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Spirits of the Mountains
High Country Haints, Legends, And Creepy Places
By Scott Nicholson
The Blue Ridge Mountains are storied. The oral tradition is perhaps stronger here than anywhere else in the country, due to the isolation of families and the lack of any central sources of entertainment. After chores were done, crops tended and livestock fed, the families would gather around in the twilight; on the front porch during summer, around the fireplace in winter.
It was in those magic hours that the yarns were unraveled, passed from generation to generation like a living keepsake. Some of the tales were about family history, some told of imaginary heroes and heroines, some were nothing more than plain old gossip. But when the embers burned low or the moon hung bleary in the sky, those gathered inevitably drew closer together as talk turned toward things that went bump in the night.
The unique thing about ghost stories is that they must be told as if absolutely true. "Eyewitness accounts" were sometimes more the result of a glare off an empty moonshine jar than an actual otherworldly encounter. But these stories always take a life of their own, getting passed around and embellished until they are as thick as a November fog. But it's said that all fables contain the kernel of truth.
The High Country is the site of the first-ever audio recording of a ghost, according to ninth-generation storyteller and folklorist Charlotte Ross of Boone. Ross served a part in an experiment conducted by Duke University's famed Rhine Research Center (then known as the Institute of Parapsychology) in the early 1970's. Ross was asked to gather information on "alleged" hauntings in the area, and to seal her findings in a safe deposit box. Several weeks later, famed psychic Jean MacArthur came to the area to visit those sites.
Ross led the ghost-hunting entourage out to the Rominger Road area behind Beech Mountain. Ross was kept in a separate car so that "telepathic communication" wouldn't influence the experiment. MacArthur, accompanied by someone carrying a tape recorder, went into an abandoned house pointed out by Ross. After much shouting and banging, MacArthur emerged pale and shaken.
There was another place up the road that used to be the site of a grist mill, and after MacArthur recovered, the group went to investigate the haunting. Ross knew that a boy had been crushed at the mill when he stuck a stick on the millstone. The stick got tangled in the boy's shirt sleeve and pulled him to his death. Those in the area said you could hear the boy crying at night, and a few claimed to have seen a small ghostly figure there. Ross said when MacArthur got to the site, the first thing she said was, "Oh, God. The child! The stick." Ross said she became convinced the woman was "sensitive."
The footnote to the story of the first site, where the recording was made, was that Ross talked to a source who told her about the people killed in the house. MacArthur asked, "What about the one in the yard?" Ross knew nothing about anyone being buried in the yard. Only later did Ross find out that her original source, the one that had first told her about the ghosts, had killed a man in the yard.
There are other haunted places in the area. One place, a small church in Valle Crucis, has suffered from vandalism due to its reputation. According to legend, a preacher hung himself there, and some say you can still see the grooves the rope made in the ceiling joist. But others say he hung himself by the bell rope. The reasons for the suicide also vary with the version being told; most claim that the preacher got someone pregnant out of wedlock.
There are also different accounts of the phenomena manifested by the restless spirit. In one, the congregation rises from the graveyard and follows the preacher into a nearby river. In another, the preacher sulks in the pulpit on those gloomy nights when the wind whistles through the pines. Some claim to have heard the church bells ring when no one was around. The fact that there is no historical record of a suicide there hasn't slowed the growth of the legend.
Another haunted building is a realty office on Blowing Rock Road. The building has been home to many businesses over the years, all seemingly unable to survive despite the prime location. One person who slept there back when it was a residence claimed that someone reached through the stair railing and pulled his hair in the night, though he was supposedly alone. Other stories concern store displays and fixtures which would fall down during the night, or shelves mysteriously lifting several feet in the air. It's the kind of place where no one likes to be the first one to work in the morning for fear of what they might find when they unlock the door.
A restaurant in Blowing Rock has a friendly ghost that you can have dinner with. The ghost mostly manifests itself as a cold spot, even though its favorite table is by the fireplace. Even the warmest dinner won't keep the hair from standing up on the back of your neck.
