HGB Ep. 552 - Haunted Abbeville, South Carolina

Moment in Oddity - Swallowing Gum

As children, many of us were told, don't swallow watermelon seeds or a watermelon plant will grow inside your tummy. Or this one, don't swallow gum or it will ball up in your stomach and never be digested, or at minimum the gum would take seven years to digest. Now, gum has several ingredients that are digested easily. There are sweeteners and other flavoring ingredients and softeners like vegetable oil added so that the piece of gum doesn't get rock hard after the first few minutes. However, there are some ingredients that are not digestible. At one time, the base of chewing gum was sourced from the sapodilla tree which was not able to be digested by the human body. After WWII, the demand for gum increased to the point that the sapodilla trees' sustainability was unable to keep up with the production. The gum base evolution began with combining polymers that were both synthetic and natural. While it is still true that our bodies cannot break down the base of gum, our bodies ARE able to pass the undigestible portion, similar to how we pass corn kernels. And that fact reminds me of the game, 'First Corn'. If you know you know. Our bodies are capable of amazing feats, but the thought of having a huge, undigestible ball of gum stuck in our gut, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Davy Crockett Born

In the month of August, on the 17th, in 1786, Davy Crockett was born. Known by the nickname, "King of the Wild Frontier", Davy, or David as he preferred to be called, was born near Limestone, Tennessee. Growing up he became known as a great hunter and storyteller, an American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. After being elected to Congress in 1827, he came up against President Andrew Jackson where he passionately opposed many of the President's policies, most notably, the Indian Removal Act. This hostility towards Jackson's policies caused Crockett's defeat in the election of 1831. He was re-elected in 1833 and then lost again in 1835. This motivated his subsequent exit to the Mexican state of Tejas, later to become Texas. In January of 1836, Davy joined the Texas Revolution and died at the Battle of the Alamo in March of that year at the age of 49. To this day, it is yet undetermined whether Crockett died in battle or was executed after surrendering, due to varying eye witness accounts.

Haunted Abbeville, South Carolina

The town of Abbeville in South Carolina is near the Georgia state line and hosted the last war council for Jefferson Davis. The Confederacy died in this town. The tree-lined square hosts many historic buildings and the town itself is filled with Victorian and Gothic styled homes. This all makes Abbeville seem like a quiet little town. But underneath that southern charm are ghost stories. Many buildings here are said to be haunted. Join us for the history and hauntings of the town of Abbeville, South Carolina.

A group of French Huguenots settled Abbeville (a bee vl) in 1758. The site was originally named John de la Howe for one of those Huguenots, but eventually John suggested the name Abbeville after his hometown in France. Revolutionary War hero General Andrew Pickens called Abbeville home and he owned a lot of property here including a fresh-water spring known as the Big Spring. Pickens donated the spring to the people of Abbeville to use as their primary water source. The town was incorporated in 1840. This town would become the birthplace and deathbed of the Confederacy. Secession Hill was the gathering place for secessionists and they met there on November 22, 1860 to make their plan to leave the Union. A month later, South Carolina seceded. When the war ended, Confederate President Jefferson Davis stopped at his friend Armistead Burt's home in Abbeville for a night. This was May 2, 1865 and in the parlor of the Burt-Stark Mansion, he held his last official cabinet meeting and dissolved the Confederate government. The tallest building in South Carolina is here, the Prysmian Copper Wire Tower. There are many historic buildings here and a few of them are reputedly haunted. That's probably why they host a ghost tour in the town during October. Here are a few of those places.

