Old City Jail Tour

If you have not taken a trip to the Old Charleston Jail, you should! The experience was much creepier than I expected and I would recommend anyone to go! At first, I thought that I would not experience any paranormal activity, but I was wrong! A classmate took a picture of a "ghost" and apparently, he was scratched by something! As well as all of the weird noises we heard while on the tour. It was super creepy! Bulldog Tours, Inc. gave us the tour and it was really cool. Click the link for more information on their tours!

Old City Jail on the outside

Here is a picture of our tour guide, Randy Johnson

Aside from being paranormal, our tour was very informative on the history of the jail. Our tour guide, Randy Johnson, gave us a lot of information on the history of the jail and the people who stayed there. The Old City Jail dates back to 1802. Even before then, there were people buried on the land and it makes the jail even creepier!

"What they used this land for back then was a burial ground. There are thousands of bodies under here," Randy told us before going inside the jail. So, just imagine how many people were buried here before the jail was built, plus the 14,000 people who died in the jail.

 "When they shut it down in 1939 pursuing an order from a federal judge, citing inhumane conditions inside the jail, it had over 250 prisoners." The peak occupancy was during the American Civil War when the Confederate Army turned the jail into a POW camp, with 1,200 people in the jail.

The ropes and the two noose knots.

In his hand is the replica of what would have
been used 50+ years ago.

The first place that we got to see was the room with the stretching ropes. This was very weird at first because it had two noose knots and two ropes hanging down.

 He explained that the person would put their hands in the noose and their feet would be tied to the ground with a rope.




After they were in it, they would stretch them by pulling the other ropes and whip them with a leather whip with glass shards and metal shards in the leather. He had a replica of what it would have looked like, but it was with cloth and without the metal shards in it.

These tallies are graffiti left from whenever the prisoners
were counting the days.

This graffiti shows their names and drawings the
prisoners would carve in the wall.

Another place we visited was on the second floor of the jail. It was where the cages were kept and it was initially supposed to be one person per cage, but eventually, there were up to 11 people in each one. They had to take turns sleeping because not all of them could fit laying down.

Replica of the cage.

Randy also explained that the ghost of Lavinia Fisher is seen on this floor. Lavinia Fisher was the first serial killer in America. She and her husband murdered many people and they stayed in this jail, and both of them died right outside of the jail. The outside used to be where the gallows were located and that is where she and her husband were hanged.

The scratch that one of our classmates received could have been her ghost because our tour guide told us that she is known to scratch younger men, and he also got a picture of a ghost figure on the same floor.

1st floor

This picture on the left shows the first floor that we were on. This floor was the creepiest floor because of all of the noises, as well as the stories of this floor. This floor is where the insane prisoners were held. I did not get a picture of the cells that they stayed in, but it was pretty small.

It is told that there was a man who called himself "Animal" and he was kept on this floor as an insane prisoner. His ghost still goes around on this floor grabbing people by their ankles, walking on all fours. He could have called himself "Animal" because of him being mentally insane. No one in our group experienced the ankle grabbing, thank goodness.

This is the floor where we heard the most noises. There was a banging noise on the same floor we were on and then we headed towards the noise! I was creeped out, but I eventually paired up with someone so we would be safe together. The last room we were in was where we turned the lights off and of course, there was a loud bang with the lights off. Scary stuff, but it was our last room and I was ready to get out of there.

The electric chair we saw that was left in the jail.

I enjoyed the jail visit more than I thought I would have. I had an adrenaline rush throughout the tour, especially whenever we heard those noises. I was very anxious because I thought that something would happen to us, it was really cool though. I loved it and it makes me want to go to some other haunted tours in Charleston and hear the history behind it! This was my favorite visit we had throughout the semester.