I was assigned to a tedious work project in Augusta, Georgia from December, 2002 to June, 2003. During my time there I heard about a pillar in the downtown area that locals believed was “cursed”. There are many legends that surround the origin of the pillar and how it came to be cursed. Some say that the pillar was once a whipping post for slaves. Some say that it was a pillar on an old slave market. Most seem to believe that the ghosts of the dead slaves will haunt you if you touch the pillar, and that the pillar can never be removed or destroyed. Here are a couple stories from Roadside America:

“There is what is called The Whipping Post. It was used in the Old South to punish slaves that misbehaved and such. Every attempt to remove this post has ended with the post still standing and the person dead or severely injured. One story I heard was that a slave chained there was into voodoo and cursed it, saying it would remain there forever as a reminder of the wrong done to his people. It’s quite interesting to see, and the people will readily tell you the stories about it if you ask.”

“I am a resident of Augusta, and the whipping post was not a whipping post at all. It is actually a pillar that was part of the old Lower Market which stood in the middle of Broad Street. The local legend is a black preacher, upset that local authorities prohibited him from preaching at the market, placed a curse on the actual pillar, which stood directly behind where he was trying to preach. Shortly thereafter, in 1878, a rare cyclone struck and leveled the entire market excluding the pillar. A year later when construction on a new market began, a local grocer bought the pillar for $50 and moved it to the corner of 5th and Broad. The tow men moving the pillar were struck by lighting.”

It’s a fun legend, but there really isn’t much to substantiate it. The second story above got the origin correct: the pillar once was part of a farmer’s market that stood at Broad and Fifth from 1830 until February 7, 1878 when a rare winter tornado destroyed it. In 1935, an automobile struck the pillar and reduced it to a pile of brick and cement. The driver was unhurt and the pillar was rebuilt by a local market owner. On Friday the 13th, 1958, the column was toppled by an oversized bale of cotton on a passing truck. The driver was not injured, but the column was moved eight feet back from the curb to protect it from further mishaps.

As for the preacher’s curse, nobody knows whether that really happened or not, and, as with all legends, nobody ever will. But the pillar lives on to frighten schoolchildren to this day.