Zak Bagans of the Travel Channel’s paranormal show, Ghost Adventures, described the history of the South’s most genteel port city, Charleston, as “just layers and layers on the dark history cake.” It’s certainly an interesting analogy, though I must confess that I often find Mr. Bagans’ antics annoying. In fact, I have been known to refer to his team’s techniques as the “ADHD method of ghost hunting.” However, I am excited to see they are investigating Charleston’s Old City Jail.
The Old City Jail. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Back in July, my love affair with Charleston was rekindled when I spent nearly a week there. I spent my days wandering the streets making a pilgrimage to sites that I’ve spent years reading about, including the Old City Jail. The building is a massive, looming structure that seems to glower down upon anyone passing along Magazine Street. If a building could threaten someone, this building would threaten a horrible, miserable death. Staring up at the crenellated turrets, decaying bricks, windows like empty eye sockets, and the massive and thick brick walls, it’s hard to imagine this place could not be haunted. The memory of it sends a chill up my spine.
For 137 years, 1802 to 1939, this hulking castle groaned with the cries of prisoners. The property upon which the building was constructed had originally been set aside for public use in 1680, and contained, at various times, a hospital, and a poor house. For many years, a workhouse for slaves called the Sugar House stood next to the hulking jail.
Slaves found “wandering” the streets were held in the Sugar House until their owners bailed them out. While locked away here, slaves would be forced to work on a treadmill to grind corn for use in the jail. This constantly turning treadmill often injured and maimed the slaves, and at times their bodies or body parts would end up in the ground corn.
The jail itself was just as harsh with inmates locked away in large, group cells, instead of individual cells. The most dangerous prisoners, or those that were possible escape risks, were chained to the floor. Men and women were not separated, and all had to live in filth where vermin, infection, and disease were rampant.
The Robert Mills addition to the Old City Jail. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Among the many unfortunate souls who passed through the building’s Gothic portal was the legendary couple, John and Lavinia Fisher, who lived their last days in the moldy, dark halls of this place. Their ghastly tale involved them murdering guests of the inn that they ran just outside town. While this legend is the focal point of many tour guides’ tales, A recent book has freed the couple from the shackles of their legendary crimes. Bruce Orr, a former Charleston homicide detective, explored the legend of the couple, their crimes, and their supposedly defiant ends discovering that all but the most basic facts were just myth. In fact, there is nothing to even corroborate that the spirits within the jail are even the revenants of the Fishers.
The harsh conditions led to the building of a new jail in the late 1930s. In recent years, a group led by the American School of Building Arts has been working to restore the crumbling castle on Magazine Street. Ghost tours now bring tourists through the damp halls that still echo with spirits.
Among the activity that Mr. Bagans and his crew might encounter inside the old jail are spirit voices, apparitions, and even physical contact. Staff and visitors have had numerous experiences. One of the more intriguing episodes was recorded in a 2002 article in the Charleston Post & Courier: a worker leaving the building late one evening felt that he wasn’t alone. This was confirmed when his flashlight beam picked up a grayish, gaunt man standing to the right of the exit door. He stared at the man for a moment and when he moved towards the man he disappeared, only to reappear on the left side of the door. The figure then vanished and the worker fled. Yet another layer in the cake of history…
Sources
ABC News 4. “’Ghost Adventures’ heads to spooky Charleston scene.” 19 October 2011.
Barbour, Clay. “Eerie, dark history haunts Old City Jail.” The Post & Courier. 27 October 2002.
Behre, Robert. “Old City Jail now a national treasure.” The Post & Courier. 28 May 1999.
National Park Service. “Old Jail.” Charleston’s Historic, Religious and Community Buildings. Accessed 7 August 2011.
Orr, Bruce. Six Miles to Charleston: The True Story of John and Lavinia Fisher. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
N.B. This article was edited and revised 14 July 2019.
While visiting Charleston a few weeks ago, I took a quick day trip to Georgetown, just up the coast. The drive from Charleston passes numerous roadside stands selling traditional sweetgrass baskets, marshes, and haunted plantations like Hopsewee and Hampton. Driving into Georgetown on US-17, the first glimpse of the city is decidedly industrial. Turning towards town, the view changes quickly to broad, residential streets with sunlight dappled by the moss-laden ancient oaks.
The residential streets beyond are lined with beautifully restored homes and the whole effect of the town is marvelously drowsy and quiet. The town seems lost in an aged and blissful dementia, unaware of time and the rush of the outside world. So many of Georgetown’s stories are just as timeless.
Sampit River just off of Front Street. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Georgetown is recognized as the third oldest city in South Carolina, though this is argued as the Spanish settled the area in the early 16th century, thus making it one of the oldest cities in the New World. Officially, the city was founded by the English in 1721 and served as a wealthy port city and center for agriculture for this fertile region. Initially, wealth flowed in from the trade in indigo, but following the American Revolution, cultivation of indigo was supplanted by rice which grew especially well in this wet, marshy area. By 1840, almost half of the rice produced in the United States was grown in this region, and Georgetown became the largest port for rice exportation in the world.
The Civil War brought horrors to the country and a blockade to Georgetown’s port, though the war did not scar the city like its neighbor, Charleston. With the loss of slave labor, many of the large plantations in the area struggled to produce the vast amounts of rice that had been produced before the war. Rice, once the port’s main export was replaced by timber and an International Paper plant gave a much needed boost to the local economy following the Great Depression. With such a large an intact historic district, the city has been able to capitalize on its heritage and now attracts tourists and retirees.
