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Haunted Hills: Ghosts and Legends of Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina
Perched atop a lofty plateau set deep within North Carolina's rugged Blue Ridge Mountains, the picturesque vistas of Highlands and Cashiers mask a dark legacy of lost loves, deals gone bad and supernatural occurrences. Discover here the forgotten legends of these enchanting but sinister mountain communities.
102 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 26, 2007
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September 6, 2025
This is an interesting introduction via the legends, spooky stories attached to ¨haunted¨ stately homes, former estates, inns, and other buildings in the towns of Highland and Cashiers located in the hills of Western North Carolina, might be of interest to folklorists or visitors to the areas that the book covers. The book,which devotes a chapter to the legend or stories attached to a specific buildings, includes a photo of each building as well as photos of street scenes of the towns themselves; since it is written in an easy-going easy-to-read style it would be a breeze for most readers to read.
Despite being an avid reader for a number of years since my retirement, my reading focus has, after covid especially, been distracted by disturbing world events, and my attention has shifted to trying to reassure myself by following the news online, or alternatively, utterly escaping distressing news by watching movies. I have been trying to get back to finishing reading books because my current life of information acquisition and distraction via the computer/movies/TV is probably leading to some sort of intellectual atrophy, since most things online are pre-masticated, especially AI - on which I come to rely on more and more the past few years - and movies which hand an entire story to the viewer without much opportunity for the viewer´s imagination to supply the details or fill in the blanks as a fiction book might. Even documentary films leave little room for the imagination to be exercised although they might spark an interest in a topic that could then be the object of learning via reading. The sad thing is that the go-to place to learn about a topic ends up being the internet, which is filled with distractions and hence usually undermines efforts to use it constructively. The internet, although it does provide easy access to articles such as on Wikipedia, which may include bibliographical information, may paradoxically stifle intellectual growth. And now most of us, including myself, are essentially hooked on it.
The present book is my latest rather pathetic attempt to get back to reading - my life is so fragmented with the computer and movies or chores/cooking that even this book which is so easy to read, took me a couple of weeks to finish reading. But enough of my tale of woe - which is anyway not exactly relevant to this book review.
I need to stop for a few hours but will continue this review later today.
Back to the review: The book is written in a straightforward, non-literary manner but is fine as light reading, and it does offer a view into the history and development of a couple of small towns, now mostly oriented toward the tourist trade, in the hills of southwestern North Carolina, not too far from South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. It is an area in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians that people from cities such as Atlanta or Charleston would stay at to escape the hot summers, and remains a tourist-oriented area today, with many of the residents moving to the low-lying/warmer cities of the South during the cold winter months. There may even be thrill-seeking tourists who intentionally seek out ¨haunted¨ lodgings; if so, this would be an ideal guide to such accomodations in the small towns of Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina.
Here are the quotes:
From the Highlands Chapter:
The Log Cabin Restaurant, Dark Shadow Figure: ¨The 1920s were a golden age for Highlands as a vacation refuge..."
