Summerville, August 31, 1886--A Haunting Tale Amidst an Earth-Shattering Cataclysm

The day’s oppressive humidity lingered, even at this late hour. Lost in thought, I found myself reflecting on the troubling peculiarities that had unfolded. There was a strange quiet—not among the people I’d encountered, but in the behavior of the animals. The usual chatter of local birds had vanished. In fact, I couldn’t recall seeing a single bird all day. The carriage horses had been unusually skittish, and even the dog at the train depot seemed unnerved.

A sharp blast from the train whistle jolted me from my reverie, signaling the final call for departure. A cloud of hot steam billowed into the air as the locomotive lurched forward, then gradually eased away from the platform. The final leg of my journey had begun.

I checked my pocket watch: 8:50 p.m. Charleston lay ahead, with an expected arrival around 10:30. I had been looking forward to my stay at the elegant Charleston Hotel on Meeting Street with eager anticipation.

As a writer and publisher, I enjoyed certain privileges when it came to reading material. In my possession was a cherished collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Settling into my seat as we pulled away from Branchville, I recalled that Poe had once been stationed on Sullivan’s Island, a barrier island near Charleston. I planned to visit several places tied to his legacy—Fort Moultrie, and the war-scarred plantations along the oak-lined Ashley River Road. Runnymede, in particular, had been a favorite haunt of his.

I peered out the window and stared at the passing trees. Moonlight filtered through their branches, casting a soft, dancing glow onto the low-growing bushes. The visual effect was as shadowy as the writings I was about to immerse myself into. The rhythmic clickety-clack of the heavy steel wheels rolling over the tracks informed me that the train had reached full throttle. Around me, some passengers had drifted into sleep, while others quietly read—much too late for conversation. I flipped open the cover of the dossier resting on my lap and began reading The Gold-Bug. For an unknown length of time, I slipped into the reality that was Poe.

Suddenly, a thunderous explosion rocked the train, jolting me from my seat. For a brief, surreal moment, I felt weightless—levitating above the cushion—before crashing down with a spine-jarring thud. The violent motion repeated again and again, each impact more disorienting than the last.

Piercing screams erupted from the compartment as passengers were tossed about, helpless against the chaos. An ungodly hissing sound accompanied the relentless jolts—up and down, back and forth—like a beast thrashing in its death throes. Through the window, I glimpsed a geyser of water erupting from the earth, shooting skyward. The train’s forward momentum sputtered violently. I sensed the engineer was desperately trying to slow us, but the effort seemed futile. Prayers filled the air, whispered and shouted alike.

Then, as abruptly as it began, the upheaval ceased.

Miraculously, the train remained on the tracks. Dazed passengers began to assess their condition. Aside from bruises and shaken nerves, it appeared no one was seriously injured. Another sudden jolt startled the already traumatized group—but this time, it was the familiar lurch of a train decelerating. We crept to a halt.

I retrieved my pocket watch, its glass shattered, the hands frozen at 9:50 p.m. Around me, pages from Poe’s dossier lay scattered like fallen leaves. I gathered them up and stepped off the train.

An eerie orange glow bathed the night sky. Fires burned in the distance, and uprooted trees lay strewn across the landscape like discarded matchsticks. Ahead of the smoking engine, flares cast flickering light over the scene. We had stopped just short of what appeared to be a depot.

Straightening my disheveled clothing, I made my way to the front of the locomotive. The engineer was deep in conversation with a man I didn’t recognize. Steadying my nerves, I approached and introduced myself. I asked what had happened—and where, exactly, we were.

The man turned to me and offered his name, “Frank Doar, the stationmaster.” As we walked toward the depot, he began to recount a most unusual story.

Frank began his account with a steady voice, though the memory clearly weighed on him.

“It was 9:45 p.m. The inbound train had just passed Jedburg. I was sitting in my chair at the depot, drifting in and out of sleep, when I was startled by the sudden appearance of an elderly Black man on the platform. He seemed to materialize out of nowhere—filthy, drenched in sweat, breathless, and visibly agitated.

He told me, in a rush of words, that he’d run several miles up the rail line from a section where the tracks were severely bent. He urged me to release warning flares immediately to alert the incoming train of the danger ahead.

Now, I know everyone who works this line, and I thought I knew everyone in the community—but I’d never seen this man before. The moonlight caught the sweat on his head, giving it a strange halo-like glow. Under normal circumstances, I might have been wary of such a demand. But something about him—his urgency, his eyes—made me trust him. Without hesitation, I deployed the torpedoes.

As I finished placing the last device, I turned to speak to him again. But he was gone. Vanished. As if he’d dissolved into the night air.”

Frank paused, then pulled out his pocket watch.

“The whole encounter—his arrival, the warning, the emergency preparations—had taken only five minutes. It was exactly 9:50 p.m. Just then, an eerie hissing sound swept through the town, followed by a deafening explosion. The ground shook violently. I heard walls and chimneys collapsing, trees groaning as they were ripped from the earth. A massive earthquake had struck Summerville.”

His story left me spellbound.

Passengers had begun to disembark, gathering at the station in search of answers and a way to continue their journey. Whispers of Frank’s account passed from one traveler to another, each person trying to make sense of the mysterious warning.

Soon, a message arrived. Farther up the line, between Summerville and Ten Mile Hill near Woodstock Station, the quake had twisted the tracks into a serpentine curve. A train that had departed Summerville for Charleston derailed during the earthquake. The engineer was critically injured. A crew member had been killed.

The flares Frank deployed had saved our train from the same fate.

Yet one question lingered: how had the old man known? He had vanished without a trace. No one ever saw him again. No one ever got the chance to thank him.

As for Frank Doar, though he was the one who placed the flares and prevented disaster, he refused to take credit. He believed, with quiet conviction, that the old man was an angel.

At least, that was the story Frank told.

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