Abbeville Welcome Center

We should probably start with the town's welcome center, which is located at 100 Court Square. This building had housed the State of South Carolina Bank and its special because it is one of the few historic buildings to have survived fires that occurred in the 1870s. This is the starting point for the walking tours of the city and also is the home for the Greater Abbeville Chamber of Commerce. The Old Bank Building was built in 1865 and designed by S. Henry James. The lobby has a series of paintings done by artist Wilbur Kurtz in 1922. These paintings feature a hundred years of Abbeville's history from Gen. Andrew Pickens to Jefferson Davis' Last War Council Meeting. Nations Bank donated the building and paintings to the city in 1996. One ghost story connected to this building features the spirit of a young boy who likes to chase staff in the hallways, but he is usually seen as an apparition outside the building, staring down the street. A former volunteer at the Chamber of Commerce said of a ghost in the building, "He’s an older man, and we can hear him whistling all the time. A medium visited us one day several years ago and described the man as an older white man around sixty or seventy years old. She said he was wearing blue jean overalls and a white short-sleeved t-shirt. Each time he was seen, he was apparently sweeping or mopping the floor of the bank, so we were okay with that." - LaNelle, Marjorie. The Apparitions of Abbeville (The History & Mystery of the South Carolina Lakelands Book 2) (p. 98). Palmetto Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Abbeville County Museum

Our next location here is one of our favorite kinds of places to investigate and that is an old county jail. Today, this is the Abbeville County Museum and is located at 215 Poplar Street. The building was constructed between 1830 and 1850, making it the oldest building in town, and functioned as the jail until 1948. Rather than having half the jail house the criminals and the other half housing the warden and his family, this old jail kept prisoners on the second and third floors and the ground floor was reserved for the warden and his family. The top floor usually had the worst offenders and it is believed hangings took place up there. It really was the perfect place for them as the roof is crossed by thick wooden beams that easily could've had ropes thrown over them. After being the jail, it served as the county morgue for awhile and then was the Abbeville American Legion and dance hall. That was mainly in the 1960s. The building became the Abbeville County Museum in 1976. Staff members have heard disembodied footsteps. Mary Baskin Hutchinson was an Abbeville historian and she shared a story about a tour she gave to a medium. She took the medium up to the third floor and he separated from the group and went over to the corner and had what she described as "an animated conversation with nothing." The medium returned to the group and he told Mary that there was a spirit here of a black man and that he wanted to talk to Mary because he was afraid they were trying to put him out. The spirit identified himself as Earl Miller and said he was 28-years-old and that he had been there at the jail since 1905. So Mary talked to him and told him that he was welcome to stay and help watch over the museum, but she requested that he stay up on the third floor.

Bernibrooks Inn

Bernibrooks Inn is located at 200 W. Pinckney Street. This started off as the home William Brooks built for his daughter Maggie Whitfield Brooks in 1860. This was constructed in the Colonial Revival design and is a really large house and this was because he hoped Maggie would have a large family. Maggie had different desires and she never married or had children. She transformed the house into a boarding house for traveling railroad workers. Maggie lived in the house until her death at the age of eighty-seven. The house passed into other hands and it was not maintained. An elderly couple named Nichols were told they had to leave the house because it became unlivable. A family named Parnell purchased the house and just left it in its sad state. The Berni family bought it in 1993 and they renovated the house. The renovations took a long time, so they didn't open the Bernibrooks Inn until 2003. It seems that it closed in 2016, so you can't stay here any longer. The haunting experiences started happening when the Berni's started renovating the house. It is believed that Maggie haunts her former home. The first thing that happened is that they found a penny at the top of the stairway. This isn't necessarily weird, but pennies started showing up everywhere. Some of the pennies were found outside too. Not sure the specifics of pennies in this case, but a book written about the ghosts in Abbeville has a whole chapter with a very elaborate story about a Confederate soldier who stayed at the boarding house and Maggie would say to him, "Penny for your thoughts?" and he would respond that he didn't like pennies because they had Lincoln on them and then they would laugh. It was a cute story, but uh...Lincoln wasn't on the penny until 1909.

John A. Harris House

The John A. Harris House is located at 200 South Main Street. This site was originally owned by former Governor Patrick Noble who governed in the 1840s. He built his summer home here. That house was demolished and John A. Harris built his home here in 1896, which was designed by Atlanta firm Bruce & Morgan. That firm had also designed Tillman Hall at Clemson University. John Harris was the former president of Abbeville Mills. These included the Abbeville Furniture Co. manufacturing plant and The Abbeville Cotton Mill, which was the first mill in Abbeville. His home was built in the Victorian style with a wide wrap around veranda and portico supported by slender columns. The house stayed in the family for many years. John's grandson Grant Harris had a friend named Debra come to visit him. When she entered the house, she told Grant she just had the weirdest sensation. When she was coming up the front steps, she felt a presence walk past her and there was an icy chill to this feeling. Grant told her that it was probably his grandfather John as this type of thing happened often. The house was put up for sale and we're not sure who owns it now, but it is in need of a lot of love. 

