Rock Island Story
This is a copy of a story found on reddit here. I moved it here for easy access, and to improve formatting.
Do not go to Rock Island, Wisconsin
Rock Island is a state park located at the tip of Door County, Wisconsin on Lake Michigan. It’s a difficult place to get to. To get to the island you have to take a car ferry from Ellison Bay to Washington island, drive across Washington Island to Jackson Harbor, then take a pedestrian only ferry to Rock Island. No vehicles or bikes are allowed on Rock Island.
Even though the island is relatively small at about 975 acres, it has had an interesting history. In the early 1600’s it was inhabited by a tribe of Potawatomi native Americans as well as a small fishing village of European settlers. The two groups did not trust each other, and did have a few bad encounters that almost led to violence, but for the most part they lived peacefully together on the island. By the 1640’s the Potawatomi had migrated to other parts of Wisconsin.
Shortly after the Potawatomi had left the island, some settlers from the fishing village reported seeing a new group of people on the island. They seemed to be more white settlers, but they wore strange clothes and kept to themselves. No one from the fishing village was ever able to talk to one of these new settlers, or even find where they were living. It was around this time that strange things started to happen in the village. Several animals, it’s not mentioned what they were, maybe it was pigs or chickens kept by the settlers were found slaughtered in the village and seemed to have been used to make markings in blood on some of the buildings in the village. On a different night a building used for preserving meat burned down. The villagers felt that these things must have been done by these new people on the island, and they intended to find them, but after a thorough search of the island, including the wooded inland area, they never found a single person. These strange occurrences seemed to stop soon after the search and none of the other settlers were ever seen again.
In 1836 the Potawatomi lighthouse was built on the northern part of the island. After construction was finished, the lighthouse was inspected and it was reported back that “the material of which the lighthouse and dwelling are made, are of the best quality and that the work is done in a substantive and workmanlike manner.” David E. Corbin was appointed the first keeper of the light on December 19, 1837. Only three years later in 1840, despite the apparent quality of construction of the lighthouse, David Corbin started to complain that plaster started to fall off the building and some sort of liquid would ooze through cracks leaving the house constantly damp. Corbin was completely alone most of the time at the lighthouse and some have said when visiting him that he would stare at a certain wall and sometimes spoke vaguely of the other visitors. In 1845, after 8 years of relative solitude at the lighthouse, an inspector visited the light house keeper and determined that while Corbin was fulfilling his duties, he was acting strange. The official report says that the inspector ordered Corbin to take a 25-day leave of absence to “find a wife” to live with him at the lighthouse. However, some think that the inspector was startled by Corbin’s mental state caused by years of solitude and thought it would be best that he spent some time away from the island. In 1852 Corbin reportedly fell ill and died that December in the lighthouse. He was buried in a small cemetery just south of the lighthouse. The next lighthouse keeper also reported the surprisingly quick deterioration of the lighthouse. Some friends that had visited the new keeper say that he would talk of seeing strange things in the house at night, but he wouldn’t elaborate on what he had seen. In 1858, after only 22 years of service, the original lighthouse was torn down and a new one was built. From that point on, the lighthouse keepers were required to have an assistant keeper, or a family with them at the lighthouse. No strange occurrences were further reported in the lighthouse logbook outside of strong storms and occasional shipwrecks except on January 20, 1876. The keeper at the time named Betts reported that he saw two men attempting to row to the mainland from Washington Island. He wrote a terrible storm came up shortly after their departure and they never made it to their destination. Over three months later on May 3, 1876 Betts wrote “The two men who were lost last January have been seen several times. Once from Caney Light House and once from Jacksonport. The men were apparently frozen stiff and sitting upright in the boat among a mass of ice. At last account they were still adrift. There is not much hope that they will be found and buried”.