Many of the area’s ghosts have been documented by Elizabeth Huntsinger Wolf, in her three volumes: Ghosts of Georgetown, More Ghosts of Georgetown, and Georgetown Mysteries and Legends. Many of these stories appear to be old legends though a few have modern postscripts with activity that has been recently reported. Please note that many of these homes are private residences; please respect the owner’s privacy.
Ruhf, Nancy R. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for the City of Georgetown Historic District. 3 February 1971.
Workers of the Writers’ Program of the Work Projects Administration in the State of South Carolina. South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State. NYC: Oxford University Press, 1941.
Beth Elohim Cemetery 400 Broad Street
Gate of the Beth Elohim Cemetery. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
The second oldest Jewish cemetery in the state, the Beth Elohim Cemetery contains graves of many of the most prominent citizens of Georgetown, including three of the city’s six Jewish mayors. The legend associated with this graveyard involves Pauline Moses who, with her best friend Eliza Munnerlyn, had planned to be wed on the same day at the same time, though in different locations. Both girls contracted yellow fever and died a few days before the weddings. Subsequently, girlish laughter heard emanating from this cemetery as well as the cemetery of Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church just across the street, where Munnerlyn is buried, is thought to be theirs.
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Bolem House (private) 719 Prince Street
Bolem House. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Possibly the oldest home in Georgetown, recent evidence indicates that it was originally constructed as a tavern. With the influx of sailors into the port, Georgetown would have had at least a few establishments to house and serve them. Residents of the house have since occasionally heard and seen the revenants of some of these long dead sailors. Huntsinger describes the surprise of a family member when he encountered a sailor on Christmas of 1993. The family member went into the kitchen and “encountered a very old man in an old-time sailor’s outfit, and he appeared to have no teeth. The man wandered around the kitchen, then into the hallway, never saying anything and looking somewhat displaced.” The witness asked the rest of the family if they had seen someone and they had not. Hopefully, the poor sailor will soon figure out where he needs to be.
Sources
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. More Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1998.
Cleland House (private) 405 Front Street
The Cleland House, 2011, by Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.
DuPre House. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
This house has in the recent past served as a bed and breakfast, but there was a large for sale sign in the yard when I visited a few weeks ago. An internet search doesn’t say if the inn is still open. I do hope that the little girl and the mother who have resided there since before the Civil War are okay. Guests in this home constructed around 1740 have reported seeing and hearing a woman and small girl who may have been victims of a fire in the 19th century. In addition to occasionally smelling smoke, occupants have come face to face with the two spirits and have heard childish giggling and singing. At times, small footprints have even appeared in freshly vacuumed carpet.
Sources
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Henning-Miller House 331 Screven Street
Henning-Miller House. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
This lovely, circa 1760 (some accounts state the house is circa 1800, which would make this story false), home boasts a helpful spirit on the staircase. During the American Revolution, British soldiers often imposed themselves on the hospitality of both Tory (British sympathizers) and Patriot families alike. The family living in the Henning House was Tory but had a daughter with Patriot sympathies.
Throughout the South Carolina Low Country, the British had chased Patriot hero, Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion through the swamps and marshes. One evening as the British were sleeping upstairs, of their officers overheard the daughter talking downstairs of Francis Marion being in town. He rose quickly and, in his rush, tripped on the stairs breaking his neck, killing him instantly. Since that incident, anyone losing their footing on the same stairs has felt a hand keeping them from meeting the same fate as that young British officer.
Sources
Barefoot, Daniel W. Spirits of ’76: Ghost Stories of the American Revolution. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2009.
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Heriot-Tarbox House
(formerly the Harbor House Bed & Breakfast, private) 15 Cannon Street
Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church 300 Broad Street
Prince George Winyah Episcopal Church. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Opened in 1747, the marvelous church of Prince George Winyah has served the citizens of Georgetown for centuries. For the legend surrounding the churchyard, see the above entry on the Beth Elohim Cemetery.
Pyatt-Doyle House (private) 630 Highmarket Street
Pyatt-Doyle House. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
This 1790 home is home to what appears to be mostly residual activity. It is noted that when a rocking chair is placed in one bedroom, it will rock on its own. Some visitors have even witnessed a woman holding a baby sitting in the chair. Others have heard the sound of footsteps throughout the house.
Sources
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
Rice Museum 633 Front Street
A view of the block that burned this morning. The SC Maritime Museum in the foreground, sustained some damage, while the buildings towards the Rice Museum were gutted by the early morning fire. 2011, by Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.Kaminski Building. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Georgetown’s Rice Museum, documenting the history of rice cultivation in the South Carolina Lowcountry, occupies two historic buildings on Front Street: the Old Market Building with its landmark clock tower, and the adjacent Kaminski Building. The Old Market Building once housed, as the name implies, the local market selling produce, livestock and slaves while the upper portions housed the town hall. Over the years the building has served as a jail, a printing shop, and the town police department.
The Kaminski Building, constructed in 1842, the same year as the market, served as retail space for many years. With so much activity over the years, it’s hard to imagine that these buildings wouldn’t contain a ghost or three. Footsteps, particularly those of someone with a peg-leg have been heard in the art gallery in the Kaminski Building. Elizabeth Huntsinger, author of Ghosts of Georgetown and More Ghosts of Georgetown, points out a particular antique sideboard in the museum that may even be associated with the spirit of an enslaved woman.
Sources
Fant, Mrs. James W. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Georgetown County Rice Museum. 8 November 1969.
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. More Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1998.
Strand Theatre 710 Front Street
Strand Theatre. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
This plot of land on Front Street has been occupied by a cinema since the Peerless Theatre was constructed here in 1914. The Strand Theatre opened in 1941 and closed in the 1970s. In 1982 the Swamp Fox Players, a local community theatre company took over the building, slowly restoring its Art Moderne glory.
