Six Miles to Charleston

by Bruce Orr

  There were no trapdoors used in Six Mile House; there was no cellar full of bodies. Dead folk have a way of turning up—literally—during construction of new buildings as you will soon read. None turned up in the area of the Six Mile House other than the two bodies (and a cow corpse), and there is no evidence they were victims.

  On February 14, 1970, just four days prior to the 151st anniversary of the arrests of the Fishers at the same location, groundbreaking began for the Charleston Naval Hospital. There were no unearthed bodies and no uncovered cellars. From the time of its initial groundbreaking and its completion in 1973, nothing of the sort was recovered.

  The discovery of bodies does occur periodically as you will soon learn about with the Medical University Basic Science Building’s construction, but this was not the case with the hospital.

  Charleston Naval Clinic (formerly Charleston Naval Hospital)—the site where Six Mile House once stood. Courtesy of author.

  We have established that Lavinia was not a witch, a serial killer or the first female hanged in the United States. She did not use seduction or oleander tea to render her victims helpless. She may have once been a slave.

  We have likewise proven that John Fisher was not a butcher or a coward. He did not shift the blame to Lavinia. In fact, he protested both her innocence, and his, right up to their executions.

  The Fishers did not act alone. There were twelve named members of the gang. Ten were apprehended and four were prosecuted. Three were hanged.

  No one was ever charged with murder. Lavinia Fisher was never a serial killer or a murderess. Neither is John Fisher a murderer. They were executed for highway robbery. John Peoples was the only victim that they were executed for. They were tried and convicted on assault to commit murder and common assault on David Ross, but for reasons left to speculation, this case was thrown out and the judges ruled on the Peoples case.

  Lavinia was not executed separately from her husband. They were executed together at Meeting Street and the Lines. The Lines was a military barricade and fortification that the militia and citizens of Charleston constructed for defense. The location of where their execution took place would be in the vicinity of Meeting Street and Line Street today.

  Lavinia was not executed in her wedding dress. According to Attorney John Blake White’s eyewitness account, both of the Fishers were executed in loose white garments placed over their clothing. If Lavinia was executed in her wedding dress, John Fisher wore his wedding dress also. As a matter of fact the Six Mile House was burned to the ground immediately after their arrest. That included all of their property. Lavinia could not have sent someone to retrieve her wedding dress from Six Mile House. It would have been burned months before her execution.

  Unless someone bartered for Lavinia’s body after the Charleston Courier’s article, the bodies were buried in Charleston’s potter’s field. The potter’s field was eventually converted to a federal arsenal in 1825. Porter Military School (eventually Porter Gaud Academy) was eventually built over the potter’s field in 1880 and the Medical University of South Carolina eventually replaced Porter Military School in 1964.

  During the construction of the Basic Science Building in 1968, numerous graves were unearthed. One source states that a request was made to have the bodies reinterred on James Island, but no records were found stating that actually happened. Another thirty-three graves were unearthed in 2001 with construction of the Children’s Research Center. Ironically, most of these were children. They are believed to have been the victims of the yellow fever epidemic of 1819–1820. They were reinterred in March 2003 and a plaque dedicated to these deceased persons was placed near St. Luke’s Church.

  It reads:

  On this site in final repose lieth the remains of thirty-three adults and children which were removed from a two hundred year old burial ground on the site of the Children’s Research Building. May it serve as a solemn reminder of the suffering of an earlier time and an incentive to those who seek to eliminate diseases which afflict the children and adults of today.—March 21, 2003

  This illustrates that there is current corroborating evidence that there was a potter’s field. That, accompanying the news article from 1820—“After hanging the usual time, their bodies were taken down and conveyed to Potter’s Field, where they were interred”—means that Lavinia Fisher is buried somewhere beneath the MUSC Hospital and not in the Unitarian Church’s cemetery as is told on the majority of ghost tours in Charleston. Research into this matter resulted in an official statement from the Unitarian Church to this researcher states simply, “Lavinia Fisher is not buried in our Churchyard.” That is the final word on the matter. That also means that the ghost of Lavinia Fisher would have no reason to be there unless she was having a cup of tea (perhaps it was her infamous oleander tea) with the ghost of Annabel Lee, an alleged girlfriend of Edgar Allan Poe. Ironically Ms. Lee is not there either. In reality she is just a fictitious character in one of Mr. Poe’s poems. Those that have seen Lavinia there or have seen her in a wedding gown anywhere have encountered a fantasy and not a phantom. This strongly lends credibility to the power of suggestion when it comes to the majority of encounters with “ghosts.”

  A plaque at St. Luke’s Church is dedicated to unearthed bodies from Charleston’s potter’s field. Courtesy of author.

