Death—the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening.
Walter Scott
Romanticists have always maintained that true love never dies. That love can survive death and manifest itself beyond the grave has long been a common theme in the world of the supernatural. A case in point is the ghostly light that has been observed along the railroad tracks near the Pitt County town of Pactolus for nearly a century. It may very well be a tangible symbol of everlasting love.
Pactolus, a small village on US 264 in eastern Pitt County, is an old place, having been settled around 1790 by a Greek schoolteacher. Because the fertile land in the area yielded prodigious quantities of crops, he chose to name the settlement after the Pactolus River in Asia Minor, which was known for its unusual sand flecked with gold.
Its proximity to the Tar River enabled Pactolus to prosper as an agricultural center during its first century of existence. A new boon came to the village in 1892, when the movement of crops by rail supplanted shipping by water. In that year, the final link of the Washington Branch Railroad was completed in Pactolus. Before the advent of the automobile, this rail line was an important source of passenger transportation.
East Carolina Teachers College (now East Carolina University) opened its doors in nearby Greenville in 1909. It boasted 174 students. Glenna, the principal female character in this story, was a student there when the school was in its infancy. After completing her studies, she returned to her home in Richmond, Virginia, where she pined for her fiancé. While attending East Carolina, she had met and fallen deeply in love with David, a handsome young fellow from Greenville.
After the couple was separated for a period of months, the day finally arrived when Glenna boarded the train in Richmond that would carry her to Pactolus. From there, she would take a short buggy ride to be reunited with her future husband. David, however, was intent on making the reunion even sooner and sweeter. On the afternoon of Glenna’s planned arrival, he saddled his horse and rode out to Pactolus.
As fate would have it, the train from Richmond did not arrive on schedule. As David rode up and down the tracks anxiously awaiting Glenna, the sun set and darkness enveloped the landscape. David soon became disoriented in the unfamiliar countryside. Now, there would be no surprise. Glenna would not even know he had come to meet the train.
As bad as things were for David, they were about to take a turn for the worse. His horse had attracted the attention of two lawless men who were loitering nearby. Anxious to steal the animal, they attacked David as he slowly rode past. David was killed during the savage assault. His murderers disposed of his corpse by dumping it in some dense vegetation. While they were doing so, David’s horse escaped.
That horse made its way back to Greenville several days later. When they saw the animal, David’s folks and Glenna realized that something was terribly wrong. They searched and searched for David, but their efforts were in vain. Once the search was called off, the heartbroken Glenna returned to Richmond.
Not long after David’s death, an eerie light began to appear along the railroad tracks where the young man had waited for the love of his life. At times, the light appeared high off the ground, as if it were the ghost of someone riding a horse. On other occasions, it was closer to the ground, as if the ghost were walking along the railroad tracks. No other plausible explanation for the phantom light being available, local folks reckoned that it was David’s ghost.
Over the decades since the murder, the Pactolus Light has been observed on countless nights. The old railroad line was abandoned in recent times, but the ghostly light continues to make its appearance. Romantic couples as well as fraternities and sororities at East Carolina University often make their way from Greenville to see the strange phenomenon. They have discovered that visitors to the site must watch in silence, for if an attempt is made to investigate the light, it moves away very quickly. As the legend goes, the horse that David’s ghost rides is spooked by the activity and gallops away.
For almost a century, the Pactolus Light has appeared near the very place where David disappeared. This old ghost is persistent, for poor David wants to make sure he’s there when the train bearing his dear Glenna once again pulls in at Pactolus. After all, true love never dies.