Almost immediately after taking over the building, company members began noticing the sounds of footsteps in the balcony. During a performance of an original show, Ghosts of the Coast, based upon a series of ghost stories and other haunting tales, actors leaving the theatre began to notice odd cold spots and the sounds of whispers began to emanate from the backstage area. They summoned a local ghost hunter who blamed the occurrence on a scene in the show involving a hoodoo spell. While the cold spots and whispers have since ceased, the footsteps continue.
Sources
Wolf, Elizabeth Huntsinger. Georgetown Mysteries and Legends. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2007.
Waterman-Kaminski House 622 Highmarket Street
Waterman-Kaminski House. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Next door to the Pyatt-Doyle House is the even earlier Waterman House, built around 1770. This house is home to two separate legends. One speaks of a little boy whose family left him in the care of the home’s owners while they journeyed north during the summer. The family was lost at sea and the little eight-year-old soon fell sick with grief and died. His pitiful spirit is still seen here occasionally.
The other legend concerns a young woman who fell for a faithless sea captain. Returning from a trip he presented his love with a vial of exotic perfume. After her lover left her home, the sweetheart watched him from a third-floor window. With horror she observed him entering a local tavern, eventually emerging with another young lady. Distraught, the young woman drank the contents of the vial and died. Her sad spirit is said to still watch from the window on summer evenings.
Sources
Georgetown Paranormal. “Waterman-Kaminski House.” Haunted Places in Georgetown, SC. Accessed 13 August 2011.
Huntsinger, Elizabeth Robertson. Ghosts of Georgetown. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1995.
The view of White Point Gardens looking down South Battery towards East Battery. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell, IV, all rights reserved.
Throughout the South history creates layers. In some places there are literal layers that an archaeologist may sift through, in other places those layers can be formed through names; names that may span the centuries from the present day to another historical layer many centuries earlier. The Charleston Battery is one of those places with a few layers of names. I’ve encountered so many different names for this location; I’m not sure which is really correct. Wikipedia calls it The Battery and says that White Point Gardens is a part of that. I’ll just stick with that. A Post & Courier article from 2001 adds that even the use of “Gardens” (plural) as opposed to “Garden” (singular) is inconsistent. Nevertheless, the jumble of names adds to the layers of history that have accrued here.
In April of 1670 when the 93 passengers aboard the Carolina first sailed into what would be called Charleston Harbor, they were greeted by the tip of a peninsula at the point where two mighty rivers came together. The ship’s captain knew one of the rivers as the Ashley, as he had accompanied the earlier expedition that had named the river for Lord Anthony Ashley Cooper, one of the colony’s Lord Proprietors. The local Native Americans called the river Kiawah (which is now applied to a barrier island south of the city), and the Spanish had called it the San Jorge. At the tip of this peninsula was a Native American oyster shell midden, or trash heap. Over time, this point would be called alternately Oyster Point, or White Point, for the sun-bleached oyster shells piled there.
Initially, the settlers landed and began to build their city, named for King Charles I, on the opposite bank of the Ashley River on what would later be called Old Town Creek. Colonel William Sayle, the colony’s first governor saw the strategic importance of the peninsula’s tip, however. “It is as it were a Key to open and shutt [sic] this settlement into safety or danger,” he stated in a letter to Lord Ashley, and he began to grant land to settlers in this area. In 1679, it was decided that Oyster Point and the Cooper River side of the peninsula was a much better place for a town.
Guns and defenses on the Battery during the Civil War. This 1863 photo from The Photographic History of the Civil War (1911).
Throughout its three hundred some-odd years of existence, White Point Gardens has seen a variety of uses. It has been covered with shacks and tenements, served the defense of the city, been created as a pleasure park, and as a place for execution. Walter Fraser, Jr. in his Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City, describes a storm surge sweeping over White Point during the Hurricane of 1752, with the poor people escaping their shacks there for more substantial shelter. Following the hurricane, the White Point remained “a desolate Spot” until 1770 when the low marshy areas were filled in and elegant homes began to be built there along with a sea wall on the eastern side created with palmetto logs. This held until 1804 when it was swept away by another hurricane and it was replaced with a wall of ballast stone.
It was in the space created here that open-air concerts were given during the summer months. When the British blockaded Charleston Harbor during the War of 1812, fifteen guns of large caliber were placed along the White Point aimed at the harbor and the point began to be known as The Battery.
The ruins of houses along the Battery in 1865 by George N. Barnard.
Following the war, this pleasant point was planted with oaks and gained the name White Point Gardens during a major period of building in the late 1830s. When English actress Fanny Kemble, who married Georgia cotton planter Pierce Butler, visited the city she delighted in the promenade and the “large and picturesque old houses.” Fraser notes that in the 1840s, African-Americans were not allowed to use the park between five and ten in the evening.
From this promenade and roofs of the pretentious mansions lining the battery, the citizens of Charleston witnessed the first shots of the Civil War as Confederate attacked Fort Sumter in the harbor. Gunfire from ships during the war destroyed some of those mansions, but they were later rebuilt even more ostentatiously. The tradition of promenading along the seawall and under the sprawling live oaks continued into the 20th century. The 1941 Works Progress Administration guide to the state of South Carolina describes the scene of “Charleston children, guarded by white-turbaned Negro ‘maumas,’ play[ing] among monuments and guns that recall the city’s war-torn history of more than 250 years.”
