Trick-or-Treat to take place Thursday, Oct. 30 in Blackshear City Park
Activities will begin at 5:30 p.m.
Is there a spirit at the Courthouse?
Is the Pierce County Court House really haunted?
The landmark in the center of Blackshear and symbol of our county was completed in 1902 and has been recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.
However, it has been rumored to have a spirit (or maybe two) roaming its halls.
The most recent ghost story came during the$2 million renovations to the facility that were completed in 2006.
In an effort to save on renovation costs, the county used inmate labor from the Georgia Department of Corrections to complete the project.
Then County Chairman, the late Mitch Bowen, told about the inmate who had an encounter with a “spirit” while working in the second floor stairwell outside the main courtroom.
“He was scared out of his wits,” Bowen related at the time. “He begged to be put to work in the basement rather than sent to work on the second floor again.”
The inmate reported seeing a man with flowing white hair and flowing robes dressed in all white and shining with light.
“He kept telling his detail supervisor and his fellow inmates ‘there’s a ‘haint’ up there’,” Bowen said.
Former Sheriff Richard King, who was in office at the time, discounts the ghost story.
“I always believed it was the Lord Jesus trying to get the inmate’s attention and get him back on the straight and narrow and get him out of trouble,” King said.
King said he worked in the courthouse for many years during his law enforcement career and never saw anything out of the ordinary.
Current Sheriff Ramsey Bennett, Clerk of Court Melissa Howard and Magistrate Judge Shelly Herndon all say they don’t have any ghost stories about the courthouse.
“Occasionally you hear noises and squeaks, but it is an old building and that’s the sound old buildings make,” said Howard.
King says there may have indeed been a “Spirit” in the courthouse the day the inmate says he saw him.
“I like to think it was a good spirit,” he said. “The Holy Spirit.”
Does a spirit wander the corridors of the Pierce County Court House? Was it just the shadows of a guilty conscience or was it a very different kind of spirit?
