Hagley Landing, the landing itself, is a Waccamaw Neck landmark. It is a beautiful and busy public boat dock on the Intracoastal Waterway, a stretch of waterway also known as the Waccamaw River. The vibrant, much-loved community that encircles and stretches away from the riverfront pier to the Island’s South Causeway and further south to the edge of Mainland Pawleys Island, is a highly sought-after place to call home.
If you know anything about the area, you know precisely the location. The Landing is well known for its sunsets and fine fishing. Lesser known is the fact that this historic spot is a place where the ghosts of a lovers triangle still roam.
After the Confederate War, aka the Civil War (to the world) and the “War of Northern Aggression” (to native South Carolinians), Hagley Landing was one of numerous area plantations that struggled mightily to overcome the disastrous fall-out of a war that changed the course of history. Here, as elsewhere, many a man went off to fight for the Confederate cause. Some returned, sorely injured in body and spirit. Many did not.
Because mail service was erratic at best, and frequently non-existent for extended periods of time, news of soldiers’ deaths was torturously slow to arrive at home where loved ones waited. Conversely, every now and again, a bedraggled soldier wearing tattered blue returned long after being assumed dead.
Turns out, that was not necessarily a happy occasion. This is such a story.
Before the war, a besotted Lowcountry couple was planning an elaborate wedding indicative of their aristocratic upbringing, but they postponed their plans for the groom to go away and fight for the Southern cause. The bride pledged heart and soul to wait for her fiancé’s return. For a long, long time – most stories say three years or more – she remained true to her promise.
Alongside the groom’s best friend and best man, she grieved. Oral history has it that they took long walks through the woods, along the river and up and down the sandy road that ended at the Landing. Eventually, they realized there was more between them than mere companionship. United in tragedy, after much soul-searching, they resolved themselves to the soldier’s certain death. They believed with all their hearts he would approve of their union, and they decided to become husband and wife.
Legend has it the wedding took place in what is known to history as St. Mary’s Chapel, a small but lovely chapel originally constructed to serve the slaves and landed gentry of Hagley Plantation. The chapel is long since gone. Mere minutes after they were declared spouses, the frantic approach of a galloping horse was heard. Distracted from the small assemblage of guests, the young couple looked up to see their beloved soldier arrive.
Recognition and dismay dawned on every face as the bride and her groom wept and frantically explained how everyone had assumed the soldier had perished on an unknown battlefield far away. As the story goes, the heartbroken young man said something like this: “And so it will be as you imagined.”
Then he turned abruptly, ran down the dock and flung himself into the rushing river. The bride followed close behind, still weeping, as did her groom. All three were swept to their deaths, down and away towards Winyah Bay. Attempts to save them were all for naught, and the story became forever attached to Hagley Landing.
From then until now, more than a few visitors and residents have reported stories of seeing the threesome, in period clothing and a soldier’s clothes, walking to and fro’ in the now-thriving community of Hagley Landing. They are benevolent ghosts, of course, but those who have seen them report an uncannily lifelike appearance and an unbearable sense of sadness when one and all evaporate into thin air. Sometimes the wedding couple walk together. Sometimes the jilted fiancé tags along. It is a sad, sad story.
So – especially at dawn and dusk, it is said – you should keep your eyes peeled for the tragic trio forever reliving the worse day of their lives.
Hagley Landing is located on the Intracoastal Waterway roughly ten miles north of Georgetown. It is a well-established and beautiful community of homes large and small, many of which overlook the busy and storied Waterway. Odds are better than good the perfect piece of Lowcountry real estate awaits you where a few of the shady streets remain unpaved.