A monument under the cooling shade of the oaks. Photo by Brian Stansberry, 2010, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Today tourists stroll the Battery and under those oaks. They may pass a stone monument reminding them of the fact that they stand on an execution ground. In fact, this spot may still be haunted by those who hung here in 1718, when Charleston was still a small colonial port. Over the course of five weeks that year some 49 men were hung here for piracy.
As the colonies grew, piracy became a major problem for trade and many of the up and coming ports. Around late May or June of 1718, the notorious Edward Teach, or Blackbeard as he is more affectionately known, blockaded Charleston Harbor. Among the first ships he captured was a London-bound ship called the Crowley loaded with a number of prominent citizens. Word was sent to the Royal Governor that these people would be summarily executed unless the port offered up medical supplies. The governor complied and the citizens were released, though lightened of their purses, valuables, and even their clothes.
Stede Bonnet from A General History of the Pyrates, c. 1725.
In response, Governor Robert Johnson asked the Lord Proprietors for assistance, but received no response. When pirates again appeared in the waters near Charleston in August, a group of local merchants banded together and under the command of William Rhett, they set out to stop this threat to their business. In the waters of North Carolina, they encountered pirate Stede Bonnet refitting his ship in the Cape Fear River.
Stede Bonnet wasn’t born into a life of crime. The son of a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, Bonnet had had a fairly successful life which enabled him to buy his way into piracy. It was the usual custom for pirates to begin their work by seizing a ship that they then used to prey on other ships, Bonnet, however, bought his ship, the Revenge. He also hired his crew and paid them regular wages. Due to lack of experience in sailing or piracy, Bonnet had to hire someone to command his men. After terrorizing shipping off the Virginia coast, Bonnet sailed for the pirate’s paradise of Nassau in the Bahamas. There, he met Blackbeard and decided to join forces.
After a night of maneuvering sloops back and forth to gain advantage in battle, the sun rose on the morning of September 27, 1718 with Bonnet sailing his one sloop, he had combined all of his men into one ship from three, towards the three sloops under Colonel Rhett. Nearly all the ship ran aground during the battle with a rising tide eventually freeing Rhett’s vessels, while Bonnet’s sloop, the Royal James, remained stuck. The Royal James was quickly boarded by Rhett’s men who outnumbered the pirates. In a last ditch effort, Bonnet ordered his gunner to blow up the ship’s powder stores, but this suicidal act was prevented by Bonnet’s men who surrendered instead. Rhett returned triumphantly to Charleston with Bonnet and twenty-nine of his men in chains.
In Charleston, Bonnet’s men were imprisoned in the Half-Moon Battery where the Exchange and Provost Dungeon were later constructed, and still stands today. Because of his gentlemanly upbringing, Bonnet was imprisoned with his boatswain, Ignatius Pell, in the home of the town’s Provost Marshall. Shortly thereafter, Bonnet and Pell, accompanied by a slave and a Native American, escaped the house possibly disguised as women, at least according to legend. The group however, wasn’t able to go very far and had only gotten as far as Sullivan’s Island, north of the city, when they were captured. Bonnet and his men were put on trial before Vice-Admiralty judge, Nicholas Trott and found guilty.
Monument in White Point Gardens near the spot of the pirate gallows. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Bonnet’s own men were hung at White Point, two days before his trial, and their bodies left dangling from the gallows before the bloated, decaying corpses were cut down and unceremoniously dumped in the marsh just off the point. Those same marshes that would later be filled in for the building of homes. Reportedly, Bonnet begged for clemency and turned much of the Charleston female population to his side, so much so that the governor had to delay the execution seven times. Even Colonel Rhett offered help by escorting Bonnet to England for a new trial, but Judge Trott’s decision stood firm.
During the time between Bonnet being found guilty and his execution, 19 other pirates were found guilty and hung at White Point. Bonnet’s day of execution finally dawned on December 10. Walter Fraser describes the scene:
…manacled and clutching a nosegay of wildflowers, [he] was taken in a hurdle to the place execution near White Point where the once bold pirate appeared terrified and near collapse. The executioner dropped the noose over his head and around his neck and then Bonnet was ‘swung off’ the cart. He died an agonizing death of strangulation, the invention of the gallows that would break the victim’s neck being years away.
His body was left hanging for a few days then unceremoniously dumped in the marsh with the remains of his men and his pirate brothers where they were eaten by crabs, riddled with maggots, and pecked by the gulls.
The hanging of Stede Bonnet from the Dutch edition of A General History of the Pyrates,c. 1725.
Over the course of five weeks, forty-nine pirates swung from the gallows at White Point. Within a couple months, pirate Richard Worley and nineteen of his men met the same fate. While the leaves of White Point Gardens’ oaks calmly sway in the ocean breeze, their roots are feeding on the blood of pirates.
The view from South Battery towards Charleston Harbor. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell, IV, all rights reserved.
There is a legend that the spirits of these pirates still stalk Battery Park and White Point Gardens. Denise Roffe includes a story of a couple who encountered an apparition hanging in midair beneath the oaks of the park. Alan Brown mentions that the spirits have been witnessed standing under the oaks and screaming at passersby. He notes that if one looks out on the bay from the foot of Water Street, where Vanderhorst Creek once met the waters of the Cooper River, when the moon is high, they may see the bloated faces of the long dead pirates just under the water’s surface. Like so many Charleston ghost stories, this story may be mostly legend, but it is grounded in a marvelous history.
Do pirate spirits still walk here? Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
In this sylvan landscape do pirate spirits hang midair? Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Blackbeard. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 1 August 2011.
Brown, Alan. Haunted South Carolina: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Palmetto State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2010.
Fraser, Walter J., Jr. Charleston! Charleston! The History of a Southern City. Columbia, SC: U. of SC Press, 1989.