The General's House  

The General's House is also known as the McGowan-Barksdale-Bundy House and is located at 211 North Main Street. The nickname refers to two former owners who were generals, Confederate Brigadier General Samuel McGowan and World War II General William E. Barksdale. McGowan is the man who had the house built in 1888 over the foundation of his prior home that had burned down. He had moved to Abbeville in 1841 and purchased a Gothic Revival home from a widow, which burned in 1887. Atlanta architect G.L. Norman designed the house in the Queen Anne Victorian style and features towers and turrets. A beautiful unique feature in the interior of the house is a multicolored interior window with a cross over a landing on the stairwell and the sun shines through it perfectly. There is a root cellar and a basement that has eight rooms. The main floor has four rooms, a library, kitchen/dining area, large living hall and a parlor. A grand staircase leads up to the second floor which has a central hall and four bedrooms off the hall. The attic is on the third floor. The last owner was J.D. Bundy and he deeded the house to the Abbeville County Historical Society in 1989. The house is today a museum focused on military history that has added three servant cabins to the property and a train caboose.

An anonymous journalist visited the house with a photographer friend and they got a tour from an elderly caretaker. When they got up to the second floor, the journalist heard an audible cough. The journalist mentioned to the caretaker who was taking them through the house that they probably shouldn't disturb the person on this floor. The caretaker asked the journalist what she was talking about because they were the only people in the house. Then she heard the coughing again. Marjorie LaNelle writes in her book "The Apparitions of Abbeville: The History and Mystery of the South Carolina Lakelands" what happened next, "'See?' I said loudly and insistently. 'There IS somebody up here!' I hurried to the front room where the door was open. 'It's coming from in here!' As I looked into the room, I saw the bed was neatly made and the room was tidy. It had a bed and a chest of drawers alongside a desk and chair. But there was no one in the room - at least no one that the human eye could apparently see! 'That there's the room where William McGowan died,' said George as he pointed to the room with his walking cane. 'He was General McGowan's son,' he added. 'Died of pneumonia,' said George. 'He was only thirty-nine years old.'" People claim to see the ghost of William McGowan looking out the upstairs round window. The scent of cherry tobacco has been smelled. And that phantom cough has been heard by other people as well.

Trinity Episcopal Church

Trinity Episcopal Church is located at 200 Church St. The church started in 1842 in a clapboard building. In 1858, it as decided that the congregation needed a fine building for their services and they hired architect George E. Walker from Columbia to design the church. He found inspiration in the Gothic cathedrals in Europe and it shows. This is a beautiful church with a tall front column with a soaring spire topped with a cross. The cornerstone was laid on June 27, 1859 and the church was built from handmade bricks. The interior features handmade woodwork. The really glorious part of this church though are the 19th century American stained glass windows. The father of stained glass painting in America, William Gibson, designed the chancel window that is entitled "Suffer the Little Children." Another window is from the 20th century and was crafted by J&R Lamb Studios and depicts the Holy Family. There are interesting legends connected to the church. One legend claims that the chancel window was intended for a Northern congregation, but couldn't get through a Union blockade of Charleston during the Civil War and so the church adapted it to their church. There is nothing to support this and is thought to have been specifically crafted for the church. The church has a bell that was gifted to the church by a member named J. Foster Marshall who was a colonel that died in the Battle of Second Manassas. During the war, a Confederate officer saw the bell and thought it would be handy to melt it down and make a cannon, but thankfully the bell wasn't made from the right kind of metal, so it was saved.

