The Old City Jail and the Ghost of Lavinia Fisher

Charleston Old City Jail, 21 Magazine Street

Halloween is on its way with its creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night.........and so a good old Charleston ghost story might be in order! The Old Jail is certainly the right place to look for a spooky story. Built in 1802, it housed the most guilty along with the wrongly imprisoned.  Of those spooky stories, none is more spell-binding than that of Lavinia Fisher.

You may wonder how John and Lavinia Fisher came to be housed in the Old Jail. Here is the story: mostly true....maybe part legend. You be the judge!

In 1820, both John and Lavinia Fisher were executed after being found guilty of highway robbery (which was punishable by death in those days). Lavinia has often been given the dubious honor of being the first female serial killer, but wicked and rough as she was, there is no actual proof that she ever murdered anyone. John and Lavinia owned an inn six miles out of Charleston known as the Six Mile Wayfarer's Inn. Many weary travelers stopped for respite before they made their way into or out of Charleston. It was a congenial place with a hospitable host and a beautiful hostess. The trouble began when several people who had checked into the inn apparently went missing.  The authorities were notified by the families of those missing and an investigation was made; however, there was not enough evidence to determine that any of the missing had become the victims of foul play at the Fishers' inn. They did, however, determine a group of Highwaymen who used the inn as their headquarters and took the means they thought were necessary to shut them down. One man, David Ross, was left behind to spend one night at the inn. He was accosted by some of the men and when he turned to Lavinia for help, he was shocked when she began to choke him with her bare hands and ram his head into a window! He escaped with his life and headed back into town to tell what had happened.

In the meantime, a man by the name of John Peoples innocently stopped by the inn with the intent of finding a bed for the night.  At first, Lavinia told him that there were no rooms available, but she invited him in to rest by the fire and have a cup of tea. Mr. Peoples welcomed a rest before he continued his journey, but he did not like the tea Lavinia served him. Not wanting to hurt her feelings or to be impolite, he emptied the cup into a plant while she was out of the room. On her return, she plied him with so many questions that he began to feel uneasy. She did bring the news, however, that there was, indeed, a room available for him. Weariness won out over his unease and Mr. Peoples decided to take the room for the night. (Now we are moving in that wonderful land of legend!) The story goes that Mr. Peoples, uneasy about the situation, decided to sit in a chair for the night which would give him a clear view of the door.  In the middle of the night, he heard a great creaking and cracking and watched in amazement as the mattress flipped over into a pit below the room.  Supposedly, Lavinia would poison the tea, or at least lace it with a sleeping potion and John would turn a crank to drop the unsuspecting guest in a pit where he would, sadly, meet his end.........or so the legend says.....

In truth, John Peoples was attacked and robbed and promptly headed into Charleston to the police station to make his report. This report, combined with the report of David Ross, gave the authorities all the cause they needed to arrest John and Lavinia. They were taken to the Old City Jail and shared a cell as they awaited trial. They made a plan to escape by tying sheets together and climbing out of their cell. John went first and made it out, but the ladder of sheets broke and Lavinia was trapped.  He returned to jail rather than desert Lavinia.

The Fishers were tried, convicted of highway robbery and sentenced to hang. Their sentence was carried out in February of 1820. John went to his death with relative calm, but Lavinia used every ploy she could think of to change her fate. She invoked a law that exempted a married woman from being executed, so the judge promptly determined that John would die first, thus leaving Lavinia a widow - and an UNmarried woman.  She tried to seduce any man she saw to marry her (she knew there would be a priest in attendance at the execution) and save her from the noose. When all else failed, she railed, screamed, cursed, kicked and had to be forcibly carried to the place of execution. Newspapers of the time reported that over 1,100 people were present to witness her execution. From the stream of curses and vindictive screams came her last words:  "If you have a message for hell, give it to me. I'll carry it."

It is said that Lavinia's ghost haunts the old jail and many "ghostbusters" have tried to prove it.  If you're not too SCARED, have a look at one of the many videos made there and posted on youtube.

The Old City Jail has undergone a welcome transformation from its ignoble past and now houses the American College of Building Arts,  "dedicated to educating the next generation of building artisans and to preserving the building arts in a manner never before seen in America. Under the direction of our experienced faculty, students have the opportunity to receive a quality liberal arts education while they learn the skills needed to excel in their chosen field. This combination of education, training, and access to highly experienced faculty is available nowhere else in the United States."

Be sure to watch this video clip from The Early Show on CBS, highlighting the American College of Building Arts. This College is the only one of its kind in the nation and moves this historic building from serving as a place of shame to housing a college worthy of great pride.