Hardin, Jason. “You can say it with an ‘S,’ but early documents show there is just one garden.” Post & Courier. 2 September 2001.
Richard Worley. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 1 August 2011.
Roffe, Denise. Ghosts and Legends of Charleston, South Carolina. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2010.
Stede Bonnet. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 1 August 2011.
Workers of the Writer’s Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of South Carolina. South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto NYC: Oxford University Press, 1941.
Magnolia Cemetery 70 Cunnington Street Charleston, South Carolina
A moss-draped drive through the cemetery. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
After wandering through Magnolia Cemetery in awe for almost two hours, I began to make my way out. The cemetery has winding drives through its oak shaded acres with a posted speed limit of 15 miles per hour. Not wanting to miss anything, I was probably driving slower than that when I approached the massive cemetery gates. The gates were closed with a chain and large padlock securing them. A number of expletives left my mouth and panic quickly set in. A couple of Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottis) loudly scolded me from atop an adjacent tombstone. The welcome sign listed rules for the cemetery but no number in the event that you’re locked in with the dead. As I dialed 911, I prayed that I would not face a fine or worse for missing the very obvious sign stating that the gates would close at 6PM. It was 6:15.
In this city of so many fine homes and buildings, only I would first head to the cemetery. But, this place is so much more than just a resting place for the dead, it’s truly an art museum, a guide to three centuries of art and architecture and a habitat for native plants and wildlife. Wandering among the graves were Domestic and Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) and Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). I passed a couple of ponds within the cemetery and was excited to see a dead tree in the center of one pond with a number of water birds perching on it. Even better, were the two “Life Birds” I saw there: Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) and American White Ibis (Eudocimus albus).
A snag in the main pond with perching waterbirds. Two Wood Storks are perched at the top with two White Ibises underneath. A Cattle Egret is perched on the right with a Great Egret in the background. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
For a taphophile, Magnolia Cemetery is heavenly. Everywhere there is marvelous funerary art and symbolism. As I walked and was fed upon by legions of mosquitoes (I won’t acknowledge their scientific name as they don’t deserve it) I had to pass graves that in most cases I would be drawn to in order to pursue more interesting graves. By the end of the first hour, I took to riding in my car to avoid the mosquitoes and trying to photograph the most interesting graves closest to the drive.
The large, Gothic Revival monument to Elbert P. Jones, died 1 April 1852. Designed by architect Francis D. Lee and constructed by E. Greble of Philadelphia. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Among the more notable monuments is the grave of Rosalie Raymond White. Situated next to one of the ponds, the White family plot has some fascinating art, but particularly interesting is the grave of young Rosalie who died less than a year after her birth. There is a hooded cradle and under the hood, the likeness of the child. According to Denise Roffe in her Ghosts and Legends of Charleston South Carolina, the likeness is a death mask and one of the few such things on a grave in the United States.
Grave of Rosalie Raymond White. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
The death mask of Rosalie Raymond White. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Another prominent monument is that William Washington. I viewed this one from the car, so I couldn’t get all the information, but it appears to be a cenotaph (a monument to someone who is buried elsewhere) to this notable figure from the American Revolution. The monument, surrounded by an unusual circular iron fence (I’ve not seen one, though they were numerous in this cemetery), is a large marble column with an ivy garland wrapped around it. At the base of the column is a rattlesnake, a creature I’ve not seen at all in funerary art. The snake is taken from the early American Gadsden flag, the first flag carried into battle by the Continental Marine Corps during the American Revolution, which bears the words, “Don’t Tread On Me.” This flag has most recently been adopted by the Tea Party.
The monument to William White; a Doric column with a rattlesnake entwined at the base. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
This monument was designed by E.B. White and constructed by W.T. White, the city’s most prominent stone carver and monument builder. As I wandered the cemeteries of Charleston, in nearly every graveyard I found monuments with White’s signature.
Nearby, another marvelous monument by White is the stone for the Rev. I. E. H. Seymour. Topped with the statue of a praying woman, the stone bears a wonderful crest. An hourglass is encircled by an ouroboros, an ancient symbol meaning cyclicality; thus in this, the cyclicality of time or that even in death, life is created. This idea is strengthened by a wreath which can mean victory in death. The wings, of course, reference the wings of angels.
The crest of the Seymour monument. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Not far away is the monument for Hugh Swinton Legare, who served two years as a state legislator, South Carolina Attorney General, then as a state Representative to the United States House, and then United States Attorney General under President John Tyler. The monument consists of a large marble Corinthian column sitting on a large base. One side of the base is carved with the national crest with a bald eagle, while the opposite site bears images from the South Carolina state crest with a wonderfully carved palmetto tree with a pair of shields underneath back with 12 spears (representing the other 12 colonies); all sitting on a fallen tree. The palmetto’s significance comes from a battle fought on Sullivan’s Island near Charleston, June 28, 1776, between colonists and the British. The colonists had built a fort of palmetto logs and the British cannon fire seemed to bounce right off. The dead tree represents the defeated British fleet. This monument was also built by White and is signed “W.T. White/Steam Marble Works/115 Meeting St”.
The Legare monument. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
The South Carolina crest on the Legare monument. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Lagare died in 1840 in Boston, Massachusetts while attending ceremonies for the unveiling of the monument at Bunker Hill. He was buried in the Mount Auburn Cemetery there. Interestingly, this is one of the cemeteries upon which the designs for Magnolia Cemetery are based. Mount Auburn, coupled with New York City’s Greenwood Cemetery, provided the inspiration for the “Garden Cemetery,” a type of cemetery found throughout the United States. These cemeteries, created in park and garden-like settings were a departure from the usual churchyards where most people were buried. In 1857, Lagare’s remains were exhumed and he was re-interred here amongst the lush magnolias.