There was a woman visiting the town with her daughter and they were walking down the street towards the Trinity Episcopal Church when all of a sudden the young girl broke away from her mother and ran towards the church and then she went inside. Her mother caught up to her and found her in the vestibule talking to something the mother couldn't see. Her daughter came over to her very excited and proclaimed, "Mother, I want you to meet my new friend Elizabeth. She wants us to help her." The mother saw no one, so she ushered her daughter out of the church. But the daughter was set on helping Elizabeth, so the mother visited the church several times with her daughter over the next couple of weeks and eventually she too could see Elizabeth. Elizabeth told the mother her problem and there was an attempt to cross her over, but it didn't work because the spirit of Elizabeth is still seen and felt in the church. People see a woman sitting in the front pew, wearing an old-fashioned dress. The sounds of disembodied weeping are heard as well. If the spirit is approached, it vanishes. The Elizabeth in this story is thought to be Elizabeth Marshall. Her husband Drew joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War and Elizabeth would come to the church everyday with the couples son and sit in the front pew and pray for the safety of her husband. Unfortunately, Drew was killed at the Battle of Second Manassas in 1862. For some reason, Elizabeth was accused of being an informant and so her son was killed in retaliation. She tried to attack the soldiers who did this and it is thought she was then murdered herself.

The Belmont Inn

The Belmont Inn is a classic hotel featuring modern amenities and a restaurant and bar that was originally known as the Eureka Hotel, which was built in 1903 for $30,000. The first floor was open to salesmen selling their wares and served mostly people traveling on the railroad. Regular patrons were also vaudeville entertainers who would perform at the Abbeville Opera House. Fanny Brice became a regular. She was comedian who created The Baby Snooks Show and the 1968 film "Funny Girl" is loosely based on her life story. Brice started in burlesque, joined the Ziegfeld Follies, performed multiple times on Broadway and recorded several records for Victor and Columbia Records. The Eureka Hotel became the Belmont Inn in 1920 and ran as that until 1950, when the inn became a semi-residential home for the elderly. That lasted until the 1970s and then it closed for several years. In 1984, it was restored and reopened as a hotel with 25 rooms. It closed again for a while and passed through a few hands and is today owned by Jim Petty and his wife Susan Botts and Susan is happy to tell people that her establishment is haunted. The claim is that this is the second most haunted hotel in South Carolina.

The inn is said to be haunted by a former bellhop named Abraham who worked with the original opening crew. He likes to walk up and down the hallways and jiggle the doorknobs. People have seen him still in his bellhop uniform and a few guests have claimed that Abraham jumped into bed with them to suggle. The website Drugstore Divas stayed at the inn and wrote, "I was laying in bed in The Belmont Inn in Abbeville, SC and heard noise outside in the hallway. Instead of immediately thinking it was other guests, I thought it was Abraham, the bellhop. The dead bellhop. Who haunts the hotel. So when I heard footsteps in the hallway, my first thought wasn’t other guests walking back to their rooms after a night out on court square. My first thought was Abraham must be checking the doorknobs." There are other spirits here as well. One of these ghosts carries over from the opera house where she was performing, but she took ill and returned to the Belmont Inn where she was staying and she died in her room. A woman in a black Victorian era dress with a lace veil over her face and black gloves has been seen on several occasions near the registration desk. One person who saw her said that this spirit passed right by her and disappeared into the wall and that this ghost appeared to be floating before that. The guest who saw her wasn't afraid, just surprised. She is thought to be completely residual. Rooms 5 and 12 are said to be the most active if you book this hotel.

