Mysterious Tales of Coastal North Carolina

Sherman Carmichael, Sarah Haynes

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781439664636
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Master storyteller Sherman Carmichael ventures into the Tar Heel State to deliver strange and mysterious tales along the coast. Read about shipwrecks such as that of the SS Liberator, which still sits at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Diamond Shoals, and legendary storms like the 1911 Water Spouts, which were described as tornadoes spinning wildly atop the ocean. Find out why the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is said to be haunted by a large black cat. Learn about the origins of Boo Hag, a fiendish creature that sucks the life out of her victims as they sleep at night--a tale that originates from the rich Gullah culture of the Carolinas. Join Carmichael as he contemplates these stories and more from the mysterious side of North Carolina's beloved coastal counties.

II.

Ghosts and Haunted Places

JUST A THOUGHT

As we continue to travel through the paranormal world we encounter strange happenings, things that just seem to defy explanation. In putting together the paranormal puzzle, we see that there are a lot of pieces still missing. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. Sometimes we experience something that challenges our accepted view of reality or history, something that defies a rational or scientific explanation. Could it be that what we think is a paranormal experience is nothing more than an optical illusion? What if people who see ghosts are actually viewing that person in another time and space?

Let’s forget the preconceived notion of chain-rattling ghosts lurking in the shadows of the proverbial dark, cold, windswept, stormy night. That’s for Halloween and television. Nothing can blow a simple event out of proportion as much as Hollywood.

Does the truth lie in regions far removed and in much darker places than our human minds can understand?

Tales of the wandering spirits of the dearly departed can be found in the folklore of every culture since the beginning of recorded history. Stories of ghosts have captivated the imagination and frightened humans of all ages. Will the mystery of the afterlife ever be solved?

WHAT ARE GHOSTS?

From as far back as we can go, people have reported seeing ghosts, spirits, specters or whatever handle you want to put on them. Of course, the age-old question of what they are is still unanswered.

A lot more people believe in ghosts than will admit it. They are afraid people will look at them like they’ve just escaped from the loony bin. Then you have those that have seen something but they are not sure what it is. You have those who see a ghost in every building and around every corner like some of those wannabe spook seekers. While it is true that there are a lot of strange things going on that can’t be explained, many of them are not ghosts.

Many believe that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of humans or animals that have not yet made it to their reward. Another theory is that ghosts are an unintelligent energy imprint that somehow remains in our world. Could it simply be the power of suggestion?

Even great scientists through the ages have been unable to give us an answer to what a ghost really is. They do maintain that ghosts don’t exist. There is no conclusive evidence that ghosts do exist, but then there’s no evidence that ghosts don’t exist. There is no viable explanation as to what a ghost is.

Are ghosts the souls of the dearly departed that are trapped between worlds (our present world and the world of the hereafter), unable to move on? Could the spirit still exist on in this world and only appear at certain times, giving the living a glimpse of what they think is a ghost? Could it simply be the power of suggestion? Another theory is that we are seeing a rare glimpse of a past event that replays itself in our world at certain times.

Another question to ponder: if what we are seeing is the spirit of a dead person, then what are ghost objects? There have been many reports of ghost planes, ghost ships, ghost cars and a few reports of ghost buildings.

GHOST SOUNDS

Sounds don’t have a soul or spirit and have never been a life form. What are the sounds we hear from the distant past? Are they ghosts’ voices or disembodied voices presumed to be those of people who have died. How about on ancient battlefields? Many have reported hearing the sound of rifle or cannon fire. Others have reported hearing the sound of trains where there is no longer a track.

At times, ghosts are very clear and fully clothed. Other times, they are more of a mist or shadow. Some people believe there’s a glitch in time where past events continue to happen in the same location. If there is a rip in the fabric of time, then maybe it’s not opening completely when we see mist or shadows.

INTERACTIVE GHOSTS

What are these unseen forces that interact with people or move objects? My book Eerie South Carolina contains two stories that I was researching when I saw objects move without any help from anyone. Aunt Sissy had parts of a candelabra moving with no one close to it. Barbara Bush’s ghost Morganna opened a door with no one trying to enter. Are these ghosts just letting us know that they’re here? Are they trying to tell us something we don’t understand or are they just being pests?

