Unwelcomed Ghosts

The Grim is stepping through the moss-draped gates of All Saints’ Church Cemetery on Pawleys Island, South Carolina, where history and legend intertwine beneath the Lowcountry oaks. In this episode of The Grim, we explore one of the South’s most hauntingly beautiful graveyards, an acre of romance and ruin where ghost stories refuse to rest.

Beneath weathered stones lie the names of Carolina’s planters, patriots, poets, and governors, their legacies etched in marble and memory. Yet it is the ghosts of Pawleys Island that draw travelers and storytellers alike. From the cloaked figure of the Gray Man, said to appear before hurricanes as both omen and protector, to the tragic tale of Alice Flagg, whose restless spirit still searches for her lost ring, the cemetery’s legends echo through salt air and shadow.

We trace the church’s origins from the 18th century to its fiery rebirth in 1917, uncovering stories of Southern history woven with grief, resilience, and Gothic beauty. As autumn deepens and the veil thins, the graveyard becomes more than sacred ground. It is a stage where mourning, faith, and folklore converge.

Whether you come seeking Lowcountry history, haunted cemeteries, or the timeless allure of Southern Gothic ghost stories, All Saints’ Cemetery is a place where the past lingers and the dead are never truly silent.

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Episode Transcript

Kristin (00:13):
Good morning and welcome to the Grim.
I'm your host, Kristen.
Today we're unlatching the gateinto All Saints Church
Cemetery, a romantic gothic acrewhere notorious ghosts are said
to wander in Polly's Island,South Carolina.
Under canopies of moss, thegrounds lie shrouded, a stage
prepared for mourning andsouthern charm.

(00:35):
The aroma of coffee mingles inthe air.
The gates stand open.
Step carefully.
It's time to descend into thehauntings of history.
When autumn arrives, many headnorth in search of crispare and
golden leaves.
But for those seeking romancetouched by horror with a gothic
twist, Fallen, South Carolinaoffers something different.

(00:58):
The ghosts are said to hauntthese grounds year round, yet in
autumn their presence feelsmost profound.
As the air cools and theshadows lengthen across the
landscape, the Lou Country takeson a mood both alluring and
unsettling.
Summer's warmth still lingersby day, but evenings bring a
hush.
As though the past has drawncloser, in the shifting season

(01:20):
of autumn the veil feels thethinnest, and the restless begin
to stir.
That stirring seems to gatheron Polly's Island, within the
gates of All Saints Cemetery.
For such a small berrier islandjust 25 miles south of Myrtle
Beach, it sees its fair share ofvisitors each year, yet few
wander beyond its sands of itsbeaches, into the stillness of

(01:44):
its graveyards, and they should.
A recurring theme this seasonhas been opening the gates to
the world's most beautifulcemeteries.
But I suspect all saints mayclaim a place near the top
unexpectedly for most.
Its grounds feel as though theywere lifted from a film set,
steeped in southern antebellumcharm with horror waiting just
beyond the frame.

(02:05):
Even the chapel feels uncanny,a modest building that seems
scripted for a scene, and thatit all converges in a single
chilling detail.
A hand-painted sign that reads,The Holy Ghost is the only
ghost we welcome here.
It looks like something stagedfor the screen, yet is
hauntingly real.
If the graveyard wasn't enough,the barrier island itself

(02:27):
carries the air of a horrorfilm.
Midnight Mass reimaginesbeneath moss laden oaks.
But before we descend into thenotorious hauntings of these
grounds, we first must tracetheir history.
Like many southern towns, thesurface shimmers with charm,
mastrate trees, weathered gates,stories that seem most idyllic,

(02:48):
yet lean closer and thatvineyard cracks.
Beneath it lies a darker, moretangled past, stitched with
sorrow as much as grace.
The past carries us back to1739, when the congregation of
all saints first gathered inworship.
Nearly three centuries havesince drifted by, yet the echoes
of those early voices stilllinger among the stones.

(03:11):
The old church that endurestoday rose in 1917 from the
ashes of its predecessor,consumed by fire just two years
before.
Its walls are bound with brickssalvaged from the Waverley
Plantation Rice Mill, whileRodiron Gates, gifts from Dr.
and Mrs.
Henry Norris of Philadelphia,unfurl like black lace.

