In Episode 67 of Spooky Coop, hosts Michelle and Paul dive into one of the darkest, strangest, and most macabre true stories in maritime history: the Smalls Lighthouse incident of 1801. Built on a cluster of jagged rocks 20 miles off the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales, the Smalls Lighthouse was an octagonal wooden structure designed on stilts so fierce storm waves could pass through underneath rather than knock it down. In late 1800, Trinity House assigned two men—Thomas Griffith (a tall, hot-tempered man) and Thomas Howell (a quiet, deeply religious man)—to a standard month-long shift operating the light. Locals knew the two men openly despised each other, making their isolation together a recipe for disaster. Shortly after their rotation began, a relentless, violent gale battered the Welsh coast for nearly four months, trapping them. During the storm, Griffith suffered a severe illness or injury and ultimately died. Left entirely alone with his deceased arch-nemesis, Howell faced a horrifying dilemma: if he threw the body overboard, authorities would likely accuse him of murder. To protect himself, Howell used spare timber and barrel staves from the workshop to build a crude coffin. With immense physical effort, he dragged Griffith’s body up to the high balcony and lashed the casket upright against the outer railings. However, the relentless gale tore the front planking loose. Griffith’s body remained largely intact, but his arm and head stuck out. Every time the wind blew, the unthinkable would happen. For nearly four months, Howell was trapped inside with the elements and the macabre corpse. When a relief vessel finally reached the rock, they found the light still burning, but Howell was unrecognizable—his hair had turned completely white from trauma, he was emaciated, and he had lost his mind. Though cleared of wrongdoing, Howell was never the same. The horrifying incident forced Trinity House and maritime authorities worldwide to change their policies, establishing a mandatory three-person minimum rule for lighthouses so that no keeper would ever be left completely isolated with a tragic situation again.
What happens when you lock two men who utterly hate each other in an 80-foot wooden tower 20 miles out in the middle of a raging ocean? You get one of the most chilling, bizarre, and pitch-black psychological horror stories in history. In this episode of Spooky Coop, Michelle and Paul break down the terrifying true story of the Smalls Lighthouse incident of 1801.
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Spooky Coop - Episode 67 - The Smalls Lighthouse Incident : Transcript
[00:00:00] And we're going to go in five, four, three, two, one. Hello, Michelle.
Michelle: Hi, Paul.
Paul: How are you today?
Michelle: I'm fine. Dragon's shy today.
Paul: Yes, he is.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: Good.
Michelle: Hi, guys.
Paul: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Uh, welcome everybody from North America and around the world. We are very grateful that you've joined us. Today, we are going to talk about a lighthouse story.
It is a true story. It's called the Smalls Lighthouse Incident of 1801.
Michelle: Mm. And it's really freaky.
Paul: And it is-
Michelle: Spooky. ...
Paul: arguably the, the strangest, most horrifying, and equally funny story I, I, I've read in years. And- And
Michelle: it's true ...
Paul: and it, it's all true.
Michelle: That's [00:01:00] true.
Paul: So Imagine you're standing on a wooden balcony 20 miles off the coast of Wales.
Michelle: Happened in 1801.
Paul: It's 1801.
Michelle: Mm-hmm.
Paul: A violent, unrelenting gale is screaming across the Irish Sea, driving massive waves straight into the slender legs of the lighthouse tower you're standing in. Down on the water, passing ships look up through the fog and they see the lantern lit, proof that someone is alive up there.
And high on the outer railing, they see a man standing upright in his oilskins, his arm outstretched, pointing out to the sea.
Michelle: I see.
Paul: Take it away.
Michelle: Oh, okay. Um, and the sky is up on the ship, right? And the waves are going. I mean, he's up on the lighthouse, and the waves are just going there. [00:02:00] And day after day, they...
He doesn't like this story. And day after day, they report this lighthouse keeper is just waving, and they're like, "Oh." The ships say, "Oh, we don't know. They must be okay even though this storm is raging." They go over and they see this guy just standing there going, "Hey, everything's okay." You know? Agonizing month after month.