  On the other hand, if there ever a person angry enough to return as a troubled spirit it would be Lavinia Fisher. You have a woman forcefully removed from her home twice, her home burned to the ground, falsely accused, imprisoned for a year, denied a pardon, her husband executed, herself executed and then—when she was finally laid to rest they build over her grave. What makes it worse is that one of the halls built over the old potter’s field is named Colcock Hall. It is named after the grandson of the judge that condemned her to die in the prime of her life and deprived her of having children or grandchildren of her own. On top of that you have just about every tour guide in the city claiming she and her husband were vile murderers for the next 190 years! I think that ought to make one angry enough. If there ever were any truth to her ghost haunting the Old City Jail, she had more than enough torment in life, and in death, to keep her spirit tied to there.

  Then again, her “hauntings” are the stuff of legend.

  In reviewing the facts of the case, we have learned that the perpetrators were perhaps actually the victims. They were charged, prosecuted and convicted of crimes against one victim. That case was appealed and denied. They then were sentenced and executed on a completely different case, a case they never were convicted of, tried for or even charged with! No charges were ever filed involving John Peoples yet he is the reason they were hanged. The only thing that occurred in the Peoples investigation was that a statement was taken and he made identification of his assailants in an identification process that was possibly tainted, according to Fisher himself.

  As G.-S. stated in his letter to his friend in Boston, “for the strongest circumstantial evidence, should be required, in a case of life and death to warrant the conviction of the accused party.” There are many questions in the case that go far beyond today’s standard of reasonable doubt. Unfortunately that was not something the colonial judicial system was concerned with. Their prosecutor viewed the United States Constitution and its amendments as having very little to do with colonial justice in a Charleston courtroom. As far as he and others within that judicial system were concerned, the Constitution was not worth the paper it was written on.

  The Bill of Rights came into effect in the United States in 1791, twenty-eight years before the entire Six Mile incident began. The rights afforded to citizens of the United States were disregarded by Hayne and the judges in the trial of the Fishers and Heyward.

  The Fourth Amendment states that:

  The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

  Both Heyward and the Fishers had a right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure. Both properties were illegally seized by a lynch mob on February 18, 1819, a mob with no warrants and no legal authority. Even though the sheriff returned the next day with a warrant to arrest the homeowners, it was because of an incident involving what would today be considered a home invasion. What makes this so incredible is that 182 years later, the attorney general of the state of South Carolina, Charlie Condon, declared an open season on home invaders. He said in an interview that, “I’m putting home invaders on notice that if an occupant chooses to use deadly force, there will be no prosecution.” He declared the home as sacred ground. This is a stark contrast to his predecessor Robert Hayne.

  So we have their Fourth Amendment rights violated. How about any others?

  The Fifth Amendment states that “No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.” It further states that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” William Heyward and the Fishers were not indicted for the crime of highway robbery against John Peoples. They were also deprived of their property without due process. It also shows that if the state was indeed interested in it, they had to compensate the owners, something the state wanted to get around. So we have their Fifth Amendment rights violated also.

  The Sixth Amendment states that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed.” They also have the right to be “confronted with the witnesses against him” and “to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.” Neither the Fishers nor Heyward had a trial by an impartial jury or any jury at all for that matter. They never faced their accuser, Peoples, and never were allowed to present any witnesses for their defense. Their Sixth Amendment rights are violated.

  The Eighth Amendment states that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” The judges issued a summary judgment and sentenced them to be hanged for the crime of “Highway Robbery.” This was indeed a cruel and unusual punishment in a justice system that still handed down whippings, brandings and croppings as a form of punishment.

  In total there are four constitutional rights ignored by the state and denied to John and Lavinia Fisher and William Heyward. That alone should change one’s view of the proceedings against the accused, but let’s continue our review and delve back into the motives.

  We have discovered the fact that John Fisher blamed the sheriff himself for the false accusation and for tainting the identification. This was such a strong accusation that the sheriff made an immediate rebuttal in the paper. It also may have caused him to lose reelection. We also have the state engineer, the very man responsible for converting private lands to military use for the state, sitting on the jury ensuring an indictment in the case. If you think that is interesting as far as government corruption, how about this: remember John Wragg, the original owner of the properties? He had a partnership with another merchant that was dissolved in 1749. That merchant was John Colcock. Now remember who the judge was in the—and I use the term loosely—trials? Charles Jones Colcock was the judge. The sins of the father once again descend downward through the years to the sons.

  We have Colonel George Fisher trying to collect the debt of his deceased brother. We have his son-in law being a Ross and David Ross taking control of the Six Mile House in a questionable seizure under Lynch’s Law. Colonel George Fisher had lost land in the Indian Wars and perhaps saw the value of the property. He may have been trying to eliminate the only heir to his brother’s affairs, John Fisher. John Fisher is in the way and expendable; after all, one can speculate that he may indeed have run off with his uncle’s former slave.

