TITAL 2: Why did It Take Me So Long To Do This?

The nearby Lake Fort Phantom Hill is also said to be haunted by a watery spirit who is familiarly called the “Lady of the Lake.” This phantom woman is said to have been seen numerous times, the first of which almost 150 years ago, long be the lake even existed. Dressed in a light-colored long gown or robe the watery ghost is said have been seen wandering aimlessly around the lakeside. Others who have seen her described the apparition as floating over the lake, sometimes carrying a lantern and surrounded by a bluish glow.

Who is this restless spirit? The answer to this question provides as many legends and the spirit herself. The first legend says she was the wife of a pioneer who built a small cabin in the woods that are now filled with Lake Phantom. In the midst of the dangerous Comancheria, the cabin was often attacked by Indians. To protect themselves, the couple made a pact that no one would enter the cabin without first speaking a secret password. If the code word wasn’t given, they were to shoot anything or anyone that tried to enter. One day when the man had gone out hunting he was ambushed by Indians as he approaching his cabin. Injured, he managed to escape and began clawing at the door to his cabin. Forgetting about his password or unable to say it, his wife shot him before he cleared the stoop. According to legend, the forlorn woman continues to wander the lake, cursed for eternity for killing her husband.
A second legend says the when a couple were to meet at a church near the lake in the mid 1940s to exchange wedding vows, the groom never arrived. After hours of waiting and sure that he would not have left her standing at the alter, she begged authorities to look for her groom. The next morning he was found dressed in his finest suit floating in a boat in the middle of the lake. Though the man’s face bore and expression of severe pain, doctors could not determine the cause of death. Some say the spirit was the bride searching for her fiancé’s killer.

A third legend places the spirit at a much later date in the early 1980s. According to this tale, a young woman and her lover agree to mete at the lake for an evening of romance. However, when the young man arrived he was enraged by a rumor he had heard about her and the two began to quarrel. The disagreement grew worse ending in the man drowning her in the lake. In this version, it is the murdered woman who wanders the lake.