by Bruce Orr
Published by The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright © 2010 by Bruce Orr
All rights reserved
Front cover image: The Hanging of Lavinia Fisher by David Gobel.
First published 2010
e-book edition 2012
ISBN 978.1.61423.281.0
Orr, Bruce.
Six miles to Charleston : the true story of John and Lavinia Fisher / Bruce Orr.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-117-8
1. Fisher, John, d. 1820. 2. Fisher, Lavinia, d. 1820. 3. Murderers--South Carolina--Charleston--Biography. 4. Hotelkeepers--South Carolina--Charleston--Biography. 5. Charleston (S.C.)--Biography. 6. Six Mile House (Charleston, S.C.)--History. 7. Charleston (S.C.)--History--19th century. 8. Criminal justice, Administration of--South Carolina--Charleston--History--19th century. 9. Trials (Murder)--South Carolina--Charleston--History--19th century. 10. Charleston (S.C.)--Politics and government--19th century. I.
Title.
HV6248.F47O7 2010
364.152’30922757915--dc22
2010041014
Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For my children: I have always taught you to search for the facts in the face of what others may tell you.
Rachel S.: Thank you for putting up with me after I have dragged you through the streets of Charleston in the rain, for tolerating me again after I dragged you through the dust and the dirt of the Old City Jail and also burying you in photos, files and microfiche.
“Catt Vee”: My fantastic friend from Raleigh, I always told you that the first one’s for you.
CONTENTS
Foreword by John LaVerne
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Lost in Legend
1. The Time: 1819
2. The Victims: Two Corpses and a Cow
3. The Gang: The Forgotten Members
4. The Trial: Colonial Justice Is Not Criminal Justice
5. The Escape: A Last Bid for Freedom
6. The Sentencing: Colonial Justice Equals Colonial Corruption
7. The Execution: In the Words of Those Who Witnessed It
8. The Method: Death by Hanging
9. The Allegations: Colonial Justice versus Criminal Justice
10. Power and Greed: Politics at Its Best
11. Land Swindling: The Keys May Be Key
12. Motive: The Sins of the Father
Conclusion: Things Are Not Always as They Appear
Bibliography
About the Author
FOREWORD
Many years ago after graduating from the Citadel Military College in Charleston, I, like many young men and women, was still trying to find my direction in life. All that changed with a single carriage tour through Charleston. That one trip was the beginning of a love affair with history, and it was also the beginning of Bulldog Tours.
When I began giving tours in 1991, ghost tours were only popular around Halloween. Ten years later, in the summer of 2001, while riding my bike home, I passed a ghost tour standing in front of a cemetery and was shocked that people would do such a tour, even in the heat of the summer. Two blocks later on that bike ride home, I randomly glanced down Broad Street to pay my respects to the Old Exchange, one of Charleston’s crown jewels of historical buildings. It was at that point I had a life-changing epiphany that the dungeon at the bottom of the Old Exchange would be a phenomenal place to take a ghost tour. The “Ghost & Dungeon Walking Tour” started that fall and became an instant hit, especially after the filming of the Travel Channel’s “America’s Most Haunted Places.” Our “Haunted Jail Tour” at the Old City Jail and the “Ghost & Graveyard Tour” at the Circular Congregational Church followed in the next few years. This was the formula for Bulldog Tours’ initial success—taking visitors to historical and haunted locations.
As I approached each of the potential ghost-tour locations, I would not only receive valuable information as to the historical facts of that particular location, I would also hear tales of ghosts and numerous unexplainable events. The history of the buildings and the ghost stories were so often intertwined that it was impossible to separate them. They say every building in Charleston has its own story, and I say that is an understatement. Generations after generations have filled these buildings with numerous tales. Each building is not a single story; each building is a library within itself.
There is no better example of this than the Old City Jail.
Built in 1802 and used until 1939, thousands of people were housed there and thousands more died there. The Fishers were two such people.
The legend I heard as a child was that John and Lavinia Fisher ran the Six Mile House, a boardinghouse on the outskirts of Charleston in the early 1800s. They would rob and murder their guests as they slept. Some versions of the tale have Lavinia sedating or even killing the guests with the poisonous oleander flower that she mixed into a hot tea. John would then butcher the bodies and dispose of them in a cellar under the inn.
In early 1819, one of their victims managed to escape and flee back to Charleston where he alerted the authorities. The next morning the sheriff of Charleston, accompanied by many others, rode out to the Six Mile House and arrested the Fishers. While searching the property, the sheriff opened the cellar and made a gruesome discovery. The cellar contained the decomposing remains of numerous victims of the Fishers. Legend estimates thirty or more victims were found, but the butchering made the exact body count impossible to obtain.
In 1820, the Fishers were condemned to execution. Lavinia was convinced that she would be pardoned by the governor, and that he would not execute a woman. Her beauty and charm had saved her more than once, and she was sure it would save her now. She also requested to be hanged in her wedding gown to invoke sympathy from the large crowd gathered to witness the execution. She was said to be a very beautiful woman, and the image of a young woman in her wedding gown on the gallows would begin to burn in the minds of all those who witnessed the events as they were unfolding.
