Ghosts of Berkeley County, South Carolina

by Bruce Orr

  As Blackmon gathered his composure, he again turned the lantern toward the figure. It was that of an elderly man. In the man’s right hand was a knife, and in his left hand was Mary’s ring—and her finger. Once again he examined the face. It was frozen in a state of absolute fear. The sheer terror felt by the man was recorded in the man’s last expression. It was such a grotesque distortion that Blackmon had to again look away. He left the man in the grave and returned home to Mary.

  As authorities arrived the next day, they were able to piece together what had happened. Apparently, the man was a grave robber who knew of Mary and her beloved ring. He had apparently gone there to rob the grave and had cut the ring finger of the deceased woman—except that the woman was obviously not deceased. Apparently, she had slipped into a coma, and the attending physician had mistaken it for death. When the would-be grave robber cut off Mary’s finger, the pain awakened her, and she let out a scream and grabbed the grave robber with her other hand. Obviously this action was not what the elderly grave robber had expected, and he responded with a scream of his own while simultaneously experiencing immediate heart failure.

  In a further bit of irony, Benjamin Blackmon decided not to waste the grave. He had his servants refill the grave with the grave robber in it. He also had them use the dead man’s own shovel.

  Mary recovered from her ordeal. She eventually outlived her husband and even remarried, taking Frederick Schuler as her second husband. She eventually died—permanently—on July 4, 1860.

  MEDWAY PLANTATION

  Medway Plantation always serves as a reminder to me of all the things that we take for granted in our youth. During the late 1970s, I was fortunate to be able to hunt the plantation and its adjacent properties. During those times, I met people and saw things that now, as an adult, I wish I had the ability to experience again. As a child, you tend to take for granted the once-in-a-lifetime encounters, and in fact it sometimes takes a lifetime to realize you actually had one. I encountered two living legends at the plantation and did not realize it until more than thirty years later.

  My father once had business with Ray Walters, the caretaker of the property in those days, and he dropped me off at a wrought-iron gate in the company of an older black gentleman who was tasked with repairing the gate. Of course, I was rather miffed at not being allowed to accompany my father on “adult” business, and I was quite rude to the man with whom I was left. Regardless of my manners, he began to tell me tales of his work as a blacksmith. At the time, I did not realize that I was speaking with Philip Simmons, perhaps the greatest blacksmith and wrought-iron craftsman of Charleston. He began crafting horseshoes when he first started out, and by the time he passed away his work was considered more of an art form. His work can be found in the Smithsonian Museum, the South Carolina State Museum and even in France and China. He even received the Order of the Palmetto, which is the highest honor granted by the State of South Carolina. I really wished that I had paid more attention to the man.

  Medway Plantation’s builder never lived to fully enjoy his home. Courtesy of Library of Congress Archives.

  Another time my father introduced me to the owner of the plantation. Her name was Gertrude Legendre. I politely shook her hand and did not realize I was meeting another legend.

  Born in 1902, she was the daughter of New York carpet magnate and House of Representatives member John Sanford. Her grandfather, Stephen Sanford, was a prominent businessman and chief executive officer of the Bigelow Sanford Carpet Company. Within this family, she became a socialite.

  As a teenager, she begged her parents to let her go hunting after her graduation from high school. She much preferred this to becoming a debutante. Her parents granted her wish, and she killed her first elk in the Grand Tetons of Wyoming. She was hooked on big game hunting after that and eventually became involved in expeditions to exotic lands. In 1923, at the age of twenty-one, she began traveling the world as a big game hunter. It was on a safari expedition to Abyssinia in Africa for the American Museum of Natural History that she met her husband, Sidney Legendre. It was also on this expedition that she was almost killed.

  At daybreak one morning, her guide spotted four lions, but as they approached, the lions started to move away. Gertrude Legendre fired once and struck a lion in the stomach and leg. The shot did not bring down the lion, and he managed to escape into the brush.