It's just hard to get there- Yeah ... 'cause the sea's just raging on. They, they usually have short times, and the sea is raging on. But they slowly see this guy. He's waving them on like, "Hey, you can go past. You don't have to try to get here. It's fine." Um, and but the thing is, is that
Paul: he- What they don't know
Michelle: is he's dead.
Paul: Dead.
Michelle: Dead. Mr. Wavey guy. Dead
Paul: as an Egyptian doornail.
Michelle: And all doornails. He's dead [00:03:00] as any nationality of doornails, and that there's an alive guy inside slowly- Crazy
Paul: Right. So this is the story of the Smalls Lighthouse incident of 1801, and it's one of the darkest psychological true mysteries in maritime history.
Michelle: Peekaboo.
Paul: Right. To understand how this nightmare happened, you have to understand where they were.
Michelle: Yeah, the Small Lighthouse is on a jagged collection of low-lying basalt rocks about 20 miles off the coast of, uh, Pembrokeshire in Wales. Right. Okay. They ... It was notorious- ... this island, for killing ships because when the water was high, they wouldn't see the rocks, and they'd ram into them.
And so, um, this guy, Henry, what's his name? Whiteside, built this extraordinary lighthouse there. It was like this, [00:04:00] these big wooden, um, like, big wooden ... It wasn't like y- the average lighthouse you'd think of, like this big round thing with a light on top. These were like these big wooden legs-
Paul: Mm-hmm ...
Michelle: with a, with this lighthouse way on the top of it.
And, um- Mm. ... it was, uh, made by that White House guy and, uh, Whiteside guy. And-
Paul: Henry Whiteside,
Michelle: yeah ... yeah, it wasn't solid, right? And it was an octagon. It wasn't round. It was eight-sided. And, um, it was, uh, had those, it had nine pillars. And giant waves, he was afraid that the waves would knock it down if it was solid, so that's why he made it with these pillars so the waves would go through it.
Almost like a jetty, if you've been to the, if you live near the ocean-
Paul: Mm-hmm ...
Michelle: you'd see, like, these, uh, walkways, and they wouldn't be solid. They were on pillars, or like houses you see built near the shore- Mm ... are on pillars so the waves can go through without knocking them down.
Paul: Okay. So according to history, it worked, but [00:05:00] it felt terrifying to live in.
In heavy seas, the entire structure would, would sway several feet, and the roar of wa- water rushing right under the floorboards was deafening. To operate the light-
Michelle: Where are you going? Sorry. Go ahead.
Paul: He's, he's even- He's scared ... he's, he's already scared.
Michelle: He's terrified.
Paul: Okay. Get over
Michelle: here, silly Billy.
Paul: So, so to operate the light, the Trinity House stationed two men at a time in late 1800, and those two men were Thomas Griffith and Thomas Howell.
Thomas and Thomas, or Tom and Tom.
Michelle: Yeah, it, and, and the thing is, is that these guys hated each other. One of them was, like, this tall, thin guy. One of them was, like, this little, short guy. One of them was, like, super religious. The other one was kind of like an atheist. Right.
Paul: Yeah, so Griffith was the big, hot-tempered guy prone to outbursts, Thomas Griffith.[00:06:00]
And Thomas Howell was the quiet, deeply religious, and reserved guy.
Michelle: Yeah, and it was like a psychological experiment to put them together.
Paul: Yeah, not intentionally, but, you know, objectively after the fact, yes. It was a... You know, local townspeople in, in Sulva knew the two men openly hated each other, and they argued constantly on shore, these two guys, yet they were sent out together for a standard month-long shift on a tiny, isolated wood platform in the middle of the ocean.
What a recipe-- Good one. Good one. Ah, that's a good one. Let's put two people who hate, hate each other in an isolated environment. That, that's brilliant.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: So shortly after their rotation, uh, began in 18-- in early 1801, a massive storm blew in, and it wasn't like one of these two-day storms. It raged for weeks.
Waves pounded the wooden stilts, tearing away the station's emergency boat and st- and snapping [00:07:00] their communication with the shore.
Michelle: I think the emergency boat wouldn't have done any good anyway.
Paul: Uh, probably not. Who knows? So then Thomas Griffith, the big, volatile guy, he got sick. Um, some accounts say he suffered an internal injury from a fall during the storm.
Others suggested a sudden severe illness.
