Lore - Episode 126: Aftershocks

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

Some places in our world have a dark legacy. Prior failures. Shameful acts. Painful tragedy. Even though it all took place long before we arrived there, we can still feel the tremors of that darkness���and the stories about their source are deeply chilling. ——————— Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

All 129 of them assumed they were going to make history. Looking back nearly two centuries later, though, it's clear just how much they missed that target. They had hoped to find the elusive Northwest Passage, but instead they met their doom. The Franklin Expedition began in 1845 and seemed to be primed for success. Their leader, John Franklin, was an admiral in the British Navy who had been knighted by King George IV, awarded the gold medal by the Geographical Society of Paris, and had already managed other successful expeditions.

They were well supplied, expertly staffed, and full of passion and drive. Everything a professional endeavor requires to have the best shot at success, and yet they seem to have missed the most obvious things. Their rations were kept in tin cans that had been hastily sealed with too much lead, contaminating the food inside. The conditions were much more harsh than they assumed. The ice was more troublesome than they could have predicted. For the superstitious among us, they went and gave their two ships a pair of horrible

names, the Arabus, named after the God of Chaos and Darkness, and the Terror. Honestly, after a long series of failures, how could anyone have expected the expedition to do anything other than fall apart? Many historians today believe that the Franklin Expedition was doomed to failure before it even began, and we've all heard that sort of judgment before, whether it's been leveled against a Hollywood film, a startup business, or even a relationship. Some things just don't get off on the right foot, and that misstep haunts them from that day forward.

It's something that happens a lot more often than you'd expect, too, and not just with small groups of people. Because for all the planning and preparation that we seem to naturally pour into our biggest endeavors, humanity seems to miss the mark on a regular basis. And when it happens at the founding of a great city, it has a way of altering the destiny of the people who live there. It changes what might have been, extinguishes hope, and sets an ominous tone that can still be heard to this day.

And as we already know, when the light is gone, all that's left are shadows. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. King Charles II had a lot of catching up to do. After retaking the throne in 1660 following the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell's death, he set about expanding English territory elsewhere in the world. In 1663, he called together a group of his eight most loyal friends and granted them permission to settle an area of the New World that was known as the Carolina Territory. It took them seven years to get it done, but in early 1670, a ship delivered 93 colonists

to the area. It was a chance to have a fresh start for many of them, and the land along the coast there seemed like it was going to deliver on that promise. The fishing was good, there was lots of timber for building, and two rivers provided plenty of fresh water. But within months, that flame of hope began to flicker. Disease broke out among the settlers, including smallpox and yellow fever, and thanks to their proximity to the water, the mosquitoes were only happy to help spread it all.

But the English weren't the only ones to get sick. Every time a new group of Europeans arrived in the New World, they brought sickness. Sometimes the passengers would have suffered through an outbreak during the Atlantic crossing, while other times they were carriers of things they themselves had built an immunity to, but not the native inhabitants of North America. Historians estimate that of the roughly 20 million Native Americans that lived on the continent prior to the arrival of Europeans, over 90% of them were killed by imported diseases. They weren't gone, but it meant that by the time those settlers arrived in Carolina

in 1670, there weren't enough of them left to put up much of a fight for their land. The settlers named their little community after the king who sent them, calling it Charlestown, and then they got to work setting up colonial life there. But part of that life involved slavery, which began almost at day one. In fact, Charlestown was the only English settlement in North America that had slaves from its very beginning, and it was a character flaw that they would cling to for another two centuries. And as you might expect, it was also a big source of darkness for the community. Slavery was such a big industry in Charlestown that the official point of entry, Sullivan's Island,

has become known as Black Ellis Island. That's because roughly 40% of all enslaved Africans brought to British North America passed through the quarantine area there. Today, it's estimated that upwards of 30 million African Americans can trace their roots back to that one small stretch of land. And Charlestown was a microcosm of many of the challenges that their ancestors faced. They suffered through all the brutal treatment you might expect, while also struggling to rebuild their lives and cultures in a foreign land. In 1739, a slave revolt took place near the Stono River, about 20 miles south of the city.