  As they began tracking the injured animal, she caught another glimpse of him and managed to get off a second shot, only to see him vanish once again even deeper into the brush. They tracked him to a very dense, bushy area, where they heard him growling. They waited for about thirty minutes before the growling subsided. Figuring that the animal had succumbed to his wounds, they approached. They found where he had been lying soaked in blood, but the lion was nowhere to be found. They were now in the dense brush with a living lion—a very large, angry and injured lion.

  As they huddled down in a tunnel created by a thorn bush, they heard a roar from about twenty feet away. The injured lion charged, and Gertrude’s colleagues fired blindly at the beast. Another hunter within the group, O.M. Reese, wheeled around and fired both barrels of his Holland and Holland .470-caliber rifle. The lion skidded to within ten feet of the horrified group. They remained frozen in shock for several minutes before regaining their composure.

  Gertrude Legendre continued as a big game hunter until 1929. She had many adventures hunting game and even had a standoff with a tiger that stalked her in her blind for fourteen hours before she was able to get a shot at him.

  Gertrude spent many years being the hunter, but a series of events led to her being the hunted in 1944. She would find herself no longer the predator. This time, she was facing the rifle.

  During World War II in 1942, Mrs. Legendre took a job in Washington managing the cable desk for the Communication Branch, which later evolved into the Office of Strategic Command (OSS). She handled sensitive and top secret documents for the division. By 1944, she was transferred to Paris and obtained the rank of second lieutenant in the Women’s Army Corp. She also became a spy for the OSS.

  One young woman is said to still be waiting for her husband to return from a hunt on Medway Plantation. Courtesy of Library of Congress Archives.

  On September 23, she was traveling through the western front in France with Major Max Papurt; Bob Jennings, an agent of the OSS; and their driver, Private First Class Dick, in a jeep near enemy lines. Near Wallendorf, PFC Dick slowed the vehicle down, and a bullet struck the front fender. Major Papurt grabbed a rifle, jumped from the jeep and began attempting to locate the German sniper. The driver inched the vehicle along and had barely gotten ten yards when Legendre, Bob Jennings and the driver had to exit the jeep and use it for cover. With the next burst of gunfire, PFC Dick screamed out in agony and collapsed in the road beside the jeep. Legendre crawled to his side to tend his wounds. When she reached the injured soldier, she slowly and carefully peered up over the floorboard of the vehicle. Just as she did this, a round hit the front axle and ricocheted into the crankcase, spraying hot oil into her face. At that moment, Bob Jennings ran and grabbed Major Papurt, who had been pretending to be dead to avoid being shot again, and pulled him from the open roadway to cover behind the jeep. All four were now pinned down behind the vehicle, lying together in a mixture of slime, mud, blood and oil. Realizing that the situation was hopeless, Jennings tied a white handkerchief to the end of the major’s rifle and hoisted it high above the jeep. In a few moments, the gunfire stopped. Bob Jennings and Gertrude Legendre quickly burned their OSS identification before they were swarmed by Nazi soldiers.

  Gertrude Legendre and her colleagues were taken prisoner. She would spend six months as a prisoner of war, the first American woman to become one. Major Papurt would eventually die during an air raid while still in captivity. Bob Jennings was also imprisoned. PFC Dick was never seen again after being taken into captivity.

  Mrs. Legendre was moved from location to location and was interr
ogated by the Gestapo but never revealed her assignment. Eventually, she was able to escape across the Swiss border with the help of a German lieutenant. After the war, she used her connections to find the German lieutenant and helped him and his family flee Germany and settle in America. I wish I knew then what I know now. I wish I had those opportunities again.

  I have fond memories of the area, such as the time my father and I walked up on a “live” still. I mean an actual working moonshine still. As I recall, my father did not seem surprised, but nonetheless he ushered me out of the area. Some readers may be surprised at the fact that there was an active working still in Berkeley County in the 1970s. South Carolina just seems to hold on to its history and traditions—even the illegal ones. As a matter of fact, Spartanburg County sheriff’s deputies made several arrests as recently as July 1, 2011, after they found a moonshine still, up to two thousand gallons of illegal liquor and $150,000 in cash. According to Spartanburg County sheriff Chuck Wright, the arrests and seizure followed a ten-month undercover investigation of the operation in Landrum, South Carolina. As you can see, moonshine is still a profitable business in the state—until you get caught.

