemicals that
work synergistically to keep the
body healthy. Keep in mind that
carotenoid absorption during a
meal requires the presence of fat
— one of the reasons to use nut
and seed-based dressings on sal-
ads and raw vegetables.
C ottage G rove
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