Chasing Shadows: A look at the legends of Northwest NC
We look at six of the more popular legends from Northwest North Carolina
Editor’s note: As we’re heading into the season of Halloween, it’s a perfect time to tell stories of unexplained noises, ghosts and other legends from Northwest NC. These are by far not the only ghost stories from this area and we’ll be sharing more of them throughout the month on our website. Do you have a story to tell? Email brian.carlton38@gmail.com and tell me about it. Who knows, we might end up letting you share your story with the rest of the readers.
I was eight years old when I heard my first ghost story, sitting in the library of a Wilkes County elementary school. As a Boomer boy, I was at Boomer Ferguson Elementary and Mr. Kendall was our librarian. He could have passed for Santa Claus, except his beard was grey, not white. Also, he loved telling scary stories and we kids loved to hear them. He’d bring out books like “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” and the room would go silent. Everyone wanted to hear the stories and find out they ended.
Beyond books, the best stories were the local ones he told, stories of unexplained lights, of headless ghosts and lost family members. We knew these places he talked about. We would ride past them and imagine what would happen if we stepped into that church or started wandering in that forest. Even now, I drive past one of those legendary spots and think about stopping, maybe just for a few minutes. Northwest NC is filled with legends. Some of them, like the tale of the Blowing Rock and the legend of Tom Dula, are stories for another time. But there are doors that shut and open by themselves, unexplained footsteps, ghost trains and shadowy figures that show up at night, all perfect fits for the Halloween season. Here are a few of those stories.
The Black Dog of Valle Crucis
“Don’t go by St. John’s at night. That’s what my momma drilled into my head growing up,” said Tommy Cooper. The Valle Crucis native, who now lives over the border in Virginia, remembers hearing stories of the big black dog that ran near St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“They called it the ‘demon dog,’ probably just trying to scare us,” the 62-year-old said. “Most of us growing up thought it was just a trick parents used. ‘Don’t do something bad or that dog will get you,’ something like that.”
The dog he’s talking about is one that’s haunted the area at least in stories for generations. Built in 1862, St. John’s is a stone church with one of the oldest graveyards in the area. The story goes if you drive past St. John’s graveyard at night, a black dog will jump out from behind a gravestone and start chasing your car. No matter how fast you drive, you look back and see the dog keeping pace or even gaining on you. In some stories, it has red eyes and in others, they’re yellow. In each case, the dog keeps chasing until you cross over a nearby bridge, then it vanishes.
Cooper says he never ran into the dog himself, but knew several people that claimed to see it.
“No, I guess my momma’s stories were enough to spook me,” he said. “I made sure not to be around St. John’s at night.”
Now in addition to the dog, some of the stories tell about a ghostly white woman who appears near the same gravestone. None of the stories say who the woman is, how she died or even which grave she and the dog appear at. But rather than a demon, it could be this dog is still watching over his owner, protecting her from anyone who comes near the grave.
The Phantom Hiker
When you meet him on the trail, the old man looks like a time traveler. He’s wearing old-fashioned workman’s clothes, something that you’d find in a 1950’s general store. That worn down backpack looks to be 1940’s Army issue and he’s got a long beard. But before you can even say hello, he disappears from right in front of you. That’s a pretty common occurrence on Grandfather Mountain, where the Phantom Hiker routinely makes his presence known.
Aside from his appearance, not much is known about the hiker, although people have reported seeing him for decades. He always shows up as the sun is setting, when most hikers are making their way back to either their car or camp. He’s never been known to speak and doesn’t acknowledge when people say hello. The hiker just simply keeps walking, passing anyone he meets on the trail before disappearing.
Like most local ghost stories, there are a couple different endings to choose from. One version says he was a hiker who fell off the mountain and now searches for his body. Another claims he was injured on the trail and died before help could arrive. And then there’s the third version of the story, with no injuries or horrible falls. In that version, the hiker is just a man who loved Grandfather Mountain and being out in nature so much he chose to stay there after his death.
The Bostain Bridge Ghosts
On Aug. 27, 1891, a train headed from Salisbury to Asheville derailed on the Bostain Bridge in Statesville. A total of 30 people were killed and several more were injured. After investigating, detectives found that someone had removed nails from the railroad, which was already in rough condition, causing the crash. Six years later, two inmates at the North Carolina State Penitentiary were charged with the crime after they allegedly confessed to other inmates.
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Sometimes at night, people report seeing a conductor at the site, holding a gold pocket watch.
The description matches that of Baggage Master Hugh Linster, whose body was found in the wreckage.
But that’s not the bizarre part of the story. Several people claim they’ve heard the crash happen over and over again. Supposedly if you visit the bridge at 3 a.m. on the anniversary of the crash, you’ll hear everything from metal crunching to people moaning. One such report was documented by the North Carolina Museum of History.
