Murrells Inlet

A quiet fishing village south of Myrtle Beach with a reputation for ghostly sightings. On foggy nights, locals report seeing things that cannot be explained emerging from the marsh and inlet waters.

Murrells Inlet has been a haunt of pirates and smugglers since the early 1700s, when its maze of tidal creeks, salt marshes, and secluded beaches provided ideal hiding places for marauders preying on merchant ships near Charleston's busy trade routes. The most infamous pirate rumored to have frequented these waters was Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, who is said to have anchored his ships in the inlet's hidden coves. Stede Bonnet, the Gentleman Pirate, may have used the inlet as a refuge while repairing his sloop the Revenge. But the most colorful pirate legend belongs to Drunken Jack. According to the story, Blackbeard and his crew landed on a small island off the inlet in the early 1700s with such a massive haul of Caribbean rum that it was slowing their ship. They stashed dozens of casks on the beach, and during the revelry that followed, a pirate named Jack crawled into the scrub oaks and passed out cold. He woke the next morning to find the ship had sailed without him. When Blackbeard's crew returned two years later to reclaim their rum, they found Jack's skeleton lying beside thirty-two empty casks. The island has been known as Drunken Jack Island ever since, and it remains visible from the popular restaurant that bears his name.

It is the ghost ship, however, that is the inlet's most persistent supernatural legend. On foggy nights, locals and visitors have reported seeing the outline of a pirate ship with its sails full of wind gliding silently through the inlet waters. The vessel makes no sound and produces no wake. When approached by boat or observed too closely, it vanishes into the mist without a trace. Some believe the ship is a ghostly remnant of a wrecked pirate vessel from the golden age of piracy, still running its cargo through the treacherous coastal waters. Others connect it to the spirits of the many sailors and pirates who perished in and around the inlet over the centuries. Strange lights that float above the water and disembodied voices carried on the wind have also been reported along the shore, particularly near the marsh edges where the creeks narrow and the fog settles thickest.

The inlet's ghost stories extend beyond its pirate past. The legend of Alice Flagg, connected to the nearby Hermitage plantation, is one of the most heartbreaking tales on the South Carolina coast. In 1849, sixteen-year-old Alice, sister of Dr. Allard Flagg, fell in love with a young lumberman her prominent family considered beneath her station. She secretly wore his ring on a ribbon beneath her dress. When Alice contracted malaria at boarding school, she was brought home to the Hermitage, where her brother discovered the ring. As Alice lay dying, Dr. Flagg tore the ring from her neck and hurled it out onto the marsh. Alice died at the Hermitage clutching her chest where the ring had been. Her ghost, still searching for the lost ring, has been seen at the Hermitage and at All Saints Cemetery on Pawleys Island, where she is buried beneath a simple marker reading only her first name.

Today Murrells Inlet embraces its haunted reputation. The Murrells Inlet MarshWalk, a half-mile boardwalk lined with restaurants along the waterfront, offers ghost cruises that take visitors through the same waters where the phantom ship has been spotted. The cruises share the legends of Drunken Jack, Alice Flagg, and the Gray Man of nearby Pawleys Island while navigating the dark creeks and marshes after sunset. By the 1800s, rice plantations along the inlet were producing nearly forty-seven million pounds of rice annually, and the inlet later became famous for its cuisine when steamboat cooks settled in the area. The combination of pirate lore, plantation tragedy, and centuries of maritime mystery has made Murrells Inlet one of the most ghost-rich stretches of the South Carolina coast.