Are these lost souls in need of our help, and can we help them?

Let’s take this a step farther and look at ghosts, spirits or souls. Can they coexist with us in our world?

There are many more mysteries here than just ghosts. I am not trying to prove or disprove anything, just presenting the facts (if you accept these as fact) as I have gathered them. Now let’s take a look at some.

There are too many interesting things to explore about the past, so much exciting and fascinating history and mysteries of the ancient world to limit ourselves to the history books written by people who include only what they want us to know.

18

Maco Light

Out of the fog-shrouded past comes another ghost light, the Maco Light, also known as the ghost at Maco Station. The Maco Light is one of North Carolina’s most well known and enduring supernatural phenomena. With all ghost stories that endure the test of time and thousands of storytellers, the true facts sometimes get blurred.

One source says the original name of the station was Farmer’s Turnout, later changed to Maco Station. There never was much to Maco, and there is even less now. There are a couple of rural roads and one country store near the intersection of U.S. 74/76 and North Carolina 87 in Brunswick County.

In 1867, fourteen miles west of Wilmington, North Carolina, near the small station of Maco, a train wreck occurred that went down in history. Brakeman Joe Baldwin was traveling in the last car on an Atlantic Coast Line train on the rail line that served Wilmington, North Carolina; Florence, South Carolina; and Augusta, Georgia. For reasons still unknown, Baldwin’s car came uncoupled from the rest of the train. The caboose came to a stop on the trestle over marshy swampland.

Joe Baldwin was the only fatality in the accident. Baldwin knew that a passenger train was close behind the detached caboose and that the passenger train would collide with it unless he did something. Baldwin grabbed his lantern and rushed to the back of the caboose, swinging the light in an attempt to get the engineer’s attention, but to no avail. The collision between Baldwin’s car and the passenger train was so severe that Baldwin’s head was severed. The impact threw Baldwin’s lantern high into the air and into the surrounding swamp. It landed upright, flickering, but never went out. Baldwin was crushed in the impact. His mangled body was eventually removed from the wreckage, but his head was never found. He was laid to rest without his head. Soon after Baldwin’s funeral, the mysterious light appeared along the tracks near Maco.

On misty nights Joe Baldwin’s headless ghost appears at Maco with his burning lantern. It all starts out as an indistinct flicker of light, then the glow slowly moves forward, growing brighter and brighter as it nears the railroad trestle. Just before it reaches the trestle, the light bursts in a brilliant display then dims as it moves away.

Shortly after the train accident, other trains traveling the same tracks began reporting a strange light that would appear on the tracks until the train was almost to it before disappearing. Trains began stopping for the light with such frequency that the railroad started using two lights near the Maco Station, one red and one green. This kept the engineers from being confused by the ghost light.

In 1889, President Grover Cleveland, while on a political campaign trip, was on the train while it was taking on wood and water at the Maco Station, and he noticed the two lights and asked about them. He was told the story about Joe Baldwin’s ghost light. President Cleveland took the story back with him to Washington, D.C., bringing national attention to the ghost light. One source on the Internet says that President Cleveland saw the light himself.

Shortly after the president’s visit, an investigator from Washington, D.C., came and saw the light. He ruled in favor of swamp gas.

Automobile lights have been theorized as the answer to the Maco Light, but the light predated the automobile. An experiment that stopped all traffic in the area had negative results—the light still appeared. From 1873 until after the 1886 earthquake, railroad workers reported seeing a pair of lights that would appear together.

The light has been studied by paranormal investigators, the Smithsonian Museum, soldiers from Fort Bragg and a research team commissioned by President Grover Cleveland. It was investigated by two electronics engineers from radio station WWOK, one from WKIX and, in July 1962, an engineer from Bell Laboratories.

Several publications have written about the Maco Light. The Atlantic Coastline News (1932), the Railroad Telegrapher (1946) and Life magazine (1957) all did stories on the Maco Light.

Records of train wrecks in that area show no records of a Joe Baldwin being killed in a train accident. Accounts of a train accident ten years earlier list a Charles Baldwin being killed on impact, but he was not decapitated. Conductor Charles Baldwin was killed in an accident in January 1856.

