More Ghosts of Georgetown

by Elizabeth Robertson Huntsinger

  Bucksport, Maine, located beside the dark waters of the Penobscot River, had gained fame as a shipbuilding town in the century since its founding. Bucksville and Bucksport in South Carolina were now set to rival their namesake. Two similar ships were to be constructed simultaneously, one in Bucksport, Maine, and the other in Bucksville, South Carolina. Each town determined that the vessel it constructed would be finer and would be completed in a shorter time and with less money than the other shipyard could manage.

  W. L. Buck, master shipwright Elishua Dunbar, Captain Jonathan Nichols, and a crew of 115 riggers, joiners, and marine carpenters began construction of the Henrietta, a squarerigged clipper ship. Bucksville on the Waccamaw won by a great margin. The breathtakingly beautiful Henrietta, named after Captain Nichols’s daughter, was launched from Bucksville, South Carolina, in May 1875, her keel having been laid the previous September. She was 201 feet long and weighed 1,204 tons. She cost approximately $90,000, some $25,000 less than her Northern counterpart.

  Two more ships—the schooner Hattie Buck and the barque-rigged Henry Buck—were built at the Bucksville-Bucksport lumberyards. The area now had another lucrative industry: shipbuilding.

  Bucksville and Bucksport seemed destined to thrive. But this was not to be. Why? According to some, the reason lay generations earlier.

  When Captain Henry Buck founded Bucksville on the Waccamaw River in 1825, he was not the first in his family to establish a town. In 1762, Boston native Jonathan Buck had sailed north to settle in Maine. There, on the Penobscot River, he had discovered an excellent site for the shipping of lumber, fish, and other products. He began the town of Bucksport—then called Buckstown—in 1764.

  In addition to being founder of the town, Jonathan Buck had the honor of being elected magistrate. One of those pronounced guilty under his jurisdiction was a woman believed to be a witch. Buck sentenced her to a severe whipping. Just as he finished announcing her fate, the woman laid a curse on him. Never again, she swore, would a Buck stand in judgment over his own town as Judge Buck did here. Any attempt, anywhere, to create another such township would eventually fail, she decreed. The sign of the curse, she said, would follow him to his grave and appear in plain view on his tombstone as proof the curse had truly been cast. This sign would be a likeness of her leg with whip slashes upon its.

  According to many local residents, the witch’s punishment was much worse. Rather than being merely thrashed, they say, she was burned, and her foot dropped off into the execution fire.

  Judge Buck died on March 18, 1795. After his death, the sign appeared on his tombstone, just as the witch had predicted. Some of the judge’s descendants voiced their indignation at what they considered a besmirching of his memory. Nevertheless, the unmistakable foot and leg of the witch mark the judge’s tall, graceful monument above his grave site in Bucksport, Maine, to this day.

  And the curse? Some say it was borne out a thousand miles away and a hundred years later in the lumbermills of Bucksville and Bucksport in South Carolina, which declined after less than a century of prosperity. Many towns have suffered hardships that resulted in economic depression, neglect, and diminished population. But none has ever thrived so vigorously and then disappeared so completely as Bucksville. It is truly a town that vanished.

  Although applications were submitted more than once for the busy port of Bucksville to be made a port of entry, Congress refused each time, first suggesting Bucksville as a port of delivery instead. Upon the second application, the customs collector of Georgetown told the secretary of the treasury that to allow Bucksville to become a port of entry would be to legitimize what was one of the best places for smuggling in the United States.

  And the fine, cost-efficient construction that produced the Henrietta was a feat never to be repeated. The pride of her home port, the Henrietta never returned to Bucksville. She drew too much water to cross back over the sand bar at the entrance to Georgetown Harbor even at high tide. Her maiden crossing had been so treacherous and time-consuming that she had barely made it seaward across the twelve feet of water over the bar. Her captain dared not take her back across for fear that she would founder, as had many large or unwary ships over the years. A fast, durable ship that should have plied the seas for many decades, the Henrietta was lost in Japan in 1894 during a typhoon, far from the home port she never revisited.