Satulah Mountain, The Legend of a Magical Mountain Volcano: ¨The dwarfed white oak and white pine on the summit [of Satulah Mountain] can be two hundred years old ... yet no bigger than ten inches in diameter." ¨The rocks that make up the [Appalachian] mountains are the fragmented eroded remains of at least four ancient mountains that were huge [as opposed] ...to the present ones (anywhere from 5 to 10 times taller). ...the structures in the rocks that give the Appalachian Mountaisn their distincitive valley and ridge shapes and sizees are ancient sturctures created in a former mountain 300 million years old...long since dead and gone. ...the modern Appalachian Mountains are the result of a gentle, almost passive uplift, followed by erosion that has removed the soft rock in the valleys, and left the hard, resistant rocks at the ridges. It is the last few...breaths before the whole region goes to sleep.¨ ¨...volcanoes [however] are part of an active mountain range, not one going to sleep.¨
Highlands Inn, The Lady in Room 34: ¨...Joseph Halleck built HIghlands Inn in 1880...the first hotel in Highlands, known as Highlands House.¨
From the Cashiers Chapter:
¨Originally known as Cashiers Valley, its landschupe is lush with mountains framing ...[views]. Like...Highlands, it is dotted with high-end custom homes, golf courses and private country clubs. But unlike Highlands, Cashiers has mor eof a hardscrabble hstory in some ...[ways].¨ ¨Cashiers...originally settled by farming pioneers, but soon more industrial pursuits such as mining and logging grew up around the area.¨
The Eternal Bloody Rock, Massacreat Cold Springs: ¨The Civil War divided the Appalachian [region]. It was common to see Union sympathizers buying [provisions] ... in the same general stores that served Confederate volunteers. For [a population that] ... rarely owned slaves and for whom the fights of Charleston Harbor seemed like bedtime tales, war sympathies divided a culture set on individual rights and solitude.¨
Cedar Creek Racquet Club, Pretty Little Brenda Sue: ¨Life ...before the 1930s was dark and filled with manual labor from dawn to dusk for rural folks. While electricity had [arrived in] ... many towns and cities, it remained elusive in more distant areas because existing utilities found it unprofitable to bring it to rural areas.¨
Breezes wafting through the open windows of isolated, creaky old structures among hills and trees, might be the source of unidentifiable sounds that could provoke an over-active imagination into constructing a real source of the random noises. The same thing can be said of visions or shadows that seem to appear out of nowhere. Most times, the visions seem to appear to people when they are alone in the historic structures and the phantasms disappear once the person is joined by other (real) people. Perhaps the imagination is again playing tricks on people who are alone and possibly somewhat fearful considering that the area is rather isolated, and the fear/phantoms disappear once familiar friendly people such as family or friends, rejoin the person who was momentarily left alone.
Do spirits of the dead haunt familiar places? To believe this one would have to believe in the survival of a spirit or soul after death, which is one of the central tenets of most religions. Alternatively, if one believes in materialism, then death means the definitive existential end of the individual, with no sequel or continuation on a spiritual plane. It is not easy to say exactly what is true: Was religion invented as a sort of consolation or reassurance to those left behind, or approaching death, so that they could have something to hold onto, the idea that the soul of their loved one somehow continues to exist on an ethereal, unearthly plane? Since we are all animated by electrical impulses, and matter in general is more or less is held together by electrical attraction forces (atomic theory) perhaps the individual energy that animates each person rejoins the primeval source of all energy upon death.
Most cultures have developed religious systems that include the idea of a soul surviving the death of a person, perhaps the soul is the electrical energy that animates each living person that upon death is reunited with the source of all electrical energy in the Universe, whatever that may be. In that case, perhaps there is something to be said of the immortality of the soul, if the soul is the electrical energy that animates each person when alive. It is doubtful though that the experience of a soul that consists of electrical energy post-death would resemble anything like the experience of the soul when the person was alive. Whatever electrical energy is, although it enables existence and our consciousness, it is impossible to say that it could ever be imbued with ideas or thoughts as we know them. Of course, there must be many things we do not yet know about existence so there is no way of knowing one way or another, what a soul that might be identical with electrical energy, might or might not experience post-death.
Still more impossible to know is if we, or even existence as we know it, were created for a specific reason or simply developed on a purely random basis. We do not know why the Universe or the world and the people and the things such as animals, plants, and inaminate natural objects in it exist but one thing is certain: We as humans have an ethical responsibility to help one another. That is the only thing that can be said for certain, while everything else is doubtful. It is otherwise impossible to know why existence started, and where it is ultimately headed to but since we humans are here on Earth, and have some inkling of understanding, it is our responsibility to help others if at all possible as well as be kind to animals and the environment. That is about as much as can be said for certain: that is, the ethical imperative to be kind and help others. The rest, such as the quest to get rich, get credentials, attain social standing, or even some sort of power, be it economic or political, or military, is so much transient, superficial flash other than the necessary effort or work outlay needed to survive. Monuments erode, rulers come and go, as do empires, but one thing always lasts: Helping others, and doing the right thing as much as is humanly possible. Cooperation is key, but these days, that sort of thinking seems old-fashioned. The truth though is that towns in the Appalachians, coastal cities, and everything in between, could not have been developed without at least some degree of cooperaton and mutual support. Perhaps the electrical matrix of existence similarly plays out in the cooperative organization of society. Perhaps.
