Detour - The Legend of The Healing Springs
Go to the water …
Battles rage throughout the 13 American Colonies …
On what is now called Slaughter Field, many miles west of Charleston South Carolina, two British soldiers lie dying from their wounds.
Go to the water …
Death is but a certainty …
If not, for descendants of the Wassamasaw Tribe…
Who see these unfortunate men and carry them to rest at a nearby spring…
The waters, they insist, have remarkable healing properties …
With nothing to loose, the dying men weakly drink the clear water .
6 months pass, the soldiers - assumed dead - walk back into the barracks in perfect health.
How?
I’m driving up to the springs now - it’s really in the middle of nowhere, and the maps say it’s behind this church…. I see the church but the springs …
1. Fresh. Cool spring water! Loved it! Beautiful drive into the mountains. Highly recommend. Bring your own containers.
2 It's off the beaten path but worth the drive! The water is crystal clear & tastes amazing. Pure, clean & cold spring water I wish that the water that comes out of all are faucets at home was this good, clean and pure!”
3 The water is clean, safe to drink, tasty, and always cold no matter how hot it is! I love it!”
Why does this myth continue to endure? And attract thousands of believers, yelp reviewers and simply the curious to it’s ever-flowing stream?
Audio recording
Found it - just parked and walking up to springs. I expected a hike, but it’s right off the road - I glance at gallons of fresh, pure mineral water gush continuously from four multi-spigot pipes protruding from the ground.
More surprising - maybe - is there’s people… a lot of people… and they have gallon milk containers, water bottles - and, they’re filling them all to the brim…. Some have carriers to will at least 20 more - gallon jugs to fill up still…
A chain of landowners going back to the American Revolution maintain the story of this spring’s healing properties.
In 1944 the last owner of the land containing the spring officially deeded the land to God … The legality of such an action is questionable but signs around the land and spring itself maintain this assertion to this day.
Located in Blackville, South Carolina - roughly a two hour drive from Charleston the now called “God’s Acre Healing Springs” rests behind a small baptist church and the owner, God, allows visitors to fill up it’s healing waters by the gallon…
“This historical property has been deeded to God for public use, please revere God by keeping it clean.”
A sign adjacent to the springs.
Recording
I’m actually filling up my own bottle now, and there’s nothing left but to drink it ….
It’s good, really good - clean cold fresh - I’m not mortally wounded so I cant’t speak to it’s healing properties at the moment but yeah, 10/10
For many, the springs are not just a one time visit - it’s a lifestyle - often there exists genuine belief of the waters healing and abnormal properties…
Some have been going for years and it remains the only water they drink, others say it simply makes better coffee, still others visit out of plain curiosity.
Regardless of intent, when you arrive and see the lines forming at the flowing water, you cannot deny the lasting legacy of the curious - healing or not - waters….
Next time you’re wounded by a riffles bayonet, perhaps the trip to a small acre behind a church in rural South Carolina isn’t the worst of ideas …
Go to the Water
Thank for for listening to backroad odyssey,
You know I talked with people filling up their gallons of water - who didn’t wish to be recorded - and they insisted this is the best water you can get