Ghost and history tours illuminate past, long before Halloween

Two walking tours have found some ideal haunts, with timing that works well even outside of Halloween.

Frank Harris’ “Haunted Myrtle Beach Ghost Tours” has returned for a second summer in the heart of downtown Myrtle Beach, and “Miss Chris’ Inlet Walking Tour – Ghosts, Pirates and Legends” has begun stepping across Murrells Inlet. Such tours, including two walks in downtown Georgetown, bring a great way to digest artful, creative storytelling to stroll back into a past full of lore, lost love and legends synonymous with the Grand Strand.

Living or visiting on the Grand Strand, anyone taking one of these tours will bring home a new-found appreciation of this area’s wealth in culture and history.

Earlier last week, dressed as a pirate and speaking in a Welsh cockney accent, Christine Vernon led her presentation by lantern from the front porch of Lazy Gator across U.S. 17 Business in and around MarshWalk restaurants, and out on to the Veterans Pier. The Philadelphia native declared with this solo enterprise that she’s not a historian or tour guide, but simply “a storyteller,” with hopes to preserve narratives that will live on through people’s repeating them for generations to come.

She said the origin of Murrells Inlet’s name varies among three recountings, but that in 1913, the U.S. Postal Service went with the current title.

‘Alice’ still remembered

Stopping for a seat on the boardwalk as high tide rolled in, Vernon spoke, looking at the site of the former Hermitage to talk about Alice Flagg, whose disapproving family threw a ring given by her fiance into the marsh reeds. After the daughter died in the mid-1800s from malaria, her parents eventually had her body interred at All Saints Cemetery, a few miles south in Pawleys Island, under a stone engraved only with “Alice.” Vernon said legend states that Flagg, dressed in a white dress, might still be seen, looking at twilight for her engagement ring, maybe outside her old home, in the marsh or by her burial grounds.

A young passer-by on the walk stopped to ask Vernon, “Are you a pirate?” After replying in the affirmative and posing for pictures with the girl’s family, the youth added, “You’re pretty.” Later, by the back of Dead Dog Saloon, a man greeted Vernon with a defined “(A)rrrrrrr,” to which she asked in jest, “Know any other letters of the alphabet?”

Vernon said she’s as comfortable making “people laugh with or at me.”

On a somber note, looking southward, Vernon brought up two Boston terriers from the 1950s living with the owner of the former Pelican Inn in Pawleys Island. One dog had rescued a boy from the surf but died a few weeks later, then his litter mate, followed suit, depressed over the loss of his sibling. That’s why both pooches’ howls still might be heard from the water, Vernon said.

Staying in that same locale with words, Vernon saluted The Gray Man, a young woman’s fiance who perished off road with his horse in quicksand upon return from a long term of service overseas. The departed man was said to have alerted his lover and her family of an impending hurricane, and at her urging, they fled inland, safely, and their house, contrary to others’, withstood the storm. The Gray Man also has been seen returning as a beacon for families to take cover from hurricanes Hazel in 1954, Gracie in ’59 and Hugo in ’89.

“If you see him, run,” Vernon said, “because he’s trying to save you.”

Downtown by the depot

With garb including a banana, a ponytail, earrings and sandals, David Mousch also dressed the part to lead an educational tour across downtown Myrtle Beach. Everyone last Thursday was all aboard for one of the first stops, the historic Myrtle Beach Train Depot, after he pointed out the First United Methodist Church of Myrtle Beach, with its beautiful nighttime illumination.

Mousch said the depot, rented by the city for many private functions, first opened in 1937 as a community hub for transportation to and from the coast, but as World War II soon ensued, the building’s rail siding and platform became a pickup point for families to claim their service personnel brethren’s bodies in coffins. The appearance of a soldier standing at attention in his uniform onsite is understood to this day, Mousch said, seeing a black cat dart across the field in back.

“Thanks for doing what I told them you would do,” he said to the feline, but maybe not jokingly.

Heading back out from the depot, he said evenings often afford a view of a crescent moon through sabal palmettto branches, much like the symbol that emblazons the S.C. state flag, in reference to the American Revolution. The entourage also paused by the fountain and splash pad at Nance Plaza, also lit up in glory.

Nearby, in this immersion of the “back side of Myrtle Beach,” a view to cherish but too easily missed, he pointed out a buried treasure, a city time capsule sown in 2004 at Ninth Avenue North and Kings Highway, with reopening booked for 2054.

Mousch not only regaled the group with the aforementioned demises of Flagg and The Gray Man, but of some pirates, such as the destructive path toward foes and friends that Edward “Blackbeard” Teach took in the early 1700s in his three years as “the original pirate rock star,” who lived to only age 36 to 38. Since he met his end with decapitation from the Royal Navy, reports have been made of Blackbeard’s ghost, “searching for his head the rest of his life,” Mousch said.

Being resourceful in rainfall

As a wave of heavy rain took a while to roll in from the west, Mousch applied his improvisational skills as the cluster formed a campfire-like circle inside the Myrtle Beach Pavilion garage when the downpour began, for no remaining stories would be washouts on this evening.

Those tales included the Ferris wheel of the former Pavilion Amusement Park – later reborn as a Family Kingdom landmark – where in 1991, a party of three fell from a car overturned by rocking, killing a 17-year-old. Mousch said people said they had spotted “three dark masses … their energies” headed groundward.

Mousch also spoke about “Barman Joe” from The Bowery tavern in downtown Myrtle Beach, who one night years ago, he slumped over and died, turning cold and blue, but after a while, bolted up on his own, because “he wanted to go finish his drinks,” and he polished off a few more years of life after “cheating death.”

Folks might still “hear him singing,” Mousch said, reminding everyone of the house band that once anchored the Bowery for much of the 1970s, Wildcountry, later to grow into one of the most successful country group, named after their home state, Alabama.

Mousch, a regular in Renaissance festivals since he lived in his native Connecticut, said afterward that he’s learned so much about history and loves the “honor” of taking his turn three nights a week to take 2 to 35 people on each tour behind the scenes across the heart of downtown to look back at things, happy and sad.

“It’s not just the ghost stories,” he said. “It’s a privilege to take people back in time.”

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Ghost and history tours illuminate past, long before Halloween."