Michelle: Someone said that he actually tripped and bashed his head on- Yeah ... a steel bar.
Paul: Right. Uh, so Howell did what he could, nursing the man that he despised while keeping the oil lamps burning. "
Michelle: Yeah, I hope you feel better. Drink this cyanide."
Paul: Well, he was a religious guy.
He wouldn't do that. "
Michelle: Hope you feel better. Drink this blessed cyanide." Holy cyanide
Paul: He tried nursing him, despised the, the man he despised, while keeping the oil lamps burning every night. But Griffith's contit- condition deteriorated quickly. After days of agony, Thomas Griffith died, passed away. Yeah, it was this
Michelle: [00:08:00] diluted holy cyanide.
Paul: And this, Michelle, is where Thomas Hall was thrust into an impossible, horrifying dilemma.
Michelle: Yeah, think about it, right? This guy you hate, everyone knows you hate. You get stuck on a boat with, on a thing with him out in the island, out in, I mean, on the, uh, what do you call that thing? The
Paul: Smalls.
Michelle: Smalls Lighthouse, and he dies.
Paul: Yeah. Actually, the rocks are called The Smalls. That's why the lighthouse on it is called the Smalls Lighthouse.
Michelle: Well, I thought it was just a small light- no, it was a big lighthouse.
Paul: Confusing.
Michelle: Anyway, you hate this guy. People know you hate this guy. All of a sudden you're locked in with this guy, and he dies, right?
So what are you gonna do? You're, like, absolutely certain that what's gonna happen is that people are gonna accuse you of killing him, right? And, um, so he didn't know what to do with him. He didn't, he figured he better keep the body so they can prove that it was an injury or an illness, right?
Paul: Mm-hmm,
Michelle: mm-hmm, mm.
Uh, instead of [00:09:00] just throwing him overboard, even though he was decomposing, it was like, "Oh my God." Right. "What am I doing? I have to..." Where are you going? You, I know you don't wanna hear about decomposition. Anyway, he didn't know what to do with him. He had to somehow find a, a way to keep him. So he decided that, um, it was better if he, uh, decided to make a homemade coffin.
This guy had a background in, um, carpentry, so he looked around and he found old pieces. Um, but anyhow, I'm getting ahead of myself. He really needed to find a way to keep this body
Paul: And he had to sleep and cook and, and do all the regular stuff inside.
Michelle: Yeah, with a decomposing body.
Paul: I mean- It would have made it untenable.
Michelle: Yeah. I mean, how, who can eat a 1801 pizza with a dead body? Right?
Paul: Was that bannock with sprinkled cheese and some tomato. [00:10:00] So now, hence now comes the, the macabre, uh, balcony scene. Using spare timber and barrel staves, and for those of you who don't know, I, I didn't know when I read this a barrel stave is a narrow, curved wooden block that forms the sides of a trad- of a traditional wooden barrel or cask.
Michelle: It's also- Yeah ... it could be the metal ring.
Paul: Right. And he got nails available inside the work- that were available-
Michelle: Well, he pulled them right off the corpse ...
Paul: inside. Inside the workshop of the lighthouse, and he constructed this crude, uh, wooden coffin. And with, with immense physical effort, I, you know, this, this guy was pretty-
Michelle: Oh, sorry Dragon.
I'm sorry.
Paul: He was pretty big
Michelle: Oh, you know what? You're being- He has to go to the bathroom. He doesn't wanna go on me. I'm gonna put him on the ground. He won't go on me. Careful, don't roll backwards. He's walking around.
Paul: I am gonna have to edit this part out. No, you don't. Yes.
Michelle: No, don't. Just keep going With immense physical effort
Paul: [00:11:00] So with an immense, he, the guy was big.
He dragged him out to the, to the high balcony of the lighthouse, and he lashed the coffin securely upright against the outer iron railings and returned inside. And he thought he'd solved the problem, but he was wrong.
Michelle: Yeah, 'cause the storm didn't stop, you know? And the forces, the, the forces of the gale, uh, eventually broke the homemade casket apart.
You know, it was wood, and it, you know, it was nailed... 10 nails don't hold it, right? And eventually it just fell apart. But-
Paul: Plus there
Michelle: was- The worst yet- ...