(03:33):
Even the marble baptismal fontweeps, offered in memory of
their lost child Charles.
In the adjoining ground, thenames of old Carolina families
carved themselves into stone,Alston, Flag, La Bruce, La
Chicotte, Ward, Weston.
Many monuments were shaped bythe White Brothers of

(03:53):
Charleston, stone covers whosechisel turned grief into
permanence.
The Old Saints Parish, Wacama,holds a central place in the
history of Georgetown County.
Created in 1767 from PrinceGeorge Wyna Parish, its
beginnings were marked by bothhardship and persistence.
A chapel of ease had first beenbuilt on Polly's Island around

(04:16):
1736, for the Wacama River madereaching the parish church by
water perilous.
In 1767, the House of CommonsAssembly established an All
Saints Parish and granted it tworepresentatives, though King
George III disallowed it justthree years later.
Only after South Carolinadeclared independence in 1778

(04:39):
was the parish restored.
Since 1737, a parish church hasstood on this soil.
The 1843 brick sanctuary, castin the Greek Revival style, was
devoured by a fire in 1915.
From its ashes rose the smaller1917 church that still endures
to this day.
In 1991, the old church wasdrawn into the National Register

(05:02):
of Historic Places, even as thepresent sanctuary was raised
nearby in 1988.
The church was consecrated inthe 1820s, its cemetery becoming
the resting ground ofGeorgetown County's most storied
sons and daughters.
Her faith and grief have longbeen bound together, and the
earth still exhales the weightof centuries past.

(05:23):
We begin with Thomas GeorgePolly, a man whose life bridged
the fragile beginnings of thisplace, and who the island is
named after.
Justice of the Peace, thriceelected to South Carolina's
assembly, he carried bothauthority and the burden in a
colony still defining itself.
Yet Polly's truest legacy liesbeneath our very feet.

(05:44):
Through the land gifted by hisfamily, fifty acres were set
aside for an Anglican church,the seat of all saints itself.
With the soil for itsfoundation and sacrifice for its
mortar, this sacred place wasborn.
Polly's gift was not only ofland but of permanence.
From those early days offounding, we now move into the

(06:04):
revolutionary era, where we finda boy who became a statesman,
Benjamin Huger.
Imagine him at just eight yearsold, standing wide-eyed on the
shore of North Island, as twoweary Frenchmen, the Marquis de
la Fette and Baron de Caleb,stepped onto American soil for
the very first time.
His family's home gave themshelter, and history itself

(06:26):
passed through its door.
Huger would go into a man ofdistinction, serving in both the
South Carolina House and theUnited States Congress, his life
forever entangled with a youngrepublic's fragile promise.
In 1819, when President JamesMonroe journeyed south, it was
Huger who hosted him at theProspect Hill Plantation.

(06:47):
From a child of the Revolutionto host of presidents, his life
traced the arc of a nationfinding its footing.
But the revolution's triumphgave way to an antebellum world
steeped in privilege and shadow.
Nearby was Plowden C.J.
Weston, born into staggeringwealth, yet bound by duty, as a
boy he studied under theReverend Galini and the Shadow

(07:10):
of All Saints before sailing toEngland to complete his
education.
Returning with the polish of anold world learning, he
inherited vast holdings, Hagley,True Blue, Wicaw, Waterford,
names that whisperableprosperity and bondage.
One of the richest men in theSouth, Weston opposed
succession, but followedCarolina's call when the war

(07:32):
came, pleading himself to theConfederacy.
Illness seized him in service,yet even as his body failed, he
was elected to lieutenantgovernor, dying in Columbia
before his term was complete.
In Weston we see the paradox ofhis age: wealth without
immunity, power without escape.
The sentries turned and allSaints welcomed a different type

(07:54):
of figure.
One who fought in disguiserather than on the fields, and
whose battlefield later becamethe page.
James Dickey served as afighter pilot in World War II.
His youth spent against a furyof Japan's rising sun.
When the guns quieted, hisvoice found thunder in verse.
A teacher, a poet, the nation'sconsultant in letters, he read

(08:17):
before Congress and at thepresident's inauguration.
Yet it was his novel,Deliverance, that burnt his name
into American memory.
It sailed of wilderness andterror-haunting readers long
after the final line.
His grave lies within theserene grounds, though his words
continue to ripple outward,unsettling as a stone dropped in

