Bluff

Shadowlands Haunted Places Index indicates that Old Bluff Church in Dunn, North Carolina is haunted. It says:
In about the 1820’s on Halloween day this church was having a sermon and the preacher flipped out and killed everyone in there and now if you go to the church and read the big stone memorial and walk up to the doors and read the sign and do what it tells you to then you will see a man with a lantern and he will wave you on.

Well, I could hardly wait. I sucked down some tea and watched signs for sheriff’s candidates and fish frys speed past. We found Old Bluff Church down a dirt and gravel road in a grove of trees with a cemetery out front. A sign by the drive said, “Old Bluff Presbyterian Church Org 1758.” It sure enough looked old. It was a two storey white frame building with a federal looking roof. The building featured a roofed porch with two sets of steps and railings. It looked kind of like a big house that had been turned into a community center or bank. Dusk was coming on and the church looked like it might indeed be a founding member of the Amityville Chamber of Commerce even as a bank. I looked at the stone memorial “dedicated to the memory of the pastors of Bluff Presbyterian Church. The Reverends.” A list of former pastors followed. It stopped with Angus R. McQueen’s tenure, which ended 1920. The shepherd that wigged out and slaughtered the sheep must have been Allan McDougland (1810-1844). The church looked like it was cared for and still holding services. Having read the big stone monument, I walked up the steps and read the sign afixed next to the door. It stated “Old Bluff Presbyterian Church on National Register C. 1855”. Okay, so I read the sign. I waited for Allan with his bad self to show up with a lantern. It was getting dark, after all. But Allan was busy elsewhere, or the job of church sexton had been outsourced to the Philippines, because no one showed up. With a lantern or otherwise.
As long as we were there, I decided to check out the cemetery. First, it seemed unusual to have the cemetery in front of the church. It might give the faithful a jolt on the way to the service to be reminded of their mortality. Then again, it might, in fact, be just what they needed to pay attention to the words of Nahum or Jeremiah. Many, many of the graves had silk or rayon flower arrangements. Several had Dollar Tree yard ornaments. A few had American flags. The citizens of the Coats area gave their creativity free rein in the venue of mortuary objets d’art. At least two people had photographs of themselves with bad hair and 1970s leisure wear attached to their tombstones. Reason enough to haunt whoever had done that to them. I stood by each of their graves and tried to get a vibe. The vibe I got was one of affectionate resignation. After all, I reasoned, they’d had 30 years to come to terms with it. Even in the October twilight there was so much color and personality to the cemetery, it was purt near festive. The only thing spooky about it was the pervasive sentimental sediment that covered the entire area. While I was pondering the uses of plastic resin (which never biodegrades) for spiritual, psychological comfort, a train of people on horseback came up the path that led from in front of the church into the woods off to the west. Men and women, children in colorful clothes and real Stetsons. The man leading the group asked me if they were disturbing me. Not at all. I concluded that the cemetery was a vital part of the community. A subterranean subdivision with few home decoration covenants. Had the residents been laid to rest in Cary, NC, I felt their memorials would be as uniform and bland as the markers at Arlington. I decided that Southerners who pass their dead kinfolk every Sunday morning, and probably every Wednesday night at choir practice, maintain a strong relationship with their MeeMaws and Aunt Biddys and children who died in car accidents or post-natal ICU. I got no sense of haunting from the church building itself. Strolling through the cemetery was like crashing somebody elses’ family reunion or a church Homecoming. It was a good feeling. Can ghosts inspire comfort and affection as well as fear? Yes. If there were ghosts in this place they had overpowered Allan McDougland, the blaster pastor, with their home-grown ‘mater mojo.
Another Old Bluff Presbyterian Church was located in town. We went to see it, just in case. It looked like White Memorial Presbyterian Church in Raleigh where I went to kindergarten. Sort of a sanitary, generic post WWII edifice, proud to be lacking in any character. I circumnavigated the building in one direction, Andy moved in the other. We met back up in front.
“Anything?” He asked me.
“Nah,” I said. It was getting cold. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “You?”
He shook his head.
Back in the car, I said, “How close is Fayetteville. I kind of like to check out the Subway ghost.”
“Done,” he said.