Pawleys Island Historic Preservation · Low Country Plantation Heritage · Hurricane History
Plowden Charles Jenrette Weston purchased the land for the inn in 1844, and the house is thought to have been built around 1854 — habitable by 1858 — as a summer retreat from his Hagley Plantation, one of the rice plantation operations along the Waccamaw River in Georgetown County. Every piece of lumber was hand-hewn and numbered at Hagley before being transported by boat to Pawleys. The structure used the traditional South Carolina coastal building techniques of the period: cypress lumber, wooden pegs, mortise and tenon joinery, and hand-cut nails — methods that produced structures considerably more durable than later framing conventions.
The inn's placement behind the highest dune on Pawleys Island, surrounded by mature live oak canopy, proved critically important. When Hurricane Hazel made landfall on October 15, 1954 — at that point the most powerful hurricane to strike the Carolinas — many structures on Pawleys Island were destroyed. The Pelican Inn survived. Hurricane Hugo struck the South Carolina coast on September 22, 1989, with a storm surge that devastated the island's developed areas; again, The Pelican Inn remained standing.
Weston served as Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina from 1862 to 1864, then died of tuberculosis. Shortly after his death, accounts began to circulate of a figure seen near the house and on the beach — described as a man in a Civil War-era uniform and separately as a gray-clad figure appearing before storms. These twin visual traditions merged into the Gray Man legend of Pawleys Island.
Current owners Corinne and Bruce acquired the inn in 2009 after years of vacationing on Pawleys Island. The property operates as an eight-room seasonal bed and breakfast (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend), designated a historic preservation landmark, with all guest rooms on the upper floor.
Sources
- https://www.pawleyspelican.com/our-story-1
- https://www.myrtlebeach.com/blog/history-pelican-inn/
- https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/podcast-the-gray-man
- https://www.pawleysisland.com/blog/haunted-pawleys-island/
ApparitionsPhantom smellsResidual haunting
The Gray Man is distinctive among American paranormal folklore because his function is protective rather than threatening. Appearing on the beach or at the doorways of residents before major hurricanes, the Gray Man communicates a warning — sometimes wordlessly, sometimes explicitly — to evacuate. Documented accounts across multiple hurricanes describe families who saw the Gray Man, left the island, and returned to find their houses standing while adjacent structures were destroyed.
The figure's identity is uncertain. The most widely circulated origin narrative describes a young man hurrying to reach his fiancée on Pawleys Island before a storm, taking a shortcut through the salt marsh, and drowning when he became trapped in pluff mud — the anaerobic tidal mud of the Low Country, which can trap horses and humans with the consistency of wet concrete. He subsequently appeared to his grieving fiancée on the beach, warning her of an approaching second storm.
Other versions of the Gray Man's identity include the ghost of Plowden Weston himself, who built the Pelican Inn and died of tuberculosis; the figure is sometimes described in accounts as wearing a Civil War-era uniform, consistent with the period of Weston's death. A third tradition connects the Gray Man to Pawleys Island native Percival Pawley.
Additional paranormal accounts at The Pelican Inn include reports of Emily — described as Weston's wife — whose presence is identified by perfume left in the air after she passes. Two Boston Terriers belonging to an old caretaker are also part of the inn's ghost tradition; one of the dogs reportedly drowned saving a child, and both animals have been reported at the inn in the decades since.
Notable Entities
The Gray ManEmily Weston (attributed)The Caretaker's Dogs (attributed)
