10.25.2007
Statesville’s ghosts and legends
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Statesville is a small town, which to many means that it is a sleepy, boring town where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens.
However, some eerie occurrences have taken place here, some that seem fitting only for horror movies.
So lock your doors and beware of the night, because Statesville is anything but sleepy.
Bostian Bridge
On Aug. 27, 1891, Asheville-bound passenger train No. 9 was 34 minutes late when it stopped to pick up a few passengers in Statesville at 2:30 a.m.
Within five minutes of leaving the train station, the train plunged off the northern side of the Bostian Bridge on Buffalo Shoals Road into a creek 60 feet below. Many of the passengers died instantly or were trapped in debris and drowned.
Many believe that spirits of the victims still lurk near the train tracks.
More than a century later, reports still surface of screaming passengers and people walking around the area asking for help at the site of the calamity. Some claim to have seen a phantom train engine hurtling into the creek below the bridge, as well as seeing unexplainable lights on the track.
“Because there are so many articles, stories, facts and experiences wrapped up in the Bostian Bridge story, it has the best potential for Statesville’s premiere ghost story,” local historian Nancy Davis said.
The Vance Hotel
The Vance Hotel, a popular historical location, is the spot of several haunting incidents. There are records of two suicides on the third floor, and hotel personnel have reported ghost-like figures in the rooms and the hallways of the second floor.
One story that has become of particular interest recently is that of a young girl who drowned in the hotel’s pool. Late one night, she got into a fight with her mother and stormed out of their room. She walked down to sit by the pool, just to have a moment to herself.
Then she decided to dive in, despite the fact that she was wearing an expensive, beaded dress. The weight of the dress pulled her to the bottom, and she drowned. Since then, people have reported seeing a young girl in the area of the hotel, dripping water from head to toe.
“When the crew was here with George Clooney shooting the movie ‘Leatherheads’ this summer, there were phone calls for me, the librarians, and other historians, because the crew swore they kept seeing this wet girl in the hotel,” local historian Nancy Davis said.
“They wanted to know who she was and what her story was, which shows how real these ghost stories are and how interesting a small town like Statesville can be.”
The santer
The santer, a large, cat-like creature known for creeping around at night, was first sighted in Iredell County in 1890.
The story goes that the creature escaped from a Greensboro sideshow, and there was a $200 reward for its capture.
“At first, the santer was slow news because people assumed that it was made up, but beginning in the 1930s, there were reports of seeing or hearing it, and people started avoiding being outside their homes after dark,” former local history teacher O.C. Stonestreet said.
The santer has quite a reputation in Statesville and the surrounding area. Some have reported hearing its bloodcurdling screams or claimed their livestock fell victim to its hunger. Some even used the legend to keep children in line.
“A lot of parents used it as a tool, sort of like a modern-day boogie man, to get their children to come home on time and to behave,” Stonestreet said.
Mitchell Community College
Mitchell Community College was built downtown in the 1800s as a Presbyterian women’s college. According to legend, a girl who attended the college in the 1860s was dating a Civil War soldier who was off at war. She was so madly in love with him that she lit a candle every night and set it on her window sill so that he could find her when he returned.
A year passed quickly and there was no sign of him. She eventually received notice that he was missing in action. The girl frantically ran to her room and cried for days. She didn’t know whether to remain hopeful that he would come home or to mourn his death. She was so disturbed that she was unable to sleep, so she climbed to the top of the Mitchell tower every night with her candle.
After a few nights of this routine, the wait became unbearable, and the girl jumped off the railing, taking her own life, for she would rather die than not be with the only man she ever loved.
To this day, Mitchell Community College has the entrance to the tower blocked off. It is rumored that late at night one can hear the sounds of the girl pacing the halls, walking back and forth, mourning over her one true love, her missing soldier.
Graham Jordan
Graham Jordan is a Statesville High School student and member of the student newspaper staff. Do you have stories you’d like us to publish on Buzz? Send them to us here.