From the Augusta Chronicle: Augusta has a few ghost stories to share
An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.
– Charles Dickens
Augusta, GA isn’t really what you would call a ghost town, but sometimes over the past 200 years something strange has happened, and this newspaper has tried to explain it.
With Halloween almost here, you might be in the spirit to set out on a ghost hunt.
You could start at the Ezekiel Harris House on Broad Street near the new Kroc Center. During the American Revolution, a bitter British commander hung 13 patriots nearby. Naturally, there are those who report that strange lights are sometimes seen in the vicinity. Odd sounds are heard, too.
On the other end of Broad at the corner of Fifth Street is the famous “Haunted Pillar.” This lonely column is what’s left of an old market building destroyed by an 1878 tornado. The “haunted” part is a local legend – move the pillar or touch it, and you’re supposed to die.
The truth is the pillar has been moved a lot, and if you want to get picky, it’s not even the original. In 1935, The Chronicle reported, an automobile hit it and “reduced it to a pile of brick and cement.” The driver was not injured; the pillar was rebuilt. On a Friday the 13th in 1958, this newspaper said, the column was toppled when an oversized bale of cotton fell from a passing truck. The driver was not injured.
Maybe the curse involves bad driving.
Walk down the street a few blocks into Olde Town, and you might see something spooky. On both July 11 and July 13, 1871, The Chronicle reported a ghost frightening residents. It turned out to be a mentally unbalanced girl wandering in her nightclothes.
Now on to Walton Way. In June 1903, The Chronicle reported that ghosts were seen at Meadow Garden, the former home of George Walton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Maybe it was George and political rival William Few renewing a political argument.
Keep going up Walton Way, and you arrive at the campus of Augusta State University, scene of one of our town’s most repeated ghost stories.
According to both Chronicle reports and a Georgia ghost story anthology, a professor strolling across campus one spring night reported seeing a man dressed as a Confederate officer walking in the old Walker family cemetery. Then he vanished.
The professor said he didn’t believe in ghosts, but he could offer no other explanation. We’ll have to take his word for it, and you can take my word for this: If you do see something spooky Monday night, it won’t be me.
I should be at my own front door passing our treats. Don’t get greedy. Crowd control will be handled by my vigilant little assistant in a dog costume.