By 1900 most of the island’s inhabitants left for better fishing areas on lake Michigan. In 1910 a successful business owner and inventor, Chester Thordarson purchased all of the island except for the land that the lighthouse occupied in the north. He used the island as a private summer retreat from his business in Chicago. Thordarson is responsible for the unique and mystifying buildings and structures that are still on the island today. On the south end of the island he built a giant stone hall that has a boat house on the lower level. A stone water tower was built on the east side of the island, and an imposing wooden gate was constructed on the west end of the island. The great hall was used to store Thordarson’s immense book collection. He had over 11,000 books and it’s rumored that he possessed some very rare books on the occult in his collection. Thordarson died of heart failure, on January 6, 1945, though some have speculated that he saw something that actually scared him to death. I couldn’t find any writings from Thordarson however that mentioned him experiencing anything strange on the island. After his death multiple churches and universities were interested in his book collection, but he had willed it to the University of Wisconsin-Madison providing that they had to purchase it for $300,000, which they did. Some of this history is hard to find on the internet, but there are a couple binders in the great hall that has a lot of this documented. Thordarson’s personal papers are housed in the archive section of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
All of this history I gave is just to provide a little context for experiences I have had, directly or indirectly, on Rock Island. In August of 2021 I took my first, and last, trip to Rock Island. After taking two ferry rides, I arrived on the island at about 2:00pm. I had booked the remote campsite E which is a backpacking site that is a little over a mile from the dock. I took my time hiking out to the site to enjoy the scenery and took a couple breaks just due to how heavy my pack was. I was definitely packed more for camping than hiking. I got to my site, set up my tent, got everything situated, and started gathering sticks and drift wood from the beach so I could start a fire. On my third trip back from the beach, before I got back to my site, I heard a single high pitched squeal noise coming from the forest. It didn’t sound close, but it was such an unusual sound that I stopped in my tracks and waited for a good 30 seconds waiting to see if it would happen again. It didn’t, so I continued back to my site. When I got back I began working on getting a fire started. The remote camping sites on Rock Island are pretty well spaced out. Sites C, D, and E are grouped together, but there’s probably 100 yards between each site. There’s not a real trail connecting the three sites directly, but enough people have walked along the ridge between the three sites that there’s an obvious path. As I was setting some sticks up in my fire ring, something caught my eye and I looked up. Fairly far away, it looked like it might have been at site D or a little further, was a person running in my direction. My first thought was “well that’s odd”, because like I said it’s not even really a trail they were on, then my mind just went to there must be something wrong and this person needs help. They got a little closer and it looked like maybe it was a woman in loose gray clothes, maybe in a hoodie. It was still far enough away that I couldn’t really make out any details. I quickly stood up from the crouching position I was in and just as I did I heard that high pitched squeal noise again. It was behind me, and it was much closer this time. This startled me quite a bit so I turned around to look behind me. I scanned the trees for a couple seconds, but didn’t see or hear anything. I turned back around because I knew the running person must be getting close, but now they were gone. Again I stood there and scanned the trees, but did not see them anywhere. I was so confused I was kind of frozen for a few seconds. It was all very strange, but I was able to reason it out in my head that it was just a fellow camper from site C or D that was maybe running to the pit toilet that was a couple hundred yards west of the sites. I tried to forget about it, but it was really just bothering me. I did not like whatever that squeal noise was, and I just felt strange. With some effort I decided to let it go and started my fire.
I had a quick meal and a couple adult beverages then decided to take a little walk. I hadn’t seen sites C or D yet so I thought I would check those out and see if I did have some neighbors camping nearby. Site D was empty. I did see the path that led from that site to the main trail and pit toilet so that made me feel a little less uneasy about the runner. I figured it was maybe someone from site C that took a strange way to get to the main trail by going through site D. It didn’t make a ton of sense because I probably still should have seen them, but it made me feel better. I continued on to site C and saw there was a tent set up. I really didn’t want to bother anyone, but I just thought I would go over with the excuse that I would introduce myself as a camping neighbor from site E, and see if anyone looked like they might have been the person running earlier. I came up on the site and there was a couple sitting at the picnic table. Neither of them looked like they would have been the person I saw running. I introduced myself, and they introduced themselves. They were probably in their mid 30s, they were very nice, and both seemed to be pretty drunk, but a quiet drunk. I didn’t ask about the runner, or the squealing noises because I thought it might be weird. I wished them a good night and walked back to my tent. When I got back I had a cigar and a few more drinks. It got dark and it started as a perfect night. The sky was clear and I was just staring up and looking at millions of stars. I felt better about everything from earlier and felt stupid about the whole thing and decided to get some sleep. It was a long day so I fell asleep almost immediately. At around 2:30am I woke up by a huge boom of thunder. It started down pouring. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped. I love camping in the rain, but I do not like camping in a lightning storm. A pretty big storm came through and I was starting to worry. The wind was whipping at my tent and the ground was shaking from the thunder and lightning. I did not feel good about being out there in a tent and felt very exposed. The storm lasted for about an hour before it became just a light steady drizzle. I was just starting to fall back asleep when I heard the squeal noise again. I opened my eyes up wide in the dark and just laid there silent. There was another louder squeal noise and it was pretty close. I knew there are no real dangerous animals on Rock Island. There are deer and porcupines, but nothing like bear or wolves. Knowing that still didn’t make me feel better though. There was just something about that squeal that I didn’t like. I say squeal because that’s the best I can describe it. It sounded to me like a pig squeal. I honestly don’t know that much about pig noises, but that’s what I thought of when I heard it. An injured, or angry pig squeal. I continued to lay in my tent and started to hear foot steps outside my tent. It was still raining so the sounds were a little buried in the sound of rain, but it definitely sounded like a somewhat large animal or human walking around. I sat up in my tent and took a knife I had out just to feel better. In my head I just kept saying “you know it’s just an animal. It’s fine. There’s nothing in these woods that can hurt you.” I listened as the footsteps started moving away from my tent. I just sat there being still holding my knife for maybe 10 minutes without hearing anything else. I started thinking to myself “It’s fine. It was just an animal. You’re being stupid, and you need to get some sleep.” I was just about to lay back down when there was a very loud squeal and it was right outside my tent. It felt like my heart just stopped and a shiver went down my spine. My heart was beating so hard my entire body was pulsing, and I felt it in my ears. It took everything in me but I forced out a “get out of here.” Not shouting, but as stern and mean sounding as I could at that moment. I didn’t hear any more squeals or footsteps that night, but I also didn’t sleep. I just sat there in my tent for maybe an hour before I laid down. Eventually the rain stopped and I kept laying there until the sun came up. All that time reassuring myself that I was being stupid. It was just an animal.
