Jaxlore is a column by Bill Delaney on the folklore, urban legends and local traditions of Jacksonville and the First Coast. In honor of spooky season, today's column brings together a list of the region's best known ghosts, cryptids, mysterious metal orbs and everything else that goes bump in the night.

Alpha Paynter, ghost of TacoLu

TacoLu, formerly the Homestead

Jacksonville Beaches lore claims that Alpha Paynter has had trouble letting go of her old Homestead Restaurant in Jacksonville Beach, even six decades after she died. Perennial ghost sightings have made this old log cabin – now home to Tex-Mex joint TacoLu – one of the First Coast’s most famous haunted places.

Alpha Paynter was a prominent businesswoman in the Beaches from 1930 until her death in 1962, although elements of her life are a mystery; no photograph of her has ever been found. The longest lasting of her businesses was the Homestead, which she opened as a boarding house in 1934 and later converted into a family-style restaurant. After Paynter, the Homestead remained a Beaches institution for another 50 years before being replaced by TacoLu in 2012. The building’s old-timey aesthetic and longevity made it fertile territory for ghost stories, and legends that Paynter never left circulated shortly after her death. She’s generally said to be a benevolent spirit who appears beside the fireplace, on the stairs, or in the women’s bathroom. TacoLu’s staff is just as diligent about noting and sharing ghost sightings as the Homestead had been, ensuring its reputation as a famous haunted place will remain intact for years to come.

Old Red Eyes and the ghosts of Kingsley Plantation

Kingsley Plantation is the oldest surviving slave plantation in Florida. From 1814-1837, it was owned by Zepheniah and Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, two of the South’s most unusual slaveholders. Anna was a Wolof royal enslaved in present-day Senegal. White slaveholder Zepheniah purchased and married her around 1806, when she was 13, and she later took an active role managing his plantations. One of the state’s most important historical sites, Kingsley Plantation was taken over by Florida State Parks in 1955. Shortly thereafter it accrued a number of legends and ghost stories.

The best known ghost associated with Kingsley Plantation is Old Red Eyes, reported since at least 1978. The story goes that he is the ghost of an enslaved man who murdered girls on the plantation, until the other enslaved discovered the crimes and lynched him from an oak tree. Thereafter, Old Red Eyes has haunted the woods as a pair of red, glowing eyes. Other ghosts reported at Kingsley Plantation include a woman in white spotted in the plantation house, often said to be Anna Kingsley herself, although she hadn’t lived on the island for over 30 years when she died. According to another common tale, visitors may hear a little girl screaming from the woods only to find a ghostly white peacock; as it happens, Fort George Island is home to albino peacocks, as well as the more familiar iridescent versions.

The mysterious Betz sphere

Terry Betz with the “Betz sphere” from the Acron Beacon-Journal. Image courtesy of WJCT.

In spring 1974, Gerri and Antoine Betz and their son Terry made a strange discovery in the woods around their Fort George Island home: a mysterious metallic sphere the size of a bowling ball. They took the strange find home, and before long, it started exhibiting inexplicable properties. According to the family, it began humming back when Terry played guitar, rolled around seemingly of its own volition, and emitted high pitched frequencies that set dogs whining. Ron Kivett, the host of a local radio show on paranormal phenomena, examined the sphere and confirmed that it acted strangely. He, like many others after him, believed the orb was of extraterrestrial origin.

Before long, the story had attracted local, national and even international press. Everyone wanted to know just what the thing was. An alien device? Top secret technology? A simple check valve stopper from a paper mill? Investigations by the U.S. Navy and UFO researchers failed to crack the mystery. Eventually, the Betz family tired of the attention and simply stopped talking about the sphere, leaving it an unsolved Jacksonville enigma.

In 2019 Jaxson partner WJCT Public Media explored the sphere in the podcast Odd Ball, which is well worth checking out.

More Jaxlore

• The Mysterious Betz Sphere of Fort George Island
• Old Red Eyes and the Ghosts of Kingsley Plantation
• Jiffy Feet – A comprehensive history
• The Erstwhile Ghost Light of Greenbriar Road

Editorial by Bill Delaney. Contact Bill at wdelaney@moderncities.com. Humanzee illustration by Sam Scavino. Follow her on Instagram at samscavino.

Bill’s new book Secret Jacksonville: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful and Obscure is out. Order a copy here.