#119: History of Charleston's Old City Jail, more Ghost Tours, and the murderess Lavinia Fisher
For South Carolina history lovers far and wide! Published weekly on Monday mornings. Enjoy weekly SC history articles, interviews w/ experts, book recommendations, and upcoming SC historical events.
Dear reader,
Welcome to SC History Newsletter #119!
In a funny time warp of sorts, I’m writing this newsletter early in anticipation of the exciting weekend ahead where my husband is running the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC! So by the time you get this email, he will have finished the Marathon and I hope we will have made it back to Greenville in one piece. :)
I also hope you enjoy our second Halloween-themed newsletter of the month. Lots of spooky stuff ahead!
As always, I’d like to welcome the following new subscribers to our community. Thank you for your interest in South Carolina history!
michaelcasehill
matthewapearce27
harris.db92
ashbysanders
mfondren
bettyack
kmcclure
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And now, let’s learn some South Carolina history!
Yours truly,
Kate
(Writing from Greenville, SC)
➳ Featured SC History Events
Please note our featured SC History Event below, and click here to visit my SC History Events Calendar that organizes all the upcoming SC history events I have discovered.
Please let me know if you’d like to add an event to the calendar! Reply to this email to send me your events.
Event Recommendation of the Week:
Dates throughout end of October | “Charleston Haunted Jail Tours” | with Bulldog Tours | Charleston, SC | Tickets & information
“Join us for a memorable tour of the ground level of the Old City Jail, which housed some of Charleston’s most infamous criminals. Bulldog Tours, exclusively, guides guests through the cells, hallways and places where Charleston’s earliest criminals lived. Get a glimpse of how the incarcerated were mistreated with primitive forms of torture while living in miserable conditions. Hear stories like the legend of Lavinia Fisher, the jail’s most famous inmate and first female serial killer. Since Bulldog's first tour of this storied place in 2004, guests have returned again and again to make their own discoveries about what has transpired in this historic site.”
➳ SC History Book, Article, & Movie Recommendations
“Six Miles to Charleston: The True Story of John and Lavinia Fisher (True Crime)” by John LaVerne
Publisher’s description:
“In 1819, a young man outwitted death at the hands of John and Lavinia Fisher and sparked the hunt for Charleston's most notorious serial killers. Former homicide investigator Bruce Orr follows the story of the Fishers, from the initial police raid on their Six Mile Inn with its reportedly grisly cellar to the murderous couple's incarceration and execution at the squalid Old City Jail. Yet there still may be more sinister deeds left unpunished, an overzealous sheriff, corrupt officials and documents only recently discovered all suggest that there is more to the tale. Orr uncovers the mysteries and debunks the myths behind the infamous legend of the nation's first convicted female serial killer."
Have you read this book? Tell us your review! Leave a comment below!
➳ SC History Topic of the Week:
Did you know that Charleston’s Old City Jail is considered the most haunted building in South Carolina?
It’s true! Charleston’s Old City Jail is considered “the most haunted building in South Carolina” and was an operating prison between 1802 and 1939.
The jail housed a patchwork of historical figures including “pirates of the high seas,” bootleggers, Union soldiers who were POWs during the Civil War, the leader of the infamous slave rebellion of 1822 year, Denmark Vessey (who I promise I will write a separate newsletter about soon!), and many others.
The jail is located at the corner of Franklin and Magazine streets in the Harleston Village neighborhood of Charleston. It was originally part of a 40-acre parcel of land set aside for public use in 1680, as a part of Charleston’s earliest settlement. The jail was built on this parcel along with a poor house, a hospital, and a “workhouse for slaves.”
Per the image above, when the jail was constructed in 1802, it had 4 stories and a 2-story octagonal tower. In 1855, the architecture firm Barbot & Seyle added Romanesque Revival details and alterations.
Noted South Carolina architect Robert Mills had also contributed to the building with a fireproof wing in the back of the building that contained individual prison cells. The jail had 18-foot walls around its perimeter.
Architect Robert Mills wrote in the Statistics of South Carolina in 1826:
"The public prison is situated on Magazine Street...It is a large three story brick building with very roomy and comfortable accommodations...There has been lately added to it a four-story wing building, devoted exclusively to the confinement of criminals. It is divided into solitary cells, one for each criminal, and the whole made fire proof. A spacious court is attached...Very good health is enjoyed by the prisoners. The work house, adjoining the jail is appropriated entirely to the confinement and punishment of slaves. These were formerly compelled only occasionally to work; no means then existing of employing them regularly and effectually. The last year the City Council ordered the erection of a tread-mill; this has proved a valuable appendage to the prison, and will supercede every other species of punishment there."
A “penal treadmill” or an “everlasting staircase” was a treadwheel with steps on which prisoners would walk continuously in order to turn a wheel and “mill corn, pump water.” These treadmills were used in jails in both England and the United States in the 19th century as a way of “exerting hard labor, a form of punishment” for prisoners.
In 1886, the Charleston earthquake rendered significant damage to the jail building and it lost an entire story (!) and today remains only three stories tall.
At the height of its operations, the jail was organized so that each floor harbored a different type of inmate:
“The ground floor accommodated the jailers and the “gentleman” prisoners. The second floor held the minor criminals like debtors and prostitutes, and the third floor retained the hardened criminals such as murderers and thieves.”
Most of the criminals in the jail were there for “petty crimes.” Prisoners who died in the jail typically died of natural causes or disease. But there were more serious offenders who were hanged in the jail yard.
Prior to the Civil War, slaves waiting to be auctioned would also be kept in the jail yard.