  The other two ships built in Bucksville, the Hattie Buck and the Henry Buck, were as well designed as the Henrietta, Unlike the Henrietta, they had a shallow-enough draft to pass over the Georgetown bar. Still, despite these shipbuilding successes, W. L. Buck discontinued his manufacture of sailing vessels. His best customers, the Northern shipyards that purchased his lumber, disliked the competition. They simply told Buck to stop building ships or they would stop purchasing lumber from him.

  The Bucksville and Bucksport lumbermills continued to prosper into the early twentieth century. Then, suddenly, the combined effects of a great fire and the Depression ended the town of Bucksville altogether. Schools, hotels, churches, post office, citizens—everything and everyone disappeared. Was this the fulfillment of the Maine witch’s curse?

  Today, the picturesque harbor at Bucksport is a prerequisite stopover for many finely appointed sailing vessels and yachts on the Intracoastal Waterway. With its beautifully appointed marina and restaurant, it is a spot where grateful travelers take rest and repast. Except for the abandoned house where the owner of the lumbermill once lived and a huge building made entirely of the cypress shingles the local mills were famous for, there is little to attest that a mill ever stood at Bucksport.

  Little remains of Bucksville save two nineteenth-century structures built by Captain Henry Buck. One is the well-kept Buck plantation house, complete with former slave cabins. The other is Hebron Methodist Church, constructed in 1848 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

  And what of the lumbermills that began the town? All that remains are two chimneys, each standing alone where a thriving mill once bustled around it. The chimney of the earliest mill is near the Buck plantation house. The other chimney is a little farther downriver. Once part of a multilevel structure recognized as the largest mill in South Carolina, it towers seventy-five feet above the ground.

  The mills are as completely forgotten as the long-lost railroad tracks that once carried millions of feet of lumber to the Bucksville docks. The booming lumber trade and the shipbuilding industry, both of which should have reached legendary proportions, are lost to the past, perhaps casualties of a witch’s curse placed long ago and far away.

  Wedgefield

  _____________________The Revolutionary War and the British occupation of Georgetown left changes on the port town and surrounding Prince George Parish. A number of lovely homes belonging to those who supported the Patriot cause were burned during the siege. Most Patriot families, ordered to evacuate their houses to make room for the British military, were later able to move back home. Plantations resumed regular operations. Property belonging to those loyal to Britain was confiscated. Most of these landowners petitioned for pardon, promised loyalty to the new American government, and were given their property back.

  Changes of an ethereal nature took place, too. One member of the British military who lost his life in Prince George Parish remains here to this day, haunting the scene of his last earthly hours.

  During the early years of the American Revolution, Georgetown was safe from British attack. Although word came in the spring of 1776 that the English planned to attack Charles Town, only sixty miles south, Georgetown County was unfriendly to any kind of military maneuvers save guerrilla warfare, thanks to its five rivers and its miles of swamps. When the British attacked Fort Moultrie, just north of Charles Town Harbor, that July 28, two companies of Georgetown volunteers marched down to help save the fort.

  Georgetown felt few effects of the war until May 12, 1780, when Charles Town finally fell. Soon, Georgetown was besieged by sea and by land. As the closest po
rt to Charles Town, it became a focal point of British naval attention. British sailors were dispatched up the rivers on armed barges to raid the plantations. The Sixty-third Royal Regiment pillaged by land. British naval vessels anchored in the harbor. The men and horses of the cavalry took quarters in the township. For their stable, the king’s men used the centrally located parish church of Prince George Winyah, quartering their horses in the box pews of the sanctuary itself. Even though Prince George Winyah was an Anglican church, the Crown’s men caused fire damage to the interior of the structure sometime during their occupation.

  Although most Georgetonians were Patriots, a number of citizens wished to continue under British rule. Those who were loyal to the king were scornfully called “Tories” by their Patriot neighbors.