The Devil's Staircase rests along Highway 88 in Ashe County. According to legend, dynamiters were clearing a path for the "Virginia Creeper" railroad line when disaster occurred. The same blast that caused the odd rock formation also killed a man. And before that, dating back to the 1800's, a woman is said to have hung herself. In another version of the tragic history of the spot, a woman is said to have thrown her baby off a bridge. In yet another, a salesman on his way home fell asleep at the wheel and suffered a fatal crash.
Whatever restless dead now linger by the Staircase, and exactly when they began their eternal meanderings, is the topic of many a late-night debate. But for those who have had encounters with the ghosts, the earthly truth provides little comfort.
In the days of horseback travel, it's said that a rider would suddenly find that he'd gained a fellow traveler. Those who had the nerve to look back saw a misty old woman with wild eyes. Sometimes a solo rider who was lucky enough to dodge the icy grip of the dead woman would report hearing a baby crying in the night.
But ghost stories have a way of changing with the times, so nowadays an unlucky late-night traveler might look in the rearview mirror to find that an unwelcome hitchhiker has taken a back seat. Other drivers have reported seeing a pale figure walking on side of the road. Only on closer inspection do they see that her feet are not touching the ground.
Bluff Mountain in Ashe County is the home of John Crebs, and Crebs is famed for walking the foggy hollows of the mountainside. Crebs is not the only farmer who likes to walk his lands. But what makes Crebs more notable than most is the fact that he's been dead for about sixty years.
Crebs set out one morning after a lost calf that was somewhere up on the rugged granite slope bawling in the fog. Crebs scrambled along the rocks when he came to a rhododendron thicket. He heard a scraping sound in the brush and thought it was the calf. But when the slick leaves parted, the odor of sulfur filled the air and the Devil himself stepped. Crebs stared the Prince of Lies in the eye for only a moment, then his limbs unfroze and he dashed down the mountainside.
When he reached home, his wife noticed his hair had turned white. He sat in his rocking chair and rocked frantically back and forth throughout the night, staring at nothing. When his wife woke up the next morning, Crebs was stone cold dead. They say if you go up along Buffalo Creek and look in some of the ponds that collect in the spring, you can see the Devil's face in the water. And if you go along the mountain at night, you might hear a rocking chair squeaking. But worst of all is the fog, when the sulfuric stench is thick in the air, and something unearthly walks the trails of Bluff Mountain.
Ashe County is also the home of Nettle Knob, which has trails that are still traversed by covered wagon. But this wagon has no destination, only rattles back and forth across the shadowed nooks and crannies of the Knob. The wagon is pulled by an old sway-backed mule, and driven by a man who ignores everyone he passes. Others say that you can only hear the creaky springs and iron rims as the wagon rolls along.
The wagon is supposedly driven by a farmer who plied his goods back in the early 1800's. One day he came to a bridge over a swollen creek, and urged the mule across despite the animal's protests. A wheel went over the side of the bridge, which had no guardrails, and the wagon flipped over into the water. The man was pinned by the wagon, and the mule died trying to break free of the harness. Today they are joined in their eternal sad travels, wandering the long nights across Nettle Knob.
There's one sight that the curious will not want to miss. Down near the Burke-Caldwell County line, along Highway 181, there's a marked overlook where you can see Brown Mountain. You can also see it from Highway 105 in McDowell County. On clear nights, reddish lights glow like jewels across the dark slopes. The lights have been attributed to everything from UFOs, foxfire, radiation, electrical discharges, swamp gas, or light reflecting off the atmosphere. Sometimes the lights move around, which has caused more than one mountaineer to remark that the lights are the souls of early settlers who lost their lives trying to tame the wilderness. If you drive along the road on your way to see the Brown Mountain lights, you might want to resist the urge to stop for hitchhikers. Especially the kind that dress in white and stare at you with their deep dead eyes.
They might be in the mood for more than just a ride.
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