During the Civil War, so many Union army prisoners of war came through the jail that at one point, there were too many to house in the building and they were forced (under supervision) to sleep in dilapidated tents outside of the jail.
One group of Union army soldiers housed in the jail were “the remnants from” the famous 54th Massachusetts African American Regiment.
The jail also housed an infamous historical figure who, according to urban legend, has become known as the “new world's first female serial killer.” Her name was Lavinia Fisher.
Historians are still working to decipher what is real and what is myth, but the story goes that Lavinia Fisher and her husband John Fisher ran an inn called the Six Mile Wayfarer House, which was (you guessed it) 6 miles north of Charleston.
Apparently, Lavinia was known locally for her beauty, to the point where she had won local beauty pageants. She would lure travelers into the inn and ask them questions about their occupations to determine if they had money. If they were a “good target,” Lavinia would brew them a cup of poisoned tea, which would cause them to fall asleep.
From there, I’ve read 2 versions of the story: one version says that Lavinia’s husband would beat the sleeping victims to the point of death, and another version says that once her victims were asleep, Lavinia would pull a lever, and the bed would collapse and drop her victims into a pit.
At one point, two of the Fishers’ victims managed to escape and notified the police about the bloody goings-on at the Six Mile Wayfarer House. The Fishers were arrested and plead not guilty — but were kept in the Charleston Old City Jail until their trial. They occupied a 6 x 8 ft cell. They tried to escape but their attempt failed.
The Constitutional Court pronounced the Fishers guilty and on February 4, 1820, both John and Lavinia Fisher were sentenced to be hanged. The trial was the talk of the city and sensationalized by the local papers.
According to urban legend, Lavinia’s final request was to be executed in her wedding dress.
One can only imagine the scene of Lavinia, hands and feet shackled, wearing her white wedding dress while being marched to the gallows at the Old City Jail. Throngs of people were there to witness her hanging.
Once Lavinia reached the gallows, it is said that she grabbed the noose, put it around her own neck, and yelled out to the crowd:
"If any of you have a message for the devil, tell me now, for I shall be seeing him shortly!"
After Lavinia Fisher was executed, she was buried in a potter’s field near the Old City Jail, and almost immediately after she died, inmates at the jail reported hauntings of Fisher wearing her wedding dress. Visitors to the jail to this day have also reported sightings of Lavinia’s ghost.
In 1911, a man named Daniel Duncan, a convicted murderer, was the last person to be hanged at the Charleston Old City Jail.
By the 1930s, the jail was in decline and the city wanted to build a low-income apartment building across the street. If you can believe it, the plan was to build a playground inside the jail yard!
After 136 years as the Charleston City Jail, the building was decommissioned and closed its doors on September 16, 1939. The jail sat abandoned and was used for storage for the next 40 years, until it became a museum in the 1970s. In the 1990s, the Charleston Housing Authority sold the jail building and it became a part of the American College of the Building Arts.
When it was a part of the American College of the Building Arts, the jail building became an ongoing project for their students. The Dean Emeritus of the school, Simeon Warren, discusses in the video below that the inside of the jail has every building material — stone, brick, plaster, metal, wood — which makes it an “ideal building in which to train people how to restore buildings.”
In 2016, the jail was purchased by Landmark Enterprises and made into a private event venue known as Twenty-One Magazine. See beautiful photos of the updated venue here.
Founder and Head Tour Guide of Bulldog Tours, John Laverne, says that in this time period, there was a lot of work being done to stabilize the Old City Jail, and there was often a lot of sawdust on the ground. At night the workers would lock up the jail/construction site and turn on all the alarms. In the morning, in the 2-3 inches of saw dust on the ground, the workers would see many sets of footprints, believed to be spirits of the jail roaming the building after hours.
Here is a video from SC ETV about the ghosts of the Charleston Old City Jail:
In 2001, John Laverne’s group Bulldog Tours began to give ghost tours in the Old City Jail.
The Old Charleston Jail has needed a lot of historic restoration “TLC” over the years, and I was pleased to find that Bulldog Tours has contributed over $1 million to the restoration of this historic building!
Happy Halloween this week, everyone!
Have you been on a tour of the Charleston Old City Jail? Any ghost hauntings? Tell us about your experience!
➳ Sources — Old Charleston City Jail
"Old Charleston City Jail." Atlas Obscura, www.atlasobscura.com/places/old-charleston-city-jail. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Charleston Old City Jail." Past Perfect Online, Charleston.pastperfectonline.com/Archive/787BA3D8-DEF6-49DC-BC25-818403543113. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Ghosts of Charleston’s Old City Jail." SCETV, www.scetv.org/stories/2019/ghosts-charlestons-old-city-jail. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
Ghost City Tours. "The Haunted Charleston Jail." Ghost City Tours, www.ghostcitytours.com/charleston/haunted-places/charleston-jail. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"The Legend of Lavinia Fisher." Genteel & Bard, 12 Oct. 2022, genteelandbard.com/southern-history-haunts-folklore-journal/2022/10/12/the-legend-of-lavinia-fisher. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Lavinia Fisher." Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavinia_Fisher. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Old City Jail of Charleston." US Ghost Adventures, usghostadventures.com/haunted-places/the-old-city-jail-of-charleston. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Who Was Lavinia Fisher?" Charleston Terrors, charlestonterrors.com/lavinia-fisher-the-first-female-us-serial-killer. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
"Who Was Lavinia Fisher and What Haunts the Old Charleston Jail?" America’s Most Haunted, 19 Nov. 2015, www.americas-most-haunted.com/2015/11/19/lavinia-fisher-and-the-old-charleston-jail. Accessed 22 Oct. 2024.
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