Of the ‘haunted railroad’ stories in North Carolina, the Pactolus light has the distinction of being the only one with out a train wreck. What is does have, is a tale of love broken by greed and death that leaves a man spending eternity trying to get back to the woman he loves.
Pactolus is a small township in Pitt county near Greenville and ECU. The students there have taken to using the Pactolus light as a hazing ritual without any knowledge of it’s heartbreaking origin. But while the light shines brightly, the details of the story have faded in the years.
We do know that in the early part of the 1900’s a man enrolled in a teacher training program in Greenville. There he met the woman of his dreams. Unfortunately, when the semester ended she had to return to her home in Virginia. The man vowed to be there when her train arrived the next year.
As the next term approached, the man planned to propose to the girl and being anxious to do so, found out that her train would stop in Pactolus and decided to meet her there and ride back to Greenville with her.
The day arrived and so the man rode to Pactolus to meet his love and hoped to gain her hand in marriage. He got to the train station and waited all day. The train had been delayed. As dusk approached, he climbed aboard his horse, a beautiful steed, and began to head home.
He never made it. A group of thugs ambushed him, killing him and almost making off with his horse before it escaped. As the story goes the girl died broken hearted, never finding out her loves fate. It was shorty after this that the light appeared.
The students say that if you drove your car down ‘Carl Morris’ road, a dirt drive until you could go no farther and flashed your lights 3 times quickly, the light would appear. Whether you believe the story or not, there IS something that happens in Pactolus. Below is a video I found about the light. Enjoy!
