Connemara

Connemara, probably better known as the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, has quite a history surrounding it. Connemara started out as the summer home of Charleston, SC lawyer C. G. Memminger. He named the summer estate Rock Hill because of the large rock outcroppings on the property. Rock Hill was built in the late 1830's and Memminger was part of the first wave of the low country elite to make Flat Rock the "little Charleston of the mountains."

Memminger was named as the Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States of America at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. He stepped down from his Cabinet position in the Confederacy in 1864 and retired to Rock Hill in Flat Rock. Memminger decided to turn Rock Hill into a fortress by taking the front steps off of his front porch and boring holes in the walls so the house could be defended. Memminger wanted to guard against the lawless element of Union raiders, bushwhackers, and Confederate deserters that were roaming the mountains in Henderson County. The local government and law enforcement had broken down and were virtually non-existent during this time and due to raids on other estates in Flat Rock such as Beaumont, Memminger made defense of Rock Hill a priority.

From high on the side of Glassy Mountain, Rock Hill overlooked two of the main thoroughfares in Flat Rock, Little River Road and the Greenville Highway. The position of Rock Hill was so defensible that Memminger sent the President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, a letter advocating that the capitol of the Confederacy be moved from Richmond, VA to Rock Hill and Flat Rock. Memminger felt that Flat Rock could be defended for a long time until the Confederate government could be reorganized.

Memminger maintained Rock Hill as a summer home until his death in 1888 and in 1889, Rock Hill was sold to another Confederate veteran and fellow South Carolinian Colonel William Gregg, Jr. There is no evidence that Col. Gregg, Jr. ever lived at Rock Hill but he owned the home until 1899 when it was sold to another South Carolinian and Confederate veteran, industrialist and entrepreneur Ellison Adger Smyth. Smyth changed the name of the estate from Rock Hill to Connemara in honor of his Irish ancestry. He maintained it as a summer home until he retired in 1925 when Connemara became a permanent residence for the first time in it's almost 100 year existence. Smyth died in 1942 and Connemara sat vacant until 1945.

Connemara caught the eye of Lillian Sandburg, the wife of "the people's poet" Carl Sandburg. She wanted a warmer climate than that of their home in Michigan and a place to raise her prize winning goats. Carl Sandburg had done work for the Democratic Worker's Party in the early 1900's and is quoted as saying when they bought Connemara that it was "quite the baronial estate for an old socialist." His work with the Socialist Party also earned him a FBI file from J. Edgar Hoover. Connemara underwent more changes when Sandburg purchased than at any other time in its history. The house was modernized, dozens of bookshelves were installed for his massive library, and the original kitchen house was turned into a three car garage.

Sandburg enjoyed the quiet and the solitude that Connemara offered, something he referred to as the "quiet hush." He wrote about one-third of his works while living at Connemara and also won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1951 for his Complete Poems. He appeared before Congress in 1959 to give a Lincoln Day Address and he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Sandburg died in 1967 and the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site was opened in 1974.

I went to visit the Carl Sandburg home about three weeks ago and it was the first time I had been there since I took a class field trip about 40 years ago. Growing up in this area I had always heard it referred to as the Carl Sandburg Home without really being taught the history of the property. I had to do a lot of research for the Confederate history of the property and it is ironic that Connemara started out as a Confederate stronghold and ended up in the hands of a Socialist. The history of Connemara has mirrored that of the history of the United States from the Civil War to industrialization to someone who fought for worker's rights and social equality and was a voice of the people.

St. John's In The Wilderness Episcopal Church

I had shoulder surgery about six weeks ago and now that I am a little more mobile, I am taking this rare opportunity to go out and soak in some local history to places I have never been before even though I have often lived within three or four miles of these places. One of those such places is St. John's in the Wilderness Church in Flat Rock. I went over there the other day with my camera to take a few pictures and to soak in the history of the church and the cemetery on the property.

The history of Flat Rock begins with this church. Flat Rock had become a summer destination for the wealthy planter class from Charleston, SC by the 1830's to escape the oppressive heat and bugs. Charles Baring of the Baring Brothers Banking firm in London, England was one of the first to build a summer home here. He built a summer home called "Mountain Lodge" and a church on the property. The original church was destroyed by fire and in he rebuilt the church that was to become St. John's in the Wilderness in 1833-34. It was deeded to the Episcopal Church of North Carolina in 1836, the first one in North Carolina.

Walking around the cemetery was fascinating. Several historically relevant people are buried here. C.G. Memminger, the Secretary of the Treasury for the Confederate States of America from 1861-64, has his headstone adorned with Confederate flags; Andrew Johnstone, owner of Beaumont, who was murdered by bushwhackers in June of 1864 in his home is buried here; James Brown (not the Godfather of Soul), a soldier with Captain Vernor's Troop of the Royal Scot Greys that participated in the Battle of Waterloo has a crypt here and is the first person buried in the cemetery at St. John's.

The Facts About Helen's Bridge

Asheville Author Joshua P. Warren, who wrote Haunted Asheville, and Historian Vance Pollock both seem to agree that the only confirmed death that happened near Helen's Bridge and Zealandia Castle was a workman employed by Phillip S. Henry. This death was confirmed in the Asheville Gazette on May 6, 1906.

Pollock believes that the "Helen" could possibly be Helen Clevenger, who was murdered in 1936. She was a 19 year old college student that was shot and beaten to death and her body was left in Battery Park Hotel.

Author Thomas Wolfe mentions the bridge several times in his seminal work Look Homeward Angel that was published in 1929. I do not know what name Wolfe uses to reference the bridge and one of the characters in his book is named, Helen. The book also pre dates the Clevenger murder.