  Medway Plantation’s architecture consisted of a stair-step roof, allowing evil spirits to step down and leave the house in peace. Courtesy of Library of Congress Archives.

  As a young boy, I also recall the plantation workers wanting to leave the plantation before dark. There was an obvious urgency in their desire that I noted even as a young boy. When I asked them why they had to leave, they told me of the ghosts of Medway. This time I listened.

  Medway is the oldest house of record in the entire state of South Carolina. It was constructed in 1686. Charleston itself was founded in 1670, so the house is only sixteen years younger than Charleston. The house was built by Jan Van Arrsens for his wife, Sabina de Vignon. The Dutchman crafted the home in much the style of his homeland. When facing the house, one immediately notices the stair step–style gables. This was a Dutch design in architecture that combined design with superstition. The steps were designed in that manner to entice any evil spirits to walk down and leave the house in peace.

  Unfortunately, Jan Van Arrsens did not live long enough to enjoy the home with his wife. Immediately after his death, she married Landgrave Thomas Smith, who was governor of South Carolina. Smith died at the age of forty-six, and his grave is marked by a marble stone on the property. There is no trace of a grave for Van Arrsens.

  It is said that many who sleep in the upstairs bedroom on the south side of the residence awaken to the smell of pipe smoke. More than one guest has been startled to see Van Arrsens sitting in front of the fireplace, smoking his pipe and enjoying in death the home that he was deprived of in life.

  Another “resident” of Medway can be found in the upper north room. Her name is Polly Seed. It seems that young Polly and Samuel Marion were very much in love. In fact, they were so much in love that they swore that even death could not separate them. They made a pact that whoever of the two should die first would meet the survivor in the upper north room.

  One day, the inevitable came, and Samuel Marion passed away. As agreed on, Polly went to the room and waited. Her beloved never returned. Polly continued waiting and waiting until she herself passed on. It is said that she can still be seen waiting for her beloved Samuel.

  Downstairs by the north window, the most pitiful of all the ghostly inhabitants of Medway can often be seen. For centuries hunts have been conducted on the plantation, where wildlife abounds. In earlier days, it was often a big event, with family and neighbors bringing their families together for the hunt and a celebratory dinner afterward. On one such occasion, a young newlywed couple was invited.

  As the deer hunters prepared for the hunt, the young bride was overcome with a feeling of utter dread. She knew that if her husband attended the hunt, something horrible would happen. The feeling was overwhelming, and she begged and pleaded with him not to go. He just laughed at her and advised her that she was overreacting. He kissed her goodbye and ran off to meet his comrades for the hunt.

  The young woman could not calm herself. No amount of coaxing or even teasing from the other wives could make her leave her post at the window. The day turned into evening and then the evening into night. Now the other wives also became concerned.

  Eventually, the group of hunters returned. They were not laughing and happy as they usually were after the hunt. In fact they were the exact opposite.

  The panicked young bride scanned the faces for her husband but could not find him. Then she saw the makeshift stretcher outside. Her husband had been mistaken for a deer and had been accidentally shot and killed. In one horrible act of mistaken identity, the happy young bride became a devastated young widow.

  The family took her home and tried to console her, but eventually the woman grieved herself to death. At the moment, she was said to have returned to the spot by the window. Many claim to hear her dress rustling as she invisibly paces back and forth. Others claim to still see her by the window, where she continues to wait for her husband’s return from a hunt that ended centuries ago.

  THE OLD GOOSE CREEK CHURCH OF ST. JAMES PARISH

  Charles Carrington had become bored with the party he was attending in Goose Creek and decided to go for an evening stroll. He found himself on the property of a very old church that at the time was surrounded by a large wall and an iron gate. As soon as he reached the gate, rain began to fall, and it forced him to run through the graveyard and seek shelter at the church.