  One Front Street resident who sympathized with the British was the subject of much discussion among his neighbors, who wanted to punish but not harm him. The Patriots agreed among themselves not to sell the man any salt. Although this may seem a minor matter, the lack of salt caused him and his family discomfort, aggravation, and hardship, for without salt, they could not cure meat. Fish, fowl, and red meat, whether hunted or bought, had to be eaten at once or thrown away.

  Several loyal British subjects living in Georgetown opened their townhouses to the military representatives of the Crown, gladly hosting officers. Patriots, however, were not requested to host the enemy. They were simply told to evacuate so the British could use their homes.

  As the occupation continued, more and more temporary housing was needed for English troops and their Patriot prisoners. When space in even outbuildings and sheds in the township became scarce, the British began using some of the outlying plantation homes. Wedgefield Plantation, several miles north of Georgetown on the Black River, was chosen as a suitable place to sequester Patriot prisoners and allow injured British soldiers to recuperate.

  One of the prisoners, an elderly gentleman, was particularly important to the British. The father of one of General Francis Marion’s officers, he held vast knowledge of the Patriot general’s swamp and island hideaways.

  A native of the South Carolina low country, General Marion, aptly nicknamed “the Swamp Fox,” easily navigated the endless swamps, creeks, and rivers of his boyhood home, constantly leaving pursuing British troops lost or stranded. But the capture of the father of one of his officers was a possible security breach. Though wise and trustworthy, the old gentleman was becoming confused in his advanced age. General Marion feared that the elderly fellow, fiercely loyal to the Patriot cause, would unwittingly divulge precious secrets to the enemy.

  Of course, that was exactly what the British hoped. They also knew that General Marion, who always seemed to anticipate their plans, was fully aware of the situation and had placed top priority on retrieving the prisoner. For this reason, the British assigned twenty troops to guard the elderly gentleman at Wedgefield.

  The owner of Wedgefield also possessed homes in Georgetown and Charles Town, a store in Charles Town, and a merchant ship that made regular runs between the two cities. A shrewd businessman, he had decided early in the war not to choose sides, for conducting business with both the British and the Americans was much more profitable than being loyal to one side or the other. During the time the British occupied Charles Town but not Georgetown, a number of Georgetown merchants traded lucratively with the British, supplying them with rice, tobacco, and clothing. The Patriot militia disapproved of but did not forbid this trade. However, as the war progressed and the British took command of Georgetown, questions of loyalty became increasingly important, and merchants were pressed into declaring their loyalty to the Patriots or the Crown.

  Wedgefield’s owner did not have to debate for long. As the greater portion of his business depended on the British, he chose to support the Crown. From then on, he was publicly known as a Tory. But unbeknownst to the British and even to her own father, the daughter of Wedgefield’s owner remained secretly loyal to the Patriot cause.

  When not in Charles Town, the owner and his daughter divided their time between Wedgefield and their Georgetown townhouse, where British troops were also quartered. Quite often, the ever-wary daughter heard military information uttered by English soldiers. It never occurred to the British that, in quarters provided by a loyal subject of the Crown, a Patriot spy was in their midst.

  The formal garden of the townhouse was near the churchyard of Prince George Winyah, where the daughter secretly delivered information to the Patriots of Georgetown. She would slip into a lonely corner of the churchyard under cover of darkness and leave messages containing the information she had gleaned from listening to conversations in her father’s townhouse and at Wedgefield. In the same designated spot among the crypts and tombstones, communiqués detailing needed information would be left for her by General Marion’s men.

  It was through the daughter’s careful eavesdropping that Marion discovered where the elderly gentleman was being held. Knowing that the old fellow might suffer confusion at any time and release Patriot information to his captors, Marion gave the daughter his blessing to execute an ingenious plan to retrieve the elderly gentleman.

  Thus, the daughter arranged with a few Tory ladies to present an evening’s entertainment for the British troops quartered at Mansfield Plantation, just north of Wedgefield. Of course, the daughter insisted that the guards at lonely Wedgefield be included. Her plan for retrieving the elderly gentleman hinged on the guards’ attendance.

