Mysterious South Carolina

Author

Just a Thought

Many people ask why I picked this subject to write about. I have been interested in ghosts, monsters, UFOs and anything else that inspires the imagination since I can remember. People come by my book signings, pick up a book and ask, Surely you don’t believe in this? My answer is simply, I have an inquiring mind.

I have been dabbling in things that are best left alone since I was seventeen, and that is a real long time. I have seen things, heard things and felt things that defy explanation. It is not my intention to persuade or dissuade you about the reality of ghosts, monsters, UFOs or anything else. It is your decision whether you choose to believe in these things or not. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the fact that you are reading this book shows that there is a modicum of interest.

I do not offer explanations or try to explain the strange and unknown. I just write about it and leave the explanations and conclusions up to you dear readers.

One thing that I never understood and probably never will is why people hunt ghosts at night? Most ghost sightings are in the daylight or in rooms with the lights on. Is it simply for the effects of darkness? Everyone knows that things that happen in the dark are magnified by your imagination. A bump in the dark, a strange sound or the ever-present shadow could be easily explained in the daylight.

Many people look at death as a passage into eternal nothingness, where there is no return. Others believe that when you die your soul goes to heaven or hell. If you go to hell, you cannot come back. If you go to heaven, you do not want to come back. From the beginning, people have believed that a ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person lingering around for who knows what. So, where does that leave us?

Once a person is dead, the soul or spirit leaves the body. The clothes remain on the dead body, though. If the ghost is the spirit of the dead, then explain the clothes the ghost is wearing. There is also the problem with ghost ships, ghost planes, ghost cars or ghost animals. How do we explain it when many people see the battles of the Civil War being fought and hear the sounds of cannon or rifle fire?

Just think for a minute. What if what we are seeing is not ghosts at all but a glimpse of an event that happened in the distant past? Perhaps they are caught in a repeating cycle that never ends.

Caution should be exercised when dealing with such intangible topics as ghosts, monsters and UFOs. One wrong turn down the road of life, and we can come face-to-face with things we were told were only legend, myth or just in our mind.

Let’s explore a haunted subject, such as bridges. There is always a ritual to be performed to bring the ghosts: blow your horn three times or flash your lights three times and the ghost will appear. Then there is the park your car on the bridge, cut the engine off and put it in neutral and the ghost will start pushing the car off the bridge. And of course, you put baby powder or flour on the trunk so the ghosts’ handprints will show up. If a ghost can walk through a wall, how can it push a car without its hands going through the trunk? When handprints mysteriously appear on the trunk of the car, why don’t some of these ghost hunters have the prints fingerprinted? What would you find? If you park your car on a bridge that is in use and get out, then you might be the next ghost they are looking for.

Do not be lured by the excitement of ghost hunting by amateurs or wannabes with a bunch of expensive toys. Remember there are laws. Make sure you follow the law when it comes to going on other peoples’ property. Most ghost hunters want to hunt ghosts at night, and people are not too happy with you going on their property at night. Most places are on private property or close before dark. You must get permission to go on private property; trespassing is a crime in any state. You can be arrested and prosecuted, leaving you with a criminal record. Removing things from their property without the owners’ permission is burglary. The worst thing that can happen is somebody shoots you.

And ghost hunting in the dark in abandoned buildings or a cemetery can hurt or possibly kill you. Venomous spiders and snakes are just a couple of things you have to look out for. Do not ghost hunt alone, and get permission before you go onto someone else’s property. You do not want to be the next ghost to haunt the place.

1

Francis Marion Hotel, Charleston

In 1924, the Francis Marion Hotel opened in Charleston, South Carolina. It provided guests with the most elegant accommodations available, and guests at the Francis Marion Hotel enjoyed unparalleled service while staying at the hotel.

The twelve-story Francis Marion Hotel was designed by New York architect W.L. Stoddard. The hotel was built by local investors at a cost of $1.5 million.

During the 1920s, people visiting Charleston were enjoying the convenience of the railroad and grand hotels. Many people said the Francis Marion Hotel was the place to be, and it still has that reputation today. The Charleston Renaissance was in full bloom during that time, and the Francis Marion Hotel was the largest and grandest hotel in the Carolinas with 234 rooms.

The Francis Marion Hotel was named after the Swamp Fox, Francis Marion. Marion was a Revolutionary War hero who played a vital role in the war between the Americans and the British.

In 1996, after seventy-two years of service, the Francis Marion Hotel was meticulously restored with a National Trust for Historic Preservation award-winning restoration. The hotel maintains its original 1920s style. It has been a member of the Historic Hotels of America since 1999.

And the Francis Marion Hotel is among the most haunted places in Charleston.

In 1929, a guest named Ned Cohen was staying in room 1010. He threw himself out of his tenth-story window and plunged to his death. Ned Cohen, a northerner, was in love with a southern belle, but she knew that a romance between them was not going to work. She apparently wrote him a letter and left it in his room, breaking off the romance.

