Ghosts with a Scottish Accent Traditional Cache
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Ghosts with a Scottish Accent
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Looking for a 35mm film canister, log only, BYOP. Easy park and grab.
Many colorful characters have called NC home during the long history of the place named by King Charles II of England in his own honor. One of the most fascinating Tar Hills of all time was Neill “Red” MacNeill, and early settler in the Upper Cape Fear Valley. Red MacNeill gained lasting fame in the middle of the 18th century when he introduced barbecued meat to southeastern NC. His culinary contribution is but one of his legacies. Another is his ghost, which is yet observed along the banks of the Cape Fear River in Harnett County.
In 1739, a group of 300 settlers began the great Scottish invasion of the Cape Fear Valley, which continued for more than a quarter of a century. Included in that group was a giant of a man. Standing six foot six, Neill MacNeill was known for his beautiful red hair and curly beard. To his Scottish brethren, he was known as Neill Ruadh “the Big Red One.”
An ex-sailor, Red MacNeill was by nature an adventurer and explorer. At his side more often than not was Archie Buie, his little bowlegged fried. Buie was a master of the bagpipes whose haunting tunes could be heard as he and Red traversed the countryside.
In 1753, he purchased a sixty-acre tract on the east bank of the river near Smileys Falls. Despite the beauty of his special piece of soil at Smileys Falls, Red MacNeill was possessed of a wonderlust that drove him to prepare for an expedition to the wilderness of the Yadkin River and beyond. Unfortunately, his plan never came to fruition because he was stricken during the fever epidemic of 1761.
With each passing day, death drew closer. Finally, one evening, the end was at hand. As he labored to breath, Red called Archie to his side and made his last request: “Bury me across the river and on the brow o’ Smiley’s Hill where it faces west. Yen ya ha’e buried me, speed me on my way wi’ a swirlin’ o’ the pipes.” Then blood flowed from his dry, cracked lips, and Red MacNeill passed over to the other side.
As much as Archie wanted to honor his friend’s last wish, nature would not cooperate. The rising waters of the Cape Fear rendered it impossible to move Red’s self made gum-log coffin across the river to the west bank. Instead the coffin was lowered into a grave prepared near his cabin within sight of Smileys Falls. After he shoveled the last spade of dirt on the grave, the diminutive fellow stood nearby and piped a doleful lament.
Not long after Red’s death, numerous accounts came from Smileys Falls of the eerie apparition of a red-headed giant standing on a rock, his arm pointing westward. Over the years, the sightings continued. Then, in the wake of General William T. Sherman’s crossing of the Cape Fear in March 1865, the river again flooded. When the raging current subsided, area residents discovered a gum-log coffin had washed ashore. Inside was the skeleton of a tall man with red hair and a red beard. Those familiar with the legend of Red MacNeill lovingly reinterred the coffin in the Smiley family cemetery on the west bank of the river. Perhaps they believed that his ghost would then disappear.
There is still more to the hauntings at Smileys Falls. It is said that at night, when the wind blows from the north, you can hear strange sounds faintly echoing down the river. If you listen closely, you will detect the forlorn strains of phantom bagpipes. Maybe the ghost of Archie Buie continues to serenade his beloved friend on the west bank of the Cape Fear, just as the little bowlegged Scotsman promised long ago.
I wonder if we stood in the right spot...what would we hear?
Congratulations for FTF: (drum roll, no bagpipes) CTULP
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