Isle of Mystery (1959)

[music] There she is. Out of the Gulf of Mexico, there arises a castle of the sea. We are approaching a realm of ghosts, of evil, fantastic memories. It's amazing how little people know of this weird stronghold. Yet it's a part of Monroe County, Florida. A gigantic abandoned fortress. The largest masonry fortification on this [music] continent. Forbidding, grim, mysterious. But there's a laugh here, too. Why the moat? This island of frowning walls is surrounded by [music] the sea, but it's also surrounded by a moat full of water. I wonder what brand of Jamaica rum the architects used to get that inspiration. But you don't laugh much here, and when you do, it's like the hollow laugh of a ghost. We're soon to find out that this immense placid moat was no matter of laughter. That's a funny word above the door there, Arcadia. Huh. I always thought Arcadia meant moonlight and your best girl. This was an inferno. It was in 1846, the year after the Mexican War. Pulk was president. The War Department at Washington decided to build [music] an American Gibralter to control the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. Naval strategy pointed to the westernmost group of the Florida Keys, the dried Tortugas. And here was built this amazing, almost forgotten fortress. Tortugas is Spanish for turtles. In Buccaneer days, these islands were a haunt of pirates. When the fort was built, a heavy British cannon was found in the sand. The type of gun used aboard a British man of war, and on it was engraved the date 1700. Maybe it was captured by pirates under the skull and crossbones in some longforgotten [music] engagement. They say that old gold coins are sometimes unearthed on this island. And there are legends that there's a great [music] pirate horde buried somewhere. We are appalled by the immensity of this strange construction. It's a hexagon, a six-sided stronghold covering 16 acres to the water's edge. The walls, 60 ft high, are stupendously massive. There are miles and miles of galleries in triple tiers. All this immense mass of [music] brick and stone, metal and lumber was taken by boat and barge to this lonely island. This citadel of the sea was built by slaves, droves of black [music] slaves who trailed under the tropical sun. Millions piled on millions and more millions were sunk into this folly of the sea. And what a howl the taxpayers must have made. Then in the 70s it was abandoned. [music] And now there's not a single living thing on the island. Silence, silence. Not a sound is heard. Footsteps ring with an eerie clang on the stony floors. [music] Voices reverberate with hollow echoes. We shiver with a sense of spooky mystery. We always want to look behind as if someone were following us. Ghosts. It's like the gloom of a medieval cat. Fort Jefferson, as they called it in the old days, was powerfully armed. On every side, we come upon dismounted derelic cannon. 500 guns pointed their threatening muzzle seawward. One type was called the Colombiad. It was considered giant artillery in the old days. It fired a 15-in projectile. Ho ho, I'll bet these old cap pistols could heave a mean cannonball at that. But not one of these guns was ever fired in defense. Not even when a hostile power sailed against the dry [music] Tortugas. During the Civil War, a Confederate fighting ship ho in sight on one occasion. The captain sent a message something like this. "You all Yankees had better surrender, or when we get through, [music] you will be a bunch of dry tortugas." "Great guns!" growled Major Arnold, the hard-boiled common dot. [music] "Yes, and he had a lot of great guns, 500 of them, but no powder." Anyway, that Yankee chucked one of the biggest bluffs in history. [music] He sent back a blistering message. Gulan, if you don't clear out, I'll cut loose [music] with my 500 guns and send you there. And the Confederate captain took one squint at those guns and sailed away. He didn't know about there not being any powder. In the grounds is a long brick oven. It's a legend among the seafares that this was used to burn the bodies of men. The real truth seems almost as odd. The oven was designed to heat cannonballs. [music] Out of it rolled red hot projectiles, such as artillery when in the days of old fired against ships to set them ablaze. How would you like to have a red hot cannonball bounce off the old beam? Not so good. What's this? Some death hole where an evil Herod might have kept his captives? No, it's just a sistern. There were many sistns, one behind each gun. We constantly come upon these square holes in the floor, mouths