Things that go bump in the Cape Fear Region

     According to author, historian and documentary filmmaker John Hairr, no one who lives in the Cape Fear Region should ever get bored. Hairr spoke at the Carrie Rich Memorial Friends of the Library annual meeting Friday, Sept. 30, at Campbell University.
     “All you have to do is look around you, and you’ll discover that the Cape Fear region of North Carolina has one of the most bizarre and colorful folk lore histories of any place in the country,” Hairr said.
     Take the story of the wake in Harnett County in which a young boy left alone with the corpse of an old man was frightened out of his wits when the body suddenly sat up in the coffin. It seems the old man suffered from arthritis and rigormortis had a levitating effect on him.
     In another story, a girl succumbs to a coma and is thought to be dead. On the day of her funeral, a slave steals back to her grave at night to retrieve a valuable ring and is horrified when the young woman yells at him to leave her alone. The legends of the Maco lights and the light at Neil’s Eddy are also part of Cape Fear lore. In the first two stories, an eerie light dances across a lonesome stretch of railroad in Vander and on the Cape Fear River at a point where several prisoners reportedly drowned. No has been able to discover the source of the light, but many people are said to have witnessed the phenomena.
     Now at the Smithsonian, the Moore County meteorite actually fell from the sky in the 1800s while farmers were working in a field. The molten rock burned their hands, causing the men to declare that “God Almighty” must have hurled it at them. Scientists later discovered that the rock came from an asteroid millions of miles in space.
     “There is always a little bit of folklore attached to these stories,” said Hairr “but that is what makes them so colorful.”
     With its rich Scottish history, many of the legends and stories of the Cape Fear were born of superstition. Still many are based on fact that years of retelling have glorified and romanticized into a fascinating folkloric tradition.
     Hairr is the author of several books on the Cape Fear region, including “Harnett County: A History,” “Big Sharks of the Carolina Coast,” and “Colonel David Fanning.” His articles have appeared in publications such as “Our State” and “Wildlife in North Carolina.” In addition, Hairr has written and directed several educational documentary films and DVDs, including “Flora MacDonald in America” and “Great White Sharks of the Carolina and Georgia Coast.” He has been an adjunct professor at North Carolina State University and Central Carolina Community College.

Photo Copy: John Hairr speaks on Cape Fear folklore at the annual banquet of Campbell University’s Friends of the Library.