Charleston’s ghosts

Started by Loki, June 05, 2004, 02:46:14 AM

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June 05, 2004, 02:46:14 AM
With slightly over 330 years of ghostly legends involving Voodoo curses, alleyway duels, cold-blooded murders, hanged pirates and Revolutionary War and Civil War soldiers bravely going to their deaths, Charleston has earned a reputation as one of America's most haunted cities and a popular tourist site to have a possible brush with the supernatural.



Indeed, walking and driving tours of historical, contemporary and supernatural interests are an extremely important part of Charleston's thriving tourism industry, which brings in $4.5 billion annually to the city and surrounding area, according to the Charleston Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. However, while the number of "Haunted Charleston" tours has increased, supernatural tourism is a niche market and its economic impact is not tracked by the bureau, says a spokesperson for the CACVB.



"The exact economic impact of haunted/supernatural tourism is hard to pinpoint because people don't just come to Charleston alone for the chance to catch a glimpse of a ghost or two in a haunted house," adds John LaVerne, head tour guide of Cobblestone Tour's Charleston Ghost and Dungeon Walking Tour, which means that placing an exact dollar figure that tourists bring to Charleston while seeking an encounter with the supernatural is almost as difficult as capturing a ghost on film.



Charleston's supernatural tourist industry was practically non-existent 13 years ago. "Back then, walking tours to Charleston's haunted places were just conducted about two weeks prior to Halloween," LaVerne recalls. "Nowadays, tourists explore haunted Charleston on a daily basis, all year round."



When Nicholas Herron began Charleston's Original Ghost Hunt Walking Tours about seven years ago, there were only three other walking tour companies offering supernatural tours. "You only have to take a look at the number of tour companies now, 15 and counting, to see how the supernatural tourism industry has grown in Charleston," Herron says.



Back when Herron was the new kid on the block in Charleston's supernatural tourism industry, there was plenty of room for a new tour guide business that catered to spreading the lore of Charleston's haunted history. "While I suspect that we reached a little saturation point now with 15 tour companies offering haunted tours, I also believe there will probably be a few more supernatural tour businesses opening up in the next few years," he says. "There is a great demand for tours, and each tour guide can only take a limited amount of people each time."



About 100,000 people annually make the pilgrimage to haunted buildings and sites in Charleston with LaVerne's walking tour company.



Successful spin-offs

Tour Charleston has enjoyed so much success with its original ghost walking tour, "The Ghosts of Charleston," that it created a second tour focusing on the city's haunted past called, "The Ghosts of Charleston Two."



Tour Charleston cofounders Julian T. Buxton III and Eddie Macy have also enjoyed literary success with their book, The Ghosts of Charleston, which was published in hardcover by the Beaufort Book Co. back in December 2000. All branches of Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million report that the book is a perennial bestseller in their regional sections, but could not provide any statistical data on sales.  A spokeswoman for Tour Charleston reports that Buxton is currently writing a sequel.



Other perennial, best-selling regional books on Charleston's paranormal history, according to area bookstores, include Charleston Ghosts by Margaret Rhett Martin, which was first published by the University of South Carolina Press back in December 1963, and Ghosts of the Carolina Coasts: Haunted Lighthouses, Plantations, and Other Sites by Terrance Zepke, first published by Pineapple Press in April 1999. Martin's book also serves as the basis of the year round Lowcountry Ghost Walk tour.



"Charleston is a travel destination known for the many fine dining opportunities it offers to visitors, but fine dining needs to be complemented with an active nightlife," says Tripp Hays, president of the Greater Charleston Hotel and Motel Association. "Walking tours in the daytime and nighttime are a good selling point when it comes to bringing in more people who are considering Charleston as a business trip and/or vacation destination. The historical and haunted walking tours are tremendously popular choices."



Another advantage of the haunted walking tours is that the help the local economy by providing jobs not just for the tour guides, but for the local businesses that tourists patronize before and after the haunted tours, says Hayes, who is also the sales and marketing director for The Mills House. "I've been on the supernatural walking tours and thoroughly enjoyed them myself," adds Hays.  "A tremendous amount of history and folklore is passed on by the story-telling tour guides."



Charleston's Most Haunted Places
Visitors to Charleston seeking to add a brush with the supernatural on their agenda are often taken to the city's most haunted places, which, according to John LaVerne, head tour guide of the Charleston Ghost and Dungeon Walking Tour, include:



• 46 State Street



• County Courthouse



• Old City Jail



• The Dungeon



• Philadelphia Alley



• Graveyards of St. Michael's,

 St. Phillip's, St. John's



• Circular Congregational Church



• The Unitarian Church



Charleston's ghosts have also been featured on episodes of the Travel Channel's "America's Most Haunted Places" and in segments of shows produced and aired by CNN Travel Guide and The Learning Channel.



One curious oddity about all the licensed tour guides who conduct "ghost tours" in Charleston is the fact that, while all of them are required to take and pass a nearly 900-question test covering all aspects of people and places in Charleston's vast history, not a single question on Charleston's supernatural history in included.
The greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he did not exist." - Charles Baudelaire (French and monstrous poet).
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