The Ghosts of Charleston
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The Ghosts of Charleston
With a birthday close to Halloween, I came by my interest in ghosts honestly. The idea of ghosts fascinates me. A ghost is said to be an apparition of the deceased. Those that have seen a ghost, claim that they are easily recognized. They are not draped in billowing sheets and cobwebs but appear similar to what they looked like when alive. They usually haunt the places they frequented when alive.
Charleston, SC is a city rich is history and has more than its fair share of ghosts. Blue Bottle Trees, proported to keep the haints away, can still be seen throughout South Carolina. Below is a list of some of my favorite books featuring The Ghosts of Charleston.
Keep the Haints Away
Low Country Voices
Low Country Voices: What Coastal Back Roads Folk Told Me of Ghosts, Sea Captains, and Charleston Jazzmen
Amazon Price: $3.95 (as of 06/01/2012)
The Carolina Low Country is a magical place with colorful characters and fascinating legends. This collection of memorable tales culminated from interviews with long-time residents of the Carolina coast is a means to pass on these legends. They bared their souls with a fire that burned in their hearts.
Ghosts & Legends of the Carolina Coasts
Ghosts and Legends of the Carolina Coasts
Amazon Price: $4.99 (as of 06/01/2012)
Turn on the lights and make sure your front door is locked as you read about the eerie Fire Ship of New Bern, which appears every year on the anniversary of its tragic end, in "Ship of Fire"; otherworldly phenomena such as "Colonel Buck's Curse" and "Mysterious Pactolus Light"; the ghosts of Confederate soldiers who lingered in the "Haunted Hospital" long after their tragic deaths; and the dreaded Boo Hag, an evil spirit who uses witchcraft to work her mischief, and may suffocate her victims by sitting on their chests.
Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City
Wicked Charleston: The Dark Side of the Holy City
Amazon Price: $29.66 (as of 06/01/2012)
Known as a beautiful Southern city and distinguished by its opulent homes, towering church steeples and gracious hospitality, Charleston, South Carolina, has long been associated with the genteel side of Southern living. However, beyond the outward appearances that most people associate with Charleston, there is another side that most visitors and residents alike would not believe is part of the very fabric from which the city's history was woven.
Best Ghost Tales of South Carolina
Best Ghost Tales of South Carolina
Amazon Price: $6.16 (as of 06/01/2012)
During the day, residents and visitors alike enjoy the quiet beauty of the peaceful coasts and Lowcountry of South Carolina. But in a state where soldiers fell, slaves died without knowing freedom, and the practice of voodoo is still an open secret, the night is bound to be a bit more exciting.
Whether you are an amateur ghost-hunter, a South Carolina buff, or just love a good scare, you will enjoy these tales of ghostly encounters and supernatural happenings. From the bustling streets of Charleston and the graceful old plantations, to the foreboding coastal forts and the darkest heart of the swamps, spirits and creatures seem to lurk in every corner.
Haunted Charleston
Haunted Charleston: Stories from the College of Charleston, The Citadel and the Holy City
Amazon Price: $11.59 (as of 06/01/2012)
"There is only one essential ingredient in a ghost story: death." So say Charlestonians Ed Macy and Geordie Buxton in their introduction to Haunted Charleston.
On the age-old streets of Charleston, where true life is stranger than fiction, narrators Macy and Buxton leave embellishment by the wayside to let these stories-in ghastly and sometimes dreadful detail-tell themselves.
By rambling through the oft-forgotten enclaves of the Holy City, the authors bring the reader face to face with a group of orphans who haunt a College of Charleston dorm, a Citadel cadet who haunts a local hotel and the specter of William Drayton at Drayton Hall Plantation, to name just a few.
Based on historical events and specific details that are often lost in our general notion of ghosts, each haunting encounter will send chills through the reader's senses.
Ghosts of the Carolina Coasts
Ghosts of the Carolina Coasts : Haunted Lighthouses, Plantations, and other Other Sites
Amazon Price: $2.95 (as of 06/01/2012)
Love, greed, murder, and mayhem are the things great stories are made of, and plenty of these elements can be found in the stories collected here. Some of the tales are grounded in library research of old newspaper clippings; the rest are retold as they were recited to the author. Some are well known, with many adaptations, and some have seldom, if ever, been heard.
Ghosts of the Carolinas
Ghosts of the Carolinas
Amazon Price: $3.91 (as of 06/01/2012)
When packing for your next camping trip, be sure to include a few stories to tell around the campfire. Many of the tales in Ghosts are retellings of old standbys such as "The Gray Man" or "The Hound of Goshen," and sprinkled among these familiar tales are stories of past and present Carolinian hauntings which will send a satisfying chill down the spine of the ghost story aficionado. Roberts narrates her stories with a casual Southern voice reminiscent of a front porch social on a warm summer evening.
