The Ghost With a Paper Trail

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Most Charleston ghost stories run on vibes and a good flashlight. The one at 59 Church Street runs on footnotes.

Dr. Joseph Brown Ladd was a real person. He was 22, and he died inside that house in the fall of 1786 after a friend shot him in a duel. That makes Halloween week his anniversary week, too. Two hundred and forty years, give or take a few days.

Ladd was born in Newport, R.I., in 1764 and got his first poem printed in the Newport Mercury at age ten. Overachiever. He earned his medical license in 1783 and, on the advice of Gen. Nathanael Greene, headed south to Charleston.

Here he wrote love poems for the Columbian Herald under the pen name Arouet, most of them addressed to a woman he called Amanda. One longtime Charleston guide adds that he saw poor patients for free two hours every morning and whistled the whole walk to work.

He rented rooms at 59 Church, a 2.5-story Georgian built by planter Thomas Rose in the 1730s and later owned by the Savage family, who took in boarders.

Then came Ralph Isaacs. Close friend, until he wasn't. The two traded insults in the local paper, and on Oct. 19, 1786, Isaacs published a letter calling Ladd a fraud. The Post & Courier reports the feud started over an actress's performance, which may be the most 1786 sentence ever written.

Ladd came from a family of New England pacifists. His sister later wrote that he opposed dueling on principle, but turning down the challenge would have made him a public laughingstock. So he showed up and fired away from Isaacs on purpose.

Isaacs did not return the favor. He hit Ladd in the knee. The wound went gangrenous, and Ladd died back at Church Street. His collection, The Poems of Arouet, came out the same year.

Even the paperwork can't agree on the details. One telling puts the duel in Philadelphia Alley. Another puts it behind the old barracks where the College of Charleston stands now. The date floats between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, depending on who's holding the clipboard.

The ghost part is steadier. Guides and visitors report whistling on the staircase and doors opening on their own. The Post & Courier reports the Preservation Society marker out front is the only house plaque in town that brings up a ghost. And according to one local guide, the plaque misspells his name. Rough couple of centuries for the guy.

The house is private, and it sold for more than $3 million in 2017. The whistling, if you catch it, is free from the sidewalk.

So swing down Church Street after dark this week, stay off the steps and keep your ears open. If you hear a tune, it's either Dr. Ladd or a tour guide warming up.

Sources: EBSCO Research Starters (Ladd's birth, first poem, pen name, Amanda, Columbian Herald, age at death), Founders Online (1783 license, Greene's advice, fall 1786 duel), Charleston City Paper (newspaper insults, pacifist family, knee wound, gangrene), SCETV (duel, death at 59 Church, whistling ghost), Charleston Footprints (Oct. 19 letter, free clinic, duel site, misspelled plaque), Charleston.com (Thomas Rose, Savage boarders, Philadelphia Alley, 2017 sale), Wikipedia (house construction and style) and the Post & Courier (actress feud, ghost-mention marker, Oct. 23 date)