LAURINBURG — Scotland County has its share of scary stories, whether it be mysterious noises, lights or figures, or ghosts themselves.
Just ahead of Halloween, a number of county residents were all to willing to talk about things that go bump in the night.
One such story, is the haunting of the original Old Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church manse that so many church pastors called home.
It is said that during the 1960’s, when Minister A.C. Tribitte, the pastor of Old Laurel Hill Presbyterian lived there, the tormented spirit of a former pastor who mysteriously passed away could be heard walking up and down the stairs, according to Phillip McRae, an elder at Old Laurel Hill Presbyterian.
“Supposedly you could hear someone walking up and down the staircase in this house,” said McRae, who also serves as the county clerk of court.
The manse was built around 1910 and was moved a couple decades ago to another property, it is unknown if the spirit moved with the manse to its new location.
However, during the 1970’s Pastor John Miller, the successor to Tribitte had no reports of hearing the spirit walking up and down the stairs, or at least none he reported, McRae said.
“Gravity Hill,” is another tale that local residents like to tell. The hill is located on Stewartsville Cemetery Road and Old Maxton Road. As the story goes, a mother was killed along with her daughter and dog when her car stalled and was struck by a semi-truck after rolling passed the stop sign on Stewartsville Road and Old Maxton Road.
It is said that if you put your car in neutral and roll past the stop sign, the mother’s spirit will push you back up the hill.
For Cliff Sessoms, a life-long Laurinburg resident, the story of “Gravity Hill” is all to familiar.
“I have gone and put my car in neutral and seen it roll back up the hill,” said Sessoms, the Laurinburg Police Department assistant chief. He also mentioned the possibility of “Gravity Hill” being an optical allusion.
He also points out another haunted location just four miles from the hill — the Stewartsville Cemetery. The site is said to have been started during the Revolutionary War and legend has it that the first burial occurred when the pallbearers carrying a dead patriot decided they’d walked far enough and that this particular patch of cedar trees hung with Spanish moss would suit just fine.
The cemetery was also figures in the story of Colin Lindsay, a Scottish immigrant who was the son of a woman buried alive.
Sometime around 1740, Mother Lindsay took so ill, and lapsed into near-death so convincingly, that her Scottish clan threw a raucous wake around her body and buried it within the family vault.
Not long after, a trio of grave robbers pried loose the coffin lid and tried to saw off her ring finger to collect the jewelry. Before they could cut through the bone, the supposedly dead woman awakened and sent the thieves scattering into the night.
Thus revived, Mother Lindsay went back about the business of her life, birthing little Colin – the boy whose mother knew the darkness of the grave.
Ghosts or at least rumors of ghosts, have also been reported at the St. Andrews University Morgan Jones Science Building.
As the story goes, a former SAU security officer was locking the doors of the building and she saw a man in a three piece suit moving through the science labs on the second floor.
When she described the figure one thing stuck out, apparently whatever or whoever was in the science building, did not have feet. That has led students who have heard the tale to assume it was a ghost floating through building.
“I first heard the story in 2013 and ever since I get an eerie feeling when I am near the science building at night — the hairs on the back of your neck raise when you are walking around Morgan Jones. I felt like I had to keep looking behind be,” said Russell Lindsay, a St. Andrews University graduate student.
For those looking for ghost sightings beyond the county-line; here are a few more area scares:
— In nearby Bennettsville, S.C., a Colonel Kolb and his family were burned alive nearby during the Revolutionary War. According to local lore, those who visit Col. Kolb’s tomb at night will hear the sound of someone walking in the woods and may suddenly find the apparition of a man right next to them.
— Twenty-nine miles away in Latta, S.C, there is the tale of Binghams’s Light — believed to be the lantern of the ghost of a man named Bingham who was killed by a train. Some say he appears as a warning or that the ghost is searching for his lost children.
— In Fayetteville, some say the old Prince Charles Hotel is haunted by the ghost of Charlotte, a young woman who committed suicide there in the early 1900s. It seems that Charlotte was distraught after finding her new husband in bed with a bridesmaid.
