Kirby Augusta - Hauntings of Augusta

Halloween is getting close.
And people are thinking about ghost stories.
I like them. You like them. Everyone likes ghost stories.
And while Augusta isn’t what I would call a ghost town, it has a few tales.
But most are as phony as a 50-cent séance.
Take the Ezekiel Harris House on Broad Street near the new Kroc Center.
For years, the story was told that during the American Revolution, a bitter British commander hung 13 patriots nearby. Naturally, there are those who report that strange lights are sometimes seen in the vicinity. Odd sounds are heard, too.
But the house Harris House wasn’t built until decades after the American Revolution. The Mackey House, where the patriots may or may not have been killed, was probably destroyed two centuries ago.
Then there’s the well-known “Haun¬ted Pillar.” At Broad and 5th streets.
This lonely column is said to be what’s left of an old market building destroyed by an 1878 tornado. The “haunted” part is a local legend - move the pillar or touch it, and you’re supposed to die.
That’s all made-up hokum, spun by a press agent, the city of Augusta hired in the 1930s to lure tourists.
The pillar we see today isn’t even the original. In
1935, The Chronicle reported, an automobile hit it and “reduced it to a pile of brick and cement.” The driver was not injured; the pillar was rebuilt.
On a Friday the 13th in 1958, the newspaper said, the column was toppled when an oversized bale of cotton fell from a passing truck. The driver was not injured.
Maybe the curse involves bad driving.
Walk down the street a few blocks into Olde Town, and you might see something spooky. On both July 11 and July 13, 1871, The Chronicle reported a ghost frightening residents. It turned out to be a mentally unbalanced girl wandering in her nightclothes.
In June 1903, The Chronicle reported that ghosts were seen at Meadow Garden, the former home of George Walton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Maybe it was George and political rival William Few renewing a political argument.
Augusta’s best ghost story is probably farther up Walton Way on the campus of the former Augusta State Uni¬versity.
This one, I can’t explain.
But The Chronicle and a Georgia ghost story anthology tell the story in the 1960s of a professor strolling across campus who saw a man dressed as a Confederate officer walking in the old Walker family cemetery. Then he vanished.
The professor said he didn’t believe in ghosts, but he could offer no other explanation.
We’ll have to take his word for it, and you can take my word for this: If you do see something spooky Halloween night, it won’t be me.

[@cristycoleman13]

The Ezekiel Harris house, it was civil war soldiers hung off the 13th step and people that lived around there have said to have seen a woman in black with a black veil crying on the balcony. My mom lived near there, and heard a lot of people talk about it.

[@firefighterd1265]

One of my favorites as of yet. Kirby should do one about the Continental Airport Hotel. I know it was torn down but the history there and its impact on Augusta since its time as a barracks is uncountable.

[@donniebrooke-prowrestleruf6735]

I have had 1 paranormal, or what I believe is or was paranormal, experience in my life. When I found out my aunt had passed, about 5-10 seconds after receiving the news, the volume on my CD player slowly lowered until there was 100% no sound at all. I saw on a paranormal documentary a few months earlier that electronics malfunctioning is a sign of alledged paranormal contact.

[@jesseozmore3264]

haha. Another bad driver hit the haunted piller again recently.

[@tntgolem5]

He was at my church

[@carolinrodriguez5248]

I have seen ghost , by Saint James Church on Green Street , downtown.

[@tigressbassgirl1122]

haunted piller no longer exists... was knocked down by a car awhile back