From: jlysagh@hubcap.clemson.edu (james joseph lysaght)
Subject: college story, haunted tunnel
Organization: Clemson University
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 15:58:37 GMT

Here is a ghost story that goes around at Clemson University.

About a half hour north of the University just outside Walhalla South
Carolina near the North Carolina border there is this is old tunnel
called the Stumphouse Tunnel.  Back before the civil war the railroad
company was blasting a tunnel through the mountain to make a rail line
up though to ohio.  The local people did not approve of this for some
reason unknown to me.  When the civil war came around they were not yet
finished digging the tunnel but were out of money.  Legend has it that
at the start of the civil war the rebel army went up to this tunnel and
killed all the immigrant workers that were digging the tunnel and then
burried them in the mountain up above the tunnel.  During the war,
Shermans army had routed the rebels in this area in his march to the sea
and they had fled in the face of Shermans troops and hid out in the
tunnel.  Supposedly the soldiers were then in turn caught in the tunnel
and killed there as well.  The tunnel 1600 feet deep into the mountain.
years back Clemson University aged their famous Blue Cheese in the
tunnel but had to stop allegedly because of the ghosts in the tunnel.
This tunnel is in a nature park that thousands of tourists come to every
year and it is completely open to walk in.  Anyone who wants can walk
all the way to the back of the tunnel for no real reason.  Supposedly,
people report that as they walk into the tunnel and get down beyond
where any light from the opening penetrates the darkness they see
further down in the tunnel the lights of the lanterns of the rail
workers and the lanterns of the soldiers killed their.  This naturally
scares the daylights out of them and they run out without investigating
further.  

****** WARNING, DEBUNKER FOLLOWS ******
If you don't want this debunked don't read on.

Well, after reading this list my wife and I had our interest peaked and
so we drove up there just yesterday to see the tunnel for ourselves.  It
is just a dark, wet, muddy tunnel that stretches on and on into the
darkenss with tons of grafitti on the walls.  We decided to walk on in
but our two flashlights would not penetrate the fog more than a few
feet.  We went back to the car and got two more and when we returned to
the tunnel there was a large family with lots of flashlights preparing
to go in so all these lights together ammounted to enough to penetrate
the fog a reasonable distance.  We all started walking and looking at
the way the tunnel was made and all the water dripping through the rock.
Halfway in there was an air shaft to the sky, we all stopped to look out.
When we were deep DEEP inside and could no longer see the opening we saw
some dimm lights up ahead of us wavering in the darkness.  These were
point sources and clearly not reflections of our own lights at all.
Several people got quite nervous at this point and wanted to turn back
and run.  They did not run, however, because they did not want to be
alone and those of us with the lights wanted to invesitgate further.
We lead the group on steadily, straight for the "Ghost lights"  The
closer we got the more scared the group got.  Several of the women were
on the verge of tears and I suspect the men only seemed so calm because
we were all trying to out Macho each other.  Well, we came real close to
the lights and shined out flashlights on the ghosts and what did we
see?!??!  The ghost lights were the flashlights of another group that
had gone in before us and were on their way back out.  No ghosts,
nothing eerie.  We reached the end of the tunnel, rested for a minute
and headed back out.  On the way out we saw some lights coming in, they
apparently saw our lights screamed, turned and ran out of the cave, and
it was just innocent little us.  They will probably have this great
ghost story to tell for years to come.  Who knows, maybe it will even
find its way here to the list.

Jim
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories,alt.folklore.urban