I thought that it would be cool to share some stories from the book Weird Georgia by Jim Miles. It’s a very interesting book that covers all the different things that make Georgia “weird”. From Hogzilla and Big Foot to cursed pillars and President Jimmy Carter’s UFO sightings, it’s full of fascinating, though sometimes highly embellished, stories of all the oddities that make Georgia unique.
If you’re a fellow Georgian, enjoy a glimpse at the weird and unusual side of the state we call home. If you’re not from Georgia, don’t judge us too badly. Every state is weird in it’s own way!
Echoes of the Fish Family Mausoleum - Milledgeville, GA (former home to the state mental institution)
In the last quarter of the 19th century, a typhoid epidemic was sweeping through Georgia, claiming many lives. Many of Milledgeville’s residents buried their loved ones at Memory Hill that year. One of these unfortunate family was that of William Fish. He buried both his wife and child in the cemetery that year and found himself living a depressed and lonely life after their loss. Unable to cope with his grief, Fish entered the gates of Memory Hill one night and went inside the small crypt which held the remains of his family. He committed suicide inside it, blowing his own head off, in a desperate, final attempt to reunite his shattered family.
These days, it’s told that this act not only reunited the family, but set their spirits into a state of extreme restlessness. Legend has it that if one knocks on the door of the Fish mausoleum, there is a faint but distinct return knock that answers from the inside.
The Pillar of Prophecy – Augusta, GA
Motorists and pedestrians who pass the corner of Fifth and Broad Streets in downtown Augusta invariably notice the lone column standing on the southwestern corner. The artifact, two feet in diameter and ten feet in height, is composed of brick covered with concrete. It is the “Haunted Pillar,” and there are many who believe death awaits any who touch it. Eerie events are said to occur around it.
The pillar is all that remains of the Market, two large sheds about two hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide that once occupied the center of Broad Street from 1830 until 1878. Known as the Upper and Lower Markets, the citizens of Augusta flocked there daily to purchase food from farmers, grocers, and butchers.
In the late 1800s an itinerant evangelist visited the city (although a less-authoritative source lists the year as 1829). The eccentric preacher was described as an elderly, white-haired, stately looking man whose clear voice was ”incisive even to the piercing of the human heart,” one witness declared. It is variously argued that no church would host his services or that he disdained them. Again, the story varies, that he preached in the Lower Market for some time or that the managers refused him permission to speak or that he was run out of town by disbelievers. Whatever the circumstances, this Old Testament-style speaker proclaimed that a storm would soon destroy the Market, either for his being denied permission to speak there, or to punish the people of Augusta for their transgressions, or simply to prove that he was a prophet of God. Only the southwestern column would survive the storm, the preacher declared, and anyone who attempted to move it would be killed.
The prediction/curse came to fruition at 1:10 A.M. on February 8, 1878, when a tornado touched down in Augusta. It remained on the ground for half a mile, tearing a two-hundred-foot-wide swath through Augusta from Ellis to Market. Two people were killed and several houses were knocked down. The Lower Market was “totally destroyed,” noted the Augusta Chronicle & Constitutionalist, leaving “a mass of ruins, timbers broken, and masonry piled in utter confusion.” It was reported that the Market bell rang a single time before the destruction commenced.
Perhaps prophecy was fulfilled, but in reality the curse did not kick in until later, for the city council elected to rebuild the Market on its original site. The surviving pillar was carefully moved to the corner of Fifth and Broad, which is where the legend of its being haunted/cursed began.
Reportedly, when the street was widened, two workmen who attempted to move the pillar were struck by lightning or otherwise caused to die. Another version has a bulldozer operator dying of a heart attack while advancing against the pillar. However, a man who managed a liquor store across the street for fifty years denied the story, saying the pillar had “been moved (without injury to workers) several times because it was too close to the street.”
It does seem at least to be haunted. Late at night visitors near the column have reported hearing whispered conversations between phantoms and the footsteps of invisible beings pacing alongside them. When contacted by a reporter on the Halloween beat, local police revealed that eleven traffic accidents had occurred at the intersection between January and October one year, so perhaps the pillar has an effect on cars or their operators–or perhaps careless drivers eyeing the column caused their own accidents. The pillar seems to attract its own bad luck–it twice has been struck by lightning and been hit by an errant car.
The pillar remains a great tourist draw in the historic city, attracting individuals, buses, and walking tours. At times it seems to receive more publicity than the Masters Golf Tournament. On December 12, 1996, the Haunted Pillar received its own historical marker.