At its peak, about 60 people joined the rebellion, cutting a path southward with the goal of traveling to St. Augustine in Florida. They were stopped by an armed militia who killed about half of them in a brief battle, while the rest were executed in the aftermath. Decades later, the American Revolutionary War ended with Charlestown looking for a way to distance itself from its English roots and the monarch it was named after. And that's where today's name came from, Charleston. Although with King Charles' name still visibly in it,

it's unclear just how much of a clean break the change really was. In the lead-up to the Civil War, South Carolina was the very first state to secede from the United States. Citing in their December 1860 letter to the federal government, their complete objection to the anti-slavery views of the northern states. And after war broke out at Fort Sumter a month later, it was clear just how badly Charleston wanted to maintain the right to own other human beings. When the war was over, Charleston was a different place. So much of the industry that made the city wealthy and prosperous

had been either legislated away or destroyed by Union forces, leaving many people in poverty. And even though the slaves there had been freed, they too faced a cold new world in the broken city. But at least they faced it as free people. But not all of Charleston's dark spots were man-made. Over the three and a half centuries that the community has existed, a number of natural challenges have come their way as well. There have been a number of devastating tornadoes over the years, including one in 1741 that involved two tornadoes at once.

After ravaging different parts of the city, the pair of twisters eventually combined just off the coast, where it did damage to nearly 20 ships, sinking at least five. But it was an event in 1886 that left the deepest scar. On August 31st, after just two decades of rebuilding the city in the aftermath of the Civil War, a massive 7.0 earthquake rocked the community to the core. To put this in perspective, there were reports of the quake as far north as Boston and Chicago to the northwest.

Even people in New Orleans and Cuba felt it, which is crazy to think about. Closer to home, it was more than feelings. Some buildings in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia were damaged in the quake, and more severe destruction was reported on Tybee Island in Georgia. But in Charleston, where the quake seemed to be centered, it was terror and chaos. Some historians estimate that over 2,000 buildings were destroyed, not damaged yet livable, but brought to the ground in rubble. Over 60 people were killed in the destruction, and for 35 years following the quake,

Charleston experienced over 300 aftershocks. That's a multi-generational earthquake that left the people of the city in a constant, never-ending state of fear and tension. But all those failures and tragedies were challenges that drove the people of Charleston to rise up, to survive, and to better themselves. It doesn't wash away the stain of things like slavery, but it shows that the past can be improved upon. And in many ways, the city has done just that,

rebuilding their lives into something better, even as the aftershocks rattle the walls. But some problems weren't handled so bravely. Sometimes the people of Charleston faced challenges that pushed the limits of their own humanity, and the way they responded has gone down in history as prime examples of how not to do things. Recovering from failure isn't always easy. In fact, sometimes it can be deadly. Music It's the one story you can guarantee they'll tell you.

If you visit Charleston today, you'll have your pick from a plethora of ghost tours, each one adding their personal touch to a guided tour through some of the creepiest tales from the city's past. But all of them mention the infamous pirates that most people have heard of. Blackbeard Of course, Blackbeard wasn't his real name. He was born Edward Teach, roughly 10 years after Charleston was settled on the coast of Carolina territory. After years of serving on the ships of other pirates, he joined the crew of an older, more experienced captain in 1716,

and a year later, he was in command of the entire fleet. Edward Teach was a man on the move. But while he had the reputation for being fierce and frightening, he left it to one of his commanders to be the charming one. Stead Bonnet was a former military officer and a wealthy landowner who had turned to piracy, and those who knew him loved to refer to him as the Gentleman Pirate. He and Blackbeard were quite the team. In May of 1718, Blackbeard's fleet imposed a blockade on Charleston,

demanding they hand over some medical supplies that they needed. The two-week ordeal ended with Blackbeard's victorious escape, which left the city frustrated and itching for revenge. So when Stead Bonnet sailed back in the fall to have some work done on his own ship, the local militia attacked them and took the pirate captive. Bonnet was taken to the home of the local Marshal, but a few weeks after his arrest, he managed to break free and run for his ship. Hoping to prevent a second escape,

he was recaptured and placed in the dungeon below what is today known as the Old Exchange. Conditions there were horrendous, with dead bodies decaying alongside open sewage, all in a space that lacked clean air or room to move about. Bonnet's trial was saved for last, after each of his other crew members had been found guilty and executed. He tried to put up a good legal fight, even choosing to represent himself and cross-examine some of the witnesses, but in the end, it was no use.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. He died on December 10th, roughly a month after Blackbeard himself was killed in battle up the coast in modern-day North Carolina. Today, visitors to the dungeon below the Old Exchange claim there's still evidence of the inhumane treatment that went on there. The staff who work in the building above have often reported hearing sounds they describe as moans coming from the dungeon below,

while visitors have reported approaching tour guides in period clothing, only to watch them vanish right before their eyes. Others have felt invisible hands choke them while touring the space, and some have even heard the echoes of far-off screams, as if someone were being tortured or crying out for help. On more than one occasion, tourists in the dungeon have witnessed objects there move on their own, making folks wonder if the old prison really is completely empty now.

