Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That’s not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It’s just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.
Dorothy Macardle
Steeped in history and graced with incomparable natural beauty, the North Carolina coast is known the world over as a premier vacation destination. My love affair with coastal North Carolina began with a family vacation to Wrightsville Beach in 1956, when I was five years old. Although rampant development has drastically changed the coast since my childhood visit to New Hanover County almost a half-century ago, my fascination with the region has continued to grow. Consequently, family and friends were not surprised when my first two published titles were travel/history books about the North Carolina coast.
Like me, most people who have visited or read about coastal North Carolina are enchanted by the supernatural tales, ghost stories, and unusual occurrences that have given the region much of its unique allure.
As a child growing up in North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, I delighted in watching Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone television series and the great science-fiction films of that period. At the same time, I read with great interest the classic ghost stories of North Carolina, as documented by John Harden in The Devil’s Tramping Ground (1949) and Tar Heel Ghosts (1954) and by Nancy Roberts in An Illustrated Guide to Ghosts & Other Mysterious Occurrences in the Old North State (1959) and Ghosts of the Carolinas (1962).
Meanwhile, I was developing an abiding interest in the magnificent history of North Carolina. The history of the state—indeed, the history of British America—began on the soil of North Carolina with Sir Walter Raleigh’s colonization attempts, which resulted in the Lost Colony of Roanoke in the 1580s. Ironically, our history as Tar Heels began with a haunting mystery that remains unresolved to this day.
When the European traditions of ghosts, witches, demons, and the like were brought to America, they landed on the shores of North Carolina. And it was on our soil that settlers documented some of the first encounters with the supernatural in America. But long before the arrival of European settlers, North Carolina was the domain of various Indian peoples. Theirs is a history replete with tales of the supernatural.
Because North Carolina has been a significant part of the American experience from the very beginning, it has emerged as one of the most historic places in the United States. And where there is history, ghosts and other elements of the supernatural can usually be found. As a longtime student of the Old North State, I can assure readers that North Carolina has a haunted heritage, one rich in the supernatural.
This book and its companion volumes offer a view of that ghostly history in a format never before presented. Here, for the first time, readers are offered a supernatural tale from each of the state’s one hundred counties. But the North Carolina’s Haunted Hundred series is not simply a collection of Tar Heel ghost stories from every county in the state. Rather, it is a sampler of the diverse supernatural history of North Carolina. The three volumes contain accounts of ghosts and apparitions (human, animal, and inanimate), witches, strange creatures, demons, spook lights, haunting mysteries, unidentified flying objects, unexplained phenomena, and more.
Instead of retelling the timeless ghost stories so well chronicled by Harden, Roberts, Fred T. Morgan, F. Roy Johnson, Judge Charles Harry Whedbee, and others, I have chosen to present many tales that have never been widely circulated in print. I include a few of the familiar tales of our ghostly lore in the mix, but with new information or a new twist.
Do you believe in ghosts and creatures of the night? Whether your answer is yes or no, almost everyone enjoys a ghost story or an inexplicable tale of the unusual. And when that narrative has as its basis real people, actual places, and recorded events, it becomes more enjoyable because it hints at credibility and believability.
All of the stories set forth in this three-volume series are based in fact. But over the years, these tales have been told and retold, and the details have in some cases become blurred. As with all folklore, whether you choose to believe any or all of the accounts in these pages is entirely up to you. A caveat that Mark Twain once offered his readers holds true here: “I will set down a tale…. It may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened. But it could have happened.”
Should you develop a desire to visit some of the haunted places detailed in this series, be mindful that most are located on private property. Be sure to obtain permission from the owner before attempting to go upon any site.
From Currituck County on the Virginia border to Brunswick County on the South Carolina line, the long, irregular North Carolina coast stretches more than three hundred miles. And beyond its Atlantic shores, the coastal plain sweeps inland for more than a hundred miles. With a tempestuous sea, winding coastal rivers and creeks, drifting sand dunes, remote islands, forbidding swamps, vast peat bogs, and stately trees draped with Spanish moss providing settings for the macabre, coastal North Carolina is home to a spooky collection of sinister beings, weird happenings, and frightening haunts. These seaside spectres now await your acquaintance, if you dare.