A Ghost Story and the Love of God

Years ago I was invited to swap my usual crisp November weather for a Thanksgiving visit to the balmy climes of the Lowcountry of South Carolina. Joining my father, brother, and sister-in-law for an al fresco holiday buffet was a welcome turnaround from the more polar provisions of New England.

The restaurant is nestled within The Hammock Shops Village of Pawleys Island. Since 1889, these locally handcrafted hammocks, or “lazy beds” as Marvin Grant fondly calls them have been as much a staple to the area as the Spanish moss-covered oak trees they are placed beneath. Marvin Grant, a transplant from New York, is known as the “Hammock Man” and he has been hand weaving them for 31 years. You can meet him on Thursdays, but as Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, we didn’t get the pleasure.

My family ventured further down the coast to cross the causeway onto Pawleys Island. While we were driving there, my father shared the region’s unique cultural history. The earliest people were indigenous, known as the Waccamaw, for which the local river gets its namesake. Waccamaw means “coming and going” which refers to the tidal actions of the river. A nearby 16,000-acre nature reserve, Hobcaw Barony, derives its name from the native word, “hobcaw” which translates to ‘between the waters.’

Spanish explorers arrived in the early 1500s, and they introduced the first stain of slavery upon the region. The explorers enslaved some of the Waccamaw people and returned with them to Spain. When word spread of possible precious metals and strong warriors to be had, the Spanish returned again, this time attempting a permanent American settlement. Like the Popham Colony in Maine, this settlement failed to prosper and the surviving Spanish returned home. However, they left behind a unique horse breed, the Carolina Marsh Tacky. These horses are sure-footed in the local marshy environment and not given to panic in the water. It is rumored that Francis Marion, known as the ‘Swamp Fox’ outmaneuvered British troops during the Revolutionary War in the nearby Santee Swamp while riding a Carolina Marsh Tacky. British troops may have given the horses the name ‘tacky’ meaning ‘common’ as that is how they also viewed the colonists fighting against them. In the American film The Patriot, the main character, Benjamin Martin is based loosely on Francis Marion’s exploits.

A handful of English nobles formed the Carolina colony in 1670, creating ‘baronies’ such as Hobcaw, vast parcels of land which they leased. These nobles had a direct stake in the Royal Africa Company, a company that grew its wealth by enslaving Africans. The sub parcels became the rice plantations that created Carolina’s “Gold Coast,” and made Charleston one of the richest cities in the world at the time. The rice planters began to inhabit Pawleys Island as a way to escape the diseases of malaria and typhoid that accompanied the inland humidity during summer.

The 1700s saw slavery that endured until the Civil War in the 1860s. There is a unique language spoken in the Low Country of South Carolina, called Gullah, a creole language, spoken by the local Gullah people – descendants of slaves. This language has been extensively researched by linguists and has its roots in the English language spoken in British coastal slave trading centers and in African languages. It is a hybrid language crafted from the necessity to survive brutal conditions, in theory, spoken to confuse and subvert slave owners.

Time seems to move at a much slower pace in the Low Country. But time has not stood completely still. The Gullah language, much like the Carolina Marsh Tacky, is endangered. There are less than 500 fluent speakers of Gullah and less than 300 Carolina Marsh Tacky horses.

Some things remain perennial in the Low Country. The hypnotic scents of pine trees and azaleas, the lulling sound of the ocean waves, noisy gulls flying overhead, the taste of freshly caught trout, and the haunting beauty of the ubiquitous live oaks covered in Spanish moss.

Over the past five centuries, the confluence of cultures has interwoven stories only preserved by oral tradition. One of the most well-known of these stories, which my father shared with me while walking the four miles of coastline on Pawleys Island, is the ghost story of the Gray Man.

I listened in rapt attention as my father told me that long ago on Pawleys Island there was a young couple that was madly in love. The young man was called away for a time on business. The young girl waited eagerly for word of her lover’s return because she was confident he planned to propose to her upon his arrival home. As soon as the young girl heard that her lover had returned, she ordered the house to be decorated in all possible finery and a feast to be laid out in celebration. For his part, the young man was just as eager to reach his intended. After making the briefest of polite salutations to his family, he takes a slave as a servant for the ride, and they depart on horseback to reach the girl’s home. This young man is so eager to propose, that he challenges the slave to a race in order to reach her home quicker. Deciding to take a shortcut, the young man is thrown into mortal danger as the horse enters quicksand and panics, the poor slave cries for help, but cannot rescue either man or beast. The young lover dies and leaves the girl utterly heartbroken. A few days later, she walks on the beach, inconsolable in her sorrow, when she sees a man dressed in gray and realizes it is her intended fiancee. Unafraid, she walks toward him. When she gets closer, he warns her that she must leave the island at once. She is in grave danger. With the warning spoken, he disappears. The young girl runs home, and when she relays the story to her family, they flee the island at once. That night a terrible hurricane hits Pawleys Island, and her family, having fled further inland is spared.

The legend continues that if you see the Gray Man, you are to heed his warning and flee the island for a hurricane is on its way. There are quite a few people who have claimed to see him and attribute their life being spared to his ghostly warning.

Ever curious, I searched for the earliest reference of the Grey Man I could find. I purchased a limited first edition copy of Julian Bolick’s 1956 book, Georgetown Ghosts, and found what is most likely the earliest recorded version of the Gray Man. Mr. Bolick was a local historian who cataloged the region’s stories. My father’s retelling was practically identical to what Mr. Bolick had written, although the book provides several versions of the Gray Man. My father’s story was ‘The Gray Man of 1822’ version.

I couldn’t resist digging deeper and poking some holes in Mr. Bolick’s story. The one verifiable fact was there was a hurricane that struck Charleston in 1822, so most likely Pawleys Island had sustained heavy damage as well. Beyond that, things become hazier. First, is there really quicksand in the area? Not exactly. However, there is a sort of quicksand cousin called ‘pluff mud’ that is extremely sticky and smelly that can endanger you. A blend of rotting marsh grasses and decaying organisms, if you struggle to get out of pluff mud, you are likely to sink faster. Second, would the horse get stuck in this mud? From what we know of Carolina Marsh Tackies, not only would the horse probably never have entered pluff mud but would not have panicked if it did. Third, would the slave have ‘cried for help?’ Perhaps in the Gullah language, but not in typical English. Mr. Bolick writes that after the tragedy, the slave tells some people ‘in broken phrases’ what had happened.

No matter the facts versus fiction, many people have claimed to have witnessed this kindly apparition over the years, and the legend of the Gray Man persists.

I think the reason I am so captivated by the story of the Gray Man is the idea of a love that conquers the grave in order to provide life-saving guidance mirrors that of Jesus and his love for us. Christ laid down his very life for us, in order to save us. The Bible, His love letter to us, provides us with life-saving guidance if we will just heed His warnings. For humans, distance, disagreements, and death can separate us. But Christ’s love is utterly unstoppable.

³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, hungry, destitute, in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake, we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8 – 35 -39

The Bible promises us we will never be separated from His love, no matter the storms that arise in our life. Dear reader, I hope that you will accept His eternal love and allow Him to save your life.