Ed Macy 91’ knows where a lot of bodies are buried in Charleston and is happy to tell you all about it.
The College of Charleston alumnus is a professor, historical journalist and a Charleston tour guide. He is the author of the best-selling books Haunted Charleston and Haunted Harbor and has spent many years researching and telling Lowcountry ghost stories.
Ed Macy 91’ knows where a lot of bodies are buried in Charleston and is happy to tell you all about it.
The College of Charleston alumnus is a professor, historical journalist and a Charleston tour guide. He is the author of the best-selling books Haunted Charleston and Haunted Harbor and has spent many years researching and telling Lowcountry ghost stories.
Hello and welcome to the College of Charleston podcast. I'm Mike Robertson, Senior Director of media relations here at the College of Charleston. In this episode, we will have a spirited discussion with Ed Macy is a professor, historical journalist and a Charleston tour guide. He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in English from the College of Charleston. He is the author of several best selling books concerning ghost and his research and stories have been featured on CNN, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, Europe, the History Channel and more. And yes, there will be ghost stories in this podcast. Ed Macy back in 1994, you wrote the very first Charlson walking ghost tour. And then back in 2005, you wrote two books, haunted Charleston, and haunted harbor. Now you've got a lot of experience telling ghost stories. So what's the secret? What makes a good ghost story? Well, first off my goal, the truth is stranger than fiction, meaning any kind of random embellishments, to me distracts from a good ghost story. But also, there's two kinds, there's two parts of a ghost story, what the ghost does, in what created the ghost. And I think when telling a good ghost story, you got to tell the more interesting parts second, like if somebody dies of old age, but comes back as a very oft seen ghost. That's the order in which you would tell that story. But if somebody is kind of a random apparition that just happens to be seen, but they died in a spectacularly grisly fashion, you tell that part first. That's I've always found that you lead with the more mundane and end with the more interesting part of the ghost experience in regards to the story. So you have to do research, of course, yeah, absolutely. Secondhand news is bogus most of the time. And so what got you interested in researching ghost stories, one of my professors at the College of Charleston normal sent and I never sadly got to speak to him about this, because he passed away right before my interest took off. But he did some research on several ghost stories in Charleston, including here on the campus of the college. And I found that stuff as a young tour guide. And I wanted to know more, because he didn't complete his research before he got ill. And I don't know, part of its the journalistic aspect of it, you know, looking at this stuff, and interviewing people, but also doing the dirty work getting down in the trenches and finding out who these people might have been death certificates, deeds to houses like that one right there across the street. 12 Glebe Street, which we might talk about today. That's the fun part is doing the research, but it's also the hard part. Okay, let's talk about the College of Charleston for a few minutes that you know, we've been around for over 250 years, and you're bound to have a skeleton or two in your closet for that long period of time. But I guess when it comes to the College of Charleston, we have to concern ourselves with ghost, don't we? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I lived a good third of my life within two blocks of the College of Charleston. And to be very honest with you. I think a lot of college campuses are haunted, just like theatres are, but this one. And when I say I know where the bodies are buried, I mean that literally, there's all kinds of skeletal remains underneath the corridors of this campus. But yeah, there's also great ghost stories on this campus as well to answer your question. All right, give us some examples. One of my all time favorites, and it's a very odd story, but it takes place at 12 Glebe street 12. Glebe was purchased by the school back in 66. For 16,700 bucks. They bought it for the price of a Kia but they bought it sight unseen every door and every window on this three story house was covered in plywood so that no idea what it looked like inside deal they owned it. Cash deal, no inspection needed. Once they closed on it. They sent a couple engineers inside to see if you've been had a floor. First thing these guys did when they entered was gag. Apparently an elderly woman have been living in this property for 40 years prior to 1966. She lived in the den. In that room. They've had a camping toilet with a plastic bag in it thus the gagging, a sleeper sofa and a very small black and white TV. The rest of the house seven other rooms boarded up like a mausoleum. This old lady turned an eight room property into a single room efficiency apartment. She'd even built a wall making the staircases totally inaccessible for decades. Well, the engineers went in gutted it took them a year but they made it beautiful, but the middle of 1968 the move the first sane residents and in quite some time, it was a young couple named Scott and Ruth Steinberg. They were working as administrators at the College of Charleston in part of their pay their stipend was getting to live on campus in that house for a year. They weren't in the place two weeks before they realized that a lady had built those crazy walls and partitions August 1968. They were in bed reading master bedrooms on the top floor at 9pm. A ghost walked in through the wall, six foot two, clean shaved, very well dressed he had an around collared suit and an ascot, one