Asheboro's Historic Ghost Walk

If you should ever find yourself in a small, quaint, historic district of a modestly sized city, I believe you should be legally obligated to attend the local ghostwalk. A combination of local theater and local history that chills the blood while warming the heart, ghostwalks are as entertaining as they are informative, and perfect for those who love true crime and not-so-true crime alike.

I’ve seen quite a few in my day. The bus tour of the streets of Savannah, Georgia, was spooky. The haunted tour of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, was chilling. But, nothing filled me with as much ghoulish delight as the ghostwalk of Downtown Asheboro, North Carolina.

I knew the tour was going to be good the second I saw our tour guide emerge from the Recreational Office Building dressed head-to-toe in mourning black, complete with heeled boots, lace gloves, and a stylish veil. Her twangy voice spoke her lines with practiced ease, and like a Southern siren, she lulled the group down the main street of Downtown Asheboro.

Our very first stop was the railroad tracks, where we were regaled with the story of Nora Hammer Curtis, a young woman who died at the station in 1903, run over by the locomotive. Stories of the woman’s death varied. Some say she couldn’t hear the train coming over the noise of the mill. Others say her horse was spooked and wouldn’t move off the tracks. A few eyewitnesses say she threw herself purposefully in front of the train. It seemed her fate would remain a mystery… that is, until Nora Curtis herself walked over from across the street to tell us how her husband of three months had settled the estate and remarried a little too soon after her untimely demise.

(My first thought, of course, wasn’t “Holy Sh*t, a Ghost!” It was, “Holy Sh*t, Reenactors!” I think the second is actually scarier.)

But, Nora’s memory was fuzzy, and she doesn’t remember exactly what happened. She bid us farewell, since she had a train to catch (ba dum tss) and we moved along. We learned about an elderly man who’d committed suicide and used the tolling of the clock to cover the gunshot, and fourteen-year-old boy killed while working in the mill. We were told of a no-good drifter, Skinner Baldwin, who preferred to be a murderer than a father. We were told about poor Thomas Bowman, the sixteen-year-old runaway slave imprisoned in the courthouse who tried to escape by setting his clothes on fire, who begged and screamed for forgiveness when his plan failed and the burning roof caved in.

Naomi Weiss and her unborn child were killed at the hands of her husband Louis in April of 1806. Her tragic story became the basis of a well-known southern ballad, Poor Naomi. Our tour guide closed her eyes and began to sing. We stood, somber, bowing our heads for the loss of life – and then jumped out of our skin when a pregnant, barefoot woman in a white dress pushed her way through the crowd and fixed us all with a solemn, sunken-eyed stare before wandering across the street and disappearing into the woods.

We passed a house turned tea-shop where flickering lights and floating lanterns suggested the presence of lingering souls. We passed a bar known for containing a lot of spirits (ba dum tss) and the Morris Building, formerly the Asheboro Phone Exchange, where the ghost of the town’s first telephone operator is known to still shout gossip from the top floor.

For the sake of the tour, I won’t provide any more details. The characters you meet have a shocking ending in store for you; one that you will remember long after you drive out of the darkened city, checking your rearview mirror for ghosts.

If you have the chance to visit Asheboro in October, you can’t leave without touring the city’s scariest offerings. If you can’t get tickets for any of the tours, don’t fret: you can still experience the haunting subculture of the Downtown district by visiting Nannie Mae’s Bakery, formerly known as the Coffee Exchange and formerly, formerly known as J.W. Jolly’s Furniture and Undertaker. Besides having exquisite coffees, cookies, and pastries, the Bakery is also home to an old spirit named Harvey, who fell down the back staircase and broke his neck. If you turn away from your table, you might look back to find your plate rearranged, the napkin holder on the floor, or your coffee vanished.

Or, if Harvey’s having an off day, you’ll just find a cute town with lots of antique shops and a coffee so good it’s scary.

---Delaney Guidi