Despite being an avid reader for a number of years since my retirement, my reading focus has, after covid especially, been distracted by disturbing world events, and my attention has shifted to trying to reassure myself by following the news online, or alternatively, utterly escaping distressing news by watching movies. I have been trying to get back to finishing reading books because my current life of information acquisition and distraction via the computer/movies/TV is probably leading to some sort of intellectual atrophy, since most things online are pre-masticated, especially AI - on which I come to rely on more and more the past few years - and movies which hand an entire story to the viewer without much opportunity for the viewer´s imagination to supply the details or fill in the blanks as a fiction book might. Even documentary films leave little room for the imagination to be exercised although they might spark an interest in a topic that could then be the object of learning via reading. The sad thing is that the go-to place to learn about a topic ends up being the internet, which is filled with distractions and hence usually undermines efforts to use it constructively. The internet, although it does provide easy access to articles such as on Wikipedia, which may include bibliographical information, may paradoxically stifle intellectual growth. And now most of us, including myself, are essentially hooked on it.
The present book is my latest rather pathetic attempt to get back to reading - my life is so fragmented with the computer and movies or chores/cooking that even this book which is so easy to read, took me a couple of weeks to finish reading. But enough of my tale of woe - which is anyway not exactly relevant to this book review.
I need to stop for a few hours but will continue this review later today.
Back to the review: The book is written in a straightforward, non-literary manner but is fine as light reading, and it does offer a view into the history and development of a couple of small towns, now mostly oriented toward the tourist trade, in the hills of southwestern North Carolina, not too far from South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. It is an area in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians that people from cities such as Atlanta or Charleston would stay at to escape the hot summers, and remains a tourist-oriented area today, with many of the residents moving to the low-lying/warmer cities of the South during the cold winter months. There may even be thrill-seeking tourists who intentionally seek out ¨haunted¨ lodgings; if so, this would be an ideal guide to such accomodations in the small towns of Highlands and Cashiers, North Carolina.
Here are the quotes:
From the Highlands Chapter:
The Log Cabin Restaurant, Dark Shadow Figure: ¨The 1920s were a golden age for Highlands as a vacation refuge..."
Satulah Mountain, The Legend of a Magical Mountain Volcano: ¨The dwarfed white oak and white pine on the summit [of Satulah Mountain] can be two hundred years old ... yet no bigger than ten inches in diameter." ¨The rocks that make up the [Appalachian] mountains are the fragmented eroded remains of at least four ancient mountains that were huge [as opposed] ...to the present ones (anywhere from 5 to 10 times taller). ...the structures in the rocks that give the Appalachian Mountaisn their distincitive valley and ridge shapes and sizees are ancient sturctures created in a former mountain 300 million years old...long since dead and gone. ...the modern Appalachian Mountains are the result of a gentle, almost passive uplift, followed by erosion that has removed the soft rock in the valleys, and left the hard, resistant rocks at the ridges. It is the last few...breaths before the whole region goes to sleep.¨ ¨...volcanoes [however] are part of an active mountain range, not one going to sleep.¨
Highlands Inn, The Lady in Room 34: ¨...Joseph Halleck built HIghlands Inn in 1880...the first hotel in Highlands, known as Highlands House.¨
From the Cashiers Chapter:
¨Originally known as Cashiers Valley, its landschupe is lush with mountains framing ...[views]. Like...Highlands, it is dotted with high-end custom homes, golf courses and private country clubs. But unlike Highlands, Cashiers has mor eof a hardscrabble hstory in some ...[ways].¨ ¨Cashiers...originally settled by farming pioneers, but soon more industrial pursuits such as mining and logging grew up around the area.¨
The Eternal Bloody Rock, Massacreat Cold Springs: ¨The Civil War divided the Appalachian [region]. It was common to see Union sympathizers buying [provisions] ... in the same general stores that served Confederate volunteers. For [a population that] ... rarely owned slaves and for whom the fights of Charleston Harbor seemed like bedtime tales, war sympathies divided a culture set on individual rights and solitude.¨
Cedar Creek Racquet Club, Pretty Little Brenda Sue: ¨Life ...before the 1930s was dark and filled with manual labor from dawn to dusk for rural folks. While electricity had [arrived in] ... many towns and cities, it remained elusive in more distant areas because existing utilities found it unprofitable to bring it to rural areas.¨
Breezes wafting through the open windows of isolated, creaky old structures among hills and trees, might be the source of unidentifiable sounds that could provoke an over-active imagination into constructing a real source of the random noises. The same thing can be said of visions or shadows that seem to appear out of nowhere. Most times, the visions seem to appear to people when they are alone in the historic structures and the phantasms disappear once the person is joined by other (real) people. Perhaps the imagination is again playing tricks on people who are alone and possibly somewhat fearful considering that the area is rather isolated, and the fear/phantoms disappear once familiar friendly people such as family or friends, rejoin the person who was momentarily left alone.