But there's another place in Charleston that saw even heavier use over the years. The old jail started out life in the early 19th century as a makeshift structure that was prone to disrepair and bad conditions. Historians tell us that it was underfunded, and that left future generations to slowly add on to the building, eventually turning it into what we see today, an ominous castle-like guardian located on Magazine Street. It opened its doors in 1802 and served prisoners through 1939,

but don't think of it as a well-run facility. For a very long time, poor conditions led to death after death inside those walls. In fact, some historians estimate that upwards of 14,000 individuals died there, either from exposure, torture, or their own execution. The list of prisoners who lived and died there is a motley crew of characters, all of whom the city of Charleston was trying to lock away and forget about. There have been serial killers, civil war prisoners of war, common criminals, and even rebellious slaves.

And once inside those pale brown walls, their captivity exposed them to human waste, extreme seasonal temperatures, and poor nutrition. And honestly, after reading about some of the things that went on there, it's easy to think that dead was the better option for many of them. Today, as you might expect, the old jail is a hotbed of visions and experiences that seem to defy explanation. Regular tours are guided through the building, but not all of the local tour guides are willing to step inside the old jail.

Some have claimed they felt the overwhelming sensation of being watched, while others have actually felt invisible hands touch them. But the tour guides are not alone. The tourists who pass through there have had their own fair share of run-ins with the echoes of the past. Sounds of slamming doors have often been reported, as have whispering voices that seem to come from distant parts of the building. Objects have been known to move on their own, but some people have seen dark shadows that slip through doorways and vanish around corners.

It seems that in the old city's effort to contain their darkness, they only succeeded in creating more of it. And even though most of it happened over a century ago, the stories that flood in each year seem to stand as proof that some remnant of it has stayed around. Maybe it's just the emotional baggage of knowing what happened in places like the exchange dungeon or the old jail, or perhaps something happens when so many people are forced to suffer in such a horrifying way, like the low rumble of aftershocks that can still be felt after the earthquake is over.

Either way, the past has given birth to stories, and they haunt the city to this day. One event, though, is true, and it stands head and shoulders above all the others, both for its vivid detail and the claim to fame it gives the city. Charleston, it seems, is home to America's first female serial killer. Now, before we dive in, I need to make something clear. Legends have a way of growing beyond the truth,

like a houseplant that overgrows the pot it was rooted in. This story is a powerful and frightening one, but it's also layered with details that have clearly been added somewhere along the way between the truth and today. So keep that in mind as we walk through the events together. Back in the early 19th century, Charleston was a bustling city with an economic life that depended, at least in part, on the flow of goods into and out of the city. The port was busy, and an endless parade of ships came and went each week. And from there, the goods they carried would be transported inland to the smaller communities.

That's what John did for a living. He would fill his wagon up with valuable items from the port, and then slowly drive them north, up the Cooper River toward places like Goose Creek. But the farther he traveled from the city, the more dangerous his work could be. Highwaymen waited everywhere for the chance to relieve merchants like John of their precious goods, and there was always the risk of physical danger. So travelers like John tended to find lodging for the night in the many roadhouses that had been set up along the way. Legend says that John approached a house about six miles north of Charleston at dusk sometime in February of 1819.

Even from a distance, he could see the woman on the front stoop. She was young and beautiful and dressed in something most respectable ladies in the city would reserve for the bedroom, and she called out to him. I don't know what they discussed, but it was most likely about lodging for the night. The hostess gladly offered John a room in the roadhouse, and as she did, her husband appeared beside the wagon to take the reins and allow John to step inside. But what John didn't know was that he was stepping into a den of thieves, at least by reputation, that is. Apparently, the local highway robbers used many of the roadhouses as a home base,

gathering there when there wasn't enough work and hiding inside when the authorities were looking for someone to arrest. And in the weeks prior to John's arrival at this particular roadhouse, the owners had been caught harboring some of these thieves. So when John stepped inside this roadhouse, he was entering a place with a reputation for crime and danger. In fact, the young woman who had met him out front, Levinia Fisher, had a reputation for violence herself. But John didn't know all this, he just knew they had a room to let and a hot meal on the table that was ready for him. Reports vary on their dinner conversation. Some claim the soup contained odd ingredients, like strange meat, and that John noticed this and brought it up. But most of the retellings focus on the unusual behavior of John's hosts, who sat with him and made conversation as he enjoyed his meal.

