Weird SC #11: The Ghost Hound Of Goshen Hill Traditional Geocache
Weird SC #11: The Ghost Hound Of Goshen Hill
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Size: 
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This is a 35mm canister hidden just off the road.
DO NOT enter the woods or search on National Forest property as it is not there.
This is #11 in our "WEIRD SC" Series which will consist of caches placed at locations where either ghosts, unknown creatures, or just plain weird things have occurred or exist.
We think our State Motto should change to "Smiling Faces, Haunted Places".
This cache is not a part of our co-series Honoring SC Geocachers as the story is a stand alone tale.
And it is just too scary to place a caches name to......
In a lonely area between the small communities of Maybinton and Cross Keys lies an area known as Goshen Hills; home of the Hound Of Goshen.
The story goes that a traveling man passed through Goshen Hill sometime back in the early 1850's. He had a large white dog with him for company and protection.
As he went from door to door selling his wares, a murder took place in the area.
An angry mob formed and decided that as he was the only outsider around, he must have been the killer. Despite the dogs best efforts to protect his master he was dragged to a nearby tree and hanged by the lynch mob.
The dog managed to bite a few people but one man shot him with a rifle and the wounded dog ran off into the woods.
After the crowd dispersed, leaving the body hanging in the tree; the dog was observedunder his master; guarding the body and allowing no-one near it.
No one particularly wanted to bury it or acknowledge the body either as it had become obvious another man had committed the murder. Weeks passed and the dog never left the rotting corpse.
Finally, one morning, the corpse and dog vanished.
The locals sighed with relief. They could now put the mistake behind them.
Or so they thought.
It wasn't too long before local slaves began reporting seeing a white spectral dog that would chase them down the road, sniffing them then disapearing into the woods.
No one believed them until a local prominent Physician, Doctor George Douglass saw it in 1855 and began documenting sightings. Another Doctor, Jim Cofield ; also reported seeing the Ghost Hound.
Most people reported no harm, but persons reported to be a part of the lynch mob were not so lucky.
One of the men was driving a wagon with produce when the Ghost Hound attacked, spooking his horses and dumping all of the produce on the ground. The man fled with the Hound snarling at his heels.
Other people who had been part of the lynching reported horrible attacks by the white dog. One mans hand was crippled by a bite that nearly severed it across the palm. Another was almost drowned when the dog knocked him into a creek. Another was riding as fast as his horse could run when the Ghost Hound bit him through his boot causing him to walk with a limp the rest of his life.
In time, the pattern became clear; the Hound was bent on revenge.
It was also reported that shots fired into the dog passed through it with no harm.
Eventually every one who had been present for the lynching was punished in some manner. But the worst was reserved for the man who shot the dog. He himself was never attacked though he greatly feared it; and he never saw the dog in his lifetime. However his 4 year old son disapeared in the same area where all the attacks took place. Sometime in the 1920's the attacks stopped and tapered only to threats; some say because the last of the lynch mob passed away. In 1936 a man named Barry Sanders reported being chased home by the Ghost Hound but he came to no harm.
According to locals the Ghost Dog Of Goshen still shows up on Maybinton Road where the cache is hidden. As a matter of fact it is hidden just past the curve in the road where the actual sightings and lynching took place. Just down from the cache on Brazelmans Bridge Road are two cemetaries with some graves dating to the late 1700's and a marker where a church built in the 1700's once stood. There have also been reported sightings of the Hound there.
While placing the cache at the curve we saw nothing, not a single thing living. Or dead.
But while visiting the graveyard a sudden chill wind blew through the area.
And we could faintly hear a dog howling in the woods.......
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
FGBC....vf gung gur Ubhaq?!?