EDITOR’S NOTE: Strangeville explores the curious and unexplained stories that have long defined Asheville and Western North Carolina. The region is full of unanswered questions, from old folklore and local legends to eerie encounters, unsolved moments in history, and the true-crime mysteries that still leave people wondering. Each week, we look back with an open mind and a sense of curiosity, trying to understand why some stories take hold and why some can never be explained.

Flat Rock, N.C. (828newsNOW) — St. John in the Wilderness in Flat Rock has a reputation for being haunted. Spend any time with its history and you start to wonder if haunted is even the right word.

St. John in the Wilderness is one of the oldest Episcopal churches in Western North Carolina. Founded in the early 1800s, it began as a seasonal chapel for wealthy families who came to the mountains every summer to escape the heat of the South Carolina Lowcountry. Charles and Susan Baring helped establish the church and were later buried on its grounds.

When the church was expanded in 1852, the Barings were already buried on the property. The builders were said to have been instructed to build around the founders who are still inside.

Memorial markers for Charles and Susan Baring, founders of St. John in the Wilderness, are displayed inside the church, where their connection to the building remains part of its history and legend. Photo contributed by Shannon Ballard

The church sits on several acres off Greenville Highway, surrounded by one of the oldest cemeteries in the region. There’s a lot of history buried there. Some of it is stranger than the rest.

Like the story of the grave that’s been empty since the 1840s.

In 1840, James Brown was buried in the churchyard. Brown was a veteran bugler of the Royal Scots Greys who’d fought at Waterloo. Years after his burial at St. John in the Wilderness, his remains were shipped back to Scotland.

The grave stayed.

A marker for James Brown, a Waterloo veteran once buried at St. John in the Wilderness, reflects the story of an empty grave that has become part of local ghost lore in Flat Rock. Photo contributed by Shannon Ballard.

From there, James Brown’s former resting place took on a life of its own. Some folks say you can hear a faint bugle when they stand near that spot. There’s also the legend of the Prohibition-era moonshiners who used the empty grave as a hiding place for their liquor.

Read more about the life and legacy of James Brown in Tombstone Tales

Other parts of the cemetery’s history get told less often.

The grounds surrounding the church are layered with generations of history. Families are buried there, alongside early residents of Flat Rock and military figures.

There is also a burial ground for enslaved and freed individuals connected to Flat Rock. Many of those graves were originally marked only by fieldstones. No names or dates.

That’s the thing about St. John in the Wilderness. Not everything that happened there made it into the record.

The church doesn’t have a single defining ghost story to carry a haunted reputation. It does have a grave that outlasted its occupant and founders who never left. Stories told often enough nobody’s quite sure where the history ends and the legend begins. At St. John in the Wilderness, that line disappeared a long time ago.