  As he sat at the church, waiting for the sudden shower to cease, he had an uneasy feeling that he was not alone. The feeling that something was not quite right overcame him. He then heard footsteps approaching, and he turned to see a young woman in the aisle. She knelt in prayer momentarily until she, too, realized that she was not alone. She introduced herself as Edith Coleman. She said that she was a member of an old Goose Creek family and that many of her ancestors were buried in the graveyard outside the little church in a family vault.

  The feeling of dread left Charles Carrington as he gazed upon the face of the beautiful Edith. He was somewhat taken aback by the choice of conversation that she had decided to pursue. Edith spoke of death and of fear. She spoke of how foolish it was for people to fear death and the dead since it was a natural occurrence. In fact, wasn’t death just another part of life? Surely, she said, the dead cannot harm the living, and in reality life is as great a mystery as death.

  Carrington was not convinced by her reasoning. He feared the graves, the vaults, the graveyard and the heavy sense of a ghostly presence in the old church. He could not wait to leave the structure. The rain eventually subsided, and Edith insisted on showing him the family vault in the graveyard. He did not want to go, but he humored the young lady. That was not all entirely true—he also went because he was quite charmed by the beautiful woman.

  The Old Goose Creek Church is where Charles Carrington’s dreams of love became a nightmare. Courtesy of author.

  Eventually, Charles Carrington returned to the party. He asked about the old church and the beautiful young lady he met. The hostess interrupted and stated that he must have found St. James, the old Goose Creek Church. She stated that it dated back to about 1670. She also asked him if he had noticed the arms of England over the altar.

  How could he not, he thought. He also had noticed the symbol over the front door. The damned ugly thing was huge. Big ugly bird feeding a lot of small ugly birds. The truth is, it frightened him. “The front door crest reminds me of vultures,” he said out loud.

  “The truth is the symbol was the marking of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the society that had sent missionaries to found the church in Goose Creek. It symbolizes a pelican feeding her young by tearing flesh from her own breasts symbolizing the sacrificial acts of charity of the missionary society,” he was told.

  A pelican mutilating herself and forcing her offspring into cannibalism was n
ot an image he wished to entertain. What a horrible symbol for a church, he thought. As a matter of fact, the thought of vultures and buzzards did not seem so bad to him now. If his friends were trying to make him feel better about the creepy old church, they were doing a horrible job. It definitely was not working.

  No one seemed to know of the young Edith Coleman, but they did confirm that the Colemans were an old Goose Creek family.

  During the next week, Carrington visited the church every evening to meet the lovely Miss Coleman. He pushed back his fear just to be with her. They would sit just inside the gates and talk well into the night. As could be expected, he began to fall in love with the beautiful woman.

  On the other hand, Edith Coleman remained aloof at his interest in love. She spoke of love in such a serious manner that it concerned Carrington.

  “Would our love outlive the fires of youth when the finger of time had placed its seal of age and decay? No, no, a thousand times no! Man’s love droops, then fades, and dies,” she declared.

  The intensity of her words shocked Carrington, but he would not deny his feelings. “Put me to the test, Edith,” he said as he reached for her hand.

  Edith pulled her hand away before the young man could take it and laughed. She told him that he took such matters too lightly. Once again he told her to put him to the test.

  “You swear it?” she asked.

  “I swear it!” Charles Carrington insisted.

  “Then follow me,” Edith responded, and with that she got up and motioned him. He followed her from the gates through the cemetery to the family vault, where she ran ahead on that cool Saturday evening. She laughed and ran around the side toward the entrance. When Charles Carrington reached the vault, Edith was nowhere to be found. Bewildered, he looked at the door and wondered how she may have gotten inside to hide. He grabbed the iron handle and with all his might pulled until the door fell open. Something that had been lying against the inside of the door fell to his feet. As he looked, he could not believe his eyes at what lay before him.