As a pastor attempted to lead Lavinia in repentance for her sins, she stopped him. She responded to his efforts by saying, “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.”
And with that she leapt from the platform, hanging herself and denying the hangman the opportunity of executing her. Lavinia Fisher spent the last moments of her life waiting for an earthly pardon that never came and defying a heavenly pardon a minister had offered her. Many believe that very statement trapped her spirit between both worlds. The governor would not pardon her; God wanted to but she refused it; and the devil did not want to hear what message she was bringing. That blasphemous curse left her spirit to return to the last home she had in life, the Old City Jail, and await an earthly pardon before her trial and judgment in the afterlife could begin.
The tale of John and Lavinia Fisher is one of many tales historic Charleston, is famous—or perhaps infamous—for. The legend, in many different forms, has been handed down generation after generation. With each telling, the story has been embellished just a little more. Once again the truth, the paranorm
al and generations of embellishment became so intertwined that it was hard to separate—until now. The author of this book, Bruce Orr, searched through historical records, archives and eyewitness accounts to separate the fact from the fabrication. Maybe after 190 years the facts need to be reexamined. This book serves that purpose.
It is a well-known fact that justice in Charleston in the 1800s may have been swift but perhaps was not always fair. As Bruce often says, colonial justice was “Fast-Food Justice.” They were more interested in quantity served and not quality served.
In reality, in 1820 Lavinia Fisher was sent to the gallows. With her pardon denied and her long white gown fluttering in the breeze, she did indeed scream defiantly in the face of those attempting to lead her to salvation. Her words accompanied by her appearance burned into the minds of everyone in attendance. As the platform dropped, John and Lavinia were not only executed but also launched into legend. The end of their lives is the common ground between the legend and the facts of the case. What leads up to that moment is where the two take distinctly different paths.
What happened then in the name of justice would never be tolerated in this day and age. Things that we take for granted such as freedom and individual rights were subject to the laws of the state. We cannot even fathom the horrors subjected to the Fishers and those like them at the hands of their captors in the Old City Jail. We cannot grasp the cruelties of the Sugar House, where slaves were sent and received punishment—actually more torture than punishment—just because of the color of their skin and the belief they were subservient to their owners. It is a disservice to those who suffered and died in this manner to ignore its harsh realities. History is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes, and colonial Charleston made its fair share of them.
Perhaps the Fishers were one of them.
John LaVerne
Owner, Bulldog Tours
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to take this opportunity to thank those people who helped me along the way in this endeavor.
John LaVerne, owner of Bulldog Tours in Charleston, South Carolina, for valuable information regarding the legend and for his time in creating the foreword for this book;
David Gobel, artist in Charleston, South Carolina, for his time and the use of his painting, “The Hanging of Lavinia Fisher”;
Frank O. Hunt, retired Lowcountry investigative reporter, news anchor and former investigator for the Ninth Circuit Solicitor’s Office in Charleston;
Dr. S. Erin McConnell Presnell, Medical University of South Carolina associate professor of pathology, director of medical and forensic autopsy;
Rick Presnell, retired crime scene supervisor/investigator, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office;
Sgt. Mike Ringley, former crime scene supervisor/investigator, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office;
Michael Murphy, Murphy Whips WA Australia, for his assistance in explaining the weaponry of the period;
Chaplain Ely “Eddie” Driggers, Coastal Carolina Chaplaincy, for his assistance in providing information regarding the Old City Jail and its inhabitants;
Master Deputy William “Bill” Reed III, Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, for his assistance in providing information regarding cellars and beer cellars within the Charleston, South Carolina area;
Suzann Brown and Karen Marr, Bulldog Tours, for their assistance and wealth of knowledge regarding the Old City Jail and John and Lavinia Fisher;
Charleston County Library (68 Calhoun Street, Charleston, SC 29401);
Dorchester County George H. Seago Jr. Library (76 Old Trolley Road, Summerville, SC 29485);
South Carolina Historical Society (100 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC 29401);
South Carolina Department of Archives and History (8301 Parklane Road, Columbia, SC 29223);
Lavinia Fisher (scary coincidence), Italy, for her assistance in researching a possible Italian connection to this legend and for also unnerving me with the strangest coincidence in writing this book;
Alessa Bertoluzzi, Summerville–Dorchester Museum, for rekindling my interest in Lavinia Fisher and her support in this endeavor;
Alkinoos “Ike” Katsilianos, Darkwater Paranormal Investigations, for his insight into the paranormal aspects of the case and discussions into the legitimate facts of the Fishers;
Linda Toporek, Realtor, for her help with property laws and information; and Kayla Orr, photography.