Since his death, guests have reported seeing Cohen in his dinner jacket wandering the halls. Other guests have suddenly had a window open without anyone there, a cold breeze filling the room. Both guests and staff have reported what appears to be a man crying in the hallway who then vanishes with a trace. Some have reported that they felt the sensation of someone lightly touching them, while others have had the feeling that they are being watched by someone when nobody is there. There have been reports of the silk drapes rustling when there is no source of air.

People say they have seen what appears to be someone falling from one of the windows on the tenth floor. In the rooms below 1010, some have seen a person falling by their window only to look out and see nothing unusual happening on the street below.

2

Poinsett Bridge, Greenville County

Today, the old but astonishing Poinsett Bridge looks completely out of place where it stands. Built in 1920, the stone Gothic arch stands in an otherwise ordinary grove of poplar and oak trees. Poinsett Bridge, located in Greenville County, is the oldest surviving bridge in South Carolina and possibly the oldest in the southeastern United States. The date of construction is recorded in the keystone of the Gothic arch.

Poinsett Bridge was one of the first completed elements of the state road and would ultimately connect Charleston to Columbia and South Carolina to western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. The 14-foot stone Gothic bridge spans 130 feet over Little Gap Creek. It is now part of a 120-acre Poinsett Bridge Heritage Preserve owned by the State of South Carolina.

The bridge was named for Joel R. Poinsett, who was director of the South Carolina Board of Public Works during the design of the road.

The original plans for the bridge have been lost, but official historical reports by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History believe that architect Robert Mills designed the bridge. Mills also designed the Washington Monument and the U.S. Treasury building in Washington, D.C., among other projects.

It took around five hundred workers to complete the eleven-mile Saluda Mountain Road, which contains the Poinsett Bridge.

The Callahans owned a cabin near Poinsett Bridge that served as headquarters for the building crew. Of the three bridges built along the Saluda Mountain Road, only the Poinsett Bridge still exists. It was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

Every old bridge seems to have at least one ghost, and the Poinsett Bridge is no different. There have been reports of screams, cars not being able to start when leaving, ghostly visions and a light that moves toward the car. When the light gets close, you hear a loud scream.

Voices have been reported coming from the area of the bridge and screams coming from the top of the bridge. Red, white and green lights floating on the mountainside that give the appearance of a lantern have been seen.

One person reported her hand was out the window when she felt a man’s hand grab her. One man said he saw a white figure at the bridge one night. Red and white lights have been reported near the bridge. Unexplained mists the size of a man have often been seen.

There are also rumors that an Indian burial mound was destroyed to build the bridge and that workers bodies were buried inside.

3

Sonic Boom over Charleston, Charleston

Sonic booms have been reported for a long time and tend to occur along the East Coast of America. Most of the booms that people hear are man-made noises, like explosions, airplanes or maybe a car backfiring.

There are the earthly made sonic booms caused by shallow earthquakes and by fracturing rock forming to produce a new fault. There is the theory that methane gas being released from the ocean floor or lake bottom explodes when it rises to the surface and connects with the air. However, burning methane makes flames, and no flames were reported at the time or location of this sonic boom, or Seneca Guns as it is commonly called. Other theories include cold air meeting warm Gulf Stream air or meteorites exploding in the sky. Thunder and lightning have been considered, but no thunderstorms were in the area at the time of the boom. And Seneca Guns have been reported in clear weather. Top-secret military activity, which we would never hear about and the military would deny, was not occurring in the area at the time. The Seneca Guns or sonic booms were heard long before there were any fast planes or large ships. Some people believe that the Indians ghosts are firing guns to disturb descendants of the settlers who took away their land.

There does not appear to be an answer to the cause of sonic booms. They have been occurring on the East Coast of the United States for over a century and have never caused any injury or damage. For now, scientists can only speculate on the cause.

On May 5, 2017, at 8:30 a.m., residents of Charleston, South Carolina, and the surrounding towns of North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and West Ashley and other parts of the Lowcountry were startled by an unexplained boom. It was so loud, it shook windows and doors. The sound appeared to come across the water of the Ashley River from a west-southwest direction.

Geophysicists reported little seismic activity in the area. Air Force officials deny any knowledge of what was behind the boom.

The Air Force’s secret X-37B spacecraft landed in Florida over the weekend, causing a sonic boom on reentry. Could there have been another secret landing that we were not told about?

Officials at Joint Base Charleston said they heard the boom and stated it was most likely an aircraft but was not one of theirs.

The mystery booms have a historical precedent, according to the United States Geological Survey. The mystery booms have been reported in the Charleston area dating back to 1886. Many of the aftershocks of the 1886 Charleston earthquake were followed by loud booms. The mysterious booms have been heard for centuries along the East Coast of America. Mysterious booms that coincide with earthquake activity were reported as far back as 1811.

Experts and law enforcement disagree on what the source of these booms is. Steve Jaume of the College of Charleston Department of Geology and Environmental Geoscience said there was no earthquake activity in the area.

Dr. Jonathan Lees, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill geophysicist, says, If we had a local earthquake, it would be impossible for us not to record that.

4

The Pink House, Charleston

Built by John Breton in 1688, the Pink House is Charleston’s oldest home and the second-oldest in America.

In the beginning, Chalmers Street was nothing but mud. People tiring