Jekyll Island Club Hotel

The Jekyll Island Club, a private retreat for Rockefellers, Morgans, and Vanderbilts that hosted the secret 1910 meeting that created the Federal Reserve, is haunted by at least four former members including railroad president Samuel Spencer (who still reads the morning paper) and J.P. Morgan (whose cigar smoke drifts through Sans Souci cottage).

In November 1910, six men boarded a private train car in New Jersey under fake names, traveled to a private island off the Georgia coast, and wrote the plan that became the Federal Reserve System. They didn't admit the meeting happened until the 1930s. The building where they met is now a hotel, and at least four of its former members are still checking in.

The Jekyll Island Club opened on January 21, 1888, as the most exclusive winter retreat in America. Rockefellers, Morgans, Vanderbilts, Pulitzers. Munsey's Magazine wrote in 1904 that if all members sat at the same table, a sixth of the world's wealth would be under one roof. The island was purchased by the club's founders in 1886 for ,000. Nobody who wasn't a member set foot on it.

Samuel Spencer, president of the Southern Railroad Company, kept a favorite suite in the Annex. Every visit followed the same routine: the Wall Street Journal delivered to his room, coffee at his right hand, silence until he was ready. Spencer died in a train collision near Lawyers, Virginia, on November 29, 1906. Guests who have stayed in his old room since then keep finding their morning paper disturbed, pages turned or refolded, their coffee partially sipped while they were out.

J.P. Morgan kept a third-floor apartment in Sans Souci, one of the club's cottages. The smell of his cigars drifts through those rooms on certain nights. Nobody has smoked indoors there in years.

The club's first ghost predates its opening. General Lloyd Aspinwall, a founding member and the club's intended first president, died suddenly on September 4, 1886, more than a year before the doors opened. He never saw the finished building. Early members described seeing him on the anniversary of his death, walking the Riverfront Veranda at dusk, hands clasped behind his back in military posture. The veranda has since been enclosed and renamed the Aspinwall Room. The September sightings continued.

Then there is the bellhop. He shows up on the second floor in a 1920s-era cap and uniform, knocking gently on guestroom doors. Bridegrooms encounter him most often. He arrives with a freshly pressed suit, announces the delivery, and disappears. Some grooms report finding their suits immaculately pressed in the morning even though no living staff member attended to them. Nobody has identified who the bellhop was.

An employee working late when the hotel was largely empty kept getting calls from rooms he knew were closed and unoccupied. When he checked, no one was there. Laughter came from empty hallways, the kind that stops the moment you walk toward it.

Charlotte Maurice rounds out the known presences in Room 3101 of the Annex. She is described as benevolent. Guests report a warm, calming sensation, and at least one visitor claimed she urged them to enjoy their life. As ghost encounters go, that's a good one.

The Jekyll Island Club Resort is open to the public now. No Rockefeller-level fortune required. Spencer's Annex suite, the Aspinwall Room, Morgan's Sans Souci apartment, and Room 3101 are all accessible. If your coffee looks lighter than you left it, someone got there first.