Julie Caraker, whom we met at Beulah's Restaurant adjacent to the Tarpon Inn, had an interesting ghost encounter when she first came to Port Aransas. She rented a little white frame house that had once been a church.
It washed ashore after a storm, was renovated and converted to a house, and now is located on Oak Street, just a short distance from the inn. Right in front of the house, just a few feet from the front porch, is a tiny little private graveyard that belonged to a family named Mercer. Since the graves are old, they must have been early settlers to the area. Some of the other markers are harder to read. Emma was apparently the last person to be buried in the small plot.
Soon after Julie moved into the cottage, strange things begin to happen. She said she was very tired the first day, after moving, and wanted to take a bath to freshen up. She dreaded cleaning up the bathroom, however, because leaves and debris has blown into the partially opened window and accumulated in the bathtub. Imagine her surprise when she opened the bathroom door and found the tub all cleaned up. She says now she is quite sure the ghost did the cleaning.
A collector of antiques, especially vintage clothing items, Julie said often her little displays of old gloves and fans and accessories would be rearranged, quite noticeably. Nothing was ever missing or harmed, however.
Julie said both she and her young son, who was about 8 years old at the time, had actually seen the ghost. The apparition was the figure of a woman, wearing a long white petticoat that showed from under a long black hooded cape. It was on a dark foggy evening the first time she saw the figure walk in between her house and the little cemetery. She said she had talked with other people who also had seen the same figure.
