Is there a real-life ghost story in Chester, SC? You read this story and decide.

A large, white building on McAlilely Street in Chester, SC, houses the Chester County Historical Society. But big, black letters on top of the building bears the words “Chester County Jail, 1914.”

Prisoners were held there for everything from petty thefts to murders. And though the jail closed in 1974, people here say some prisoners never left.

If you ask about the jail, many people in Chester will tell you it’s haunted -- a fitting description as we approach Halloween.

Some parents have even prevented their children from walking down McAliley Street at night.

The building has been repurposed, now housing collections of local memorabilia and artifacts. There’s pottery from the nearby Catawba Indian nation, collections of rifles and hand guns. There’s even a bench that former Vice President Aaron Burr slept on in 1806.

Jail cells on the upper floors are still in their original condition, marked by graffiti of those who were there.

People often report seeing a face in the window of the top floor.

Liz Anderson, the head of the Historical Society, says she used to receive phone calls from people in the bar across the street, claiming to have seen someone walking in front of the windows.

But there’s no floor below those windows.

Once, Anderson said, a policeman visited the museum after seeing a figure through the barred windows. He thought someone had broken in.

When the officer came downstairs, he said, “There’s no one there.”

Anderson expected that response.

“I know,” she told him.

No one was there; no one living, anyway.

Around a month into Anderson’s tenure as administrator at the Chester Historical Society, she walked up the stairs to the first floor. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the curator at the time said.

“No,” Anderson said. “But I think I heard one.”

It was one of her first encounters with the infamous ghosts of the building.

While she was downstairs, she says she heard someone tuning a guitar. It didn’t make sense. The building’s walls would have been too thick to hear something with so soft a sound.

She jokingly said, “Well, just play something, you’ve tuned it up.”

Wherever the sound was coming from, the guitarist started to play a song, she says.

Before Anderson was able to tell her story, her colleague asked, “Did you hear guitar?”

Now, several people visiting there have claimed to hear the guitar player.

Anderson says she has seen plenty since then -- footprints, pictures have been moved around, items have been misplaced to later be found in obscure places. She’s heard piano music coming from the room where a sheriff’s son once lived.

It’s also common to hear two people talking in an empty room, behind a steel door.

They’ve also asked her about an old man walking around on the lower level, where old jail cells now provide storage for historical items.

Anderson says she’s familiar with this ghost. She says when she describes the big, burly old man she knows as “Doc,” visitors confirm that’s exactly what they saw.

Perhaps the most striking example is “Billy,” a spirit believed to live in one of the jail cells.

His voice was recorded by paranormal investigators, Anderson said. When they asked “what’s your name?”, the response came: “Billy.”

If you enter the cell, and look closely, someone has etched “Billy” into the wall.

Visitors will leave Billy offerings, things someone might long for in jail. When a Herald reporter visited the jail this week, there were cigarettes and playing cards in the cell.

The ghosts most recent activity, Anderson said, has been stealing keys to the museum’s rooms. Now, she wears them on her wrist.

It makes sense that the building carries a haunting aura.

“This was a violent place,” Anderson says. It was said that no one came out of the sheriff’s office with their teeth still in their mouth.

The building also has a strong connection to death. The museum houses soldier’s uniforms dating from the American Revolution up to Desert Storm.

Chester residents aren’t the only ones who believe in the jail’s legends.

The building has been the subject of multiple investigations, including a recent visit from the Charlotte Area Paranormal Society, a group that “employs the scientific method and sound investigate techniques” to investigate paranormal activity.

Anderson said the society’s most recent visit two weeks ago found “twice as much activity” as previous visits.

The Ghost Guild, a registered non-profit with a “love for history, science, and the unexplained,” according to their website, also visited the jail. The guild’s website says their investigation of the building “yielded some yet to be explained activity,” though they did not get picture or video of what they saw.

Haunted Journeys, an organization that hosts the “World’s Largest Ghost Hunt,” lists the property as “the most haunted” property in town.

Is the building truly haunted?

The historical society is open to visitors on weekdays, as well as ghost tours by appointment, so you can visit and make your own decision.

If you aren’t interested in ghosts, don’t look in the windows.

This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 9:39 AM.