Diphtheria was a common disease in the South Carolina Low Country during the 1800s. The first effective diphtheria antitoxin was not developed until 1890. This contagious disease spread throughout the barrier islands of South Carolina in 1850, and when the telltale yellowish-gray patch appeared on the throat of the young girl who was buried alive, it wasn't long before she went into a coma so deep that word mistakenly came from the physician that she had died.

As there was no artificial preservation of dead bodies on Edisto Island before the Civil War, it was the practice to bury the dead as soon as possible after their demise. So word was sent to neighboring plantations that the girl's funeral would be held that very afternoon. As the people of Edisto Island prepared to attend the funeral and burial of the girl who had been visiting in the home of a planter family, loving hands prepared her body and dressed her in the pink dress that had been her favorite.

After the funeral was held in the sanctuary, the body was placed in a marble mausoleum behind the church, under a canopy of oaks and pines. The tomb door was a broad, flat, thick piece of marble, hinged on one side. It was closed and locked.

In the amber glaze of the afternoon, the mourners left the cemetery, walking among the marble forms of cherubs, urns, and other symbols of eternal sleep among the trees. Just before leaving the burial ground, some turned for a last look at the mausoleum with the family name, J.B. Legare, carved above the door. The sepulcher lacked columns, but it could have doubled for a tiny Greek temple.

Some fifteen years later, one of the men of the Legare family was killed in an accident. His body was prepared for burial and taken to the church, where his funeral was held. When the heavy door to the family mausoleum was opened so that the remains of the body could be interred, there, to the horror of the members of the family, was the skeletal frame of the young girl who had been buried earlier. From the position of her remains, it was clear that she had been buried alive, and at the time of her death she had been trying to escape from the mausoleum. Members of the family felt the horror the young girl must have felt when she realized she was trapped, and they felt the panic that must have driven her to try - without hope - to escape.

The man was entombed, as were the skeletal remains of the young girl, and it was several weeks before any of the family returned to the mausoleum. When they did, they found the door to the vault standing open. The door was closed again and fastened in such a way that it seemed impossible that it could ever be opened again. However, strangely, in a few weeks an elder of the church discovered the door standing open again.

Word spread throughout the area that the spirit of the young girl who had been buried alive would not allow the door to remain closed so that no one else would be buried in the tomb alive. For more than a hundred years it was impossible to keep the door to the mausoleum closed.

About thirty years ago the door was again attached in such a way that it was concluded it would be impossible for it to be opened except with certain heavy equipment. But a few days later, the door was found not only open but removed from the mausoleum at the hinges. The concerned administrators of the church then had the door reinstalled and fastened by a heavy iron chain. But within a few days the door was again lying on the ground in front of the mausoleum!

Today vines grow in the cracks of the marble mausoleum, and spider webs and wasp nests festoon the doorframe. And the stubborn marble door lies broken into three pieces on the ground at the vault entrance.