The Devil's Tramping Ground is a camping spot located in a forest near the Harper's Crossroads area in

Bear Creek, North Carolina Bear Creek is an unincorporated community in southwestern Chatham County, North Carolina, United States. It is named for a nearby creek that eventually flows into the Rocky River. The community lies along Old US Highway 421 and is situated between ...

. It has been the subject of persistent local legends and lore, which frequently allege that the

Devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of t ...

"tramps" and haunts a barren circle of ground in which nothing is supposed to grow. It has frequently been noted on lists of unusual place names.

Lore

Legends about the ring are well known in local communities. These include the disappearance of objects left within the ring overnight, dogs yipping and howling, not wanting to go near it, and strange events occurring to those who spend the night within its boundaries. It has been alleged that nothing has grown within the ring for a hundred years. Supposedly it is where the devil walks in circles on certain nights, thinking of ways to bring his evil into this world. John William Harden (1903–1985) of

Greensboro, N.C. Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...

, journalist, newspaper editor, author, and advisor to

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

governors and textile executives, had this to say of the Devil's Tramping Ground: :

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

natives say... that the Devil goes there to walk in circles as he thinks up new means of causing trouble for humanity. There, sometimes during the dark of night, the Majesty of the Underworld of Evil silently tramps around that bare circle-- thinking, plotting, and planning against good, in behalf of wrong.

In popular culture

The Devil's Tramping Ground is mentioned in two horror novels by

Poppy Z. Brite Billy Martin (born May 25, 1967), formerly Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He initially achieved fame in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. He i ...

: '' Lost Souls'' and ''Drawing Blood''. Both these novels take place, at least in part, in the fictional North Carolina city of Missing Mile; the inspiration for which is taken from Duncan and Chapel Hill, NC and Athens, GA.{{cite web, url=http://www.poppyzbrite.com/places_mile.html , title={ P.z.B } , publisher=Poppyzbrite.com , date= , accessdate=2013-08-28

References

External links

UNC TV Science Report on Devil's Tramping Ground

Skeptoid (Podcast) Episode 4874 on Devil's Tramping Ground
Geography of Chatham County, North Carolina Landforms of North Carolina Reportedly haunted locations in North Carolina Campgrounds in North Carolina