Poinsett Bridge is located in northern Greenville County at 580 Callahan Mountain Road, Landrum. It is considered the oldest bridge in South Carolina, dating back to 1820, when Abram Blanding built it. The South Carolina Board of Public Works constructed the structure, which served as part of the original road connecting Greenville to Asheville. At the time, the route provided the best way to get across the South Carolina mountains into western North Carolina.
Work on Saluda Mountain Road began on July 17, 1820, with a labor pool of around 500 men. To make things worse, many of the men showed up to the site sick with Malaria that had struck the state earlier that year, which slowed the progress, including the availability of the local liquor. It should be added that the road, Poinsett Bridge, with two additional bridges, was completed in four months, and Poinsett is the only remaining bridge of the trio standing today.
Through the years, Poinsett Bridge has become a tourist attraction, gaining a reputation for being plagued by ghostly activity, such as vehicles not starting, screams being heard, mysterious lights seen in the area, and even orbs. Several legends exist about why this bridge is home to these unexplained sightings.
People have reported mixed feelings about whether the beautiful fourteen-foot, Gothic-style bridge is truly haunted or if the rumors are just due to its age and the mountainous area in which it sits. I often tell people who comment, “I never felt anything while visiting, or the classic line, “I’ve lived here my entire life and never saw anything!” that just because you haven’t experienced it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
According to one legend, some of the laborers who worked and died on this bridge from the malaria outbreak were buried under and even in the bridge itself. The historical record does not support this legend, but it was built in 1820, so anything is possible.
Another legend says that a mistreated enslaved person was killed here, and it continues to haunt the premises today. Like other ghost stories, several variations to this tale exist, with one saying that it was a young enslaved woman who was hanged from the bridge. While this is certainly feasible, the workers who built the Poinsett Bridge were not slave laborers but were indeed white workers. Still, in later years, near the beginning of the Civil War, it is possible that the event occurred at or near this location.
The last legend says the bridge is cursed and haunted by the Cherokee Indians who lived in this region because Poinsett Bridge was built upon an old Indian burial ground, dating back to when the Cherokees were the only inhabitants of the mountains of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee. According to Tally Johnson in his book Ghosts of the South Carolina Upcountry, an old Indian mound was destroyed to build the bridge. The Indian souls buried here were trampled by the feet of white men who took control of the land in the late 1700s and early 1800s to make way for the road that was built on the sacred sites.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.
