One afternoon, several years ago, I was crabbing off the bridge and an old black fellow walked over and started watching me. I was bringing up a few nice ones and he was talking and telling me that he had grown up nearby. As a child, he had fished where we were standing, only at that time there was only a narrow wooden bridge across the creek. He told me his father would bring him and his brother down there to fish but he was told to never let darkness catch him still on the bridge because the "haints" would surely come and get him.

I told him that I had heard about the slaves walking off into the creek and drowning themselves and that sometimes, late at night, a person could hear their groaning and chanting and their chains rattling. I hastened to let him know that I believed in ghosts but I had never spent the night on the bridge. I did admit to the feeling of sorrow I sometimes felt and the strange sounds in the air that seemed to come from nowhere.

"Well," he said, "I’m going to tell you something my Daddy told me and his Daddy told him… Back around 1890 or so, a couple of men were polling a small flat boat up the creek. They were running with the incoming tide, using long poles to help shove the boat along.

"The men had been fishing all day and were trying to get home before dark. As they got near the bridge, one of the men’s poles struck something hard. Now this creek has a mud and sand bottom, so they figured that it must have been a submerged boat or maybe something of value," the old man went on. "Remember, this creek is only a few feet deep at low tide so they agreed to come back when it was morning. Sticking one of their poles in the bottom to mark the place, they used the remaining pole to get home.

"The following day, when the sun came up and the tide was running, they put their flat boat in and rode the out-going flow back to where the pole was sticking up. One man held the boat steady while the other slipped over the side and into the water. This could be mighty dangerous…the water was only about neck deep but there are plenty of alligators around here looking for a meal.

"The man in the water felt around with his feet until he stepped on something that felt like a small log. Diving under to the bottom and running his hands along it, he soon discovered that it was an anchor with some chain attached. He came up for air and told his partner what he had found. They decided to borrow a team and some rope and come back the next day and mount a salvage operation. They figured that selling it in town might make them a few dollars," said the old man. He paused for a moment and then continued on.

"The next day, they were ready when the tide reached the lowest point. They knew they had about twenty minutes, give or take, to get the rope around the anchor. One fellow took the rope and jumped into the creek. He waded out to the marker and went down. Feeling around, he realized the anchor was too deep into the mud to get the rope around. He came back up for a breath and then went back and tied it through a link in the chain.

"Then he scrambled back up on the bank and signaled his friend, who was about fifty feet away, to start the team of horses to pulling. The marsh was soft and muddy but the horses were soon able to pull the anchor and chain free and drag it up into the tall grass. From there, getting it to the road was easy.

"The whole thing was pretty well covered with mud and oyster shells. The rope had been tied through the chain links and the horses had been able to pull it out straight from the mud….this is when they discovered the leg shackles that had been fastened about every three feet long it, each one closed and fastened with a rivet. There were eight of them in all.

"Through the eye of the anchor was what was left of a rotting piece of inch and a half hemp rope about three feet long. The end still bore the unmistakable angular cut of having been severed with an ax."

After this, the old fellow stood looking out over the creek for a few minutes and said, "Well, good luck with your crabbing." Then he walked away.

Now when someone starts telling me the story of those proud, defiant slaves who, on that day long ago, chose to walk off into Dunbar Creek, rather than be held captive by plantation owners, I just sort of smile and nod my head. I think that I may have a better idea of what happened here….

Oh, I think they went into the creek alright, but whether they went of their own volition or not is another matter entirely.