Introduction
LOST IN LEGEND
Charleston, South Carolina, has such a wonderful and historic past. It has definitely made its mark on the history of this nation. From the very beginning, in 1670 with its original colony, through the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, to present day, it continues that tradition. Charleston is rich in heart, heritage and history.
Charleston is also rich in legend.
For every Revolutionary War hero, there is an equally despised British villain, and for every Civil War legend, there is a nasty nemesis—usually a Yankee. Within this city, there are a great number of skeletons in the closets—or in this case, in the cellar.
According to legend, John and Lavinia Fisher ran the Six Mile House, an inn on the outskirts of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1819. The couple worked as a criminal team; they are considered the predecessor of murderous couples such as Bonnie and Clyde, whose robbery spree in the 1930s left several dead, nine of them lawmen, or Gerald and Charlene Gallego, who murdered ten victims in the 1970s. Although their death count in legend is much higher, their methods are considered more along the lines of the geriatric couple, Ray and Faye Copeland, who were sentenced for murdering numerous transients who stopped at their farm seeking work. Ray Copeland, age seventy-six, and his wife Faye, age sixty-nine, were convicted of five murders and are believed to have been responsible for at least seven more.
As the legend has it, Lavinia Fisher lured in many guests with her seductive wiles, fed them a fine home-cooked dinner, and then sedated them with warm tea poisoned with oleander. Her husband, John, then robbed them in their sleep, murdered them, butchered them and then disposed of their bodies in the cellar of Six Mile House. It was not until one of their victims escaped, rode into town and alerted the Charleston authorities that their treachery was revealed. Between twenty to thirty victims were alleged to have been found in various states of decomposition in the cellar. Fisher and his wife were charged with those murders and hanged for their crimes.
Later Lavinia, in an effort to provoke sympathy, requested to be hanged in her wedding dress. As she stood on the gallows with her long white dress blowing in the breeze, her defiant last words were, “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.”
As the noose was placed around her neck, she leapt to her death to steal the privilege of her execution from the hangman. So the legend goes.
As a child, I first became acquainted with the legend of John and Lavinia Fisher in a book titled “Charleston Ghosts” by Margaret Rhett Martin. Her story, “The Wayfarer at Six Mile House,” quickly became my favorite. It also became a source of nightmares as those creepy skeletons managed to escape John and Lavinia’s cellar and find their way under my bed at 3:00 a.m. After a few repeat performances, my father convinced my mother that Ms. Martin’s book needed to be confiscated in their efforts to remedy the skeletons’ nightly visits. She removed the book and saved me from becoming another of Lavinia’s hapless victims—or one of my father’s.
Many years passed; I grew up and entered the field of law enforcement. That career would bring me face to face with more than one decomposing corpse in the hot Charleston sun. No longer did the skeletons come to visit me by crawling out from under my bed at 3:00 a.m. I was often called to crawl out of my bed at that time to go visit them. I am now retired, and we both have a standing agreement not to visit each other at all. If they don’t haunt me, I won’t try to figure out who converted them to skele
tons. I will leave that to South Carolina’s finest.
Just like it did with me, the tale of the evil Lavinia Fisher and her murderous husband, John, has interested both the residents and visitors of Charleston, South Carolina, for the better part of two centuries now. There are as many versions of the tale as there are tour guides, but one thing is for certain: it is one of the longest lasting and enduring legends of the Lowcountry.
Much has been written about the legend of the pair and their association to an inn known as Six Mile House that existed just outside the city limits of Charleston in 1819. Most of what has been published is strictly legend. The stories are taken from accounts handed down from generation to generation for the past 190 years. With each telling, the story has been embellished just a little more until the actual events of the time were obscured by sensationalism. That is the fantasy of legend. The truth is that little is known of the facts pertaining to the Fishers or the events said to have occurred at Six Mile House.
I have read that Lavinia Fisher was the first female serial killer; the first woman executed in the United States; a witch; a seductress; the creator of a tea to die for; and apparently a fashion diva who was hanged in her wedding dress. I have read John Fisher was a coward, died like a dog and had to be dragged to the gallows. In the end, he put all the blame on Lavinia—so legend has it. I have read that as a husband and wife team the two robbed and murdered upward of twenty-plus people as the unsuspecting victims entered and left the city of Charleston conducting business in the wagon trade.
Factually, what is the truth behind the legend? Are there any records still in existence pertaining to the criminal case, and if they do exist, what story do those documents tell?
It is true Lavinia and John Fisher did exist and were associated with Six Mile House. They were arrested and eventually sentenced to death in the courts of Charleston. But what really happened?
It is my intention to separate the fact from fiction and allow the reader to draw one’s own conclusion based on those facts—facts of the time in which they occurred. I have taken information from sources that existed at the time, eyewitness accounts, court documents and later sources that used accurate documentation. Some references used will be transcribed in their entirety. Article by article, note by note, bit by bit, a different story unfolded, and the legend of Six Mile House began to unravel. Slowly a different story emerges—a story based in fact.