Magnolia Cemetery was founded in 1850 on the grounds of the former Magnolia Umbra plantation. The old plantation house still stands in the center of the cemetery. Laid out by South Carolina architect Edward C. Jones, the rules for governing the cemetery were copied from those of Mount Auburn and Greenwood. This sacred parcel of land has become the resting place of many of Charleston’s most prominent people.
Nearby is another stone carved with state symbolism including a wonderful, freestanding palmetto. The monument is for James Brown Boyd, Sergeant of the Palmetto Guards of the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. He was killed at the battle of Sharpsburg, Maryland (usually called Antietam), September 17, 1862. This is not a White monument and is signed “D.A. Walker.” The palmetto sculpture is signed, “A. F. Chevreaux, Sculptor”.
The Confederate section. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
According to Denise Roffe, this cemetery may have a few spirits wandering around. In one story, a brother and sister were fishing in the nearby Cooper River. When the little girl’s favorite doll fell in the water, she dove in to retrieve it and her body was found later clutching the doll. Her spirit has been seen in the company of a Civil War soldier, said to be her father. When the two are approached, they both vanish as the little girl giggles. Another spirit is also a young girl seen near the burial site of Annie Aiken.
Part of the burial lot for the crew of the CSS Hunley, the Confederate submarine that sank in Charleston harbor after sinking the USS Housatonic. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
The cemetery is massive and I easily could have spent many hours here, but the swarms of mosquitoes feeding on me every time I got out of the car began to be too much. That’s when I decided to leave, and good thing, as I found the locked gates.
The Egyptian Revival W.B. Smith mausoleum. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
A jolly man in a pickup truck pulled up as I spoke to the 911 operator. He had the key. Thank God. I told him I was so bowled over with Magnolia Cemetery that I had lost track of time. Smiling he listed some facts about the place: it contained around 33,000 interments (a number that is still growing) on 154 acres. I’m glad I’m not yet one of those who have found their rest here.
Sources
Hugh Swinton Legare. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 30 July 2011.
Jacoby, Mary Moore and John W. Meffert. Charleston: An Album from The Collection of the Charleston Museum. Dover, NH: Arcadia Press, 1997.
McNulty, Kappy and Nenie Dixon. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for Magnolia Cemetery. 23 August 1976.
Roffe, Denise. Ghosts and Legends of Charleston, South Carolina. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2010.
N.B. This article was revised and edited 20 February 2019.
In the study of ghosts, particularly in North America, lighthouses appear frequently. I’m not sure about why these beacons for the living play such a role in the world of the dead, but they appear with noticeable regularity. In the United States, the bulk of the attention on haunted lighthouses concern those of the mid-Atlantic and New England states as well as the Great Lakes lighthouses of Michigan, though there are some quite prominent haunted Southern lighthouses. Among them, the St. Augustine and Pensacola lighthouses in Florida, both of which have been investigated by TAPS, the ghost hunting organization featured on the TV show, Ghost Hunters. In fact, the investigation of the St. Augustine Lighthouse featured the investigators chasing something up and down the stairs of the lighthouse itself.
Hilton Head Rear Range Light Arthur Hill Golf Course, Palmetto Dunes Resort Hilton Head Island
The most southern of all South Carolina’s lighthouses, the Hilton Head Rear Range Light is the only remaining of two lights that originally guided shipping in Port Royal Sound. With the front light, which was mounted on the roof of a lighthouse keeper’s cottage a mile away, these lights could be lined up by the navigators of ships to provide the safest route into port.
This, the remaining light, was constructed between 1879 and 1880 and lit for the first time in 1880. It consists of a cast-iron skeleton and the stair tower (originally clad in wood, but clad in iron sheeting probably around 1913) topped by a wooden watch room and lantern room. The cast-iron skeleton is bolted to a series of concrete bases. This complex once included a keeper’s cottage, but it was moved to Harbour Town in the Sea Pines Plantation resort complex in the 1980s. The light was decommissioned in 1932 and it was restored with the building of the Palmetto Dunes Resort. The beacon now presides over the 15th hole of the resort’s golf course.
Hilton Head Rear Range Light, 2012, by Bill Fitzpatrick. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
In 1898 at the height of a tremendous hurricane, the lighthouse keeper, Adam Fripp, and his daughter Caroline, remained in the lantern room tending the light. A gale shattered the glass in the lamp, extinguishing it. At the same moment, Mr. Fripp suffered a massive heart attack. Still conscious, Fripp encouraged 20-year-old Caroline to continue tending the light and she did so following his death. Exhausted by the work and probably grief, Caroline died three weeks later.
Wearing the blue gown she was wearing the night of the hurricane, her spirit has been seen, and her sobs and wails of grief have been heard in and around the lighthouse. Terrance Zepke’s Ghosts of the Carolina Coast recounts a story of a young couple who encountered a young woman wearing a blue dress one stormy evening. She climbed in the back seat of their car soaking wet and the couple drove on. When the wife turned to speak to the young woman, the back seat was empty, though covered with water.
Cape Romain Lighthouse Lighthouse Island Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge McClellanville
Situated on a lonely barrier island, the Cape Romain Lighthouse is the perfectly place for a lonely spirit to walk. The first Cape Romain lighthouse is 65 feet high and was constructed in 1827 to guide mariners past the dangerous Cape Romain shoals. The light burned until 1857 when its much taller sibling, soaring 150 feet, was constructed with slave labor.
