I was so dorkily excited about going to the Old Burying Ground while we were in Beaufort. We took a ghost tour on Thursday night and went by there (along with Blackbeard's house), and heard some creepy stories. I was anxious to go back in the daytime and get some photos.
The cemetary is over 300 years old, with a lot of the original markers still there... some legible, some not. No rubbings are allowed, but you can take as many pictures as you like.
There's a grave there of a British Naval soldier who was buried standing up facing England, in salute to King George.
There's also a mass grave for the sailors of the Crissy Wright, which was caught in a Nor'Easter and shipwrecked in January 1886. All the sailors froze to death, except for one cook. He never got over his ordeal and died not a year later.
The 2nd photo here is the grave of a little girl who was buried in a rum cask. She and her family moved to Beaufort from England when she was very little, and as she got older, she wanted to return to England to see her grandparents and other family. Her mother did not want to let her go, but finally consented, after the girl's father told his wife he would bring the girl back.
They made the voyage and the girl was reunited w/her family. After a few months away, the girl and her father had to return home. On the trip back, the girl came down with yellow fever and died. Rather than a burial at sea (which is what most of the crew wanted to do), the father purchased a cask of rum from the ship's captain, tucked the girl's knees up to her chest, and placed her in the cask. She was buried in the same cask when the ship retured to Beaufort.
The little girl now supposedly haunts the graveyard. Many people leave shells and toys on her grave for her to play with, and if she likes your toy, you might find it the next day in a nearby clearing, or it could be gone altogether.
0 comments:
Post a Comment