When I was growing up, Pinckneyville was one of several destinations for Sunday drives(aka rambles), my father would take us on. I always enjoyed looking around the(any)old structures. You see when I was a child, you entertained yourself outdoors, not on a couch, in front of a video game.
Later on as a teenager, I began to hear stories of a different kind about Pickneyville, stories of hauntings etc. You could always count on a good story about this place to surface around Halloween each year. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, there was a lot of talk about satanists' using this site, namely the jailhouse, for rituals.
Well one Halloween night in either 1991 or 1992, myself, Lisa, and our friends; Todd, Renee, Sherry, Trish, and Norma, decided we were gonna drive down to Pinckneyville and see if all the rumors were true. We took two vehicles. Driving Hwy 18 at night is a pretty isolated feeling, most of it is really rural, and after the couple of turns off of the main highway to get to the site, you end up on a gravel road that seems to go on forever. Well, tensions were high as we approached GZ, and quite as a mouse inside the car. When we arrived, all of us were relieved that not one soul, alive or dead, was there other than our caravan. Then the bravado began. Flashlights in hand, we walked around the structures, proclaiming our bravery, even with Todd making devil faces with the flashlight under his chin in the pitch black night. We probably spent an hour or so there before we headed back toward Gaffney. We were soon to find out, our departure would not be without incident. Driving up the long gravel road, our vehicle in back, we saw two pair of headlights coming toward us, we slowed immediately as the road is not wide. As our two vehicles approached the oncoming vehicles, the cars slowed, and as we came along side the oncoming cars, all four cars all but stopped. There to our left, were two black Cadillacs with TENNESSEE license plates siting on a back road in B.F.E. in the middle of the night. Todd screamed like a girl, and the rest of us joined him in perfect harmony. I assure you, more Gs' have never been felt in a Buick Skylark. What those vehicles were doing there, and how they even knew about the place is beyond me. I am not certain that I want to know. That night still makes me laugh every time I think about it.
Lisa and I were in the area a couple of weeks ago, and tried to drive out there (daylight) to see if anything still remains. It appears all access is now private.
Info from the NRHP site:
When Pinckney District was created in 1791, it comprised the counties of Union, Spartanburg, York, and Chester. Three commissioners appointed by the Legislature selected a place in the northern part of Union county for the new court house town to be established. Pinckneyville is one of the earliest settlements in the South Carolina backcountry. It reflects the spread of justice throughout the state in the early years and the beginnings of representative government beyond the border of Charleston. For the first ninety years of provincial Carolina, Charleston was the source of all judicial proceedings. For the accommodation of the remote settlers, an act was passed in 1796 by which district courts were established at Beaufort, Georgetown, Cheraw, Camden, Orangeburg and Ninety Six. In 1789, the circuit courts were invested with complete and final jurisdiction. In two more years, Pinckney and Washington districts were added. Although the town never flourished as its planners had dreamed, it does reflect a significant era of South Carolina history. The National Register property consists of 1.75 acres of the original site of Pinckneyville and contains the ruins of the brick jail and one other brick building, usually referred to as the old store.