Like Pisa’s famous tower, the taller Cape Romain Lighthouse began to lean in the late nineteenth century. The tilt became so precarious that the Fresnel lens had to be adjusted to function properly. The lens was replaced in 1931 and the lighthouse was automated in 1937. Ten years later, the lighthouse was decommissioned and the light went dark. Since that time, the keeper’s quarters and outbuildings have disappeared leaving only the two towers standing mute. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which operates the surrounding refuge, still maintains the pair of lighthouses.
The lighthouses of Cape Romain in the early 20th century. Courtesy of the US Coast Guard Historic Light Stations Database.
The lonely setting of these now mute sentinels plays a significant part in its legend. Most likely in the late nineteenth century, a Norwegian man named Fischer was the keeper and lived on Lighthouse Island with his wife. The wife continuously begged her husband’s permission to leave the island and return to Norway for a visit, but he refused. One evening, Fischer was so angered by his wife’s pleading that he plunged a knife into her breast and buried her body near the lighthouse.
Those asking about his wife’s whereabouts were told that she had become despondent from the loneliness and had committed suicide. On his deathbed, he confessed to his wife’s murder and lighthouse keepers thereafter tended to the grave on the lonely island. Over time, a spirit was heard ascending the 195 steps of the lighthouse tower. Additionally, bloodstains inside the keeper’s cottage could not be scrubbed away.
The Cape Romain Lighthouses circa 2011, courtesy of Wikipedia.
August Fredreich Wichmann, one of the keepers in the early twentieth century reported hearing the sounds of footsteps in the tower many times. Wichmann’s son, who was born at the lighthouse believes the footsteps are from Fischer’s wife. If the footsteps are still heard, the only things to hear them are the goats and seabirds that now inhabit this lonely island.
Georgetown Light North Island Georgetown
Winyah Bay at the end of the eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries was vital to American trade. To aid ships passing into this bay, the Georgetown Light was constructed first in 1801. This cypress tower did not last long and was replaced in 1806 after being toppled in a gale. Some six years later, the current 87 foot brick tower was constructed. It is now the oldest active lighthouse in South Carolina.
Georgetown Light. Courtesy of the US Coast Guard Historic Light Stations Database.
Two reports of ghosts come from this light. Bruce Roberts and Ray Jones in their Southeastern Lighthouses: Outer Banks to Cape Florida report that footsteps are heard in the tower, though no indication is given as to the identity of the spirit.
The second story, in Terrance Zepke’s Ghosts of the Carolina Coast, however, is more interesting. Mariners tend to be a very superstitious bunch and this is indicated in this legend of a warning spirit attached to this lighthouse. Apparently, a lighthouse keeper and his young daughter had ventured into Georgetown, some miles south of the light. As they returned, a storm blew in and the young girl was tossed into the water. Her father jumped in to rescue her but she was lost. The lighthouse keeper survived and following his death, he and his daughter were seen rowing a small boat in Winyah Bay. Local mariners always took their appearance as a sign of a storm blowing in.
Sources
Bansemer, Roger. Bansemer’s Book of Carolina and Georgia Lighthouses. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 2000.
Califf, John, III. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Georgetown Light. Listed 30 December 1974.
DeWire, Eleanore and Daniel E. Dempster. Lighthouses of the South: Your Guide to the Lighthouses of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 2004.
Elizabeth, Norma and Bruce Roberts. Lighthouse Ghosts: 13 Bone Fide Apparitions Standing Watch Over America’s Shores. Birmingham, AL: Crane Hill, 1999.
Abbeville Opera House 100 Court Square Abbeville, South Carolina
Ruth, it’s these fellows are fooling you! It’s they who keep your head set on the wages of sin, and all that rubbish. What have we got to do with suffering and sacrifice? That may be the law for some, and I’ve tried hard to see it as outlaw, and I thought I had succeeded. But I haven’t! Our law is joy, and selfishness; the curve of your shoulder and the light on your hair as you sit there says that as plain as preaching. —William Vaughn Moody, The Great Divide, 1906, the first play to open the Abbeville Opera House.
I’ve discovered, with much joy, that the state of South Carolina, like Virginia, has placed all of its National Register nomination forms online! Therefore, research for this state has been made much easier. Since I haven’t written much yet on South Carolina, I’ve been focusing on it this week.
As you may notice in my brief bio at the right of this text, I’m an actor first. I’ve been performing onstage since the ripe old age of four; starting as a singer and in musicals and working my way up to earning a theatre degree from Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. Following college, I have continued to play various roles both on and off stage including helping to found a Shakespeare company and editing and co-writing a history of the Springer Opera House in Columbus, as well. The Springer is haunted, of course, and I do plan on writing about it in the future. So, theatres, especially haunted theatres, combine two of the great passions in my life. What could be better?
Abbeville Opera House, 2004. This public domain image is by K. Armstrong of National Scenic Byways Online.
Theatre has been a part of American culture from quite early on. Native Americans included theatre and dance as a part of their rituals. Many of the earliest European settlers shunned such cultural extravagances as being sinful—“they who keep your head set on the wages of sin”– but theatre took hold in the mid-18th century and did not let go. Travelling companies formed and trooped through the frontier bringing Shakespeare with them to people starved for any entertainment. Towards the end of the 19th century, theatres were springing up in any city that wished to call itself such. These theatres were the stopping places for thousands of performers travelling “the Road.”
