Haunted Pillar

The Haunted Pillar is all that remains of a farmer's market that once stood at Fifth and Broad Streets in Augusta, Georgia. The market stood from 1830 until February 7th, 1878, when it was destroyed in a tornado.

According to local legend an attempt to move, destroy the pillar, or even touch it will result in death.

According to one story, a preacher who was denied the right to preach there, "... threatened that a great wind would destroy the place except for one pillar and that whoever tried to remove this remaining pillar would be struck dead," according to a person interviewed by the Augusta Chronicle [http://chronicle.augusta.com/history/pillar.html] .

Another supposed source of the curse was the idea that slaves were chained to the pillar and whipped. None of these stories have ever been corroborated by the news stories at the time.

Perhaps the truth of the legends comes from the fact that the market was located directly in the middle of the street, and once it was removed Augustans were reluctant to build there again. "Now that the Market House is in ruins, we think it may be opportune to suggest that it never be rebuilt upon the same spot. It was, at best, an unsightly edifice and marred the grand boulevard upon which it was mistakenly located," said an article in the Augusta Chronicle a week after the market was destroyed.