Folklore marker to be unveiled at haunted underpass

Jimmy Tomlin, The High Point Enterprise, N.C.
·2 min read

May 3—JAMESTOWN — Lydia, North Carolina's most famous phantom hitchhiker, has more or less owned the old Jamestown underpass for decades, but this week a new commemorative marker will make it official.

On Friday morning, a sleek-looking Legends & Lore marker will be unveiled at the underpass. The marker will designate the bridge as the site of countless ghostly sightings of Lydia, a young woman who's trying to find her way home after being killed in a car crash at the bridge in 1920.

The ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. and is free and open to the public.

"I'm an enthusiast of Lydia's hitchhiking ghost, and I love what the town has done to make that site more accessible to the public," said Dan Sellers, who spearheaded the effort to have the marker placed at the underpass. "But if you go down there, there's nothing there to tell you about the legend of Lydia, other than maybe some graffiti. I was thinking somebody should do something about that."

So he did.

Sellers, of Greensboro, is the founder of Carolina Haints, a nonprofit organization created to promote folklore and history throughout the Carolinas. Partnering with the N.C. Folklife Institute, he applied for and received a grant from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation to have a Legends & Lore marker placed at the Jamestown underpass.

The marker will read, "Lydia's Bridge: Since the 1920s, the apparition of a young woman has been seen hitchhiking here, only to disappear when drivers come to her aid."

The marker will also include a small QR code. When visitors to the underpass scan the code with their phone, they will be linked to a five-minute YouTube recording that tells the legend of Lydia in much greater detail.

According to Sellers, North Carolina has a couple dozen Legend & Lore markers — there's one at the infamous Devil's Tramping Ground in Chatham County, for example — and more are planned.

"These markers are beautiful," he said. "They're similar to state historical markers, but cooler, and they're specifically geared for folklore."

jtomlin@hpenews.com — 336-888-3579