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| Photo Credit: Bulldog Tours |
Spirits Stay Here
A trip through the haunted hallways of Charleston, South Carolina’s oldest jail
At around age seven, upon my family’s move to a one hundred- year- old farm house complete with five acres of mysterious forest land, I start to wonder if the creaking of the black, wooden stairs at night could possibly be a spirit lurking near my bedroom. I am scared, but deep down I want to see a ghost. Maybe he will be my friend, like Casper.
Fast forward thirteen years. I find myself pulled in by the advertising ploys of the Bulldog Ghost Tours during one of my frequent vacations to Charleston, SC. For ten years I have ignored the company’s graphic signs decorated with ghosts and eyeballs. After seeing one of the tours on an “America’s Most Haunted” episode, I decide to finally give in to that childhood desire to search for the supernatural. I convince my friend to come along, and we round the historic stone buildings of Market Street, entering through the door of the Bulldog Tours office. Although I want to believe that the tour relies on special effects alone, I begin to second- guess my decision to attend when I see the sign that reads “Rated R. Not for Children.” I ask the ticket vendor what this means. He answers with, “let’s just say this one time a brick was mysteriously thrown at someone’s head in the jail’s basement.” We hesitate to hand over the fifteen dollars per person, but I am determined to take on the adrenaline pumping excursion.
That night our black Jeep Grand Cherokee grates its tires upon the gravel drive leading up to the crumbling, cobwebbed prison. The moon is full, and see- through misty clouds overlap its golden-yellow glow. As we step out of the car, I wonder just how far outside of the jail’s premises the spirits will dare to wander. The two towers in the front of the jail feature barred windows. The bars are made of red rust; they have grown tired from years of criminal restraint. Rounding the corner of the building, my friend and I pass through a crooked archway and spot a group of six others. The thirty- year-old woman with the black fanny pack and white sneakers is the only reminder that we are still in the year 2009.
I pick out our tour guide as the one wearing a name tag. Susan, as it is written in a fittingly horrific black font, looks to me as if she could be a ghost herself. Her wild reddish- blonde hair is held back behind the edges of her hat, and her unnaturally haunting voice is perfect for her job. She leads us to the jail doors, but before we enter, tells us how “brave you are for even stepping foot inside these dangerous walls. Some professional ghost hunters make it to this point, barely inside the door, and feel that the spirits are too overwhelming for them to enter. They sense the voices of the paranormal.” I look back at the car, and then up at my friend, but I can’t turn back now.
Charleston, South Carolina, is home to the spirits of some of America’s oldest convicts. In 1680 Charleston officials began drawing blueprints for the plot of land where the jail still stands. The square was also to include a hospital, a poorhouse, and a workhouse for runaway slaves. Construction of the jail was completed by slaves in 1802, and the jail remained in operation until 1939. Once they were admitted inside of the stone walls, a convict’s chances of survival were slim. Upon entry, prisoners were placed in a holding room where their bodies were stretched with torture device made up of rope hanging from the ceiling and floor. This pulled the hands and feet in opposite directions. Those able to endure the pain and filth of this room were placed in cells, some holding ten prisoners inside of an eight- foot, barred square box. The unluckiest and most evil of the crooks were placed in the basement, where solitary confinement was classified as storage of the body (still alive… for now) inside a seven- by- two foot steel box.
As our tour crawls on, I find myself in the main cell room. Susan turns off the lights and I keep reminding myself that this same building is now shared by a small Charleston college. Students attend classes here daily without dying. Right? Susan’s story matches the gloomy mood of the dark space. “Lavinia Fisher, the first serial killer,” she begins. “She was imprisoned in this room. Her spirit lives on. A paranormal investigator from a television show set up an EVP device that records voices coming from the other dimensions. The voice heard in this room is believed to be Lavinia’s. Her only words: ‘YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.’”
I guess Susan has been taking note of the fact that my face is paler and the finger marks I am digging into my friend’s arm are close to an inch deep. She jumps at me with Lavinia’s phrase and I jump back with fear, at least a foot into the air. I realize that Susan is mocking my anxiety, and the rest of the group seems to enjoy the laugh as well. Susan backs away and concludes the visit to this room with Lavinia’s famous phrase, which she supposedly announced in 1819 just before throwing herself off of the platform at her hanging. “If you have a message to send to Hell, give it to me and I’ll carry it for ya!”
We follow Susan into the last room of the tour, the basement. A haunted stairway is the only way down, and I snap pictures as we walk in the dark to see if I might catch a spirit on my Canon’s digital screen. “When a spirit is near, there will be a sudden change in temperature,” Susan’s paranormal voice informs us. In the basement, furniture is strewn across the room, placed in stacks for storage. I confuse the scatters of a mouse with the possible movement of a phantom. Just then we hear Susan calling out in a lower tone than before.
“Jay, I am now calling upon the spirit of Jayyyy.”
She has a creepily enthusiastic tone to her voice, as if she is making music for Jay’s ghoulish dance. “Maybe it’s her special spirit voice,” my friend suggests? My chuckle turns to a cold, deep, breath as I feel the temperature in the basement drop ten digits in less than five seconds. The brown- haired woman with the fanny pack screams and wants to leave. Susan explains that the ghost of Jay may be near. He was a small child who played in the prison and means no harm. Staring into the dark, I am sure I see a tiny flicker of light in the back corner of the room, behind a stack of unstable chairs. Hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and the tour group huddles together, looking impatiently upward, toward the stairway that led us to this point. Susan continues her calling and closes her eyes, as if she is holding a sort of internal dialogue with the unknown. I return to thinking of her as a ghost.
As we are led out of the deteriorating building, I take the stairs two by two. I don’t want to be in the back of the group, left for spirits to snatch me. Susan asks us for our full attention as a serious expression grabs her face. “The spirits need to know not to bother the tourists. They need to know to stay behind.” We repeat after our guide as she slowly states the words that each tourist MUST state for sure safety upon departure.
“Spirits Stay Here.”
My tan boots dig into the gravel with each quick step I take toward the car. I repeat the phrase to myself probably too many times. My friend tells me I’m paranoid, but I guess it is better to be paranoid than to take a chance with the villainous paranormal of the old Charleston City Jail.