Creeps on the Coast: East Cooper Tales From the Crypt

Behind the serenity and beauty of the exquisite Lowcountry landscape lies the story of a hallowed and sacred land, saturated with the suffocated screams of ghosts from the bygone plantation era.

During the height of the cash crop culture, Georgetown County was home to more than 200 rice plantations, their fields tilled by the hands of African slaves. Mosquitos, alligators, water moccasins and tree stumps buried under the murky waters where the workers toiled posed dangerous and sometimes lethal threats. Hurricanes, war, fire and disease further imperiled the enslaved people as well as the landowners. Consequently, Georgetown County, checkered with countless gravesites both seen and unseen, has come to be known as one of the most haunted places in the country.

Author of “Ghosts of Georgetown” Elizabeth Huntsinger wrote, “In the last two-and-a-half centuries, many individuals have died suddenly and unexpectedly here. It is believed that such a death causes a certain amount of energy to remain in the vicinity where the spirit left the body.” Further, “A spirit will always linger close to its earthly home, finding comfort in the intimate surroundings, even though the last interval of life may have been unhappy.”

One reason for the concentrated number of local hauntings, Huntsinger speculated, is that “A place near the water, which makes it prone to dampness, is often more subject to spirit activity than drier areas.” She pointed out that not only is the area from Mount Pleasant through Georgetown County located next to the ocean, “It is virtually filled with the waters of the rivers that flow throughout its moist and fertile lands.”

Secluded on the banks of one such waterway east of the Cooper is a plantation that the current owner, who wished to remain anonymous, inherited when his parents passed away. Although his family purchased the property long after emancipation, he has always been mindful of the horrors that happened on the land more than a century before they lived there. The spirits wouldn’t let him forget anyway.

Nearly 50 years ago, the current owner, then a teenager, was exploring the woods that overshadowed a creek on the back side of the property when he stumbled upon a large concrete above-ground tomb buried beneath some brush. Climbing on top of it to scrape off the pine needles and leaves, he discovered that amongst the cracked surface and missing pieces, a childlike script was chiseled into the cement. He could barely make out the words, “Mary was a good person.” Curiously, at the base of Mary’s tomb was a metal rebar stake.

Later research revealed that Mary was a daughter of the plantation’s wealthy owner, who disowned her for having an affair with one of his slaves. When Mary died, she was interred in the graveyard of enslaved families. Her lover was buried at her feet.

Wandering farther into the dense woodlands, clustered with centuries-old oaks shrouded in Spanish moss, the teen noticed dozens and dozens of other rebar sticks poking out from the ground. The burial site seemed endless. A dark and heavy feeling choked him as he heard a voice rasp, “Now that you own it, you are complicit.”

Overcome with sorrow, tears streamed down his cheeks, and he cried out, “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

Many years later, he had a daughter. One evening, she was standing on the front porch overlooking the avenue of the oaks, a typical fixture on every plantation. Through the darkness, she could see the distant outline of a headless figure carrying a lantern, his footsteps crunching on the gravel path beneath the trees. Then, as suddenly as the phantom had appeared, it vanished into the night.

Another instance, when the girl was playing on the grounds with a friend, something scared them and they sprinted back to the house, locking themselves in a room downstairs. Later, they described the doorknob rattling as if someone was trying to break in. But no one was on the other side of the door.

More than once, the owner of the neighboring plantation came banging on the door, shaking with terror as he described seeing plat-eyes in his house. A plat-eye, according to genteelandbard.com, is “a shape-shifting spirit of a human that was wronged on earth.” These aggressive spirits “appear to wander around the area of their untimely demise, waiting around for the unfortunate soul that dares invade their space so they can harass them.”

Limitless accounts such as these capture the Lowcountry’s soulful spirit of a haunted past that will forever linger on the wings of an osprey, through the rustling of the tall pines and in the rising of the tides.

By Sarah Rose

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