Ghosts and Legends

Halloween can be a fun and festive holiday for both children and adults. But it also can be a spooky time when one can have unexpected encounters with the supernatural, or paranormal. It seems that wherever one travels, each destination will have its fair share of folklore...

​Stumphouse Tunnel was built in the 1850s in Walhalla, S.C. The tunnel was built to connect the railway between Charleston and Knoxville. The men who built the tunnel worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, using only shovels, pick axes and dynamite. Eventually,...

Old Exchange Building and Provost Dungeon, Charleston, S.C. Isaac Hayne was imprisoned there in 1781. He was a very popular businessman, well-off, whom they led through the streets of Charleston, by his sister's home, in shackles and chains on his way to the gallows. She...

Find stories from the Old Post Office, Annie's Inn, and the cemetery at St. Thaddeus in Aiken, S.C.

OLD JAIL, ABBEVILLE, S.C. The Old Jail is Abbeville's oldest public building. The sheriff lived on the first floor, and prisoners were kept on the second and third floors, the worst of whom were kept on the third floor, which has high rafters, perfectly suited for hangings...

Folklore claims a pirate captain buried treasure at 37 Meeting Street in Charleston. There are three versions of the story. The captain later found one of his supposedly trusted crewmen attempting to dig up his treasure. It is believed that the crewman remains to this day,...

Ghost of Madeline, Newberry, S.C. The legend of Madeline, the young woman who climbed the bell tower of Keller Hall at Newberry College, and while searching for her fiance', John, she slipped and fell to the ground with the bell tower rope wrapped around her neck, and was...

Poogan's Porch has been located on Queen Street in Charleston, S.C. since 1976. Zoe St. Amand and her sister, Elizabeth, were spinsters who lived together for more than 60 years, the last 20 of which were lived there on Queen Street. When Elizabeth died after a short...

Plowden C.J. Weston went to England to be educated but returned to his beloved Pawleys Island, where he and his lovely English wife, Emily Esdaille Weston, built the Pelican Inn. He lived until almost the end of the Civil War, but died of tuberculosis in 1864. After his...

During the golden age of piracy, there came an afternoon on which a pirate ship sailed into Murrell's Inlet to bury a treasure they would imbibe in that very night. By late in the afternoon, the rum had been buried and the pirates had begun to build there bonfires. Many...

Becky Cotton was born around 1765 and married John Cotton around 1785. Becky's father was killed when three men burst into the house, but her husband did nothing to stop it. The legend has it that she waited for him to fall asleep and buried an axe into his skull. She was...

First appeared in 1988, nine feet tall, with a head similar to a human head, and afraid of cars...it's Lizard Man.

The story of Alice Flagg of Georgetown, who became very ill and died of malaria while in boarding school at the age of 15. Alice's fiance' had given her a diamond ring, but her brother disapproved and told her to give it back. But Alice placed the ring on a ribbon and wore...

This is the story of Bubba the Ghost from the S.C. State Museum.