THE STORY
Reported Haunting
Near the remains of an old brick kiln at Brickyard Plantation, witnesses have reported a ragged female apparition appearing beside the road at dusk. She repeatedly moves her hands as if still molding clay, and sightings are said to occur within the same small area near Wampancheone Creek.
The Brickyard Plantation area of Mount Pleasant preserves part of the landscape once associated with the extensive brickmaking operations connected to Boone Hall and other Cooper and Wando River plantations. Clay from the creeks was molded and fired into enormous quantities of bricks by enslaved laborers. A particularly specific haunting is associated with the ruins of a nineteenth-century kiln near Wampancheone Creek. Witnesses describe a woman in ragged dark clothing standing in the grass near the roadside at dusk. Her face is obscured by long hair and her hands repeatedly move together in a motion reminiscent of molding clay. Accounts emphasize that sightings have occurred within roughly the same twenty-yard area and that the figure becomes increasingly translucent as the light fades. Local interpretation identifies her as the spirit of an enslaved woman who worked in the historic brickyard, although no historical identity has been established.