The Gray Man of Pawley’s Island

Author: Randall Sullivan

Image from hauntedlowcountry.com

The gray man of Pawley’s Island in South Carolina has hiked the shoreline for nearly 200 years. In addition, a lot like the Gray man of Hatteras, his existence predicts approaching jeopardy for the tiny island and the community that reside there. It appears that although he is accountable for saving people’s lives, he was incapable of saving his own life. There are few stories concerning the origin of the Gray Man. One of the stories illustrate that, in 1822, a youthful woman was living on the island with her relatives. One day she received information that her fiancée was going to unite her on the island subsequent to going to see his relatives.

Overjoyed with the message, she told the servants to cook all his preferred dishes and embellish the house in expectation for his coming. A time came for him to turn up, but no one showed. She waited for her fiancée for hours and only the fiancées servant visited with heartbreaking news.

As the two were roving down the path, her fiancée was in tremendous spirits and confronted his servant to a contest on their horses. They contested down the strand, and when he spotted a shortcut through a swamp, he determined to take it. Providence got involved and caused his horse to trip up, throwing him off. When he struggled to stand, he found himself

plummeting in quicksand. Regardless of his best attempts, neither he nor his servant was competent to free him, and the man submerged underneath the sand.

The reports nearly drove the girl crazy. She depleted hours hiking down the Pawley’s Island coastline. One day she was not at home on foot when she noticed a man paying attention over the ocean water. While she got nearer, she sensed that her stomach was tightening. She could not believe what she saw. When she got closer to the man, she was in no doubt that it was her fiancée. All of a sudden, a wave ruptured from the ocean, encompassing him. When the wave diminished, the man was not there. The girl told her relatives of what she had observed. Her family, certainly, thought that losing her fiancée started to take her mentality. That night, she had a terrible nightmare of being in a tiny boat in the ocean hurled by the ocean waves causing wreckage everywhere around her. All that time, her fiancée stood on a sandbank trying to signal her to him. The nightmare really frightened her. Hence, her dad took her and the entire family to Charleston to see a medical doctor.

That was providential. In hours of their departure, a typhoon smacked the coastline. When it ended, nearly all the residents of the North Inlet died. Becoming conscious that her fiancée had come back to save her from a horrific destiny, the girl returned to her ordinary self. Inhabitants of the Pawley’s Island assert that they still see the Gray Man. In 1954, a grandmother on holiday with her family noticed a man fully clad totally in gray fade to a twist before vanishing. The following day hurricanes shred through the region. One individual attempted to pursue the Gray Man barely to have him vanish before their eyes. Often when people see the Gray Man, the hurricanes leave their homes completely without a scratch whereas it decimates

the nearby homes. For natives who have spotted the Gray Man it is certainly that he came to caution them. 

Works Cited

Clary, Margie. The Gray Man of Pawley’s Island. Orangeburg: Written in Stone. 2004. Print.

            Katie, Harrison. “Haunted Low country: The Gray Man – Pawley’s Island, South Carolina.” Haunted             Lowcountry: Haunted Legends and Ghost Stories from Coastal South Carolina. Lowcountry    Paranormal, 18 June 2010. Web. 19 Oct. 2013.

            

Links for Further Research:

The Gray Man

http://themoonlitroad.com/the-gray-man/

Gives a small summary on a famed story of The Gray Man

Pawley’s Islands Ghosts

http://hauntedstories.net/ghost-stories/south-carolina/gray-man-pawleys-island

Gives one of the myths about The Gray Man