Ghosts
: “The Grey Man Ghost” 6
Chapter 2: The Conquistador Ghost 8
Chapter 3: “The “SAM” Ghost” 10
Chapter 4: The Dunbar-Davis Ghost 12
Chapter 5: The Apricot Creek Ghosts 14
Chapter 6: The Indian Ghosts 16
Chapter 7: The Mt. Misery Road Ghosts 18
Chapter 8: The Tony Caselleta Ghost 20
Chapter 9: The Seneca Guns Mystery 22
Acknowledgements
assembled recollections, myths and legends of the
Ocean Isle Beach area to give a unique perspective of
our place in American folklore.
The Ghosts in the following pages have especially
earned our fascination, fear, sympathy, and respect.
2
Table Of Contents
An Introduction 2
Table Of Contents 3
Chapter 1
Bald Head Island Gazette, I have
web page, and the
, The Brunswick Beacon, Ghosts of America
Times
The Star
News
, The News and Observer, The Southport
In this collection of stories reported by
.
“ Phantoms, Ghosts, Spectres, and
Unsolved Mysteries await...”
G h o s t s
of the
C a r o l i n a C o a s t
Ocean Isle Beach Area Legends
By
W i l b u r n “W ill” S m i t h
1
An Introduction to:
“Ghosts of the Carolina Coast”
The Ocean Isle Beach area has had a rich history
of Spanish conquistadors, ante-bellum plantations,
Indian wars, pirates, shipwrecks, slave ships, civil
war battles, smugglers, speakeasies, man-made
calamities and natural disasters.
This coastal region is also home to a rich diversity
of mysteries, myths, phantoms, specters, and
apparitions that span our distant past to our current
headlines. Each of these paranormal events create a
tapestry of stories and legends that reach into our
imagination, touching on our greatest fears,
confirming our strongest beliefs, demonstrating the
depth of honor and duty, and yet confounding our
senses
The Gray Man has long been famous as a specter at
Pawley's Island, South Carolina warning residents of
approaching storms, but the Gray Man has also been
seen at Ocean Isle Beach and as far north as Oak
Island.
It is said that the Gray Man walks along the beaches
right before a terrible storm or great tragedy. It is
said that those who see him know that they should
leave at once or face disaster.
4
It is also reported that ,amazingly, the Gray Man is a
supernatural warning sign that when heeded offers
safety and salvation.
A few days after the tragic October 29, 2007 fire at
Ocean Isle Beach, a local lady named Lisa reported
that she saw the Gray Man a few days after the fire
in the early morning cross Scotland Street in front of
the destroyed house.
No one is quite sure who or what the Gray Man is,
but all indications are that he means good. Quite a
few people report to have seen the Gray Man along
the southeastern North Carolina coast.
“The Grey Man Ghost
3
Chapter 1:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Please visit:
21
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
In the earliest days of our young nation, the
mysterious booms that the great American author
James Fennimore Cooper termed the “Seneca Guns”
have plagued us.
Early white settlers were told by the native
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) that the booms were the
sound of the Great Spirit continuing his work of
shaping the earth. Yet others have told that the
sounds are the echoes of thunder called down by
Indian ancestors as a warning to the living. Still
others say they are the ghosts of native Indians
making the noise of naval cannon fire like that which
drove them from their lands to drive us away from
sacred land.
Whatever the source, since the 1850’s mysterious
booms have left the upstate lakes of New York and
now regularly rattle coastal areas on and near Ocean
Isle Beach. For 150 years, researchers have been
unable to agree on their source as residents of
20
Brunswick County have become accustomed to their
presence.
Veteran sailors of World War II say that it sounds
exactly like the noise from the firing of naval
cannon. Scientific explanations range from UFOs, to
supersonic aircraft, to earthquakes, to ocean
methane, to continental shelf slippage, and yet none
can explain why there has never been a recorded
occurrence on a Sunday.
Also interesting is that the Seneca Guns started
about the same time Brunswick County got it first
permanent towns. Our coastal towns are almost all
built on sacred Indian burial grounds. Science may
yet find an answer or perhaps they really are the
ghostly warnings from the long dead Cape Fear
Indians reminding the living to appreciate what they
have now before it is all gone.
No matter the source of the mysterious sounds,
their spiritual connections and ghostly warnings have
boomed their way into our local Ocean Isle Beach
history.
Unpublished work © 2008 Wilburn Smith
Fred R. David and Vern J. Bender, co-authors of “The
History of Ocean Isle Beach”, would like to express their
appreciation and gratitude to Wilburn “Will” Smith for
allowing us to include these stories in our book, and to make
them available to you, our readers.
