Let’s talk of graves, of worms, of epitaphs.
William Shakespeare
From the coast to the mountains, thousands of historic cemeteries are scattered over the North Carolina landscape. For the timid at heart, a nighttime visit to one of these ancient burial grounds can be a harrowing experience, because many are said to be haunted by ghosts and spirits. On the other hand, a leisurely daytime stroll through an old graveyard can be a pleasurable walk back into history, for many of the weathered tombstones have fascinating stories behind them. Such is the case with two grave markers in a timeworn cemetery in Wayne County.
For seventeen-year-old Rachael Vinson, Christmas 1856 was a particularly happy time. Never before had she felt such splendor and anticipation. Indeed, she was filled with the unique excitement and ardor experienced only by those who are deeply in love. Her beau was an eligible local bachelor by the name of George Deans, eight years her elder. Rachael dreamed about their beautiful wedding, scheduled for the fall harvest season in eastern North Carolina.
Alas, the nuptials never took place, for George soon revealed that he had become infatuated with another young lady. Poor Rachael was crushed. She lost all reason to live. Within weeks, her almost uncontrollable grief was replaced by sickness and fever. Her body was robbed of its vigor; her tender heart was broken; her gentle soul was stripped of its raison d’être. Just before her death, the jilted young lady called George to her bedside. She asked him to lean close to her. Then she whispered ever so softly, “I realize that I can never have you in this world, but I shall claim you in the next.” On February 6, 1857, Rachael breathed her last.
A year passed, and another Christmas was at hand. At the height of the season’s revelry, George and a group of his friends were walking home from a holiday party. Their route took them past the graveyard where Rachael had been buried earlier in the year. It rested on a high piece of ground above the winding road. From their vantage point, George and his compatriots observed a strange, fog-like mist rising from the bank above them. As the mist floated out of the cemetery toward them, it took on the appearance of the white, ghostly form of a woman.
Scared out of their wits, all the men save George fled the scene in great haste. For whatever reason, poor George could not move. He stood there as if made of stone, certain that the apparition was that of Rachael. He did not and could not say a word. Neither did the spectre. Then the ghostly form touched him! This phantom touch was made by a hand that was icy cold. It was literally the touch of death. Then, in an instant, the apparition vanished.
After a while, George’s friends returned to look for him. They found him where they had left him—standing in a daze in the middle of the road opposite the cemetery. George looked as if he had seen a ghost.
When he awoke from a restless sleep the following morning, George was suffering from excruciating pain in the hand that had been touched by the apparition. Though he received immediate medical attention, the hand shriveled up over the course of the next few days and was useless for the rest of his life.
George Deans lived more than thirty years after the bizarre encounter with Rachael’s ghost. There is no record that he ever married. After he died on June 9, 1889, his body was buried in the same cemetery that contained the grave of Rachael Vinson. Etched near the top of George’s gravestone were two hands eternally clasped. Maybe that design represented the realization of Rachael’s haunting deathbed utterance.
At George’s death and for some time thereafter, folks in Wayne County remained skeptical of Rachael’s ability to make good on her dying promise. And then it happened: some forty years after George was laid to rest, the likeness of Rachael’s face mysteriously appeared on his grave marker. People who had seen a picture of the beautiful girl declared that the bizarre, life-size discoloration on the stone was the likeness of Rachael Vinson.
Deprived of the joy of promising “Till death do us part,” Rachael made sure that death would keep her together with George forever.