Ghost Stories & Folklore of Southeastern North Carolina
The lantern still swings out there in the dark.
The true ghost stories and old legends of the Cape Fear lowlands — the swamp roads, the railroad tracks, the black water — gathered up and gently retold for young readers. Spooky enough to thrill. Soft enough for bedtime.
The Books
Each book takes one real Southeastern North Carolina legend and tells it the way it ought to be told — on a dark drive home, with somebody you trust beside you.
A story for a dark stretch of road
Grandma's telling of Joe Baldwin — the railroad man who lost his head in a wreck at Maco Station, west of Wilmington, and is said to walk the tracks at night still, swinging his lantern, looking for it.
A story for a dark back road
Out on Chair Factory Road in Columbus County, a woman long ago left her heart in the black water below an old wooden bridge. Park in the middle at midnight, cut the engine, and listen — a screech, a pop, and then a heartbeat rising out of the dark.
In the works now. Join the anthology waitlist below and we'll tell you the moment it lands.
The Keepsake Edition
The whole Cape Fear Legends collection, gathered into a single hardcover heirloom — the kind of book that gets read aloud on porches, passed down, and pulled off the shelf every October. A gift edition, built to last.
$49.99Hardcover keepsake · forthcoming
It isn't ready yet — we're still gathering the legends. But if you'd like to know the moment it is, we'll keep a lantern lit for you.
Or email waitlist@capefearlegends.com — a real inbox, no forms, no spam.
About the Series
These are the stories of home — the Cape Fear lowlands of Southeastern North Carolina, where the back roads run dark through the pinewoods and the swamp keeps its secrets. Some were carried down through families, told on a grandmother's lap or a grandfather's front seat. Others belong to the whole county, argued over and half-believed for a hundred years.
Cape Fear Legends retells them for young readers — roughly ages 6 to 10 — the real, eerie shape of each legend kept intact, but the sharpest edges softened for bedtime. The magic here is the listening: the far amber light down the tracks, the heartbeat under the black water. Never gore, always wonder.
Written and illustrated by Andy Rockwell, from the coast near Wilmington, and published by Old Family Recipe Archives — a small imprint devoted to the things worth keeping.
A story stays when somebody keeps it. So we keep them.