Salem Black River

South Carolina · USA · Cemetery

The story concerns a minister who lost his whole family and turned against everything he had preached. There is a shack behind the church that was his.

The legend at this church and graveyard near Sumter, South Carolina concerns a minister in the early 1900s whose family all died of illness, leaving him the only one alive.

He is said to have cursed God and turned to other things, and there is an old shack behind the church that was his. Late at night a light is sometimes seen in it.

Two corrections. This is a Presbyterian congregation, which has ministers rather than priests, and no record supports any of it.

What is real is the loss the story is built on. Epidemic disease in the rural south routinely took whole households within a fortnight, and a man who buried his wife and every one of his children in the same month was not a rarity. What such a man actually did afterwards was usually far quieter than this.

The church, known locally as the Brick Church, dates from 1846 and is a remarkable building.

It is a burial ground and an active congregation.

FAQ

Hvor ligger Salem Black River?

Salem Black River ligger i South Carolina, USA.

Image: Charlesinsumter / CC BY-SA 3.0 / Wikimedia Commons