the devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Geographers and historians have often referred to Bladen County as the “Mother of Counties” in North Carolina, since so many of the state’s one hundred counties were created from land that once fell within Bladen’s boundaries. Perhaps a more appropriate nickname would be “Grandmother of Counties,” for it was Bladen’s first child, Anson County, that gave birth to all of the counties in the western half of the state. Established in 1750 as the fifteenth county in the colony, Anson once stretched westward from Bladen to the Mississippi River and included all of what is now the state of Tennessee. Now greatly reduced in size, the modern county covers 536 square miles.
Historians believe that the first white settler put down roots in the area now encompassed by Anson in 1740. Prior to that time, this land was the domain of the Catawba Indians. And so, in this ancient county, it is fitting that Anson’s oldest haunted spot should be associated with its Indian residents of long ago.
Approximately three and a half miles northeast of the county seat of Wadesboro, NC 742 crosses Gould’s Fork Creek. Located not far from the highway bridge in an almost inaccessible location is a small, spooky cave that has been the site of strange happenings and bizarre tales since the arrival of Anson’s first permanent settlers.
Catawba hunting parties in search of shelter are said to have carved the cavern out of solid rock. In its dark, damp, creepy interior is a single room. It measures roughly eight by ten feet and has enough clearance for a man of average height to walk in relative comfort. Strange markings—not the usual graffiti—are on the walls. Odd-shaped holes in the cavern are said to have held the peace pipes of the Indians.
While camping here, the Catawbas reportedly buried gold on the surrounding property. As a result, the adjacent landscape is pockmarked with many holes—evidence of the treasure hunting that has gone on here. As far as anyone knows, none of the precious metal hidden by the Indians has ever been found. And for good reason. Few people who have mustered the courage to venture to this ominous place have lingered long, for phantom voices emanate from the vicinity of the cave. The strange voices are said to belong to Indian spirits who gather at the site to discuss their gold.
A man whose house stood nearby refused to rebuild his dwelling in the mid-1950s after the original structure burned. Instead, he chose to live elsewhere because of the frightening voices coming from the Indian Rock, as the cave is known locally.
There is more to the legend. After the Catawbas were forced to abandon the cave following the influx of white settlers, the darkest, most menacing of all supernatural forces took up residence at the Indian Rock. The devil himself slept in the cave and used a nearby natural stone floor as his racetrack. Close by is an enormous, flat rock set flush with the ground. Much in the tradition of the more famous Devil’s Tramping Ground in Chatham County, items placed on the stone bed during daylight hours mysteriously vanish when darkness engulfs this desolate place. Area residents claim that Satan removes the objects when he uses his racetrack under cover of night.
So remote and so hidden are the cave and the racetrack that they are almost impossible to find. Maybe that is as it should be. Most folks in Anson County agree that it is best to leave both the ghosts of the Catawbas, who guard hidden gold, and the devil, who amuses himself at his stone race course, to their supernatural devices at this place called Indian Rock.
CABARRUS COUNTY
A Man’s Treasure, A Woman’s Grave
Evil flourishes far more in the shadows than in the light of day.
Jawaharlal Nehru
Throughout recorded history, gold has consistently remained one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Because of its enduring value, the precious metal has been associated with crime, mystery, intrigue, and greed down through the ages. It is not surprising, then, that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the wake of the opening of the first gold mine in North Carolina, one of its shafts was the setting of a mysterious crime. Even today, the cries of the ghost of the unfortunate murder victim can be heard and its presence felt in the famous Reed Gold Mine.
Cabarrus County emerged as the site of the first gold rush in the United States not long after twelve-year-old Conrad Reed pulled a seventeen-pound nugget from Meadow Creek on his father’s farm on a Sunday morning in 1799. When the lad displayed his find to his parents, they didn’t know what it was. For a time, Conrad’s father, John Reed, used it for a doorstop. It was in 1802 that he finally learned it was gold. John Reed sold the entire piece in Fayetteville for what he termed “a big price”—three dollars and fifty cents.
When he returned home, John was delighted to find numerous pieces of gold—some even larger than the first chunk—scattered in the creek. Cognizant that his farm was literally resting atop a gold mine, the former Hessian soldier of the American Revolution associated himself with several local businessmen. Together, they opened the mine that continues to bear Reed’s name. From the time the Reed Gold Mine commenced operation until the California gold rush of the mid-nineteenth century, Cabarrus County and the surrounding area led the nation in gold production.
Extensive manpower was required to bring forth the copious quantities of gold from the mine on the Reed farm. Every day, large numbers of men descended the deep, dark shafts to harvest the treasure. In order to ensure that the laborers did not steal any of the precious metal, mine bosses monitored activities below the surface. One such overseer at the Reed Gold Mine was a coarse, hard-drinking man known to the miners and most other people in the community simply as “Boss.”
Despite his callous nature, Boss somehow convinced a lovely blond Englishwoman to marry him. From the beginning, however, the marriage was beset with problems. Boss did little to endear himself to his strikingly beautiful bride. She quickly soured on the relationship and developed a strong desire to return to England.
One night, after hours of ceaseless squabbling, Boss agreed to allow his wife to make the transatlantic voyage to visit her family and friends. The greatly relieved woman promptly packed her belongings into trunks and made preparations for the trip, which would take her to Charlotte by horse and buggy, to New York City by train, and then to England by ship. The joyous news was sent ahead to her family across the sea.
Early one Tuesday morning, after his wife exchanged farewells with her friends, Boss took the reins of the fully loaded horse-drawn buggy. Off they went on the eight-hour journey to Charlotte. No one ever again saw the woman alive.
Boss reported for work at the “lower hill” at the regular time on Wednesday morning. Weeks passed without incident, until his wife’s family reported that their loved one had not arrived as expected. Boss was somewhat defensive about the matter. He insisted that he had put his wife on the train in Charlotte.
A subsequent investigation yielded no leads to the disappearance. It was as if the woman had vanished from the face of the earth. Given Boss’s reputation as a ruffian, gossip spread throughout the mining community that he had done away with his wife.
One morning, a miner informed Boss that he had detected a strong, foul smell at the entrance to an unworked tunnel. Accompanied by three workers, Boss made his way to the site and was quick to volunteer to lead the way into the shaft to determine the source of the odor. Several other men, holding candles high to provide illumination, followed their foreman at a distance.
As the little expedition made its way into the bowels of the earth, the tunnel narrowed to the point that there was room for only one person. Boss forged onward while the others remained