Please visit:
The Seneca Guns Mystery
19
Chapter 9:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Some spirits are mischievous, some are benign
and some are entertaining. One of the more
thoughtful and entertaining spirits of this area
resides at the Brunswick Inn in Southport.
The resident spirit of Southport is Antonio (Tony)
Caselleta.
In the 1880’s, Tony was an accomplished harpist
and musician who regularly played at locations
around Southport and especially at the Brunswick
Inn. Tony was nineteen, talented and well liked with
a young wife and children.
18
On a clear day in April 1882, Tony decided to
take a boating trip around Bald Head Island. Even in
calm seas, his ship, The Passport, sank and he
perished.
Since that day however, Tony has made the
Brunswick Inn his home, helping with household
chores, tucking in children, closing windows before
storms and amusing the residents with music from
his harp.
Visitors so often claim to hear Tony walking
around and playing his beloved harp that his antics
are now part of the lore of Southport, making the
Brunswick Inn a true tourist attraction.
Tony Caselleta is a bona fide North Carolina
legend. What holds Tony’s spirit to this earthly
plane? Was Tony’s attachment to his beloved harp so
great that it holds him here or does he play it
throughout time hoping the melodic tones might
touch the souls of his young wife and children,
reassuring them of his presence?
Whatever his reasons, Tony has made a home at
the Brunswick Inn and still entertains an audience.
Please visit:
The Tony Caselleta Ghost
17
Chapter 8:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Some places retain a memory of the events of the
past, forever marking a tragic point in time and
staining the land with grief and sorrow. Sometimes a
place can become a living memory of past injustices
and human suffering that will cry out to the living.
If you are ever driving through Leland down Mt.
Misery Road, you might want to roll up the windows
and drive a little bit faster because if you listen
closely, the spirits of Leland may call to your very
soul.
16
In the 1700’s and 1800’s, slave ships would dock
along the Cape Fear River and the unwillingly cargo
would be marched up Mt. Misery Road 90 miles to
Fayetteville which was a major slave trade center.
In a time when man’s inhumanity to man stained
the American psyche, many of those marched into
slavery died of heat exhaustion on a lonely stretch of
road in an unfamiliar land far from home. To this
day, many motorists passing through Leland swear
they have heard the sounds of clanking chains and
moaning slaves still marching to their tragic fate,
unaware of the passage of time, and doomed to
repeat their march night after night.
Do these poor souls continue to walk the back
roads of our area to remind us of our dark past or to
warn us of a dark future?
Please visit:
The Mt. Misery Road Ghosts
15
Chapter 7:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Indians inhabited the Ocean Isle Beach area for
hundreds of years before the first European settlers
arrived here. Nearly every town in Brunswick County
has a report of an apparition of an Indian, sometimes
young and sometimes old, but always trying to
communicate.
In Ash the ghost of a youthful Indian warrior can
be seen often in Waccamaw Township District Park.
In Calabash, the ghost of a young-looking Indian
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warrior materialized outside the entrance to the
Park attempting to articulate something. In Bolivia,
the spirit of an aged Indian chief emerged gazing at
folks in a mobile home through a peephole. In Oak
Island, the ghost of an elderly Indian chief has been
seen hurling chunks of concrete at Caswell Beach
saying something unintelligible.
What holds these spirits to the land, what lessons
are they so desperate to pass to the living, and what
are they still searching for?
Little is known for sure, but what is historically
known is that in 1521 the Spanish captured over 100
Indians from the Ocean Isle Beach area including one
they taught to be an interpreter and gave him the
name Francisco de Chicora. By 1526 Francisco De
Chicora had convinced the Spanish that the Carolina
Coast was rich in gold and easy to colonize. A few
months later the Spanish gave up entirely on North
Carolina, even abandoning their attempted
settlement in the mountains all the while De Chicora
managed to escape with all the slaves of the
expedition.
Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I tend to
believe that the Indian spirits on and near Ocean Isle
Beach may be apparitions of Francisco De Chicora’s
band Indians who managed to outsmart the Spanish
Empire.
Please visit:
The Indian Ghosts
During the 1920’s, Ocean Isle Beach had a
reputation as the place to go for a good time. Ocean
Isle was connected to the mainland prior to 1934. In
those days, there was road where the bridge is
today; the road ran along the shore of Apricot Creek.
Also on Apricot Creek was a speakeasy or honky tonk
that entertained visitors from as far away as
Greensboro.
In the 1920’s, Apricot Creek was a wandering
tidal creek that ran from Ocean Isle Beach to Sunset
Beach and ended at Bird Island. Apricot Creek and
the tidal area off of Ocean Isle Beach was also known
for liquor smuggling and the road running past Ocean
Isle Beach from Georgetown to Wilmington was
considered one of the most dangerous in the United
States.
