With creepy South Carolina legends like the Lizardman of Scape Ore Swamp and the Boo Hags of the barrier islands, the spine-tingling tale of the Blue Lady in South Carolina seldom gets told. But this sad tale and the little girl at the heart of it are anything but forgotten to the locals where The Blue Lady lives on.
The legend of The Blue Lady begins with a major hurricane that washed ashore in 1898 in what is now Hilton Head Island.
Just eight years earlier, in 1880, the 87-foot Hilton Head Range Rear Light was completed on what was mostly an undeveloped island.
At the time, there were two lights near to one another, but the rear light was the tallest and also the farthest from the ocean. The lights included a light keeper's house and some ancillary structures such as a building for storing the oil that fueled the lights.
The Rear Range light keeper, a man by the name of Fripp, would climb to the top of the light with oil in tow to fill the lamp.
In 1898, an enormous hurricane swept in to the coast of Georgia pushing a storm surge and powerful winds onto the Range Rear Light, making the task of keeping oil in the structure's light a challenging physical task for Fripp.
At some point during the night he died while up on the light's deck. His young daughter Caroline is said to have kept up the fueling of the lantern until she, too, somehow died up in the tower during the storm.
Both bodies were discovered in the days following the hurricane. Fripp's eyes were closed and covered with pennies. It's assumed Caroline is the one who placed the pennies over Fripp's eyes.
And Caroline? She was discovered deceased only a few feet from her father. Her blue dress was tattered and torn from the strong winds of the hurricane, and presumed to be torn by the winds whipping at her clothing as she climbed the tower to refuel the light in her father's absence.
Today the Range Rear Light stands on what is the 15th hole of a Hilton Head golf course.
The light keeper's cottage was eventually moved over to Harbour Town. Visitors and locals alike have reported seeing Caroline on the porch pacing back and forth looking for her father.
Now dubbed The Blue Lady, Caroline is also spotted on occasion, over at the Leamington Light (another name for the Range Rear Light). Her blue dress gives her away.
Have you ever heard the legend of The Blue Lady in South Carolina? What about The Gray Man? We're certainly covering a broad swath on the color spectrum!
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