Pawleys Island (The Gray Man)

This barrier island south of Myrtle Beach is home to South Carolina's most famous ghost - The Gray Man, who has been warning residents of approaching hurricanes for nearly 200 years. His appearances are considered good omens.

The Gray Man of Pawleys Island is one of the most famous and benevolent ghosts in American folklore -- a spectral figure who has appeared on the beaches and marshes of this small South Carolina barrier island for over two hundred years, always with the same urgent message: a hurricane is coming, and you must leave now. Those who heed his warning, the legend promises, will find their homes spared when they return after the storm.

The most widely told origin story dates to 1822. A young man was riding from Charleston to Pawleys Island to see his fiancee when he and his horse became trapped in the pluff mud of the marsh -- the treacherous quicksand-like tidal mud that has claimed lives along the Lowcountry coast for centuries. Both man and horse perished. The young woman, devastated by the loss, was walking the beach in mourning when a gray, indistinct figure appeared before her in the mist and urged her to leave the island immediately. She and her family evacuated, and the Great Hurricane of 1822 struck shortly afterward, killing dozens and devastating the coast. When the family returned, their home was one of the few left standing.

Since that first sighting, the Gray Man has reportedly appeared before every major hurricane to strike Pawleys Island. He was seen before Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which destroyed much of the Grand Strand. He appeared before Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the Category 4 storm that devastated Charleston and the surrounding coast. Most recently, the Gray Man was sighted just before Hurricane Florence in 2018. In each case, the pattern is the same: a figure in gray -- some describe him as wearing old-fashioned clothing, others say his features are too indistinct to make out details -- appears on the beach or near the dunes and delivers a warning to evacuate. The residents who see him and leave consistently report that their homes survive the storm with minimal damage, even when surrounding structures are destroyed.

The identity of the Gray Man has been debated for two centuries. The most popular theory connects him to the young man who died in the marsh in 1822, forever seeking to protect the woman he loved and, by extension, all who live on the island. Others suggest the Gray Man is the ghost of Percival Pawley, the island's original settler. Some connect him to the area's pirate history, proposing that the Gray Man is a reformed buccaneer atoning for his crimes by warning the innocent. A few accounts have even identified the Gray Man as the ghost of Plowden C.J. Weston, a wealthy rice planter who owned much of Pawleys Island before the Civil War.

What makes the Gray Man unusual among ghost stories is the consistency and specificity of the accounts. The sightings are not vague or atmospheric -- they involve direct, purposeful interaction with living people and carry a verifiable prediction that can be tested against the historical record of hurricanes. The Gray Man has been featured in numerous books, television programs, and newspaper articles, and the legend has become inseparable from the identity of Pawleys Island itself.

Today Pawleys Island remains a quiet, deliberately undeveloped barrier island south of Myrtle Beach, known for its hammock-making tradition, its salt marshes, and its ghosts. The Gray Man is the island's guardian spirit, a ghost who does not frighten but protects -- and whose appearance on the beach before a storm is still taken seriously by long-time residents who know the legend and its track record.