The Maco Light

The Legend of the original American Spooklight

The Maco Light of Wilmington, North Carolina, is arguably the most famous and spectacular American spooklight. Unfortunately, this light hasn't been seen since 1977, so its haunting days appear to be over. This is especially convenient for the maintenance of its folklore, since the story can never be disproved and can therefore live on indefinitely.

The Maco Light supposedly dates back to a train-wreck in 1867. This light and its legend are probably responsible for the multitude of train-related stories now associated with spooklights all across the nation. The train-collision theme has become so popular that it can occasionally be found associated with lights that occur even in areas where no train tracks have ever existed, as in the case of the Paulding Light of Northern Michigan. The stories generally involve a wreck that results in the decapitation of some unfortunate victim, most often the train conductor, brakeman, or flagman, whose signal lantern is said to account for the ghostly light as the spirit of the poor chap roams the tracks in search of his severed head.

That, according to the Maco legend, was the fate of Joe Baldwin in 1867:

On a night in 1867, at a small Brunswick County station of Maco fifteen miles west of Wilmington, a slow freight train was puffing down the track. In the caboose was Joe Baldwin, the flagman. A jerking noise startled him, and he was aware that his caboose had become uncoupled from the rest of the train, which went heedlessly on its way. As the caboose slackened speed, Joe looked up and saw the beaming light of a fast passenger train bearing down upon him. Grabbing his lantern, he waved it frantically to warn the oncoming engineer of the ominent danger. It was too late. At at a trestle over the swamp, the passenger train plowed into the caboose. Joe was decapitated: his head flew into the swamp on one side of the track, his lantern the other. It was days before the destruction caused by the wreck was cleared away. And when Joe's head could not be found, his body was buried without it. Thereafter on misty nights, Joe's headless ghost appeared at Maco, a lantern in its hand. Anyone standing at the trestle first saw an indistinct flicker moving up and down, back and forth. Then the beam swiftly moved forward, growing brighter and brighter as it neared the trestle. About fifty feet away it burst into a brilliant burning radiance. After that, it dimmed, backed away down the track, and disappeared.
"North Carolina Legends," Richard Walser
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/8370/macostory.html   (link no longer active)

Okay, wonderful. We have a train accident and a gruesome decapitation - as fine a foundation for a ghost story as we could ever hope for. Of some importance to the story is the fact that the wreck takes place near a trestle bridge in the vicinity of a swamp. After all, swamps are extra spooky, and always add an element of mystery to a story such as this. And the wet ground also helps to explain why Joe's head was never found - one presumes that it sank irretrievably below the muck. Also, swamp gas, or foxfire, has often been offered as an explanation for the strange light.

The flinging of the lantern into the swamp is also a favorite element of the story, subject to much elaboration over the years. For instance, an especially odd version of the story reads this way:

A witness to the accident reported that Joe stayed where he was, waving the lantern, through the entire wreck. Just seconds before the engine collided with the car, Joe's lantern was hurled away as if by some unseen, but mighty, force.  It hit the ground and rolled over and over again, finally coming to rest in a perfectly upright position.  Shortly after this horrible accident, the Maco light began to appear along the train tracks.
http://www.prairieghosts.com/maco.html

In this peculiar version, no explanation is offered as to why the lantern flies into the swamp prior to the actual collision - but the fact that the lantern ends up in the swamp, one way or another, is a feature common to every version of this tale. As we'll see very soon, the waving of the lantern and its sudden flight into the swamp are associated with very unique elements of the Maco Light's reported behavior.

The Maco Light is perhaps the only spooklight said to have been seen by an American president. One variation of the story has Grover Cleveland witnessing the phenomenon directly for himself:

Fog shrouded the North Carolina mountains one dark night in October 1894, when President Grover Cleveland saw a strange light flickering in the woods off to the right of his Pullman. Startled, the president called the conductor to his room and inquired about the mysterious glow. The conductor smiled and said, ``What you have seen, sir, is the Maco Station Light.''
Historical Mysteries: Ghostly lights as common as dew in Dixie
http://augustachronicle.com/stories/060897/fea_floyd.html

In another variation, the President's experience is quite different:

One time a presidential train, carrying Grover Cleveland, stopped at Maco Station, near Wilmington, North Carolina. Having ridden for quite a while and wanting to stretch his legs, the president decided to take a short stroll along the tracks. There he found a train brakeman carrying two lanterns -- one red and the other green. Curious, President Cleveland asked him about the two lights. "We have to use both of them, Mr. President," the brakeman answered. "There's a ghost along these tracks that waves a lantern. Gets things all fouled up sometimes. So the railroad told us to always carry two lanterns." The brakeman then told President Cleveland the story of poor Joe Baldwin who lost his head one rainy night in 1867.
http://www.themestream.com/articles/65814.html    (link no longer active)

Some sources claim that Cleveland actually mentioned the Maco Light in a speech, but I have yet to find an actual transcript of any such speech, and I doubt that anyone ever will.

