History
South Solitary Island Lighthouse haunted by ghost of girl buried in bathtub, former residents say By Melissa Martin. Originally published in ABC Coffs Coast, 10 August 2019
In 1912, a 17-year-old girl died at a remote island lighthouse off the New South Wales mid-north coast. She had succumbed to typhoid during a raging storm on the rocky island, leaving her family no choice but to entomb her body in a bathtub until she could be moved to the mainland. When the storm calmed, Lydia Gow’s body was shipped off South Solitary Island for burial, but some—like Darren Squibb, who lived on the island during the 1970s—say her spirit never left. ‘I heard footsteps moving about the house,’ Mr Squibb said. ‘Mum told me later she’d go into the kitchen in the morning and find things rearranged.’
Buried in a bathtub Selina Lydia Gow fell ill in November 1912 and her father, the principal lighthouse keeper, called for a doctor from the mainland.
‘The island is nearly all rock and there was really no top soil that they could dig up to put her grave on there,’ Mr Trezise said.
Rob Trezise, a former lighthouse keeper and president of the Friends of the South Solitary Island Lighthouse, said heavy seas and strong winds hampered the doctor’s journey, and when he arrived it was too late.
Archives held at Lydia’s final resting place, Sandgate Cemetery, state her mother did not want her body thrown into the sea, so she was placed inside one of two bathtubs, covered in either concrete or lime, before the tubs were soldered together.
‘Lydia contracted typhoid and that was, in those days, basically fatal. She passed away before they could get her off the island,’ he said.
The teenager was buried in Newcastle four days after her death and, according to some sources, she was still inside the tub.
With the storm raging, there was no way of getting Lydia’s body to the mainland for several days and burial was not an option.
‘Her parents never went back to a lighthouse again, that was the end for them,’ Mr Trezise said.
Working Boats January 2020
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