From ghost tours to trunk-or-treats, spooky season in Beaufort is linked to history
At twilight in downtown Beaufort, along the pitch-black, Spanish moss-draped streets of the Point, actors dressed as spirits waited behind bushes, parked cars and wrought-iron gates to deliver Halloween warnings.
The ghosts greeted and scared guests taking Halloween tours of the city’s historically haunted areas. For decades, the Child Abuse Prevention Association of Beaufort has taken paying guests through downtown and the Point on foot and in horse-drawn carriages, telling the stories of historic homes and the ghosts who haunt them.
Beaufort is home to many spirits with various dispositions, the guide said. There’s the mischievous woman and girl who move paintings around at Rhett Gallery, to the amusement of the staff. There are the Sams children, who still play in the front yard of the family home. There’s the Belle of Beaufort, who agreed to marry her husband only if he built her a beautiful house. He made the house look bigger than it actually was, and he’s been paying for it ever since, working on his wife’s dream home into the afterlife.
The Lowcountry becomes a spooky place in the fall. Halloween costumes hit the shelves around September, and once the temperature drops a little bit, the ghost tours begin. Some are on foot, including the nightly Bells and Burials of Beaufort; CAPA has walking tours and also packs visitors into small horse-drawn carriages on weekend evenings.
On Friday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m., the horse’s name was Wyatt. He was periodically fed from a bucket of carrots as a reward for crossing streets. He kept the carriage on track even through terrifying predicaments like ghost encounters, a near-invasion by a gang of angry pirates and two references to the Civil War as the “war of northern aggression.”
Getting a costume
Ghost tours are important to the local Halloween economy, but others benefit as well. Bluffton consignment shop Once Upon A Child has collected Halloween costumes since it started taking donations in January, owner Leah Baker said. The store opened in March with one small rack of costumes for purchase, but in September the costumes, Halloween books and outfits came out in full force, she said.
“We had rolling z-racks through the first aisle taking up too much space and the first few bays when you walk into the store,” Baker said. “We are collecting for next year, even, but we’re hoping to sell what we have on the floor right now, so we don’t have to see it again next year or pack it away.”
Customers started coming in and asking for Halloween goods in September, when the weather was still warm, she said. That was a bit puzzling at first, Baker said, but it also made sense because there are so many trick-or-treating events in the area in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Multiple trunk-or-treat events took place in Beaufort and Bluffton before Halloween, including the city of Beaufort’s Halloween celebration and the Bluffton Police Department’s annual Safety Spooktacular.
“Our costumes are so inexpensive, you could change for every trick-or-treat to Halloween, and you can always sell it back for next year,” Baker said. Halloween merchandise was 50% off two days before the holiday.
One thing that was missing in the Lowcountry this year was a Spirit Halloween. The retail chain, which pops up inside vacated department store spaces for about three months a year, historically had locations on Hilton Head Island near Coligny Beach and in Bluffton at Tanger Hilton Head. But no such luck this year. The closest Spirit location to the area is over the Georgia border in Savannah.
Marisa Simonson, senior manager of brand image and public relations for Spirit, declined to provide specifics on why the Halloween store didn’t come to Beaufort County in 2025.
Spirit looks for space in lifestyle centers, strip malls, freestanding stores, major downtown retail locations and large malls surrounded by a mix of national retailers, she said.
“Ideal locations for a Spirit Halloween store range from 5,000 to 50,000 square feet of sales floor space with great visibility,” Simonson said.
Lingering spirits
Whether the nation’s leading Halloween retailer is in town, the spooky season spirit is palpable in Beaufort County.
Actors with ghoulish face makeup appeared almost out of nowhere as the carriage pulled by Wyatt made its way down New and Craven streets.
The guide told many unsettling stories, like how enslaved people kept shutters over the windows of their tiny homes to keep the bad spirits away and how urban legend says that the phrase “saved by the bell” came out of the yellow fever. Apparently, people who had yellow fever often went into comas or trances, leading to live burials, so doctors would attach a bell to patients’ wrists in case they woke up so they could be saved.
Urban legend says that’s how the phrase “saved by the bell” started; whether that’s actually true is at least up for debate.
But even with all the jump scares and unsettling stories of live burials, there were some true stories of resilience. One is the story of Robert Smalls, who was enslaved by a Beaufort planter named Henry McKee as a child and won his freedom by turning a Confederate ship over to the United States Navy. Smalls used his reward money to buy McKee’s house and eventually served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Beaufort’s ghost stories are inextricably linked with its history. The Castle on Craven Street, once a Civil War military hospital, is said to be haunted by the ghost of a jester named Gauche. A home built by plantation owner John Mark Verdier is haunted by the ghost of Verdier’s son. The ghost of a formerly enslaved woman is said to wave a lantern from her front porch, guiding people home in the darkness.
The city’s status as a Union stronghold during most of the Civil War made it a place where formerly enslaved people could find success after enduring unimaginable horrors – and despite that trauma, some of their ghosts decided to stay and make the city their own.
And even during Halloween, arguably the busiest time of year for urban legends, it’s that link to history and the truth that makes for the most powerful ghostly tales.
This story was originally published October 31, 2025 at 12:01 AM.