After the tracks were removed in 1977, the ghost light disappeared for good. The legend suggests that the reason the light disappeared was that Baldwin’s purpose was completed. He warned approaching trains of his stalled car. Since the tracks have been removed, there are no trains and no reason for Baldwin to remain. Maybe now Joe Baldwin is at rest. Old Joe Baldwin’s lantern will cast its light no more.

Maco has no museum, no historical marker and no visible remembrance of the ghostly light except a street named Joe Baldwin Drive. The Maco Light was seen for over one hundred years.

Maco stands on top of a geological fault line. Speculation is the source of the light was static electricity powered by the pressure of the fault building up.

19

Ghost Ships

Ghost ships have sparked fascination and fear in mariners and others since the beginning of maritime travel. The ghost ships can be anything from ships that seem to appear out of nowhere to an eerie apparition on the horizon. They can remain for seconds to any length of time, then disappear as quickly as they appeared. Then there’s the ship that’s just drifting along, seemingly abandoned, for no reason. Some crews have abandoned ship mid-meal without explanation, never to be seen again. No one ever seems to find a reasonable explanation.

Ghost ships that creep on the fog-shrouded ocean will forever fascinate us and strike fear into our hearts. These phantom ships that no longer exist or mysteriously abandoned ships have haunted the oceans and sailed into our nightmares for centuries.

Ghost ships continue to invite speculation and mystery in the nautical world.

20

The Flaming Ship of Ocracoke

Unusual things happen off the shore of Ocracoke Inlet. History surrounded by legend and woven into the fabric of time creates some of the most unusual stories. Ocracoke Island is full of myths and legends and some true stories, like that of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, religious wars ravaged Europe, vicious conflicts between the Catholic and Protestant factions. Thousands of Palatines, as they were called, immigrated to England for refuge from the wars. But British citizens began to complain. Swiss baron Christopher von Graffenried, armed with an idea to make his own fortune and rid England of some of the Palatines, approached the queen. He proposed to take hundreds of the Palatines to a settlement in the province of Carolina. The migration had many problems, but they finally settled on a large portion of land in what is now eastern North Carolina.

Another ship loaded with Palatines, who were much wealthier than the first ship’s passengers, set sail for Carolina. Ocracoke Inlet was the principal point of entry for the ships. The large ships could anchor just outside of the inlet and send the passengers in by smaller boats.

The ship arrived just before dawn and anchored in the calm waters just off Ocracoke Inlet. The captain of the ship was an unscrupulous man with an equally unprincipled crew. That night, the captain and crew put their plan into action. The passengers were told that they would unload in the morning and should go below and get some sleep. As the passengers slept below deck, the crew murdered every man, woman and child. They collected their treasure and loaded it into the ship’s longboat. Once they were ready for their escape, they set the ship on fire to destroy any evidence of the brutal murders. The captain and crew watched from a distance as the fire quickly spread, but the ship didn’t sink as planned. The night was the first full moon of September, so they could see everything. Something wasn’t right. The ropes holding the sails up had burned in two. But the sails were still unfurled, and the ship was now traveling at full speed toward the overloaded longboat. The sails seemed to be a solid sheet of fire as the boat came nearer. There was no wind pushing the boat. It was completely calm, but the boat kept moving closer and closer to the longboat.

The captain and crew could not escape. Their fate was sealed. The flaming ship rammed the longboat, sinking it, the treasure and the crew. The next day, the remains of the burned ship washed ashore on Ocracoke Island.

Every year on the night of the first full moon of September, the flaming ship appears out of nowhere and sets sail again. Are those who so brutally departed this world still trying to find their new world?

21

Carroll A. Deering

Of the hundreds of ships lost in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, none has received more attention than the Carroll A. Deering. The Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted schooner launched in 1919 from Bath, Maine. It measured 255 feet in length, was 44.3 feet wide and registered at 1,879 tons. The Deering was the last large schooner constructed by the G.G. Deering Company and was named for the owner’s son. It was equipped with Oregon masts measur...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• I. Disasters and Shipwrecks
• II. Ghosts and Haunted Places
• III. Other Mysteries Along the Coast
• One Final Thought
• Bibliography
• About the Author