Paul: bashing wind for weeks on end Yeah,
Michelle: bashing winds, and the, the worst yet is that, um, it was cold enough and wet enough or whatever, the guy didn't, like, really decompose and fall apart.
He just kinda was held in-
Paul: Mm-hmm ...
Michelle: in the wraps and everything, and kinda stayed there. Right. Most of his body except for his [00:12:00] arm and his head.
Paul: Right, a fla- a front planking tore loose on the coffin.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. And so he, the head and the arm stuck out, and- Yeah ... the arm was just going like this in the wind.
Paul: The wind caught his arm. Yeah. His right arm, and it, and it kept flapping around. Every- Yeah, it would go
Michelle: backwards.
Paul: Every time the gale blew, the corpse's arm was blown back and forth in a macabre motion Cue to Michelle, flap arm. And because of the way the balcony window was situated, every time Howe looked out the window to check the weather-
or clean the glass, he saw his dead partner's arm knocking against the glass pane, as if Griffith were standing outside, banging on the window, pointing at him, and begging to be let in.
Michelle: It's cold out here. It's windy out here. Let me in. I mean, you killed me, now you're torturing me.
Paul: I mean, I- [00:13:00] At the time- Yeah
I, I'm sure it w- it was absolutely horrifying, but looking at this, like, over t- 200 years later, this is, is, is horrifyingly-
Michelle: Funny ...
Paul: funny. It really is. It is the height of, of, of horror comedy. This poor guy.
Michelle: It's, yeah, it's almost like a Monty Python skit.
Paul: It is.
Michelle: Anyway, day after day, week after week, uh, night and day, this thing, the, the wood was creaking, um, the wind was howling, and the dead man's hand was going knock, bang, knock, bang, knock, bang.
I mean, the guy- Mm ... was going, was starting to go crazy. It was... This is the ultra-religious guy, right? He's in there and he's hearing knock, bang, and he's thinking, "
Paul: God is torturing
Michelle: me."
Paul: God hates me. Back on land, people were getting worried. Passing ships reported that a man was small, standing on the Smalls Gallery, but when boats tried to [00:14:00] approach, the seas were too rough to land Finally, after nearly four months, 120-something days of isolation, the storm broke enough for a relief vessel from Milford Haven to reach the rock.
Michelle: Yeah, but you know what I saw is that as the storm was starting to wind down, several ships wa- came in to see if they needed provisions and if they needed help, and several times when the ships started to come in, it was rocky so they didn't really wanna come in, but they would if they had to. They saw this person standing up out there on the edge-
going like this. So they figured, "Oh, they're fine. They're saying, 'Yeah, it's fine. Don't worry.'"
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Michelle: Mm. Mm-hmm. 'Cause it wasn't, you know, they, he wasn't going like this, he wasn't going like this. He was going, "Yeah, everything's okay." I guess that was their sign for, "Don't worry."
Paul: There, you're shrinking. You need to sit up.
Michelle: Oh,
Paul: sorry. Then we get Nurse centered in the screen
Michelle: for everyone. Yeah, so they were going, [00:15:00] "It's fine. Get out." And so it, so these people were supposed to be there for what? Mm. Two weeks, and they ended up being there for four months. Four months. Well, one of them did anyway.
Paul: Yeah.
Michelle: Anyhow, um, when the rescuers climbed in on the ladder- Mm
uh, what they found was shocking to them. The lamp was still burning. The lighthouse was still working, um, but 'cause Howell kept it going. You know, that, the little
Paul: guy kept it going. Despite all this, he kept going, probably to keep, try his best to keep his sanity.
Michelle: Yeah, it w- it was his job. It
Paul: was the only thing he had to do.
Yeah.
Michelle: But they didn't recognize him. He, they were like, the only way they knew it was him is 'cause he was the one- Mm ... that was supposed to be there.
Paul: I forget the-
Michelle: Um, his hair had turned completely white, and people say, "No, that doesn't happen when-" People say that doesn't happen with something- People-
Paul: I am a testament to that fact.
