Ghostly 



Page- 

 Turners 



Check out these books 

 at your local library or 

 bookstore or call the 

 publisher for more informa- 

 tion. 



Ghosts of the Caroli- 

 nas by Nancy Roberts. The 

 University of South Carolina 

 Press, Columbia, S.C. 800/ 

 768-2500. 



Ghost Stories of Old 

 New Bern. Published by 

 New Bern Historical Society 

 Foundation, New Bern, N.C. 

 919/638-8558. 



Haunted Wilmington 

 and the Cape Fear Coast 

 by Brooks Newton Preik. 

 Banks Channel Books. 

 Wilmington, N.C. 910/762- 

 4677. 



• Supernaturals Among 

 Carolina Folk and their 

 Neighbors by F. Roy 

 Johnson. Out of print. 



Tar Heel Ghosts by 

 John Harden. The University 

 of North Carolina Press, 

 Chapel Hill, N.C. 800/848- 

 6224. □ 



"I started writing after midnight, and I scared myself," she says. "I got the 

 story playing through my mind like a video. I was alone upstairs, and it was very 

 quiet. I could almost see the things happening in my mind. If you read that story, 

 there is a lot of detail. Yet somehow I felt it was OK in that story because I don't 

 think I took away from history. And I made it a believable thing. I really think that 

 story happened. There's too much of a line of authentication from people back to 

 the eyewitness." 



This tale and a few others are told in abbreviated form here. For the full 

 stories — with all of their detail and suspense — dig into the books listed to 

 the right. 



I 



-t's hard to imagine, but the fear of being buried alive was once quite real. 

 Alexander Hostler and Samuel Jocelyn had been inseparable since childhood. 

 The Wilmington men had grown up together, sharing their thoughts, ideals and 

 aspirations. One summer day in 1810, they were talking with friends about the 

 possibility of returning to Earth after death. The pair maintained that it could be 

 done and agreed that the first to die would reveal himself to the other. 



Not long afterward, Samuel set out for a horseback ride alone and was found 

 unconscious in the road a few hours later. All attempts to revive him failed, and he 

 was pronounced dead. Two days later, he was buried. Alexander was inconsolable. 

 One night shortly after the burial, he was overwhelmed by the appearance of his 

 friend, who said, "How could you let me be buried when I was not yet dead?" 



Shocked, Alexander convinced himself that he had imagined Samuel's 

 appearance. But the following night, the same thing happened. Again, he said 

 nothing to anyone. When the third successive night brought the same occurrence, 

 he decided to investigate. He told a friend what had happened, and the two went to 

 Samuel's grieving parents for permission to exhume the body. Complying with the 

 parents' wish that the exhumation be as private as possible, the two men dug up 

 the coffin at midnight. When they removed the lid, they saw that Samuel's body 

 was lying facedown. There was evidence of a brief but frantic struggle in the 

 coffin that had actually loosened one side. Their friend had died of suffocation. 

 His fall from the horse had brought on a comatose state that had convinced 

 everyone he was dead. And they would never have known otherwise had Samuel's 

 ghost not appeared to Alexander. 



— Tar Heel Ghosts 



s, 



tories about ghostly appearances on the water arise from the many 

 tragic shipwrecks and pirates' raids along the North Carolina coast. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 



