Martinville Church Road

South Carolina · United States · Cemetery

Singing from an empty church outside Sumter, and the lights that went out when the car pulled away.

Martinville Church Road runs out of Sumter into the South Carolina flatwoods, and a few miles along it stands the old Martinville Church, disused for many years. Behind it is a cemetery closed off by a heavy iron gate. Very little of the church's history is written down, which is part of why the place has collected so much story.

The account that gets repeated most concerns a group who stopped at the cemetery gate on a July evening. They heard singing from the direction of the church, a congregation rather than one voice, and saw faint light in the windows of a building that has no power. The temperature dropped hard enough that they remarked on it, in July, in the South Carolina low country, and the air went heavy in the way people describe before a storm that never arrived. They ran for the car. As they pulled away, the lights in the church went out behind them.

Others who have come here since describe less than that and more than nothing: the sense of being expected at the gate, and a reluctance to walk in among the stones that they cannot afterwards explain. The church and the burial ground are private property and the graves are still visited. Stay on the road.

FAQ

Where is Martinville Church Road located?

Martinville Church Road is in South Carolina, United States.