On August 27, 1941, the 50th anniversary of the wreck, a couple stopped just short of the bridge when they had a flat tire. The husband went for help, leaving his wife waiting near the road. A few minutes later, she claimed to hear a train whistle and saw the train start to cross Bostain Bridge.
“As the engine began to cross it, she heard a horrible crash,” the Dec. 2010 article states. “She saw the train plunge off the bridge, its old-fashioned wooden passenger cars splintering into pieces. They piled into a jagged mound below.”
The woman then ran across the field, according to the NC Museum of History, finding her husband and another man who had come to help with the flat tire.
“The three of them headed back across the field and looked down into the quiet waters of Third Creek,” the article states. “No wreck was there.”
Unfortunately, this is one ghost story that comes with a warning. It is never a good idea to walk on railroad tracks, especially on a working bridge. On the 119th anniversary of the crash, a group of 10 to 12 ghost hunters were walking on the bridge, hoping to hear and see the accident. Unfortunately, one of them was killed when he was hit by a real train coming down the tracks.
Patients stayed after Davis Hospital closed
From 1925 to 1986, the Old Davis Hospital in Statesville set several records. It was the first in the state to have a 24/7 emergency center, fully staffed with doctors and nurses. It was North Carolina’s first hospital with air conditioning, the first to have a blood bank and the first to organize blood donor services. When the founder, Dr. James Davis, died in 1955, he had performed more than 75,000 surgeries, which was impressive for the mid-20th century. Over time, the hospital was sold and eventually shut down, but it appears some patients never left. From 1986 until it was demolished in 2017, people reported hearing babies crying in what used to be the pediatrics ward and feeling what they called an overwhelming “feeling of dread” in the building. It’s also interesting that groups who investigated the place noticed it was cool and even cold in some spots of the building, despite 100 degree temperatures outside.
The Thunder Hill creature pays a visit
If you go to mile marker 290 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, you’re in the Thunder Hill area. Depending on who you believe, you may also be invading a local creature’s habitat. The legend goes that Carl, Nelly and their young son moved into the area in the 1920s. No last names are given in this story, so it’s hard to tell how accurate it is. One night, Nelly thought she heard thunder and went to put the horse in the barn. When she walked outside, the story goes that she came face to face with a brown haired humanoid creature with yellow streaks in his fur. The creature grabbed her before she could run, but Nelly held on to the porch post and yelled for help. When her husband came outside, the creature ran off. The legend says several Thunder Hill residents saw the creature over the following week, including a young boy who was supposedly knocked down by it.
The Brown Mountain Lights
Brown Mountain sits in the Pisgah National Forest on the border Caldwell County shares with Burke. During the day, it just seems like your average mountain. People go hiking, they pull off on the Blue Ridge Parkway and take pictures of it. But at night, they take pictures for a different reason, as the lights start popping up. Every night, lights randomly start showing up on the mountain, sometimes changing color, size and shape as they move in and out of the trees. Once they reach the river, the lights disappear, but they’re not gone. As soon as one disappears, another takes its place in a different part of the forest.
As you can imagine, everyone who hears the story has a theory. Some people think ghosts are on the mountain, while others believe the lights are signals from an alien race. Scientists have tried to explain the lights, but in more than 100 years, all have come up empty handed. The closest anyone’s come to an explanation is the U.S. Geological Survey, who claims the lights are the result of marsh gas. There’s just one problem with that. Nobody can find any marshes in the area.
As for the ghostly explanation, you’ll find stories about the lights dating all the way back before European settlers stepped onto North Carolina soil. The Cherokee were the first people to see the lights and say they were caused by a war with the neighboring Catawba tribe. After a big battle, women from both tribes went out at night to see if their husbands were wounded. Sadly, each group ran into warriors from the other tribe and were killed. Now all of the women wander Brown Mountain, the story goes, looking for their missing husbands.
Settlers in the 1800s had another story, one involving one of the first European families to arrive in the area. A family of settlers had built a cabin on Brown Mountain, but sadly the mother passed away within a year. After that, the daughter took to going on hikes around the mountain, feeling closer to her mother in nature. One day the little girl just never came home. Her father looked all over the mountain for her and according to this story, he’s still looking today. In fact, he’s searching for his daughter and she’s looking for the way home.
Near the end of the 19th century, another story started being told. A farmer from Brown Mountain left to fight in the Civil War, saying goodbye to his wife and son. In one version, he’s a Confederate and in another, he fights for the Union. Either way, he returns after the war to find his cabin burned to the ground and his family gone. When he asks neighbors what happened, nobody can say, so he promises to wander the mountain until he finds out what happened to his family.
So which version of the story do you believe? Or is there another one that you’ve heard?
