Six Miles to Charleston (18 page)

The property could have been seized by the state at any time under eminent domain, but the owner would have to be compensated. Remember that the country was in its first depression and that the state had no money to spend in this endeavor. If the rightful owner was in jail, convicted of a crime and executed there would be no one to pay and the state could seize the land. There would be no one to contest the seizure and condemnation of the properties. The burning of the buildings also cleared the land of all structures. Remember that Geddes sent people to build a structure on Key West so he could claim it? Well the opposite was true. Removing the buildings also removed an element of the right to claim the property. Geddes could have the land to build the naval depot and have all the salvage rights.

It seems there is quite a different story when we come to the end of the facts. Many might say that there is a great deal of conjecture and speculation as to what did occur, but based on the facts, it is not what we have been told for the better part of two centuries. Something is greatly amiss in what happened to the Fishers.

In the end we have managed to disprove most of the legend of Six Mile House and discovered what did occur there. The only part of the legend that does ring true is the words Lavinia uttered in defiance, “Cease! I will have none of it. Save your words for others that want them. But if you have a message you want to send to Hell, give it to me; I'll carry it.” That is the one true element of the legend and apparently this act of defiance—on the gallows, with her white garments blowing in the wind, denied a pardon that she begged for—was etched into the minds of the witnesses and etched into the history of Charleston. Lavinia spent her last moments in life waiting for an earthly pardon that never came and denying the godly pardon Dr. Furman and others had tried to provide her. According to legend, she is still here on earth searching for that pardon. Perhaps there is a lesson in that.

The tale of what actually did occur six miles from Charleston has now been told, and the legend of the most infamous couple in Charleston's history, John and Lavinia Fisher, has been reexamined. Based on the facts, the reader is left to draw their own conclusion as to what actually did transpire in the case of the Fishers. That conclusion is obviously quite different than what the legend has taught us and many before us over the past 190 years.

Just as the plaque outside St. Luke's Church is dedicated to those who died of disease during the same year the Fishers were arrested and executed, may this book also be a solemn reminder of the suffering of persons, like William Heyward and the Fishers, in an earlier judicial system. May it be an incentive to those who seek to investigate crimes and render justice today to not be swayed by bias, politics or by prejudice. May it also serve as a reminder that not everything you are told is true and that the truth is often overshadowed by time and lost in legend.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Courtesy of Kayla Orr.

Bruce Orr was raised in the Lowcountry of South Carolina and grew up hunting and fishing the plantations of Berkeley County with his father and brothers. It was during those times he spent many evenings listening to the tales and legends surrounding this historic area. As a young boy, he had an insatiable appetite for the bizarre, unexplained and paranormal and was always searching for answers behind the events he heard at the hunt clubs and fish camps.

As he grew into an adult, this natural curiosity in seeking the facts brought him into law enforcement where he eventually became a detective and a supervisor within his agency's Criminal Investigative Division. Now retired, he uses the skills he obtained in his career to research some of the most notorious cases within the Charleston area. He seeks answers through historical documentation in an effort to separate fact from fantasy and to keep the truth from being lost in legend.

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