Another spirit likes to hang out on the stairs. Marjorie shares this story in her book that she was told by a couple who stayed at the hotel, "On a late evening in December, I attended a year-end awards ceremony for my place of employment that was held in the dining room on the second floor of the Belmont Inn. My husband and I entered the hotel through the side door on the basement level and took the elevator to the main floor. The bartender directed us to the elevator and stairs and said the choice was ours as to which one we would like to utilize. He then stated that there would be directional signs to point the way once we reached the second/main floor. We chose to utilize the elevator. Once we reached the next level and stepped off of the elevator, I noticed a tall, well-dressed lady wearing a long, baby-blue Victorian dress. One could tell that it was tailor-made, as it fit her hourglass figure perfectly. She was also wearing a rather large, matching, wide-brimmed hat that tied around her chin. Lace gloves covered her hands, and she was holding a closed white parasol. She simply stood at the foot of the staircase as if looking frantically for something. As we passed by, she turned and seemed to look straight through my husband and me as if we were not even there. The look on her face was that of panic and sadness. She then turned her head to the right as if to look up to toward the top of the grand staircase, one step at a time. It was apparent that she had lost something very valuable. I uttered a friendly Southern, “Hey, how are you?” and we continued walking toward our destination. My husband gave me the strangest look, and he asked me who I was talking to. “That reenactor at the stairs,” I answered, and he gave me yet another strange look, but he didn’t ask any more questions as we followed the directional signs and finally reached our destination. The incident puzzled me during our dinner engagement, and my husband insisted I was seeing things, because he hadn’t witnessed any such lady. I couldn’t help but wonder if she ever found what she was looking for, but I hope she did. Over and over in my mind, I wondered about what I had seen. I just summed it up as a reenactor or actress who was about to head to the neighboring opera house for her performance in a play. That must be what it was, I continued to try to convince myself. After dinner, I excused myself for a restroom break before we headed home. At that time, I met one of the concierges of the establishment. When I asked him about it, he explained to me that there is a ghost story in the hotel about a lady who lost her most valuable necklace and still, even in the afterlife, searches for it. “She has been seen here a lot.” He giggled. “I haven’t seen her, but a lot of people say they have! She’s usually right around the grand staircase,” he concluded." 

Abbeville Opera House

And since we mentioned the Abbeville Opera House, we should feature this location next. The theater is located at 100 Court Square #102. The Abbeville Opera House was designed by architect William Augustus Edwards and opened in 1904. This was part of a government complex that included a courthouse. The building is three stories and made from red brick with brick sunburst around the keystones and the parapet has raised central portion. The interior theater has three levels: orchestra section, balcony and upper gallery. There are box seats on each corner and large Corinthian columns flank the theater from orchestra floor to ceiling. The stage area is 7,500 square feet and there are twelve dressing rooms. While updates have been made to the lighting, the old system is still here for historical interest. The first restoration of the theater came in 1968 and brought the seating up to 420. Everything was changed to red upholstery on seats, red carpeting and red velvet curtains with gold trim.

The theater wasn't officially dedicated until 1908, but the first production took place back in 1904 and this was "The Clansman." Other plays put on here included "The Great Divide" and "Ben HUr" with real horses in the production. Vaudeville was in its heyday and Abbeville was a popular stop off for traveling companies. Theater greats like Jimmy Durante and Fanny Brice played here as did the Ziegfield Follies. The place was so popular that the Southern Railroad ran special trains to accommodate the hundreds of people who came to Abbeville for the plays. Speeches were hosted here as well with one of the most famous being by William Jennings Bryan. The theater eventually became the home of the Abbeville Community Theater. Today, the theater hosts plays and music concerts by tribute bands and other musical performances.

David Eller was an Abbeville Tour Guide and he shared about the ghosts at the opera house. The first one to take up residence is believed to be a construction worker who died during the construction in 1904. He fell to his death from the top of the theater into the parking lot. He likes to bang pipes and hang out in the dressing rooms and he is blamed for making props disappear. The second is the young woman who had been staying at the Belmont Inn. She was touring with a company from New York to Atlanta and they had a stop over in Abbeville. This actress inhabits the house side of the theater and she has a special seat in the third balcony. They leave a light on for her - which is more than likely the traditional ghost light of all theaters - and leave her chair in its place and empty. If they move the chair, her spirit becomes quite angry and bad things happen during the production. People have claimed to see her apparition out of the corner of their eye. (That chair that they leave open is an original chair and the only one not updated into the cushy comfy chairs that now are part of the seating arrangement.

Abbeville seems like it should just be a quaint little southern town, full of charm and areas for peaceful ruminations. But clearly, its reputation as one of the most haunted towns in South Carolina seems to have some support. Are these buildings in Abbeville haunted? That is for you to decide!