Before we go any further, it might be worthwhile to ask, "Was Joe Baldwin a real individual, and was he really killed in a train wreck in 1867?" Well, kinda sorta, but not really. According to the website "Find a Grave.com," the real story is a little different:

Recent research, however, has determined that there was no accident in 1867 where a conductor was killed and no Joe Baldwin working for the Wilmington and Manchester, and that, at the time, railroad men referred to the location as Rattlesnake Grade -- Maco was not established until much later. "Joe" was probably really a man named Charles Baldwin, a New York native born around 1833 who was killed in an accident near Rattlesnake Grade on January 3, 1856. Church records indicate Charles Baldwin was originally interred at Saint James Churchyard in Wilmington, then moved to Oakdale Cemetery; his grave has since been lost.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSvcid=7174&GRid=11403825&

So now we're dealing with a fellow named Charles Baldwin, whose gravesite has been lost, and who was killed in an accident of undetermined nature somewhere near the railroad tracks, but perhaps not involving a train at all.

But why should we let these facts get in the way of a perfectly good ghost story? After all, the guy did die near the tracks, and many witnesses claimed to have seen a strange light throughout the decades prior to the 1970's. By all accounts (if any of them can be believed), the Maco Light was a most unusual phenomenon.

Consider this compelling account:

My parents also saw the light when they were dating, I've gotten the same story from both of them independantly. It had been the thing to do for young couples. Go down to Maco, just down the highway from Wilmington NC. You would park your car off the little side road towards the station, then proceed to walk down the tracks till you git to the trestle (bridge). Then you would sit and wait. If the conditions were right the show would begin. My mother tells me that her, my father (before the fact) and another couple sat out there one night to watch on a summers evening. It than appeared at a distance down the track, flickering as if a match was just struck, then began to methodically swing back and forth about 5 feet above the track. It then starts to speed up as it swings wilder and wilder as if you can almost sense the doomed conducter getting more and more frantic, finally after repeating this silent bobbing, weaving dance for a few hundred yards it seemed to be flung violently off to the side. There it sat fickering in the swamp off to the side of the old Atlantic Coast line till moments later it faded away. If you got to close to it the lantern would disappear, but if it performed once, it was known to repeat at least a couple of times in one night, it would return. My Mother got close enogh to see the fastenings on the lantern, but also as an extra twist she experienced the cold spot phenomenon. Even though it was a hot muggy night (I was always told the best nights were before or after rain, some form of high humidity) After seeing the show (This would have been the late 60's) they were walking alongside the tracks when my mother came across an icy cold spot about a foot wide. The rest of the are around it was warm, hell it was summer. She stayed quiet a minute then brought it up to my father and the other couple with them. They then proceeded to tell her they had felt it to but had been to scared to mention it. They all then ran back to car, without a further word.
http://www.ghosts.org/ghostlights/maco-story2.html

I know, I know! The whole story is told second-hand. So disappointing. Not good enough for you? Then try this first-hand account:

I vividly remember my first trip to Maco Station to see the infamous Maco Light. I was 3 or 4 at the time and generally believed that there were no ghosts. ...When we arrived, there were at least ten cars lined up at the tracks. ...Soon the fun began when the light made its appearance. ...The light would come up the track dead center at an adult's eye level, at a slow speed, with an apparent swinging motion, then it would go out, or it would "flip" end over end into the wooded area and go out after apparently hitting the ground. Shortly, the light would reappear somewhere else and then complete a completely different pattern. For instance, I have seen it fly at high speed along the tree line along the track, much higher than a signal lantern would normally be seen under normal circumstances. The most repeated pattern was the first one I mentioned, but the manner of the track run would vary in distinct ways. One was that it didn't always flip into the woods. Instead, it would simply go out, then reappear elsewhere. Another variation was the color, I read a story that said the Maco Light was only white, which is not true. The Maco Light changed from White to Green to Red, just like any standard railroad signalman's lantern. Often the variation of the track run would be that while swinging back and forth, it would alternate Red and Green (meaning Danger!). The color also varied as it made its passes over and around the crowd gathered to watch the thing. On one visit to Maco, a man was standing in the middle of the track as the light made its track run. Instead of hitting the man or stopping, at a distance of about five feet from the man, it went out for about 2 seconds, then reappeared about five feet behind the man . On another visit, there were a couple of guys chasing the light with nets. Two grown men chasing a giant Lightening Bug. The light was obviously having a wonderful time as it would do its routine, but would disappear or fly away when the two guys got close to it. ...After what seemed like an eternity without going, I asked my mother if we could go see it. She then informed me that since the state had widened Highway 74/76 that the light was now rarely seen (74/76 ran parallel to the tracks and was widened so that cars were now very close to the tracks). I made at least five trips there between 1975 and 1980 hoping to see it at least one more time, without satisfaction.
http://www.ghosts.org/ghostlights/maco-story.html

