Haunted Jail at Night: A Spooky Last Class

Walking to the Old Charleston Jail I felt my body tensing up with every step I took. Upon arrival I looked around at the jail, which looked like it could be out of a old fashioned movie, and felt cold sensation overcome me and I knew this place was truly haunted. The jail operated from 1802 until 1939 and held many Charlestonians, as well as war prisoners during the civil war.

Outside of the Jail

We meet our tour guide from Bulldog Tours, Glenn McKenzie and entered. Touching the rusty railings and watching my step on the wet cold steps made on the way in made me feel as if I was right there back in time with the prisoners. In the first room we learned the history of what happened in there and the overwhelming amount of inmates it held, over 30 men, while having no toilet or bucket for the bathroom. We also learned and talked about the process of hanging. It began to stop because men were growing stronger and healthier every generation, Glenn also told us, " It took inmate Daniel Duncan 38 minutes to die".

Replica rope for hanging

In the next room we saw replicas of what the cells would have looked like and learned more stories and facts about the jail, it was hard for me to pay attention in this room because it was so much bigger but felt so much colder. It was a creepy kind of cold.

Glenn began to tell his story of who he thinks is the most haunted inmate in the jail and immediately my ears shot up, he said, "Livinia Fisher is most infamous. What people hear about her isn't true". She was a beautiful women who would act like a damsel in distress on the high way in North Charleston. Men driving caravans of goods would pull over to help her. Then before they knew it her gang would jump out and kill the man and rob them. Eventually after many murderers they got caught, and Livinia had to spend time in prison. Being good looking and the only female around dangerous men, the things that happened to her were not good.

One of the rooms inside. Replica jail cell

The next two rooms continued to get colder but I found them to be less interesting. We saw the place where Glenn McKenzie witnessed a real ghost and saw what used to be the medical room when the jail housed war criminals.

Leaving the jail and prison yard was a huge relief and I was happy to be able to go home. I may think sharing a dorm room is tight space, but it is nothing compared to the prisoners corridors.

Old Charlestonian

Caroline Howard Gilman was born on October 9 1794, and was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. Through out her whole life she always had an interest in writing but deemed it "unladylike" for her work to be read. When a poem of hers was published into a newspaper and she was according to the Library Company Caroline is quoted being, "as alarmed as if I had been detected in man's apparel!" After that initial upset she became more accepting and comfortable with her literature being read and published. 

According to the source, Find a Grave, In December of 1819 Caroline married Unitarian minister Samuel Gilman and relocated to Charleston, South Carolina. Upon her arrival she began writing, but her career in literature got off to a slow start due to her having many pregnancies and four long term surviving children. In 1932 she began writing the Rosebud, one of the nations earliest children magazines. 

When the tensions between the North and South began heating up Caroline was unable to pick sides. She was raised in one place but currently resided in another. This resulted in her two most famous books, The Recollection of a Housekeeper and The Recollection of a Southern Matron. They both told a story of what is was like in a Northern vs Southern household in hopes the readers from both parts of the country would see all the domestic similarities between the two and help lower the tensions. 

 During the Civil War Caroline and her family moved to Greenville, South Carolina for their safety, but promptly returned to Charleston in 1865. In that time she continued her writing, and most memorably wrote a book of poetry with her daughter. She moved to Washington DC with said daughter in the years prior to passing. Sadly, Caroline Howard Gilman outlived all of her children but one, and died at the age of 93 on September 15, 1888 and was transported and buried in Charleston's Unitarian Church Cemetery.

I am very happy with my decision in having chose Caroline Howard Gilman for my Old Charlestonian assignment because I was able to relate to some aspects of her life. We both are from Boston Massachusetts and came to Charleston for our adult lives. Although I came here for college and not marriage I can most definitely relate to some of the feelings and culture changes she wrote about and felt moving from the North to South.