The Civil War
There are many that believe that those whose lives have been cut short by violence are more likely to come back as ghosts. Their lives were unfulfilled. Their restless spirits haunt battlefields, cemeteries, taverns, and boarding houses. They continue to search for what they lost and can never have again. Ghosts & Haunts of the Civil War
Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War: Authentic Accounts of the Strange and Unexplained
Amazon Price: $6.94 (as of 06/01/2012)
From haunted battlefields to phantom soldiers, this book is a fascinating collection of chilling and intriguing stories of Civil War ghosts. It contains thirty-six such stories, including an encounter by both Teddy Roosevelt and First Lady Grace Coolidge with Abraham Lincoln in the White House.
Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Appartitions, & Haunted Places
Ghosts of Gettysburg: Spirits, Apparitions, and Haunted Places of the Battlefield
Amazon Price: $5.25 (as of 06/01/2012)
catastrophic events leave indelible marks on the land upon which they occurred. Place memories are like a tape recorder to be rewound and played again and again. Then there are those occasions when it isn't a place memory but a ghost. Battlefields are excellent places to find them, as they are all haunted.
Ghosts of Gettysburg: Walking on Hallowed Ground
Ghosts of Gettysburg: Walking on Hallowed Ground
Amazon Price: $15.90 (as of 06/01/2012)
Ghosts of Gettysburg: Walking on Hallowed Ground is a keep-you-up-all-night book from real life master ghost hunters Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester, cofounders of the International Ghost Hunters Society, the largest ghost research society on the Internet.
Drs. Dave and Sharon Oester spend their time traveling the back roads of America, investigating some of its most haunted places. Over a six-year period, they explored and recorded the amazing ghostly experiences of visitors to the Gettysburg battlefield. One year they devoted a full month for battlefield investigations and drove over 1,000 miles on the battlefield gathering data for this book.
St. Phillips Church
Location is a factor.
In a historic city such as Charleston, feeling the presence of past residents is understandable. The spirits have made their home in graveyards, churchs, and inns. In some areas of the city the spirits of the past are as much a part of the city as are the living. The Haunted South
Dixie Spirits: True Tales of the Strange and Supernatural in the South
Amazon Price: $3.76 (as of 06/01/2012)
There is something about the South that is particularly conducive to ghosts, hauntings, and assorted weirdness. From the dank bayous of Louisiana to the misty mountains of Appalachia, there is hardly a city, town, or whistle-stop that cannot boast of some resident spirit or similar unexplained phenomena.
Dixie Spirits explores this uncanny aspect of the South in depth. A collection of authentic Southern "haint" tales and other accounts of the unexplained, the stories are set in the land below the Mason-Dixon Line--Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky (Transylvania), Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina (Old North State), South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Covering both the past and the present, these stories recount some of the most famous hauntings of all time as well as an assortment of anomalies that continue to defy speculation.
Haunted Harbor
Haunted Harbor: Charleston's Maritime Ghosts and the Unexplained
Amazon Price: $14.27 (as of 06/01/2012)
"Like ghosts, the waters that surround Charleston are dark and mysterious, and their stories have remained, until now, somewhat secret and unseen." Celebrated tour guides and writers Geordie Buxton and Ed Macy invite you to voyage into the fathoms-deep waters of the Holy City with their new collection, Haunted Harbor.
This cache of macabre, eerie and never-before-told stories of the countless souls who linger in watery graves within Charleston's historic harbor includes tales of strange occurrences at Castle Pinckney; of the reappearing face of a mysterious soldier at Fort Sumter; of the influence of real-life pirates on Sullivan's Island resident Edgar Allen Poe; of the unexplained sounds of Seneca guns; and many more.
Read and Enjoy
Whether you believe in ghost or not, reading about them is an enjoyable pastime. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I did.Other creepy crawly topics you might be interested in can be found at Grave Markers or The Black Widow Spider.
Happy Haunting!
Have you ever felt or seen a ghost?
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Blonde_Blythe May 14, 2012 @ 9:54 pm | delete
- No, and don't want to, either! ;-) Interesting lens!
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Deenasmith32520
Dec 23, 2011 @ 12:26 pm | delete
- Great lens! Do you guys have any ghost tours in Charleston?? I am from New Jersey and they have some of the cutest ghost tours in this little beach town called Cape May. My husband and I have been down a few times recently looking at real estate in Charleston SC and I would love to take a ghost tour of Charleston sometime! Let me know! Thank you
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LensbyLisa
Sep 18, 2011 @ 11:30 pm | delete
- I just featured your lens here: http://www.squidoo.com/the-haunted-history-of-the-delta-queen-riverboat. I had never heard of a blue bottle tree before...learned something new!
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JaguarJulie Oct 9, 2010 @ 11:31 am | delete
- Ah, yes indeed I have felt and seen ghosts as well as spirits and often angels as well. This is fascinating information!
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Tipi
Oct 7, 2010 @ 2:37 pm | delete
- Very good ... I lensrolled to my Orbs Pictures.
It was good to learn about those who remain.
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