of those thirst and how the third time I used to wear in the Victorian period but the thing about them that the Steinberg said they will never forget, nor the other three couples is on at the foot of their bed is vain attempts to speak all eight people for couples so that not only did he stand over them and look them in the face, but he tried to talk, his lips moved, his hands gestured, but no words came out. It was like an immediate silent movie or a case of Broca's aphasia. After nine seconds of this, and I counted that in my head one time, that's an eternity, watching that silent pantomime go down at the foot of your bed, he gave up, a visible look of frustration fell over his face. He dropped his hands, turned on his heel, and he walked back through the wall. Now who he is, have no idea. Before I finished my second book, I dug up every tax record, every deed and every death certificate for anybody's ever put a shadow on that house, and I came up with a shoebox full of nada. But even though I can't tell you who he is, or why he's in that property, I love it, because it proves to people like me who believe in this kind of stuff that maybe there's cognizance from the other side. You know, when I was a little kid if I thought of a ghost, which was never a thought of the tram at Disney, perpetual figure eight. Now I think we're the am people in the ghosts on this campus are the FM people and sometimes those two worlds meet. The end. Nice. Yeah, it is. It defies most of the stereotypes of a good ghost story. But at the same time, that's what makes it cool. The randomness of it. A lot of people here on campus have talked about other ghosts that have appeared in one of the resident halls. You've written about that I did when I was a senior. at the college, the barre dorm opened on the corner of St. Philip's and Calhoun. Nearly upon the opening of the doors, people have had experiences there and they always happen at the funkiest time for something creepy to occur between midnight and 5am. The first thing that happens kind of boring, it's fire alarm pull down pranks, but they happen twice a week on average in that building, Christmas, summer, spring break, it doesn't matter if the place is empty or full. Those alarms go off in the middle of the night. And it's kind of dangerous. None of the kids evacuate the third time it happens to ladder trucks have to roll every time so the school has gone out of their way to make it stop. I mean, they've changed the electrical and the fire alarms and every single aspect of that building out to try to prevent this from happening, but it still happens. Now the other thing that happens in the building is much more creepy and far cooler, disembodied voices. Everybody has heard it now since 1981. So it sounds like little kids, little female kids playing ring around the Rosie somewhere off in the distance. It's vague, it's muffled, but it's obviously a large group of little girls playing. They come out of the air conditioner vents in the ceiling, sometimes not often, but sometimes they're punctuated by the sound of marbles being dumped on the floor. One girl I interviewed back in the early 2000s, who I don't believe will win the Nobel Prize for wisdom. So that for three months, three months, she thought her neighbors were having a satanic ritual at three in the morning. She could hear him chanting on the other side of the wall. But it took this girl three months to realize she had no neighbors. She lived on the top floor and what she was hearing was coming straight out of sheetrock. Now we're that dorm now sits This is the interesting part of the story was once the Charleston city orphan asylum. In 1918, a fire broke out and the girls play room 10 were killed. And to be honest with you, I believe it's them. I think it's them coming back in the afterlife, possibly not even knowing they're dead playing around. Because I mean, it's kind of fun to pull down a fire alarm and watch people walk out at three in the morning bitching and moaning or complaining as it were. Now, years ago, I had a young lady on my tour with her dad, and she started crying in the middle of that story. And that's not unusual. I've seen that happen a bunch, but this girl was sobbing. Turns out she wasn't sad. She was here for orientation. And her pop and rennet are one of those rooms I was pointing to for the upcoming fall semester. But here's the deal. They found those bodies in the back parking lot with those little girls were buried underneath the M USC Children's Hospital parking lot in the year 2001. That was the very first time they were able to pinpoint where those little girls advantage to after they died in that blaze in 1918. And to be honest, the story is different when you tell it on site because you can actually point to where they live and where they died. But it's probably one of the most well known ghost stories in the South Atlantic is so many people have passed in and out of the barre dorm over the course of the College of Charleston's last 30 years that have experienced it. Well, you've done a lot of research on on coast and you've talked to a lot of people and you've seen a lot of stuff but have you ever seen a coast? I've never seen a ghost and I don't believe I ever will see a ghost because I'd really like to see a ghost and I think you know who I think sees the ghost. People have what Hollywood calls the sixth sense, or somebody who's thinking about breakfast. I think when you got some clown like me wanting to see one I'm the last in line as it were, and may see, thanks for the story. Thank you, brother. Thanks again to Ed Macy. This episode of the College of Charleston podcast was written and produced by Amy Mercer from the University Communications, recording and sound engineering was done by Jesse Khan's and the staff of the Division of information technology. I'm Mike Robertson. Thanks again for listening to this episode of the College of Charleston podcast.