Alexander K. Pesonen, former head keeper at Tillamook Rock Lighthouse, became North Head Lighthouse’s first keeper in 1898, but he is more often remembered because of his wife, Mary.

Sometime in the early 1920s, Mary became a member of Unity, a church founded by Charles Sherlock Fillmore and his wife, which believed in faith healing. Sadly, faith healing didn’t work for Mary, as her mental state was unraveling.

In June 1923, after decades of isolation on the lighthouse bluff (often circled by howling winds) and being saddled with endless maintenance drudgery, her worried husband took her to Portland to see a doctor, which was quite a trek at the time.

The diagnosis was “melancholia,” which Merriam-Webster describes as “a mental condition, and especially a manic-depressive (bipolar) condition, characterized by extreme depression, bodily complaints and often hallucinations and delusions.”

The couple returned to the lighthouse, and that night, Mary wrote a letter, which in part said, “I see where I have been wrong in a great many ways, but please God, I will try and change and do better … I’m even going to try and do without my medicine, and just pray I’ll get better and better.”

Early the next morning, Mary left for a walk with her dog, Jerry. Only the dog returned, and his “queer antics” alerted keeper Pesonen that something was amiss. Jerry led a search party to a spot at the edge of the cliff near the lighthouse. Mary’s coat was there, but nothing else.

The newspaper reported that “a trail through the tall grass, as though someone had slid down the cliff, was mute evidence of what had befallen the unfortunate woman.” Risking his life, the second assistant keeper recovered her body before the tide could carry it out to sea.

Mary and her husband are buried together in Ilwaco, Washington, but some still say Melancholy Mary still haunts the lighthouse and grounds to this day. (Illustration: Elleda Wilson)