Legend of the maco light

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The Legend Of The Maco Light ==

There are many versions of this legend, but nonetheless, the ghostly tale is a popular, well-known story.
It all started on a balmy, foggy night in 1867. One of the few left wood-burning trains was making its way down the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, nearing Maco (originally known as Farmers Turnout.) A small insignificant point on the railroad, 14 miles west of Wilmington. One version of the story states Joe Baldwin is the “flagger” of the train, the other version, more known is that Joe Baldwin was a conductor that stayed on the back, at the caboose. As the story goes, Baldwin was on the train, and everything was going smoothly until he realized the caboose had become unhitched from the rest of the train. Which continued chugging along the tracks not realizing what had happened. Joe quickly ran out to the back of the caboose and noticed another train was fast approaching. He knew if he couldn’t signal for the train to stop, the caboose would be rammed into and a horrible accident would occur. He frantically waved his lantern back and forth, up and down from his post. He didn’t stop, not for one second his waving. The oncoming train conductor didn’t notice this signal until the last moment, and by then there was no way he could stop the train. The two collided, and as a onlooker to the scene says, Joe was decapitated. His head flew off to one side of the swamp, and his lantern into the other side. It was a horrendous accident. It took many days before the wreckage was even cleared and when a search was conducted for the missing head, nothing came up. Thus the body was buried headless.
Soon after all this, one night a train conductor on his train heading down Maco noticed a light bobbing up and down on the tracks, thinking it to be some signal to stop, the train slowed down. The the light disappeared. This was something no one could explain. More and more people began to make sightings of this mysterious light. Anybody who was curious about the unknown would walk down that lone, dark road late at night. Stand on or near the tracks and wait. Wait till they saw the light coming towards them down the track, moving side to side. Everyone said it was Joe Baldwin’s ghost with his lantern searching for his missing head. It was an unexplained phenomenon, and so many people saw it, it had to be true. The light would be about 75 feet down the track, swaying back and forth, and slowly moving forward, then it would suddenly rush forwards, towards the onlookers, get about 50 feet away and burst into a bright beam, then slowly once again back down the track and repeat the process. The sightings stopped for a brief amount of time in 1886 after an earthquake, then reappeared, this time with two lights. Even the president, Grover Cleveland saw it in 1889. The train he was on stopped at Maco Station to restock with food and water and Cleveland got out of the train to stretch. Looking down the tracks he noticed two lights moving, and asked one of the young boys who worked on the train what the purpose of two lights was, and the boy explained the story. The phenomenon continued for many years after. Became less rare to see after Highway 74/76 was built in the 1960s. But stopped abruptly when the tracks were taken up in 1977. Since then no more sightings of the light have been documented.
In an effort to understand what the light was, many scientists have offered explanations to what the light could possibly be. Some say it was swamp gas, others even have blamed in on automobile headlights (which cant be true since they weren’t around at the time the first light was sighted!) Some say it was lights being reflected, but nothing could ever be proven. Many still believe its Joe Baldwin searching for his head, or signaling to trains to keep them safe.

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