The Captain’s Ghost
Growing up in Georgetown, South Carolina was interesting because every building I walked past had a story. I lived just off the corner of Queen street and Prince Street in the heart of what they called the historic district. The area was filled with large Victorian style homes dating as far back as the early 1700’s. Even the house my foster parents owned was nearly 200 years old when we lived there. Combine the old homes with the massive oaks dotted through historic Georgetown and you find the beauty of the area is undeniable. My friends and I ran the streets jumping from one of our houses to the other and we’d each share stories we’d heard about ghosts who walked the halls of this home or that.
One such story came from my best friend, who’s home was on Highmarket street just a few blocks from my own house. Like mine his house had stood in that spot for well over 100 years, close to 200. His house had seen history just like mine had, and a legend followed his home just like it did mine. One day while we were galivanting about the streets and alleys of the city, he shared this story with me.
He told me that once there was a pirate captain who spent many years at sea. He had amassed a great sum of ill gotten gain but as piracy die out in the Caribbean he chose to retire, and the place he chose was Georgetown. He said the captain build the house and underneath it hid his treasure, an unimageable amount of gold and silver to two 12 year olds who loved exploring. We spent many days under his house searching, but alas no treasure was to be found.
It wasn’t until I first stayed the night at my friends house that he told me the second part of the tale. You see, while the treasure wasn’t there any more, the captain still was. My friend told you could hear him at night walking around downstairs, keeping watch over the house. Occasionally they would see his shadow move across the wall though no one was there. What really made the story though was when he told me how he would keep watch over him and his brother.
See whenever either of them were sick or scared, the ghost of the old captain would come in and sit in the rocking chair in the corner of their shared room. They claimed to see his shadow in the chair slowly rocking, one up, his boot across his knee, and what must’ve been a pip held up to his mouth as if he were smoking while he watched over them. At first they were scared of course, but eventually the captain became a comforting site, their watchful protector through the night.
I didn’t believe his story at first, and there were many nights I stayed in that house I thought maybe I heard footsteps, but never saw a shadow or the rocking chair move. That was until the night my friend's brother got really sick, so sick that he didn’t sleep in his bed but on a pallet in his parents room. As I slept in the open bed I was awoken by a shadow entering the room. I looked around but saw no-one. I listened as the sound of boots tromping across the floor went through the room and the watched the rocking chair move ever so slightly, as if someone sat in it. I watched, dumbfounded for several minutes, until the light of the moon showed just right to cast the shadow of the Captain sitting on the wall. I could almost make out the very shape of his beard, and the brim of his hat.
I rousted my friend, shaking him vigorously awake. I showed him the shadow in the chair, to which he said “Oh yeah man, I told he keeps watch when one of us is sick, he’ll be there all night.” Then my friend rolled over and went back to sleep, leaving me and the Captain alone. I laid back down in the bed but kept my eyes on the shadow in the chair. Eventually sleep took me, and when I woke the next morning the Captain was gone, as if he hadn’t even been there in the first place.
