Ghost Legend of Oakaloosa Island
This legend has it that in the mid to late 18th century a band of pirates over came and took an English trade ship that had sailed out of Pensacola. Pensacola at that time was a Spanish Colony and port. England had treaties with Spain and moored their ships at many of their ports. The story is said that on this trade ship were two young English maidens. After the pirates took the ship, they killed every one aboard. All but these two maidens. They retrieved the gold and other valuables on this English ship. The pirates had the two maidens get into a long boat and they came ashore on what is now Okaloosa Island.
Once on the beach, one pirate tried to have his way with one of the maidens. She broke lose from him and attempted to escape. He pulled out his saber, swung it and decapitated the young maiden. Supposedly the pirates buried the young maiden without her head.
Many old timers of the area have claimed to have seen the headless ghost of this maiden roaming the beaches and sand dunes searching for her missing head. My great uncle Tom White was six foot seven inches and was by no means scared of anything known to man. But one evening right after sun down, Uncle Tom was retrieving his mullet net and looked toward the beach and claimed sure as a summer day is long that he saw her. What he saw scared him so bad that he left his net right there in the water where he was fishing. The next morning after the sun had came up, my father, Mahlon Boswell returned with him to get his net.
Joseph Alan Boswell