It was probably 7am before I decided I had to get out of my tent to relieve myself. As soon as I stepped outside my tent I saw that my picnic table had been turned over and was upside down. When I saw this I surprisingly calmly thought “ok, this is enough, I’m leaving the island today.” I checked my surroundings and nothing else seemed out of place. I eventually reasoned with myself that the wind had blown the table over during the storm. It still seemed a little strange because the table was pretty heavy and I felt like I would have heard the table flipping over, but that might have made sense. I made some cold instant coffee, had a bite to eat, started to feel better about the whole thing, then decided to go for a hike. I admit, I get easily scared when I’m camping by myself in the woods. Maybe that’s natural. After I had some coffee and food, and the sun came out, I realized that nothing I heard or saw was really anything that couldn’t be explained. Other than not getting a good nights sleep, I was having a pretty good time. The reason I came to the island in the first place was to hike the 7 mile Thordarson’s Loop Trail that has a lot of interesting things to see, and I was excited to start the hike. I packed a few things in my backpack and started off. Fairly close to my site is the water tower. I have no idea how it originally worked, or why it had to be a tower, but it’s an impressive building with a fireplace that looked like someone had recently had a fire in it. A littler further down the trail was a cemetery where two sisters and a few others are buried. It’s believed there are still more buried here in unmarked graves. These likely are some of the settlers from the old fishing village. The island has three cemeteries. There is one by the beach and that’s where Chester Thordarson is buried, there’s one on the eastern part of the island where the two sisters are buried, and there’s one on the northern part of the island where the original lighthouse keeper David E. Corbin is buried. There is also at least one Potawatomi burial area on the island, but no one knows exactly where that is. I kept walking on the trail until I came to a nice scenic overlook area with a bench where I sat down and drank some water. I started to hear some talking on the trail ahead of me, but I couldn’t see anyone yet. There was a bend in the trail and the trees were thick so I sat on the bench waiting for these people to come around the bend. The voices were coming closer and I could tell that they weren’t speaking English, but I couldn’t place what language it might have been. Both voices were very, very deep and guttural. Then back deep in the woods I hear a loud and quick OOOO OOOO. Immediately both the voices I was listening to responded with their own OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO. I kind of smiled because it sounded like these two heard whatever it was in the woods and they were trying to be funny and mock it by responding. I got off the bench, put my backpack back on and started walking in the direction further down the trail where the voices were coming from, but I never did find these people. The rest of the hike went very well. I visited the cemetery where David E. Corbin is buried. I took a self-guided tour of the Potawatomi lighthouse. I passed the wooden gate that apparently used to be part of a larger structure. I walked by the great hall and dock area from where I arrived on the island. Visited some of the other structures on the island. Came across the cemetery where Chester Thordarson is buried. Then finished the loop by returning to my camp site. It was a very nice hike with a lot to see and wasn’t especially difficult, but I was tired. I did walk down to camp site C to ask the couple I spoke with the night before how they did with the storm during the night, but they had packed up and left. I was disappointed because I also really wanted to ask them about the squealing noises during the night. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful.