Do spirits of the dead haunt familiar places? To believe this one would have to believe in the survival of a spirit or soul after death, which is one of the central tenets of most religions. Alternatively, if one believes in materialism, then death means the definitive existential end of the individual, with no sequel or continuation on a spiritual plane. It is not easy to say exactly what is true: Was religion invented as a sort of consolation or reassurance to those left behind, or approaching death, so that they could have something to hold onto, the idea that the soul of their loved one somehow continues to exist on an ethereal, unearthly plane? Since we are all animated by electrical impulses, and matter in general is more or less is held together by electrical attraction forces (atomic theory) perhaps the individual energy that animates each person rejoins the primeval source of all energy upon death.
Most cultures have developed religious systems that include the idea of a soul surviving the death of a person, perhaps the soul is the electrical energy that animates each living person that upon death is reunited with the source of all electrical energy in the Universe, whatever that may be. In that case, perhaps there is something to be said of the immortality of the soul, if the soul is the electrical energy that animates each person when alive. It is doubtful though that the experience of a soul that consists of electrical energy post-death would resemble anything like the experience of the soul when the person was alive. Whatever electrical energy is, although it enables existence and our consciousness, it is impossible to say that it could ever be imbued with ideas or thoughts as we know them. Of course, there must be many things we do not yet know about existence so there is no way of knowing one way or another, what a soul that might be identical with electrical energy, might or might not experience post-death.
Still more impossible to know is if we, or even existence as we know it, were created for a specific reason or simply developed on a purely random basis. We do not know why the Universe or the world and the people and the things such as animals, plants, and inaminate natural objects in it exist but one thing is certain: We as humans have an ethical responsibility to help one another. That is the only thing that can be said for certain, while everything else is doubtful. It is otherwise impossible to know why existence started, and where it is ultimately headed to but since we humans are here on Earth, and have some inkling of understanding, it is our responsibility to help others if at all possible as well as be kind to animals and the environment. That is about as much as can be said for certain: that is, the ethical imperative to be kind and help others. The rest, such as the quest to get rich, get credentials, attain social standing, or even some sort of power, be it economic or political, or military, is so much transient, superficial flash other than the necessary effort or work outlay needed to survive. Monuments erode, rulers come and go, as do empires, but one thing always lasts: Helping others, and doing the right thing as much as is humanly possible. Cooperation is key, but these days, that sort of thinking seems old-fashioned. The truth though is that towns in the Appalachians, coastal cities, and everything in between, could not have been developed without at least some degree of cooperaton and mutual support. Perhaps the electrical matrix of existence similarly plays out in the cooperative organization of society. Perhaps.
October 30, 2017
Awesome
I really enjoyed this book. I love reading the history behind the ghost stories. Just a really really great book.
I really enjoyed this book. I love reading the history behind the ghost stories. Just a really really great book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews