Devil's Tramping Ground
I originally did this story after listening to the song Hypnotized, by Fleetwood Mac.When they mentioned North Carolina I wodered where this place was, so I started looking and this came up.
Bob Welch, the song writer stated he really didn't honestly know exact location either, but like myself, found it interesting.
The Devil's Tramping Ground is a camping spot located in a forest near the Harper's Crossroads area in Bear Creek, North Carolina.
It has been the subject of persistent local legends and lore, which frequently allege that the Devil tramps and haunts a barren circle of ground in which nothing is supposed to grow.
It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.
Legends about the ring are well known in local communities.
These include the disappearance of objects left within the ring overnight, dogs yipping and howling, not wanting to go near it.
And strange events occurring to those who spend the night within its boundaries.
It has been alleged that nothing has grown within the 40' of the ring for 100 years.
Supposedly it is where the Devil walks in circles on certain nights, thinking of ways to bring his evil into this world.
John William Harden of Greensboro, NC, journalist, newspaper editor, author, and advisor to North Carolina governors and textile executives, had this to say of the Devil's Tramping Ground:
In short, it seems likely the legend of the Devil's Tramping Ground predates the American Revolution.
Chatham natives say that the Devil goes there to walk in circles as he thinks up new means of causing trouble for humanity.
There, sometimes during the dark of night, the Majesty of the Underworld of Evil silently tramps around that bare circle, thinking, plotting, and planning against good, in behalf of wrong.
For centuries, locals have wondered over the mystery of the unchanging, dead soil surrounding the Devil's Tramping Ground.
However, it seems the spot may have even more mysteries, such as:
When did the legend first begin?
When was the tramping ground discovered?
And how did it gain such national fame?
Exploring the myths and origins of the Devil's Tramping Ground in North Carolina raises some eerie and spooky stories dating back centuries.
The spot is still shrouded in mystery, concluded the article.
1930s: A great shadowy beast guards the tramping ground.
Even in the 1930s, newspapers were publishing stories about this generational legend.
The Chatham Record wrote:
For more than 100 years, and how much longer no one apparently knows, this spot has not materially changed appearance.
Article about the Devil's Tramping Ground dating back to 1905.
A lost mystery called The Devil's Track, is a story was released in The Carolinian newspaper entitled
Weird Tale of a Fishing Frolic: Not of Fish Caught, but of Sights Seen.
The tale was written by G.W. Paschal.
We visited a much greater wonder which presents some phenomenon which is also ascribed to His Satanic Majesty, and known as the Devil's Tramping Ground.
There is a legend that an Indian Chief is buried here, and the Chief's tribe brought Earth in blankets from beyond Deep River and planted it in the wire grass.
This is probably a true story, for with my knife I dug up some of the Earth in the circle.
He describes roughly 2" of soil being bluish, clayey, looking Earth that is markedly different from the soil outside the circle.
So it is evident that the Earth was brought here.
He said treasure hunters also visited the area often.
Paschal also described another nearby place known as The Devil's Track.
An enormous stone, which he describes as hundreds of thousands of years old and obviously placed under immense layers of pressures.
Yet here in it is a track such as a barefoot child would make in soft mud.
In recent generations, the legend of The Devil's Tramping Ground has remained popular, but the legend of the Devil's Track is not nearly as well known.
In the 1930s, however, a new wrinkle appeared in the story.
A great black beast that chases hunters and their dogs away.
The legend of this beast has seemingly not survived in more modern iterations of the tale.
There is a story current of how coon and possum hunters and their dogs have been on more than one occasion chased from the vicinity of the Devil's Tramping Ground by a ferocious beast said to resemble a black bear.
Only a few years ago, in our modern era, scientists were still running tests on the soil in attempts to solve the mystery.
Even back in 1946, scientists were trying to solve the mystery by conducting soil tests.
W.A. Bridges Laboratory in Wilson ran tests, still flummoxed, sent samples along to Dr. I E. Miles, Director of the Soil Testing Division of the North Carolina Department of Agriculture.
Tests determined that the soil was sterile, and newspapers called the mystery halfway solved.
But, they acknowledged, even those tests did not determine why this strange circle of sterile soil exists, nor why it has persisted for centuries.
No human being knows, says newspaper from 1950s.
In 1955 the State Highway Department, seeing the popularity and tourism potential, put up directional signs, marking the route and labeling the tramping grounds.
However, many of those signs appear to be gone today.
In 1956 the Charlotte Observer ran an article about the State Highway Department marking a route to make finding the Devil's Tramping Ground easier for travellers.
According to the article, for years the hallowed ground was only visited by locals, but a North Carolina writer named John Harden wrote a book about the tramping ground, drawing a wider level of fame to the spooky space.
That brought a flood of sightseers to rural Chatham County in search of the place, said the article.
Knowledge of this place of mystery dates back the years of recorded history.
Back to the days when Indigenous tribes roamed the land.
Before Columbus set foot upon the New World.
The Devil's Tramping ground, it seems, was sacred to the Indigenous tribes.
They used the spot for ceremonial rights, the article continued.
Though it's not clear where the newspaper sourced its information relating the mysterious circle to indigenous tribes, that theme continued throughout written history.
Some legends even said treasure was buried beneath the subsoil, and its presence may be what's causing the soil to be sterile.
1880s: Oral history from settlers and tribes in the 1700s
Even farther back, an article from 1882 refers more overtly to the indigenous tribes, which likely still lived in the area.
He wrote that they have all a superstitious dread of the place, and it was with difficulty that I succeeded in getting one of them to visit the place with me for the purpose of digging into it.
After getting about 3' and finding nothing, he was so impressed with the supernatural origin that he refused to go any further.
The author compares the place to fabled fairy walks in Ireland, and says:
The Old North State is not without its curiosities.
In 1925, a 74 year old man born in 1851 said his grandfather, who would likely have been born in the early 1800s or even late 1700s, said the spot looked unchanged from when he first saw it decades ago.
In 1882, another article referenced people nearly 100 years old who remembered seeing the tramping ground and hearing stories of it when they were children, possibly as far back as the 1780s.
That would mean even settlers prior to the founding of America could have been aware of this legend, and it's possible it goes back even further.
Today the Devil's Tramping Ground is on private property.
Unfortunately, many people report the owners struggling with litter and trash being left all over the ground by trespassers.
Although Google lists the Devil's Tramping Ground as being open as a campground, the land is on private property and, likely due to struggles with trespassing and litter, no one is permitted to visit without permission.