Other stories add interesting details to Maco's lore:

During the 1950s and 1960s, the section of track at Maco became a popular place for people to park at night and wait for the light to appear. ...Those who were present when a train passed by said the light would rise above the cars and hover, illuminating the top of the train. And one woman who remained "safely" seated in the automobile while her husband walked down the tracks to get a better view of the light said she saw a flash of light in front of the car, then the headless form of a man passed by in front of the vehicle.
http://www.ghostsightingcentral.com/articlesgsc/usrtales/ghost-lantern.asp   (link no longer active)

A far less incredible description of the light is offered by one contributor to an online forum of a railroads historical society:

My cousin and I went to the crossing one night... and we did see a light. It was amber looking, just as if it were a latern, very dim, but then glowing brighter for a few seconds and then fading away to nothing. We went on down the road and then came back and once again we saw it, just for a few seconds and then again it was gone.
Andrew Callo ( acallo@dcf.net ), April 27, 2001
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0056xf

This unusually plausible description is completely consistent with a sighting of distant car headlights - one sees the headlights approaching at an angle, indirectly, until the car rounds a corner and faces the viewer head-on, at which point the lights grow suddenly brighter before fading out of view as the car turns away or disappears behind some obstacle.

Other eye-witness descriptions of a less fantastical nature offer reason to believe that the light was the result of a highly coincidental view of an ordinary terrestrial light, seen by way of some very unexpected line of sight - for instance, an unexpected view of a distant road seen through a narrow break in the trees. Typically, a light seen under such circumstances will be visible only within a very narrow line of sight, and will disappear from view when the viewer moves in any direction. Notice how this happens in the following story:

It wasn't very long before a fairly strong light appeared in the distance and began swaying back and forth, just as the story told. We watched for awhile and then began to walk down the tracks towards the light. After we walked 20 or 30 yards it disappeared. We walked in the other direction towards the crossing and it reappeared. Anytime we walked towards it, it would disappear again. No way was we going to get close to it. After awhile we grew tired of the game and left. But we had seen the Maco Light and were now believers.
http://www.thepsychicspot.com/odds_and_ends.htm   (link no longer active)

But what could account for the swaying motion of the light? Apart from the movement of cars on some distant road, the light could be made to appear quite unusual by distortions of the atmosphere. Contrary to popular misconception, car headlights can be seen from many miles away, and may be further enhanced or distorted in strange ways by the common effect of the mirage, which can cause a distant light to appear closer and brighter than it really is, and can cause also cause a light to appear to shimmer or otherwise move erratically.

Some witnesses of the light would beg to differ with the car headlight theory, however; in a 1949 Railroad Magazine article, witnesses addressed the automobile explanation dismissively:

One ACL employee, B. M. Jones, refers to the ghostly light as weaving directly above the track to a height of about five feet, describing an arc, and disappearing in a nearby bog. Another, A. B. Love, says: "That definitely is not an automobile light on the highway. It lasts too long, and rises and falls. The effect is visible for five minutes at a time. Besides, its first appearances antedate the automobile." Miss Francis Murphy describes its reflection "shimmering on the rails," and adds, "It is sometimes light enough to read by."
"Superstitions," by Freeman H. Hubbard
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/super.html
(story originally appeared in Railroad Magazine - originally Railroad Man's Magazine, April, 1949, by Popular Publications).

Another source repeats the claim that the light has been seen since before the advent of the automobile, and that car headlights have been ruled out as an explanation by an experiment in modern times:

It has been reported here since 1873 and has been seen by literally thousands of people since that date. In 1886, an earthquake stopped the light for a short time but when it came back there were 2 lights for a short time. ...No one has been able to figure out what causes the light, as just about every explanation has been discussed and tossed aside, from automobile headlights (seen before cars existed) to swamp gas. During one investigation, all traffic was routed away from Maco and no cars were allowed to approach the area....and yet the unearthly light still appeared.
http://www.prairieghosts.com/maco.html

Whatever the case, the light hasn't been seen since the 1970's, when the abandoned railroad track was apparently pulled up and a nearby road was widened. These man-made changes to the area are sufficient to explain the disappearance of the phenomenon, although natural changes are just as likely - assuming, for instance, that distant lights were being seen through a narrow break in the trees, the growth of the trees or surrounding brush could have gradually presented an obstacle, blocking the view of the light from the popular viewing point.

Regardless of the explanation for the light's disappearance, perhaps we can all accept the possibility that Joe Baldwin has finally found his head and is resting comfortably in the netherworld. We can thank him for one of the finest headless ghost stories in American lore, and that's good enough for me. Joe Baldwin has taken his place beside great American ghosts like the Headless Horseman; as such, I think it's appropriate to conclude this supernatural dissertation with the closing lines from Sleepy Hollow:

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation... At length, he observed, that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant - there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.  "Faith, sir," replied the story teller, "as to that matter, I don't believe one-half of it myself."

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