Legend has it that Abbeville, South Carolina was just a nightly stopping place for major companies on the Road. When the citizens of Abbeville realized the benefits of having these companies perform in town, they built a theatre to accommodate performances. On an early evening in October of 1908 (sources differ as to the exact date), the opera house opened with a performance of the melodramatic The Great Divide. The local paper, The Abbeville Medium, raved that “the show was far above the average show that hails this way.” Later that month, Thomas F. Dixon’s controversial play, The Clansman, appeared. The play had caused riots and government officials in some towns had prevented performances due to its “sensitive” subject matter: the Ku Klux Klan, but the Medium described the play as being in no “sense offensive, as we thought it would be.” Another popular show of the era that played the Abbeville Opera House was one of the stage adaptations of Lew Wallace’s classic, Ben Hur. The story of a wealthy Jewish prince whose life is turned upside down by a minor accident, Ben Hur ends with the title character finding redemption after encountering Christ. Broadway producers turned the show into a family spectacle that included an actual chariot race with live horses onstage running on a treadmill. The show was a nationwide hit.
The Opera House also hosted popular minstrel shows, vaudeville (quickly becoming the most popular form of entertainment) and even the Ziegfeld Follies all straight from the boards of the Great White Way in distant new York City. These performances were gala events with the citizens turning out in their best finery. The Southern Railroad would even run special trains to and from the surrounding towns to see names like the great female comedienne, Fannie Brice or the Great Jimmy Durante. Certainly, with the lack of theatre in small towns now, it’s hard to imagine even a small town seeing many of the greatest performers of the day in a live performance.
Starting just two years after it opened, the Abbeville Opera House’s lights were dimmed to the flicker of the movie projector. For nearly the next two decade, film would slowly begin to edge out live performances. According to the Opera House website, nearly 3,250 films played in the Opera House between 1914 and 1930. By 1930, the Road was dying and film had begun to dominate American entertainment. The grande dames that were originally built to accommodate live theatre performances were slowly closed and demolished towards the middle of the 20th century. At this time, as the Abbeville Opera House started to take its final curtain call, George Settles formed a group, Abbeville Community Theater (the group performing in the Opera House is now the Opera House Players, though I’m not sure what relation they have to Settles’ group) to preserve live theatre in the area. Plans were made to restore the grand lady and fifty years after the house had opened so dramatically, the restored theatre was reopened with a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
The theatre world is rife with superstition and nearly every theatre is known to harbor a ghost and the Abbeville Opera House is no exception. Rumors of ghosts spread quite early. Local Larry Pursley recalls in his book, Abbeville, SC: A Backward Glance, that he was told as a child “a man had been hanged out of the small window near the top of the back of the Opera House.” He states that with his knowledge of local history now, he knows the story is ludicrous and completely untrue. But, other stories, however, have a ring of truth.
Theatre company members have had many experiences in this 102 year old theatre. Most of the experiences seem to center on the second balcony. This balcony, which in some theaters might be referred to as “the nose-bleed section,”was originally intended for non-white patrons during the era of segregation. Often these seats were the worst and the most uncomfortable and the entrance to this balcony was accessed through a different entrance so the two groups of patrons wouldn’t mix. The balcony, nowadays, is reserved for the “techies” or theatre technicians who run lights and sound and a ghost or two.
When the theatre was restored the second balcony was cleared except for a single chair. This single chair, known as the “ghost chair,” is untouched. Jerry Solomon, a set builder, remarked in a 2005 article in the Columbia, South Carolina paper, The State, that would not move or even touch the chair for fear that something would go wrong during the show. “The curtain won’t go down; lights will go out.” This sentiment has been expressed by many associated with the theatre. Theatre people, especially actors who are bound by routine during a show, are especially superstitious, but that doesn’t explain the strange reports coming out of the theatre.
One actor glancing up the second balcony during a show saw a woman standing there staring down at the stage. Cheralyn Lambeth, author of Haunted Theaters of the Carolinas, states an actor saw a woman in period dress applauding in the same balcony during the curtain call of a show. Other actors report the sound a lone applause coming from the same balcony while actors and techies have described add sounds coming from the balcony and the catwalks above the stage during shows.
Two legends exist to explain this phenomena. One speaks of an actress with a touring company who died while or shortly after performing in the Opera House possibly during the 1920s. The other mentions an African-American man who fell in love with a white actress and was murdered in the balcony by a racist mob when the relationship was discovered. Whatever the cause, there is something going on in the theater.
Cheri Standridge, director of the Greater Abbeville Chamber of Commerce, mentions that she accompanied a psychic on a walk of the Opera House. The woman encountered a number of spirits including a family sitting in one of the boxes and a man in a military uniform. One Georgia ghost-hunting team has investigated the Opera House at least four times, but has not published its results. Of course the number of times says something: if they hadn’t found anything, they would not have investigated it numerous times.
The Opera House continues to stage shows that are loudly applauded by the living and even some of the dead.
Sources
Abbeville Opera House.History. Accessed 28 September 2010.
Bordsen, John. “A Boo’s Who of Ghosts.” The State. 30 October 2005.
Fant, Mrs. James. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Abbeville Opera House. Entered in the National Register 1 July 1970.
Jones, Jennifer. “Abbeville Opera House Known for ‘ghost chair.’” Anderson (SC) Independent-Mail. 23 October 2005.
Kyle, F. Clason. Lewis Powell, IV, editor. In Order of Appearance: 135 Years on America’s Most Celebrated Stage. Columbus, GA: Communicorp, 2006.
Lambeth, Cheralyn. Haunted Theaters of the Carolinas. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2009.
Pursely, Larry. Abbeville, SC: A Backward Glance. Alpharetta, GA: WH Wolfe and Associates, 1993.
Ware, Lowery. Old Abbeville: Scenes of the Past of a Town Where Old Time Things Are Not Forgotten. Columbia, SC: SCMAR, 1992.