(08:39):
water.
And finally we come to a manwho steered not through verse,
but through politics and storm.
Governor Carol Campbell Jr.
rose to the chambers of thestate house to the Governor's
Mansion, twice elected to leadSouth Carolina through
prosperity and peril.
He brought industry to itssoil, coaxing BMW to build in

(09:00):
Greenville County, reshaping thestate's future.
But perhaps he is rememberedmost for the tempest, Hurricane
Hugo, that battered the coast in1989.
In its way Campbell studiedhand-guided recovery, earning
the respect of all those wholooked at him in desperation.
Yet even for a governor, evenfor a man lauded in life, the

(09:22):
end is still the same.
Beneath stone and earth, herests alongside poets, planters,
patriots, and pioneers.
The coast of South Carolina isbeautiful, yes, but beauty here
has always worn a veil.
Beyond the tide, smooth sandsand moss-straped oaks, shadows
stir.
Out upon the beach where thehorizon dissolves into gray, a

(09:43):
cloaked figure wanders.
They call him the gray man.
No one knows his name, only hissorrow.
Once he was the son of awealthy rice planter, set abroad
for education, a future mappedbefore him, but on his ride home
to his beloved, fate claimedhim.
His horse fell, and the youngman never reached her door.

(10:04):
Shattered by sorrow, she sawhim again in her dreams, cloaked
in spectral gray, a phantomrising from grief and sea mist.
His voice whispered of a stormthat would tear the coast apart.
Desperate, she begged herfamily to flee and they did.
When the hurricane roaredashore, ruin swept across the
island, yet their home endured,standing alone amid the wreckage

(10:26):
of their neighbors' dwellings.
Since then, by day or by dusk,the gray man walks the barrier
island, appearing before everygreat tempest as both omen and
protector.
The tale goes that if he showshimself to you, it's a warning
to flee.
Those who heed him and abandonthe island return to find their
home spared, standing untouchedwhile ruin surrounds them.

(10:49):
Inland, beneath the shadowedoaks of All Saints Churchyard,
lingers perhaps Polly's island'smost famous ghost.
A single word marks her grave,Alice.
Alice was only seventeen, agirl whose heart dared to defy
her brother's ambition.
Riding one day along the beach,Alice met a young lumberman.
He wasn't of her family's worldthough.

(11:11):
He gathered sap from the pines,turning it into pitch and rosin
for the shipyards.
He had very little money, but avery earnest heart.
In time the two fell in love,and in secret he had asked for
her hand in marriage.
With what little he couldafford, he offered her a simple
gold ring.
Alice treasured it, wearing itclose to her heart on a chain,

(11:33):
hiding it from her brother.
But Dr.
Alled Flag had other plans.
He envisioned his sister infine gowns, mistress of a grand
estate, and married into wealththat could uphold the flag name.
When he discovered the ring,his fury was swift.
He tore it off from her neckand hurled it into the marsh
without a word of mercy.

(11:53):
The shock and grief were morethan Alice could withstand.
Soon after she fell ill withyellow fever, as the fever
raged, she tossed in her bed,clutching her bare throat where
the ring had once rested.
Her last words weren't forheaven, nor for her brother's
forgiveness, but for the loveshe had lost.
I want my ring.

(12:13):
Now those who circle her gravesometimes feel a tug on their
old bands of gold, as thoughAlice herself is still reaching
through the soil, searching forwhat was taken.
At night she's said to driftthrough her brother's home, the
Hermitage, a pale bridewandering without end.
Visitors often leave flowers,rings, and other gifts to help

(12:34):
ease her troubled soul.
But Alice's ghost, it seems,will never rest.
Here on Polly's Island, ghostsare not confined to a story.
They walk the shore and stirbeneath the moss throughout the
long night.
Storms may rise, oaks may bend,but the legends endure, carried
on salt air and whispered likewarnings from the grave.

(12:54):
The cemetery, igmatic andalluring, has a beauty that can
captivate even the most callousof souls.
It's a place that Grim believesis worth visiting in the fall,
or in truth, any time of year.
And when the Sultan Wind driftsonce more through the mossy
oaks, the stories slip back intostone, and the dead return to

(13:14):
their uneasy rest.
And yet they're never silentfor long.
Thank you for walking with usthrough the veil into All Saints
Cemetery, descending once moreinto the hauntings of history.
The gate is sealed, the veildrawn.
Yet death keeps no calendar,and so we shall return, as we
always do, on the grim.