The Screaming Demon Faces of Memory Hill – Milledgeville, GA
There is a tombstone in Memory Hill which features a tall spire surrounded by an iron fence. This fence is decorated with hundreds of small devilish faces. No one is sure who sculpted these faces or why they are there. Stories are told that on Halloween these faces let out blood curdling, high pitched screams. People often travel to this grave in the dead of the night around Halloween time in hopes of hearing for themselves the strange sounds emitted from these fence-demons.
Was Dixie Haygood Waybad? – Milledgeville, GA
Memory Hill is also the final resting place of a woman who was known as dangerous and odd in life, and who continues to spread this reputation in death.
Dixie Haygood was a Milledgeville resident born just before the Civil War. Her legend quickly spread, as she was reported to be a witch with supernatural powers. She was known to go into violent, uncontrollable rages. She could lift up heavy wooden tables with full-grown men sitting on them. Local residents both respected and feared the strange, powerful young woman. The Macon Telegraph described her strange powers this way:
“It is said that Dixie Jarratt Haygood, whose stage name was Annie Abbott, had a strange ‘power.’ She could lift 4 men on a chair by simply touching the chair. She could stand upon one foot and resist the united efforts of four strong men to move her. She could lift men into mid-air by placing her open hands upon their heads. She is believed to have performed for the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria, the Czar of Russia, and other royalty of Europe.”
According to her obituary in the Union Recorder, “Mrs. Haygood, also known as the Little Georgia Magnet, achieved a reputation as a spiritualist which not only made her well known in this country, but in many of the European nations. She appeared before the crown heads of Europe where she demonstrated her supernatural powers.”
Just before her death, Dixie Haygood reportedly placed a curse upon her own gravesite. She proclaimed that anyone who stood between the grave and the sun would be cursed forever. This legend seems to have unfairly effected the peace of the family buried next to her, the Yates family.
Each year, just before Christmas, a large hole inexplicably opens up just next to the Yates plots and swallows up a chunk of land. In some years the depression has actually consumed some of the Yates family’s tombstones. Each year the hole is filled in–sometimes even with cement–and each year the same thing happens again. Stories say that this is the effect of the vindictiveness of Dixie Haygood, and is her effort to prove her powers still work. Others claim that Dixie is so frightful that the Yates family is striving to escape being buried next to such an evil being.
Camp Creek Train Trestle – McDonough, GA – My hometown
(I first investigated this case in high school. I interviewed a lady I knew all my life, Ms. Marianne Palk. She and her husband, Dr. Palk, lived near the train trestle. She believed her house was haunted by a man who died in the train accident. Ms. Palk would experience the smell of cigar smoke following her around the house and even had it blown in her face. She was tucked in by unseen hands one night. The covers were pulled up on her and a gentle at on the shoulder followed. A gold bridge was also found in the Palk’s toilet. The following is something that I wrote for a website of haunted locations. It has since been investigated by others.)
Ghosts have been reported to haunt the area and homes where a train crashed into the flooded Camp Creek after three weeks of rain in June of 1900. The No. 7 train bound from Macon to Atlanta stopped to pick up passengers at the McDonough Station on a night during a flood. Even after being warned not to leave the engineer was reported saying “We will either be eating breakfast in Atlanta or in hell”. After traveling only seven miles from the station the train plunged into the swelled waters of Camp Creek after the train trestle had washed out minutes before. Nine out of the forty-seven on board survived. You can reach the trestle if you go north on Highway 42 out of McDonough (located 30 miles south of Atlanta) and turn left onto Ivy Edwards Rd. The trestle is right off the tracks to the left and can be seen from Highway 42.
I would love to hear any local legends or your own personal stories!
Current Mood:
Cool
Happy Friday the 13th… again! We’re going to have yet another Friday the 13th this year. Our third and final bad luck day will be in November.
Playful
This past weekend was a lot of wedding stuff. Saturday David and I went with our parents and Emily to tour the Hazlehurst House as a possible venue for the wedding. I used to say I wanted to get married at Hazlehurst and I at least wanted to tour it and see what they had to offer.
Happy
Since today is Friday the 13th, I thought it would be cool to go over some of the superstitions and folklore I know of.
Mischievous
Bored
1) David: Yes, David is my number one addiction. I suppose “addiction” is not the exact right term for how I feel about David. I just love to be with him. I feel more like myself and more at ease with him than I do alone or even with most other people. He is my best friend, my safe place, my confidant, the love of my life and the man I want to be with in this life and beyond. A lifetime is too short a time to be with my David. It doesn’t make everyone happy that I want to be with David so much, but he is my addiction. I get other things done and spend time with other people, but after you fall in love, things do change. I hate that I’m made to feel bad about wanting to spend all my time with David. If we were married then we wouldn’t have this problem.
I'm Jill, so you don't have to be...