Yeah,
Michelle: but people, people have said that, um, "Oh, it can't happen. You can't, like, your hair can't turn white when something horrible happens," but I've seen it. [00:16:00] I've seen people's hair turn white in no time after, uh, something happens. But anyway, um, he wasn't recognizable. He was completely emaciated. Then again, I mean, that's 'cause the food had run out.
I mean, you can't just grab a clam as it flies over. Or a fish, you know? Here comes a wave, grab the fish. Um, and, uh, and they
Paul: said that- His family didn't even recognize him.
Michelle: Yeah, he couldn't even talk. They said he barely had a voice, and he wasn't making sense. I mean, do you blame him?
Paul: Right.
Michelle: I mean, the guy he died was knocking on the window- Yeah
for four months.
Paul: Right.
Michelle: And, um, and he was incredibly traumatized. Uh, when they brought him ashore, the people in the town didn't even know. His own family, like, could barely recognize him. Right. He was never, ever the same. Right. He was never sane again.
Paul: Right. So Howell was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.
Uh, the physical evidence and the state of the coffin proved Griffith had died of natural causes. But the psychological damage Howell endured was [00:17:00] permanent. The Smalls Lighthouse incident, it sent shockwaves through the maritime world, as you can imagine. Trinity House realized that putting two men alone in extreme isolation was a recipe for madness or tragedy.
Michelle: Yeah, Trinity House were the people who owned the lighthouse. Mm-hmm. We didn't mention that earlier. Mm-mm. I don't know
Paul: where Dragon went.
Michelle: Oh, go ahead. Anyway, and because of that Tom- because of the two Thomas incidents, Griffin and Howell, uh, the company changed the entire way of doing things. From then on, you had to have three men to go crazy in a lighthouse.
So the UK made it mandatory that you had to have a minimum of three lighthouse keepers, not a single one and not two. So, um, that way if you had a corpse trapped outside doing this, you had two other guys to talk to each other saying, "You're not crazy. You're not crazy. You're not crazy."
Paul: Mm-hmm. I
Michelle: guess.
Paul: And, right, and it reduced the [00:18:00] chances of ha- there being a power struggle if you ended up having three men at odds with each other, or two men at
Michelle: odds
Paul: with each other.
Because everyone knows that- Yeah ...
Michelle: when you have three people together as friends, no one gets cut out.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Michelle: Always works best that way.
Paul: Right. Right, so the rule remains standard, this three-person rule. It's sort of like-
Michelle: You can tell he was never a teenage girl in high school
Paul: No. The rule of three remained standard , uh, mar-- it remained standard maritime policy until lighthouses were fully autom- automated late in the 20th century.
Michelle: Yeah, and that rule of three became, uh, common to all lighthouses across the world as far as we know.
Paul: Yeah. It's a story that inspired movies like Ro- uh, Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse, and is-- it's a stark reminder of what happens when human psychology is pushed to its absolute limits-
Michelle: Yeah, they had a-
Paul: against the raw power of nature.
Michelle: Yeah, they had, um, Hedley M-- what's her name? Hedley Lamarr playing [00:19:00] the arm
They did a remake, and they wanted to- Not
Paul: Hedley, Heady. Sorry ...
Michelle: they did a remake, and they wanted to ha- oh, I'm not gonna even go there.
Paul: Anyway, the story gives the term- Which I
Michelle: didn't mean any harm.
Paul: Th- this story, it, it gives the term the perfect storm a new meaning.
Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. There were first four months of gale that they didn't expect, ceaseless battering waves.
I mean, this thing was, like, 80 feet high, and they said the waves were going over it.
Paul: Right. And second, there's a man who dies from illness because the storm, uh, b- because the storm remains, i- i- it must... What, what am I trying to say here?
Michelle: You're trying to say that a guy died of illness or accident, and no one could do anything about it 'cause of the storm, and-
Paul: That's what I'm saying
Michelle: and he was on the lighthouse- ... with his arch enemy.
Paul: That's right. That's right. That's right. And third, the survivor was no friend of the [00:20:00] deceased. His ar- he was his arch enemy.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: Right? And he wanted to, his, it, because of his beliefs and just as being a human being, he, he treated it, he tried to treat his remains with respect and civility.
Michelle: And he didn't wanna get, he wanted to keep the remains so that he didn't- And- ... get accused of murder ...
