The Powder Magazine

Anne Bonny's ghost has been spotted inside Charleston's oldest public building, a 1713 gunpowder storehouse with three-foot-thick walls and no windows. Spirit box sessions have picked up names connected to the infamous pirate, and EMF readings spike in the narrow interior where soldiers, architects, and buccaneers once passed through.

Anne Bonny's ghost has been spotted peeking out from behind museum displays inside Charleston's oldest public building. Visitors describe a woman in period clothing drifting through the narrow interior, and spirit box investigators have picked up the word "red" (the color of Bonny's hair), the initials "WCWC" (her father William Cormac's initials), and "JR" (for John "Calico Jack" Rackham, her pirate partner). Mel Meter readings during the same session spiked to 3.2 and 3.8 milligauss. The name "James" came through too, matching James Bonny, her first husband.

The Powder Magazine at 79 Cumberland Street was completed in 1713, making it the oldest public building in the Carolinas and the last surviving piece of Charleston's original colonial fortifications. Three-foot-thick brick walls, no windows, and a sand-filled roof designed to direct blast force upward while smothering flames. At its peak, the building held up to five tons of gunpowder for a colonial city constantly threatened by raids, rival navies, and Caribbean pirates.

Charleston learned what happens when a powder magazine goes wrong on May 15, 1780. During the British siege, a soldier fired a musket into a separate magazine containing four thousand pounds of gunpowder. The blast killed roughly two hundred people and destroyed multiple buildings. More casualties than the entire siege itself. The Cumberland Street magazine had already been emptied by then. General William Moultrie ordered its five tons moved to the Old Exchange Building and sealed behind brick walls, where British occupation forces never found it.

After the Revolution, the building was retired from military use and bounced through private owners as a print shop, livery stable, wine cellar, and carriage house. Gabriel Manigault, one of the wealthiest men in post-Revolutionary America, used the space as his personal wine cellar before moving to Philadelphia in 1805. He died there in 1809. Visitors have seen a man in 19th-century clothing inside the building, and some believe it's Manigault, back to hunt for an unopened bottle.

Dark figures that don't match either Bonny or Manigault have been spotted inside, leading to speculation they might be Sir Peter Colleton, one of the original Lord Proprietors of the Carolinas, or soldiers who once guarded the stockpile. Museum staff and ghost tour groups have documented strong electromagnetic field readings. Visitors describe pockets of icy air in the narrow interior, phantom footsteps, faint murmurs, and the persistent feeling of being watched.

The National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in South Carolina bought the building in 1902, saving it from demolition. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and operates today as a museum dedicated to Charleston's colonial military history. Three centuries of military use, pirate connections, and catastrophic near-misses packed into a squat fortress smaller than most apartments.