And they always mention the cup of tea that Levinia gently slid across the table. I've read a number of reasons why John didn't drink it. Some have said that he wasn't too much of a tea person, while others claim he suspected something nefarious was in the works. John seems to have been a nervous, cautious man, and that would pay off in the end. But how he knew I have no idea. The story just makes it clear that he suspected something, took a small sip to be polite, and poured the rest out when the others weren't watching. After dinner, John was taken down the hall to a sparsely furnished room. He didn't need much, though, just a bed and some quiet, but it was far from hospitable.

Levinia wished him good night, and then John tossed his bag on the bed and sat down to pull off his boots and stretch his feet. It was just a few moments later, before he had a chance to lie down on the bed, that he heard the shouting from down the hall. Legend says that he could overhear Levinia and her husband, also named John, by the way, which is super confusing, I know, arguing about how to kill the merchant. Levinia wanted to pull the lever, she said, while her husband wanted to use an axe. Neither choice sounded appealing to John, though, so he just stood in the middle of the room, frozen by fear. And that's when Levinia pulled the mysterious lever. John heard a noise, and then the bed he had been intending to sleep on swung downward like a trapped door, dumping his bag and boots in the cellar below. John gasped, and then back toward the door to leave, but when he opened it he found Levinia on the other side, poised to enter and surprised to find John still in the room.

There was a struggle. Levinia called for her husband, who had been waiting in the cellar with his axe, and together they tried to restrain the merchant so that they could finish the job. But John was faster, and he managed to slip outside, locate his wagon, which was thankfully still hitched to his horse, and then rode off into the darkness. John, of course, went to the authorities, who soon arrived at the roadhouse to arrest the criminal couple. It's said that when they investigated the building they made a series of horrifying discoveries, but that's part of the story that seems to have grown over the years. According to some, a handful of bodies were found in the cellar, in various states of decomposition, while other tales tell of hundreds. Either way, the evidence was enough to make for a quick and easy trial. A couple pled not guilty, of course, and during their stay at the old jail, they made at least one attempt to escape. In the end, roughly a year after their arrest, Levinia and John Fisher had their final appeal rejected.

On February 4th of 1820, both of them were led to the gallows. Legend says that Levinia arrived for her hanging dressed in a white wedding gown as a way of showing the authorities that she was still a married woman in a state that didn't allow for married women to be executed. So, they took care of John first, effectively making her a single widow. When it was Levinia's turn, it's said that she boldly faced the crowd that had gathered to watch her die, and uttered her famous last words. If you have a message for the devil, she said, give it to me, and I'll take it to him. The darkness of Charleston is a bit of a chicken and egg sort of thing. It's unclear whether things fell apart so early because the people who settled it brought the shadows with them, or if it was the world that awaited them that started it all. Either way, though, by the time the first foundations were being laid, the people of that community were already deeply intimate with suffering and pain and death.

And that's the darker side of living in a community. By doing so, we swim in the shadows of its past and become part of its story. It's easy, especially in a place like Charleston, to become constantly reminded of our collective failure on a regular basis, like the aftershocks of a terrible earthquake. Don't get me wrong, Charleston is a lovely city today. The architecture and historical locations are a looking glass into another time, and we can learn a lot about early American life by studying it. But around every sunlit corner is a shadow, and we would be wise to never forget that. The story of Lavinia Fisher, though, is a different matter. There's very little evidence to support a lot of the stories told about her, no record of the hundreds of bodies that were found in the cellar.

And there's even a possibility that Lavinia didn't even exist at all, which would be a disappointment to a lot of people, I know. But while the details of her crimes and the house she and her husband used as a tool to murder unsuspecting travelers are still up for debate, we do know that the crime of highway robbery was a capital offense at the time. So if she did exist, and if she and John really did meet on that dusky February evening, the charges that ultimately got her arrested were most likely related to that. Most people believe that Lavinia Fisher was buried in a pauper's grave outside the old jail, but there are rumors that her skeleton was preserved and put on display in a local museum. If it was, no one knows where it is today, which is why many think her spirit is restless and still visible from time to time.