  Colonel George Fisher claimed the property under Lynch’s Law and puts David Ross over it. This is to secure his debt. Ross gets attacked and heads to town. He informs Sheriff Cleary. Ironically, two hours later, John Peoples is attacked and robbed. If you read the statement you will see that he stopped to water his horses, and the disagreement was initially over the boy with him watering the horses with a bucket. The boy refused to surrender the bucket so a conflict ensued. The watering and care of the horses at an inn was not free and was done by the keepers. It was in the keeper’s right to stop the boy, so exactly who was stealing from whom?

  The highway robberies were indeed occurring on the road to Charleston. Those crimes were perhaps actually committed, but were they committed by the Fishers and Heyward? They were never charged with the robberies prior to the lynch mob attack. Could the robberies in the area been a ruse to sweep the Fishers and Heyward up with the actual offenders such as Joseph Roberts and James Sterrett? We have discovered two parties reporting on a person coming forward and admitting that he was the perpetrator of the robberies, and knowing that he would be hanged, he still provided accurate details in regard to the elements of the crime. Some of these elements he may have been able to get from the newspapers, but others perhaps not. Why would a man admit to doing something others are condemned to die for? Why would John Fisher, condemned to die, admit to everything he ever did wrong in life, but deny the death penalty crime if they had truly committed the act? The answer is left to your own conclusions.

  If the Fishers and Heyward were executed on the Ross case, that would justify his being there at Six Mile House and justify Colonel Fisher’s claim to the property and its seizure. By having an outside party, John Peoples, leaving town and being robbed, the state would have their own “innocent” victim. By locking up John Fisher, they eliminated his claim to his father’s debt against the land seized by his uncle. Colonel Fisher and the other assignees were through the state bank. By eliminating William Heyward, they eliminated the debt and the heir to the property. They paved the way to seize the property, now devoid of buildings and structures, and the state would owe no one a dime.

  We have discovered that land swindles, cons, scams and seizures were not uncommon to the governor of the state of South Carolina, the governor involved in their prosecution and execution. After all he was involved in the very first land scam in Florida’s history two years after the execution. We have him wanting to make Key West a naval depot; we have him diverting the president to Charleston in 1819 when President Monroe was looking for a naval depot; and we have the very lands in question eventually becoming naval property sixty years later. We know that Geddes was a salvager of wrecked vessels, which could be a $200,000- to $300,000-a-year industry for a private wrecker in Key West—a land he tried to claim. We know that the land around Six Mile House was very valuable in the fact that it could be sold to the navy and bring very valuable salvaging opportunities to the area. In fact, it eventually was sold and indeed brought a naval base, a naval shipyard and a naval hospital. To this very day, privately owned companies such as Detyen’s Shipyards are still making money over that move.

  The War of 1812 brought about the coastal defense system. This was the reason President Monroe was touring the South and the reason state engineer Wilson was seizing land with the governor’s blessing and the sheriff’s help. Even though Colonel George Fisher was the administrator of his brother James affairs, John Fisher was still the heir. John Fisher was the one who was owed the debt by William Heyward. We know that William Heyward was the son of the rightful heir to the property. By “arresting” them, seizing the property and executing them, all claims against the property would have been eliminated. Fortunately, when his son Nathaniel died in 1819 and William was arrested that same year, Nathaniel Heyward had sense enough to transfer the property to his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Charles Manigault. T
his kept it in the family.

  The property could have been seized by the state at any time under eminent domain, but the owner would have to be compensated. Remember that the country was in its first depression and that the state had no money to spend in this endeavor. If the rightful owner was in jail, convicted of a crime and executed there would be no one to pay and the state could seize the land. There would be no one to contest the seizure and condemnation of the properties. The burning of the buildings also cleared the land of all structures. Remember that Geddes sent people to build a structure on Key West so he could claim it? Well the opposite was true. Removing the buildings also removed an element of the right to claim the property. Geddes could have the land to build the naval depot and have all the salvage rights.

  It seems there is quite a different story when we come to the end of the facts. Many might say that there is a great deal of conjecture and speculation as to what did occur, but based on the facts, it is not what we have been told for the better part of two centuries. Something is greatly amiss in what happened to the Fishers.

  In the end we have managed to disprove most of the legend of Six Mile House and discovered what did occur there. The only part of the legend that does ring true is the words Lavinia uttered in defiance, “Cease! I will have none of it. Save your words for others that want them. But if you have a message you want to send to Hell, give it to me; I’ll carry it.” That is the one true element of the legend and apparently this act of defiance—on the gallows, with her white garments blowing in the wind, denied a pardon that she begged for—was etched into the minds of the witnesses and etched into the history of Charleston. Lavinia spent her last moments in life waiting for an earthly pardon that never came and denying the godly pardon Dr. Furman and others had tried to provide her. According to legend, she is still here on earth searching for that pardon. Perhaps there is a lesson in that.