though the doll has left the premises, Willy Smith and the Geigers have not. The house continues to be very active. When Bob Merritt talks about the Audubon House he stresses the history and opulent décor—but he does admit it is haunted.
Spotlight on Chokoloskee
Nestled deep in the Everglades among the Ten Thousand Islands along the southwestern Gulf coast of Florida is the tiny village of Chokoloskee. It is at the end of the road—literally. You can’t get any farther south except by boat. And at the end of the one main road in Chokoloskee is the Smallwood General Store, sitting on stilts, the waters of the Gulf lapping against its pilings as they have for over a hundred years. It was here on the shore next to Smallwood’s that Ed Watson met his demise in 1910.
Ed Watson had come to the area several years before and was farming very successfully on forty acres a few miles south on the Chatham River. He was a quiet, angry man who kept to himself, but was often in trouble with the law because of his violent temper. He had many enemies in the neighborhood.
Because he was so standoffish, he was cloaked in mystery. No one knew much about him. Folks wondered how he was able to do so well with his farm in such a hostile environment, until disemboweled bodies began showing up in the waters around Watson’s farm. Someone finally figured out that he had been hiring migrant workers and then killing them instead of paying them, disposing of their bodies by burying them on his farm or feeding them to the alligators.
The local sheriff formed a posse and proceeded to Watson’s place to arrest him. Watson wasn’t home, but the posse found a mass grave with dozen of bodies and body parts. Back at Smallwood’s, the posse waited for Watson to show up. Because of the gruesomeness of the apparent murders, they dispensed with normal legal proceedings and shot him dead as soon as he appeared.
Many of the locals think Smallwood’s is haunted by Ed Watson and that it’s not safe to go among the pilings under the store. Maybe that’s true, but there is no doubt that Watson’s old place is filled with the ghosts of his murder victims. Many people have tried to make a go of the farm, but very little ever grew there after Watson died, and everyone has been overwhelmed by the ghosts. After many years, an old woman moved into Watson’s house. She, too, encountered the phantoms, and one night, while trying to fend them off with a lighted knot torch, burned the place to the ground. Since then, snakes and vegetation have reclaimed the farm and the house.
Ed Watson may or may not be around, but the ghosts of his many victims still certainly occupy that forty acres on the Chatham River a few miles south of the Smallwood General Store in Chokoloskee.
CHAPTER 5
Marrero’s Guest Mansion
KEY WEST
SARAH MARTIN* PICKED UP HER CLOTHES from the bed and turned to hang them in the armoire against the wall. She stepped forward and reached out to open the armoire when a woman floated out of it—right through the doors. Sarah screamed, dropped her clothes, and almost fainted. Moments later Sarah and her husband, Robert, were downstairs confronting James Remes, the owner of Marrero’s Guest Mansion and innkeeper at the time, and asking to check out.
“We saw a ghost,” Sarah said, still shaking. “She walked right out of the armoire, and the doors were still closed. Then she just vanished.”
James tried to give the Martins a sympathetic smile.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “The ghost you saw was Hetty Marrero, the wife of the man who built this house. Come on in to the parlor and have a glass of wine. I’ll tell you the history of this place and its ghosts. Maybe I can convince you to stay; I’ll even put you in another room, if you wish.”
The Martins followed James into the parlor.
Francisco Marrero was a Cuban and had been thrown into prison during a revolution in the 1870s. He wasn’t there long. He bribed his way out and fled to Europe. While he was in Spain, he met and fell in love with Enriquetta Gonzales Ruiz, a striking Andalusian beauty from Seville. Still on the run from Cuban authorities and with limited resources, Marrero was unable to convince her to marry him. Dejected, he left for New York, where he learned the cigar-making business and then moved to Key West to start his own cigar factory.
Within a few years he was a wealthy man with six hundred employees and a business worth half-a-million dollars. Enriquetta, “Hetty,” was still on his mind, so he built what became known as the Marrero Mansion on Fleming Street, then left for Spain in hopes of winning her hand. A few months later he returned to Key West with his bride and took up residence in the mansion.
As far as anyone knows, Hetty and Francisco were happy in their life together in Key West. She had a beautiful house with plenty of money coming in from the cigar factory, and she bore Francisco eight children. But all was not to end well.
From time to time, Francisco went to Cuba on tobacco-buying trips; he was no longer persona non grata. On one such trip he died. His death certificate stated that he had died under mysterious circumstances. Hetty was devastated by the news, as anyone can well imagine, but she was consoled by the fact that she had a grand home and a healthy income. And, of course, she had her eight children to comfort her.
A few weeks after the funeral, however, one Señora Maria Ignacia Garcia de Marrero arrived in Key West by ship with her husband’s last will and testament. She was Francisco’s first wife, whom he had neglected to divorce, a nearly impossible task in Catholic Cuba, before he married Hetty. A bitter legal battle ensued, and Hetty lost. She lost everything—the cigar factory, her only source of income, and, most devastatingly, her house. She and her eight children were summarily thrown out into the streets.
As she was being evicted by the sheriff, she stood on the steps, looked at the mansion one last time and said to passersby and anyone who would listen, “Here today you are witnessing a grave injustice. Although you remove me now from this house, you should know that it is rightfully mine, and here I shall remain even if only in spirit.”
Key West in those days was a pretty rough town. Within two years Hetty and all her children were dead. Her oldest son committed suicide. She and the rest of her family died in the streets of Key West from consumption, diphtheria, and yellow fever.
Maria Garcia de Marrero sold the cigar factory and the house, liquidating all of her husband’s assets and returning to Cuba a very wealthy woman. Later, however, she was implicated in Francisco Marrero’s untimely and mysterious death.
Enriquetta meant it when she said that she would remain in the house forever. So far, she has. James Remes and his guests have had many exciting experiences in the mansion. When he bought it in 1983, it had been a residence, a law office, a bordello, and a restaurant and casino. James turned it into a bed-and-breakfast.
The Martins, who did remain but moved to another room, were not the first guests to see Hetty walk out of the armoire in Room 18. The adjacent room had been a nursery, and there was a long-sealed door behind the armoire. To Hetty, of course, it didn’t matter. She still went in and out of the nursery checking on her children. She also wandered throughout the rest of the house, as she does to this day.
The mansion’s heavy, wooden front door shakes, windows rattle, lamps switch off and on, and a light often flashes in the attic. Guests have seen Hetty walking down the hall and up and down the stairs. Many times guests sitting in the living room will see a shadow descending the stairs and expect to see a person following. They are surprised to see just the shadow continue