  Just as she and General Marion hoped, the Wedgefield guards were delighted at the opportunity to spend part of an evening at the Mansfield gala. As the sun was sinking, all the Wedgefield guards—save one man who stayed to watch the prisoners—mounted their horses and cantered down the long plantation avenue on their way to a festive evening.

  As darkness descended over the Black River, which flows behind both Wedgefield and Mansfield, a band of General Marion’s men galloped their horses up the Wedgefield avenue toward the spacious two-and-a-half-story home. The sentry, expecting a quiet, lonely evening, was surprised to hear hoofbeats. Assuming that British troops from Georgetown were riding out to attend the entertainment at Mansfield, he hurried down the steps of the manor to hail them and direct them next door to Mansfield. The horsemen reined in close to the house just as the sentry reached the bottom of the steps. They were nearly hovering over him as he saw with a shock that these were Patriot troops.

  Not one to surrender, he instantly had his pistol in hand and aimed it at the rider closest to him. The Patriot rider drew a bead on the sentry at the same instant. Both men fired. Both missed their target. As the fire from the two barrels flashed in the near-darkness, the twin bursts of flame illuminated the razor edge of a swiftly drawn saber sweeping through the air. Wielded by one of the Patriot riders instinctively protecting his fellow soldier, the blade found its mark. As the smoke from the discharged pistols rose, the head of the British sentry fell to the ground. The few seconds of violence over, the Patriot party watched in shock as the headless sentry staggered about for several agonizing moments before collapsing lifeless on the ground.

  With only one sentry to contend with, the Patriots had hoped to complete their mission without a struggle, much less a fatality. They completed their business in stony near-silence, quickly freeing the elderly gentleman and several other Patriot prisoners. They also took a number of wounded British soldiers who had been convalescing at Wedgefield.

  The unfortunate sentry was buried in the Wedgefield garden.

  When British occupation was finally behind them, Georgetonians settled down to repairing damage from the siege. Though the town and the surrounding countryside were now free from unrest, all was not peaceful at Wedgefield Plantation.

  During the years following the war, gunfire and hoofbeats were often heard just after dark in the vicinity of the manor house, though there was no apparent source. A shadowy, pistol-brandishing figure in British military garb began to appear early on moonlit evenings, moving
rapidly about the porch and steps of the house. What looked to be the same figure—only headless—was often glimpsed walking erratically near the base of the steps, apparently searching for something. Servants whispered that this terrible sight was the ghost of the British sentry looking for his missing head.

  A century and a half later, during the 1930s, the old Wedgefield manor house was torn down and replaced by the present mansion. Georgetonians familiar with the ghost who once paced the porch there noted that the apparition was glimpsed less often after the old house was gone.

  But he still appears on rare occasions on the plantation avenue at Wedgefield near the site of the long-gone steps where his life so suddenly ended. His appearances are heralded by the sounds of hoofbeats and gunfire, which represent the confusion of his final seconds on earth and the swiftness of his demise.

  Sometimes, he is seen, head intact, in the vicinity of the old Wedgefield garden, wandering forlornly above his final resting place, where his body was united with its severed head once more.

  Bolem House

  _____________________Everyone does not have the ability to see ghosts. Someone with this gift is often the only person among several in a room or a house who can sense a presence not of this world. Such was the case during the 1993 Christmas season at Bolem House, a home with a close connection to Georgetown’s early nautical history.

  Georgetown was laid out in 1729. At the insistence of South Carolina’s newly appointed colonial leader, Royal Governor Robert Johnson, the township was made a port of entry in 1731. Georgetown Harbor soon became busy with shipping.

  One of the oldest homes in Georgetown, Bolem House was built very near the street in the 1730s. With its generous bay windows and its nine-foot double doors opening into rooms with ten-foot ceilings, it is airy and sunlit. The paneled sections above several doors show the fine detailing that went into the home’s construction. Charming and comfortable, with that certain ambiance that only well-cared-for centuries-old homes boast, Bolem House still has much of its original flooring, cut from the full cross-sections of great trees. Those floors have absorbed many a footstep over the last 260 years.