Editor’s Note: This story contains mentions of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, call Counseling and Psychological Services at 828-262-3180 or the suicide hotline at 988.
Brooklyn Smith curated this story by Karen Grigg, which The Appalachian published Oct. 31, 1974.
People who came to Mayview Manor that night said they found the remains of supper on the table where guests had so hurriedly abandoned the place. It was deserted…except for a corpse in the vicinity of the water tower.
Legend has it that a Mrs. Alexander hung herself on the water tower that fateful night in Blowing Rock. The Manor, a resort hotel, is now only 50 years old, yet it looks to be over 100. Since 1966 no one has lived in the hotel, and it has steadily degenerated into a state of disrepair. Yet the beds are still made, the furniture is still there and the mail is still divided into the guests’ boxes. The clock was stopped at 11:45.
Cindy Vaughn, a freshman at ASU, visited the Manor and talked to the caretaker there. According to her, he was very secretive about the whole thing. When asked about the suicide, he looked rather shocked and said, “Does everybody know about that?” He then told her that the place was closed because of over due mortgage payments.
The caretaker refused to allow a photographer to take any pictures.
Mayview Manor is not the only mystery in the Carolinas. What about the talking corpse of Old Salem? A tavern owner there swore that a man came to his inn sick, in desperate need of a doctor. He died soon after that, never regaining consciousness. The owner buried him, not knowing his name. A week later the man’s ghost appeared and gave him the address of his brother in Texas. After shakily writing the information down, the owner mailed a letter to the address. Soon after, he received a letter from Texas asking him to send the few belongings of the lost brother.
The “Hanging Man of Rutherfordton” is another of the spine-tingling goodies. A big, burly man there was hung for supposedly brutally killing a young girl. He was calm before he was hung and he told the sheriff, “The souls of those who are innocent do not rest.”
In a few weeks the shadow of a big, burly man appeared on the side of the jail cell formerly occupied by the same man.. Owners of the building washed the wall, painted it, and painted it again, but to no avail. The last time the shadow was seen was in 1949, just before the building was sold and the owners remodeled it.
Not far from here in the town of Banner Elk is an old dormitory named Psycho which was previously used as a maternity ward for a hospital. Legend has it that a nurse carrying a baby in her arms stepped into an elevator one day…only the elevator was not there when she stepped down and she stepped down farther than she had expected, killing her and the baby.
Some say they still hear the cries of a baby in that elevator shaft.
The “Little People” at Chimney Rock have caused many a heart to flutter. No one knows exactly where they came from, and many people say they aided the Indians against his white enemy. But periodically, privileged individuals have reported seeing perfectly normal human beings, including men, women, and children, walking around the area on the rocks. The people were miniature, however, and before they get a certain distance from those who chance to see them, they disappear into thin air.
Anyone around Greensboro has heard of the girl who was killed just before a marriage totally disapproved of by a materialistic father. On the anniversary of her death, people are prone to picking up a young girl on the highway and taking her home. There they discover she has disappeared from the car. Her father sighs and relates the fact that she has been dead for many years.
Hickory has its own haunted church. On the corner of Startown Road, the two-story white church looks simple enough. But some have found it to be not so simple to remove the blood stains of a slave that was once beaten there because he was unorderly in his behavior. No matter how many times they’re removed, they still reappear….
Going back into the hills of the Appalachian mountains, the Parson of the Hills has given a great deal of himself and his goods to the people. One of the gifts was a lavender gown to a young girl, who gained the nickname “Lavender” because of it. She wore the dress constantly, even when the weather was freezing. One night she had to walk to a dance in the dress, and froze to death on her way.
Two young men recently saw Lavender walking along the road of her fate and offered her a ride home. She introduced herself as Lavender and had on the dress described. The night was quite cold and one of the men gave her his coat to keep her warm. They took her home, letting her out at her door.
It was not until the next morning that the coat was remembered. The young man returned to the house, where the girl’s mother informed him that Lavender had been dead for five years as of the past evening.
She directed him to the cemetery to prove that what she said was true. When he arrived at the cemetery, he found a stone marked “Lavender” and on top of it, neatly folded, was his forgotten coat.
A more recent occurrence in the writer’s own life took place in Charlotte approximately one year ago on the famed Black Snake Road. A bridge on this road is part of a moaning woman’s walk along the creek and around an old house sitting back from the road. As the writer rode over the bridge with a friend, the horn began to blow. As she was prepared for the friend to try to frighten her, she watched every move made beforehand, and no hand (human hand) touched the horn.
Most ASU students have heard of the famed ghost of I.G. Greer. It has been said that a young man was driving to Boone to hear his girlfriend’s senior recital the next day and was killed on the way. Those present at the recital noted a peculiar expression of surprise and horror and sadness on the girl’s face as she looked up to see her lost lover in the balcony. Several report seeing him since then.
The Brown Mountain Lights have intrigued ASU students from the beginning of the school’s career. From Wiseman’s View these lights seem to move over Brown Mountain, mingling with each other. Scientists have explained them as reflections of cars, trains, Hickory, Lenoir, and other towns, but they were seen before the Civil War…before electricity was invented.
But a battle was fought on Brown Mountain in the 1200’s by the Cherokee and Catawba Indians. The tally of dead was a large one. Even today it is said, the wives and sweethearts of the dead men are looking for them, lanterns in hand.