of sistns with dank, brackish water in their depths. They're 20 ft long, 18 ft wide, 14 ft deep. Originally, they were covered with slabs [music] of stone that have disappeared. Now, they're a treacherous series of waiting traps. No place for a stroll at night. [music] Yes, this was not only a fortress of the sea, but also a prison of the sea. We come upon a wall gouged by bullets. The execution ground where prisoners faced the firing squad. [music] This was the oceanic federal prison to which most dangerous and hardened of all the prisoners in [music] the United States were sent. There were men accused of desertion, espionage, treason, civil prisoners, too, too desperate for any continental jail. And of course, there were escapes. It was the devil's [music] island of its time. But there was always the moat. We see it now, sea green and placid, 30 ft deep, 75 ft wide. In the old prison days, it was full of sharks. The authorities planted it with sharks, and [music] mighty few men would venture a swim across that 75- ft stretch of sharkinfested water. Yet, some did and made it. But more [music] perished. There's a tale of a man seen standing on the bottom beneath the clear green water. Driven wild by malt treatment. He had tried to make the swim with ball and chain on his [music] ankle. That's why he seemed to be standing on the bottom. And they tell the story of a Union soldier who fought at [music] Bull Run. Or maybe he didn't fight. In any case, he ran away and he ran all the way back to his native Vermont. For that, they sent him to the dry Tortugas. Here, he hatched a plot with some fellow prisoners to [music] escape, become pirates. But it didn't work. And now for the darkest chapter of all. The yellow [music] old Jack was once the scourge of the Gulf of Mexico. This island was crammed with [music] derelic humanity. And it was a tragic pest hole. A major Joseph Smith was the medical officer. And in the epidemic of 1867, [music] this major Smith had to take care of 2500 patients in these two small [music] buildings. There wasn't half room enough. The doctor had to take hundreds to a nearby sandbar where shacks were thrown up. And when the yellow fever was raging its worst, the medical officer caught it [music] and died. Well, the common dant was desperate. There was just one thing for him to do now. Down this corridor he stroed. There was another doctor in this prison. He was the man in the iron mask of the dried Tortugas. Not that he wore a mask, [music] but he was guarded, chained, and kept in a lonely dungeon. Great heavens, what a horrible place for a man to be chained. Well, the common dant went to him. Doctor, he said, you're on parole now. I want you to act as our medical officer. Who was this most tragic and eminent of all the prisoners who lived in this cell? His name was Mud, literally. And in fact, although this is no time for joking, he was Dr. Samuel Mud who set the broken leg of John Wils Booth, the assassin of Lincoln. After killing Lincoln, Booth rode to Maryland with his broken leg. He stopped at the country house of this Dr. Mud. The physician didn't know he was the assassin. He set the fracture and Booth rode on. And for that, they sentenced the doctor to the fortress [music] of the Dry Tortugas. With a fever raging, they made him medical officer, blazing midsummer. The doctor didn't know that mosquitoes transmitted the plague, but he merely thought of ventilation as a help. He broke open the gunports and the high winds of the Gulf of Mexico swept through the prison and blew away those mosquitoes and that checked the epidemic. Later, an old and broken man, the doctor, was pardoned by the president. Hundreds and hundreds died in the plague of 67. They were buried on that sand spit out there that shows so white. And today, when the storm blows on the Gulf and heavy seas come breaking over, coffins are washed up and go drifting by the fortress of the dry tortugas. And there's a mystery here, too. A mystery grave. For years, unknown persons have laid fresh flowers on this lonely tomb. Some say that under it is the wife of the lighthouse keeper who [music] befriended the Cuban fisherman, and they thought her an angel. And now, the sworthy men of the sea, bring these mysterious flowers. And after the exterminating reigns of the yellow fever, the sea prison was abandoned. As a naval stronghold, it was out of date. [music] As a prison, it was deadly. So the prisoners were removed and the place was left to the winds and the goats. And now the island citadel of the dry tortugal seems to vanish below the waters of the Mexican G. [music]