I built a fire, made some meals, had a cigar and some drinks. As soon as it got dark I was ready for bed since I had so little sleep the night before. I got in my tent and quickly fell asleep. I might have been asleep for about three hours when I woke up suddenly and was immediately fully alert. Nothing that I was aware of caused me to wake up, but I felt something was wrong. I sat up in my tent, and this part is a little hard to explain. A feeling of complete dread washed over me. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before. If felt like there was something in the tent with me, and I could feel that it was angry, seething with anger, rage full even, and I could feel its hatred for me. It felt like something very bad was about to happen, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I started to shiver uncontrollably. There was a smell of garbage or rotten meat, and it got stronger and stronger to the point where I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t because I was frozen. I had never felt so exposed and helpless. I stared forward at nothing, just frozen, and the weird thing is I accepted whatever was about to happen to me. It was like my brain telling me that whatever is about to happen, even if it’s death, will at least be relief. Then I passed out. At least I have to assume I passed out. That’s all I remember until I woke up at about 8:00am that morning. When I woke up I was laying outside of my sleeping bag, on top of it, and my legs were in an unnatural and uncomfortable position. I was on my back with my left leg strait out, and my right leg was bent so that my foot was up against my left knee. My heart started pounding but I kept thinking to myself “It was a dream. I’m leaving right now. It was a dream. I’m leaving right now.” I packed up everything very quickly and started back toward the dock to catch the first boat off the island. Since the first boat from Washington Island doesn’t arrive until about 10:30am, I had to kill a little time around the great hall and dock area. I wanted to get off that island so bad, but I did feel a little better just being out of the woods and I could see other people. I sat down on a bench a little to the east of the dock and lit a cigar just to give me something to do while trying not to think about the night before. I was sitting a few minutes and scanning out over the water when I was startled by someone behind me saying “Hi!” I jumped and was embarrassed when the person came around saying “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I saw you smoking and just came over to ask if you had a lighter.” I felt like an idiot and told him that’s fine. I just didn’t sleep well last night and was kind of zoned out, and I handed him my lighter. He thanked me, lit a cigarette, then handed the lighter back to me. We started talking about the usual things you might talk about. He said he was from the Madison area. We talked about the storms we’ve been having. He seemed to be a real outdoorsy kind of guy, and talked about his plans to move to Washington Island. It was a nice normal conversation and kind of took my mind off the night I just had for a little bit. He seemed like a pretty nice guy. Then, naturally, he asked me what site I had been staying at. I told him I was staying at site E the last two nights, and he said he usually books that site, but I must have reserved it before him. He said he had booked site D the last two nights. I was surprised by this because no tent or anything was at site D the two times I walked past the site. I told him this and he said he comes to the island a few times a year and you have to book a site, but he actually camps at different areas on the island.
I asked him where he camps and he told me most of the time he camps in the east cemetery, but he also likes to camp in the woods south of the light house. He told me that he hikes about half way down the Fernwood Trail and just heads north into the woods where he finds a place to camp. He said that one time he found the ruins of a small log house in those woods and he’s going to try and find it again and camp inside of it. At this point I started to change my opinion about this guy and wanted to change the subject, but then he asked me if I had heard the screeches in the woods. I took a second to reply and knew he was talking about the squealing I had heard. I told him I had, and asked him if he knew what it was. This time he took a second to reply and I saw his face change. He looked as if he was thinking if he should tell me something. Like a secret. With no expression at all on his face he said matter-of-factly “A demon lives on this island.” Under any other circumstance I would have laughed this off, but not after what I experienced the night before. He looked at me and must have seen the anxiety and fear I was feeling. He surprised me by letting out a quick laugh. He asked me if I saw anything that night. I told him I hadn’t seen anything and he stared at me like he was trying to figure something out. I felt like he could tell I had experienced something. At this point I was ready for the conversation to be over. Then he told me he had seen something in the cemetery that night. Now his face and mood kind of changed again like he was trying to confide in me. I really did not want to ask the question, but I knew he wanted me to ask it. So I asked him what he saw in the cemetery, but my voice was shaky. Then I could tell he had changed his mind about telling me. He actually looked at me with empathy and told me that what he saw was hard to explain, but if I was afraid of the screeching noises he didn’t think I should go near the cemetery. I didn’t’ say anything right away, but he said four words without any context. Keepers, of, the, flame. I looked at my cigar and the ash was long. I put it out, and told him I was going to wait by the dock for the boat. He nodded and I started to walk away. After a few steps he said “Hey!”, and I turned around to look at him. He just said “Don’t come back here”. I turned around and started walking again. I don’t know if that was a warning, or a friendly suggestion, but I took it to heart. I was definitely not coming back to Rock Island.
When I got home I looked up “Keepers of the Flame” as it pertained to Rock Island. I found three things that he could have been referring to. The name of the Native Americans that lived on the island, the Potawatomi, could be translated to “Keepers of the Flame.” The lighthouse keepers on the island were sometimes referred to as “The Keepers of the Flame.” Then there was also a 19th century cult that was said to visit the island from time to time that called themselves “The Keepers of the Flame.” I know that hundreds of people visit Rock Island every year and have a great time camping, hiking the trails and exploring Chester Thordarson’s buildings. My humble suggestion is this. Do not go to Rock Island.