Multiple apparitions have been seen along Apricot
Creek but four recurring phantoms have been seen
apparently reliving a tragic set of events. The first is
the spirit of a pregnant lady who has been observed
very late at night attempting to conceal a cadaver.
12
The second is a female without a head. The third is
a man with a sizeable hole through his torso at the
stroke of midnight attempting to hide a dead body.
The fourth is a luminous human form regularly seen
before dawn crawling out of Apricot Creek covered
in mud.
What is the story that these apparitions are
reliving? Are these phantoms the ghostly images of
tragic lovers reenacting a triangle gone horribly
wrong? Whatever the events they are doomed to
relive, they have imprinted their tragic story on the
very banks of the Apricot Creek and now wind
through our imaginations. The mystery of these poor
doomed souls places them in the mist of legend of
Ocean Isle Beach.
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Chapter 6:
The Apricot Creek Ghosts
11
Chapter 5:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Often the living must make accommodations for past
residents.
For almost 100 years, the Oak Island Life-saving
Station served as a quiet sentinel guarding the waters off
of Oak Island, N.C. The keepers of this station served to
protect ships, crews, fisherman, and seaman during two
world wars and countless hurricanes and storms.
One of the bravest and most famous keepers of the
Oak Island station was Dunbar Davis. In 1893, the
infamous South Seas Hurricane struck the North Carolina
Coast and Dunbar and his crew rescued the crews of four
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ships at sea in a Category 3 storm, a herculean feat
unmatched to this day.
After honorable and heroic service, keeper Davis died
in 1923. However he has seen fit to resume his duties.
When the Oak Island Life-Saving station was bought
and renovated, the new owners found that Dunbar Davis
had resumed his post. The current owners have restored
the station and with a few exceptions, they have found
accommodating this dutiful spirit rather easy. In fact it is
said that guests who stay in his bedroom go unharmed
but will often find the door opening all night long no
matter how many times they close it.
For duty, perseverance and not leaving his post
regardless of his personal circumstances, keeper Dunbar
Davis earns a place in history as a ghost near Ocean Isle
Beach.
Please visit:
The Dunbar-Davis Ghost
9
Chapter 4:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
In the 1970’s, Miller Pope built the Winds Beach
Resort. This resort has grown over the years and with
each addition it has become more comfortable,
accommodating and enjoyable to families of tourist for
over three decades.
The Winds also has the distinction of being a
preferred resort for the supernatural as well.
According to many reports, in one of the guest
cottages one street back from the beach a man named
Sam died of a heart attack while on vacation at the
Winds. Apparently Sam was satisfied with his
accommodations because since that time employees and
guests have reportedly noticed strange happenings in the
8
cottage, including cold spots as well as the shades
opening on their own. In a few rare instances people
have reported an actual manifestation of Sam.
Is Sam simply a lost soul trying to remain in the one
place he found happiness?
Whatever the reason, Sam is content to remain and
his ethereal imprint is now a permanent fixture in the
folklore of Ocean Isle Beach.
Please visit:
“The “SAM” Ghost”
7
Chapter 3:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com
Please visit:
.
The earliest European explorers landed on or
near Ocean Isle Beach in the 1520’s. In 1526, the
Spanish attempted to settle present day Brunswick
County. In the summer of 1526, Lucas Vásquez de
Ayllón led a group of 500 Spanish settlers to the
mouth of the Cape Fear River. As their provisions
ran out, these would be conquerors were forced to
move south and steal food from the natives.
By October of that year, only 150 of the original
500 survived, forcing the Spanish to give up and
evacuate to Santo Domingo. Local historians believe
that the Spanish foraged the Ocean Isle Beach area
and perhaps as far south as the Little River in their
attempt to find food and shelter. The wanderings of
these first settlers may help explain an odd sighting
of an observer in Ash, North Carolina (9 miles from
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OIB) of a creepy ghost of a conquistador that can
regularly be distinguished in the middle of Bay
Branch trying to capture something to eat, as well as
the strangely dressed European warrior seen hunting
in the early morning fog at Sunset beach.
Did the ragged remnants of a past group of
starving settlers become forever etched into the
ethereal fabric of the OIB area? Whatever the ghostly
source, perhaps it demonstrates that while time and
starvation may have driven the Spanish from our
shores, some faint echo of the poor souls that tried
to become our first settlers still resonates in the
winds of our coastal plains
The Conquistador Ghost
5
Chapter 2:
Please visit:
www.OceanIsleHistory.com