I agree with author Sarah Harrison of the Asheville Paranormal Society that Helen's Mountain and Helen's Bridge are a combination of the two legends. My belief is that Helen's Mountain is the country version and Helen's Bridge is the Urban legend.

Zealandia Castle

In writing my stories of "Helen's Bridge" and "Helen's Mountain", the facts seemed to be few and far between. Helen's Mountain seems to be all legend and 100% ghost story passed down from generation to generation. There seems to be no basis in fact, at least from what I could find.

Helen's Bridge is real. Helen's Bridge was built in 1909 by Phillip S. Henry to provide access to Zealandia Castle. Zealandia castle was built by John Evans Brown, a native of New Zealand, in 1889. In a Youtube video, published on October 22, 2013 entitled "Helen's Bridge and Zealandia Castle", Local Author Joshua P. Warren and the LEMUR Paranormal Society of Asheville, investigate Zealandia and the story behind Helen's Bridge. According to their report, Phillip S. Henry had a wife named Helen and they had a daughter. The daughter allegedly tragically burned to death in a fire in a room inside the castle. Helen was so distraught over the death of her daughter she committed suicide by hanging herself from the bridge.

During this Youtube video, the camera allegedly picks up a little girl's voice saying "Help me please" twice. The LEMUR Society goes back later that night and allegedly documents the oresence of a spirit inside the Castle.

WLOS Channel 13 also posted a story about Helen's Bridge around Halloween 2013 and at the very end of that story, some woman had taken a picture on the bridge, and you can see the faint outline of a little girl. This picture had been posted on Facebook and went viral.

Helen's Mountain-The Legend

This is the story of another Legend involving a woman named Helen. This one is about Helen's Mountain, located behind Lutheridge in Arden. This story goes something like this and was taken from ashevilleparanormalsociety.com's website and was written by Sarah Harrison. This is also the story I heard from my Third Grade Teacher Mrs. Linder. A woman named Helen and her daughter lived in a cabin on this mountain and a man broke in one night to rape Helen. In the struggle that ensued, a kerosene lantern was knocked over and the cabin burned down killing Helen and her daughter. If you go to the sight and say the incantation "Helen come forth" three times, a giant fireball appears and leaves a burned hand print on your car. Another consistency to the story is that your car will not start. That is the story retold to me by Mrs. Linder. Two Helen's, two legends, and two locations. Are the two Legends a combination of one story with a little bit of fact thrown in? My third article about Helen's Mountain and Helen's Bridge will try to separate the two Legends and sort out the facts.

Helen's Bridge- The Legend

I first heard of Helen's Bridge when I was in Mrs. Linder's Third Grade class at Hillandale Elementary School although in her ghost story, she referred to the location as "Helen's Mountain." It was a ghost story that Mrs. Linder told our Third Grade class one afternoon and she said she had experienced the ghost first hand. The story went something like this: A woman named Helen had lost her daughter in a house fire in the early 1900's and she was so distraught over the loss of her daughter that she had committed suicide near the spot where her house stood. After Helen's death, she roamed the mountainside in search of her daughter. If you drove to the spot where the house stood, you said the incantation "Helen come forth" two times, the ghost of Helen was supposed to appear. Mrs. Linder told us that her, her boyfriend/husband and another couple drove up to the spot late one night when she was younger, and they parked near where the house stood. The chimney to the house was still standing and they walked almost to the front steps. They all said "Helen come forth" in unison two times and as soon as they said it the second time, a giant ball of fire appeared from somewhere inside the remains of the house and came at them. Terrified, they all raced back to the car, and jumped in but the car wouldn't start. The driver let it roll backwards and he popped the clutch and the engine finally came to life. They sped home and it was not until they got home that they noticed two handprints that were burned into the hood of the car. It was a great ghost story that scared the crap out of a class of Third Graders. Mrs. Linder was quite the story teller. I am going to write a Part Two, the facts about what is really known about Helen's Bridge.

The Lost Confederate Gold

Everyone loves a treasure hunt. Especially when it involves gold. The mystery of the lost Confederate Gold has been debated for about 150 years. It is believed that Confederate President Jefferson Davis left Richmond, Virginia in May of 1865 with what is estimated to be about $500,000 in Confederate Gold coins, bullion, and private Virginia bank funds.

Davis and his entourage and the majority of the gold made it to the town of Washington, GA around the middle of May, 1865. This is the point where the Confederate Gold gets lost and many theories abound as to what happened to it. Many believe that Confederate Naval Paymaster James A. Semple was entrusted with $86,000 of the Confederate Gold and him and the money virtually disappeared into history some time after he left Augusta, GA.

Another theory proposes that a gentleman named Sylvester Mumford, who was supposedly present at the last Confederate Cabinet meeting when the gold was divided up among the remaining members of Davis's trusted circle, eventually took it to England with him.

Another theory has the caravan that eventually headed back to Richmond with the money was robbed by local Confederate and Union forces still in the area and the money was gone with the wind after that.

One more theory has chief clerk of the Confederate Navy Department, Edward M. Tidball, that was with Semple for part of his journey, stopped somewhere along the way and they divided the money between the two of them. It is believed that Tidball then returned to his home in Winchester, VA with almost $30,000 of the Confederate Treasury Gold. It was never found and he left no clue as to it's whereabouts.

One of the last theories has the belief that there was no money left by the time Davis reached Washington, GA. The Confederate troops knew the cause was lost, most had not been paid in months and the gold was used to pay off the Confederate troops encountered along the route from Richmond to Washington, GA.