On the morning of April 23, 1882, according to a newspaper account of what followed that day, Tony kissed his wife and child goodbye at the dock in Wilmington and waved to them from the deck of the Passport as it headed downriver for Southport. The trip was uneventful. That afternoon, with time on his hands before the evening dance, Tony accepted an invitation to take a sail around Bald Head Island with his fellow musicians. Since none were seamen, they were probably accompanied by the owner of the boat, but the details of the excursion are sketchy and based on hearsay. Perhaps they took their fishing lines along. They had plenty of time before the evening's festivities, and fishing was good in the location.

The boat was well ballasted and in sound condition; the weather was gorgeous. A gentle breeze caused slight ripples over an otherwise mirrorlike surface on the water. There was no explanation then, nor has there ever been for what happened next. The boat sank. Some said it went straight down rather than capsizing, and that later, visitors to the scene of the accident could look down into the water and observe the sail unfurled, swinging back and forth with the motion of the waves. Though everyone else escaped unharmed, Tony was drowned. His body was recovered soon afterward and buried beneath a stone monument that marks the spot to this day in the Old Smithville Burying Grounds in Southport. The stone reads simply "ANTONIO CASELETTA, BORN 1863, DIED AUGUST 23, 1882.

That should have been the end of the story, but instead it was the beginning. Maybe it was because Tony was only nineteen when his life ended so abruptly, or maybe because of his obsessive attachment to the beloved harp which he played so beautifully, whatever the reason, local lore reveals that Tony returned. While no one is quite sure when he was first heard playing his harp again in the old inn, he has been there for as long as anyone can remember.

Mary Stuart Callari, whose family has owned the property (in later years known as the Brunswick Inn) since 1949, remembers hearing stories of the ghost before they moved in. Her first experience with Tony came in the early fifties when she was in high school. "I was coming home after basketball practice one night. Both my parents were still at work. As I walked up to the house, I thought how big and dark it seemed. I was uneasy about going in alone, but just as I started up the steps lights went on in the living room and kitchen, then room by room all over the house. When I got inside no one was there. The strangest thing was that there were no light switches back then. In fact, even today, the lights have to be turned on by a pull chain from a light fixture in the center of the room I knew it was Tony, but somehow, I was not afraid. I felt that he was protecting me."

Stuart Callari's mother, Alice Arrington, who lived there until her death in 1993, heard the ghost many times. She heard his music and also his footsteps walking around the home's spectacular rotunda and continuing down the circular stairway. The ghost was one of her favorite subjects and she used to entertain guests with tales of his antics.

Mrs. Callari, who also has listened to Tony's harp, described the music as "melodic in a strange way. It sounds like a tune, though nothing you could hum. It is rather metallic. When you hear it is--it is no longer there. It always sounds off in the distance."

In the days before the house was air-conditioned, Mrs. Callari recalled summertime visits with her children. "The windows would all be open. Sometimes a storm would wake me in the middle of the night. I would get up to shut the windows, but Tony would have already shut them. At other times, the wind would change and it would get cool during the night. I'd get up to get blankets to cover the kids, and when I'd get there they would already be covered up."

Another strange incident happened during a summer vacation when both she and her sister, Pat Pittenger, and their families were visiting. Mrs. Callari was pregnant at the time and being close to term was unable to climb the stairs, so she was given a downstairs bedroom. "I couldn't get to sleep. I kept hearing lots of noise--it got so noisy it woke up Kerry, my young son. It sounded like the house was full of people walking around upstairs, just overhead. Finally, I realized that I was in the only room on the first floor with no room above it." Everyone else was asleep!