A lot of Hamlet’s history will be shown at the Seaboard Festival this weekend, but last Saturday, a local group held a ghost walk to show the darker side of the town’s past.
People who went on last Friday’s Ghost Walk got to learn about history and have fun at the same time. The tour showed some of Hamlet’s spiritually busy areas.
“It’s good for the neighborhood. It gets people to come in. Some people have driven from Hickory, North Carolina, all the way to get here. It makes Rockingham better. It does help Hamlet. Our favorite thing to do for fun. People bought tickets for both nights. It’s the unknown. That’s why we’re all here. You might have something happen to you when you’re small and not know what it is. You just want to know what’s going on. Robert Humphries of Pee Dee Paranormal Investigations said, “Some of us have been trying to find answers for 30 years, and we’ll keep trying.”
The Ghost Walk this year was part of an event that ran for two nights. As part of the walk, people went through downtown Hamlet and learned about ghost stories and urban tales from different spots along the main street. Tour Guide Scott Tomestic told a lot of scary stories.
He talked about a little girl who is said to haunt the Hamlet Train Depot and a scary monkey who is said to haunt the rooms of the Hamlet Opera House. He and Humphries both agree, though, that the second floor of the old Birmingham Drug Store is the most haunted place in Hamlet.
The building owner, Eli. A. Lackey, and two of his brothers all died within three days of each other during the 1918 flu pandemic. It was a sad turn of events. His death must have been a terrible blow to the Lacky family, but he left his mark on the city of Hamlet.
There’s a chance that Mr. Lacky is still with us. He had an office on the second floor of the building, which PDRP was able to check out one time. “Eliejah” was the name that came up when we asked any ghost present in the spirit box to tell us their name. Eli is short for Elijah, but we’re not sure if E.A. Lackey ever used this name.
Was this a strange accident, or was Mr. Lackey just want to say hello?” Said Tomestic, who also said that several pieces of PDRP technology found signs of a presence in the building.
It’s going to be eight years since the Pee Dee Paranormal Investigations team first started giving tours in Rockingham. After several studies in downtown Hamlet, they decided to move the tour a little further east. The tour will now go through Hamlet on even-numbered years and Rockingham on odd-numbered years.
“This is something we saw a lot of other teams do for their communities, so we thought, why not give it a try in Rockingham?” Scott Tomestic planned and put it all together for us. He wrote the history.
He got together with Rockingham’s mayor, John Hutchinson, and together they learned about history, got all the information we needed, and put together this tour. “We help run the table when we get together,” Humphries said.
Once the tour was over, Pee Dee Paranormal opened the train station so that people who had been on the tour could have their own ghostly experience. Last Saturday, people tried to summon some ghosts with EMF Readers, digital recorders, and motion-activated gadgets.
“We love doing it.” We look into some places all over the country. We’ve been to Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and Georgia, among other places. If someone thinks something is wrong in their home and needs help, we can come to them.
One client called because she heard rinsing in her house. It wasn’t a ghost when we got there. It had to do with electricity. Someone from our team came out and fixed it. Everyone is pleased. It’s only good for the neighborhood. The only thing we’re doing is that, Humphries said.