People have claimed to see her ghost in all sorts of unusual locations over the years, including in the Unitarian Church graveyard where they claim she was dancing on the grave of one of her judges. It's a deeply satisfying image and more than a little poetic, I'll admit. The trouble is, the judge was buried elsewhere, making the reports a bit suspect, if you ask me. But the most common place she has been spotted over the years is right where she spent her final days, in the old jail. Visitors and employees in the building have reported seeing a young woman looking out from various windows, while others have heard the sounds of feminine laughter echoing through some of the empty halls. A handful of people claim to have seen her standing in the jail yard, as if she were waiting for her execution to begin,

or perhaps revisiting the site to remind us of what she had done and how it all ended for her. But what ties all of these sightings together is one frightening detail, one that seems to confirm at least some part of the legend as true. Almost everyone who has witnessed her has reported a single, unifying description. The ghostly figure is always wearing a white gown, just like a wedding dress. I hope this guided tour through the shadows of Charleston's past, leave you feeling better connected to the people who have lived and died there. But it's not all dark prisons and highway robbers.

In fact, one of the most haunting tragedies in the city's history, is the fact that it's not all dark prisons and highway robbers, in fact, one of the most haunting tragedies in the city's history, took place not that long ago. Stick around after this brief sponsor break, and I'll tell you every little detail. The moment Elmer guided his 1938 Oldsmobile sedan onto the bridge, he felt the change. It was almost four o'clock in the afternoon,

and the Johnson P. Grace Memorial Bridge stretched out before them across the glistening Cooper River. But something didn't feel right. The Cooper River is one of two main rivers that passed by Charleston, turning the city into a small peninsula. In fact, most people don't know that the Cooper River and its sibling, the Ashley River, are both named after the same person. Remember that moment in 1663 when King Charles II granted permission to a group of his friends to settle in the Carolina Territory?

Well, one of those friends was the Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper. And from 1929 to 1966, one of the bridges that crossed the Cooper River was the Grace, although most locals just refer to it as the Cooper River Bridge. It was a cantilever bridge that hovered 250 feet above the river, high enough for many of the frequent cargo ships to pass beneath on their way to Port. And on February 24th of 1946, one of those ships was the Nicaragua Victory. The Nicaragua was a massive 10,000-ton freighter that had been anchored nearly half a mile from the bridge, but at 3.59 p.m. that day, roughly the same time that Elmer was driving toward the Cooper River Bridge,

a sudden, momentary storm known as a line squall sent a blast of wind upriver. The force of the gale actually broke the freighter free from its anchor, and within moments it drifted 700 yards before colliding with the bridge. The nose of the ship bit hard into the eastern approach, with enough force to break a massive 240-foot-long span out of the structure. The bridge had a hole in it. Elmer Lawson's Oldsmobile was full that day. His wife Evelyn was beside him and their two young children were in the back seat with their grandmother, Elmer's mother Rose.

And while a number of other cars on the bridge were able to stop in time, something prevented the Lawson's from doing the same. A heartbeat after the gap in the bridge opened up. They drove straight off the edge and into the water. As you can imagine, everything was chaos for a long while. No one was able to cross the bridge. Traffic backed up, and the crew of the Nicaragua made panic attempts to right the ship and assess the damage. And in the confusion, people's memory of what happened got a bit muddled.

Some people thought they saw a green car fall through the gap, but they weren't sure. So no rescue teams were sent into the river. It wasn't until March 19th, nearly a month after the tragedy, that a salvage crew discovered a car at the bottom of the river near the bridge. Using a large grappling bucket, the crew of the little boss managed to grip the bumper of the car and haul it to the surface. Inside was a horrible scene. All five of the Lawson's were still in the car, having died within moments of falling into the river. It's horrifying to imagine what they might have gone through in those final moments.

And as you might imagine, that vision quickly began to haunt the minds of many Charleston locals. And then there were the stories. The most popular involved another family trip. This one 20 years later in 1966. The bridge had long since been repaired, and a whole generation had grown up, pushing the tragedy of 1946 deeper into the past. And when we forget, we tend to have trouble understanding certain things. The man driving this car certainly had a hard time understanding why the old car in front of him was driving so slowly across the bridge.

In fact, he had to pump his brakes a few times to avoid rear-ending it. According to local author Sarah Pitzer in her book Haunted Charleston, a fierce wind was blowing across the bridge at the time, and the driver could feel his car getting buffeted around by it. He followed behind the slower car for a few moments, most likely muttering to himself at the inconvenience of it all. And then suddenly caught his breath. The car in front of him, a car that had seemed completely solid and real a moment before,

evaporated right before his eyes. But that wasn't the most shocking detail of the story. No, for those who know the full tale of the bridge, it was another detail that seems to be the most chilling. This car that the driver claims he saw was much older than the other cars around him on the road. And it was green. And sitting inside it were five people, a mixture of adults and children, all of whom were dressed in old-fashioned clothing. This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Mankey,

with research by Taylor Hagridorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured, and I Think You'd Enjoy Both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history,

ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.

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