Paul: murder, and, and didn't wanna go to hell, I'm sure.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: So you have a thing that's, uh- He, like,
Michelle: lived in hell for the
Paul: next- Yeah ... for the rest
Michelle: of his life ...
Paul: all, all the while, he suffers the worst fate of the living, being driven slowly mad by effects of the storm's wind constantly animating the corpse of his partner.
Michelle: I can't imagine what went through the mind of that poor man. Yeah. I just can't.
Paul: It- You know? It, it, it i- it i- it truly is beyond the pale. Uh, the, you know, the, this conflagration of circumstances between a physical storm-
Michelle: That's
Paul: why- ... stuck in a place, guy dies, and then but not really. You do get the... Yeah. Not really.
Michelle: [00:21:00] Yeah.
Paul: Is he dead? Not really.
Michelle: Not really. He's, he, he got the last laugh. He really- Anyway ... he really hated him so bad that after he died, it's like he haunted his body-
Paul: Mm-hmm ...
Michelle: so that he could drive the guy crazy.
Paul: Yeah.
Michelle: Makes you wonder, did he? Really, did he, like, stay there and drive the guy crazy? I mean, was this his last hurrah?
Paul: His last hurrah.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: Oh.
Michelle: Would you have done it?
Paul: You really have this morbid ability that-
Michelle: Think about it ... If, if you were a ghost, would you have gone in there and just done that? Just, you know, "Hey, you..." I'm kidding it. I'm kidding. Yeah. But seri- seriously, this is why I never took a job as a lighthouse keeper.
Paul: I debated it.
Michelle: Yeah?
Paul: Could never find a job doing one, though. They were all automated.
Michelle: Yeah? Would you have done one knowing this story?
Paul: No. Probably not. I doubt it. [00:22:00]
Michelle: Yeah. I was gonna take a job as an elevator operator-
Paul: Mm-hmm ...
Michelle: but I could not remember the route.
Paul: Mm.
Michelle: It was hard.
Paul: Ah.
Michelle: Yeah.
Paul: As is- Very hard ... that joke.
Anyway, everybody, th- thank you- Oh, there's
Michelle: Dragon. He's climbing... Oh, no, that was you. I thought Dragon was climbing up my foot. Don't know where
Paul: he went. I hope he's not climbing up my foot.
Michelle: Your foot?
Paul: My foot, yeah. I'm viewed as an alternative food source for those creatures, I swear.
Michelle: Well, maybe, maybe I'll bring my skink down next time.
Paul: No, please don't.
Michelle: He has a blue tongue. She has a blue tongue.
Paul: Thank you, everyone, for joining us this week. Our aim is to entertain you and educate you about the nature of certain pet reptiles.
Michelle: And as it, as my, as my want, I'm gonna cut in and give a little message.
Paul: Okay.
Michelle: Okay. Go visit my channel, Spirit Talker Do- uh, Spirit Talker, on YouTube.
And [00:23:00] for my Spirit Talker people who might be here, um, I just want you to know you can subscribe, and I want you to also know that I don't put out videos as much on that one as I do here. I'm gonna try more, but since my head injury, my typing is not good, and that's why I don't put out things. It takes me a lot longer with the typing.
So if you guys, uh, leave a comment here about not caring, uh, about the subtitles, um, as much, then I can make quicker videos there, and you'll just have to figure out the subtitles yourself. Let me know.
Paul: Okay. So please, on this channel, subscribe, like, give us five stars. Um, you... We're also available w-
Michelle: A hyperlink.
Don't forget the hyperlink ...
Paul: yeah. You can also hear us on our podcast, um, w- available wherever you get your podcasts.
Michelle: That's right.
Paul: And there's also e-
Michelle: Even on Lighthouses ...
Paul: on our, [00:24:00] on our YouTube page- Been on Lighthouse ... there's a featured channel section. Um, a- and thank you again for joining us. Be good to each other.
Love one another. Take care of each other. Be safe, and have a great week. We'll see you again soon.
Michelle: Oh, we have a Halloween special coming.
Paul: Yes.
Michelle: Awes- it's gonna be awesome.
Paul: In...
Michelle: The...
Paul: The... Spooky Coop.
We
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