Ambrose the ghost and the mysterious tunnel at First Presbyterian Church
“A few nights ago, persons passing the First Presbyterian Church, saw a white figure walking to and fro between the door and the lamp posts in front of the church. It paced this short distance, back and forth, time and again … The figure excited great interest and some excitement, and speculation was rife as to what it was …”
That excerpt ran under the headline “A ‘Ghost’ in a Church Yard” in the March 10, 1876 edition of The Daily Charlotte Observer. Was it Ambrose?
Ghost stories still haunt the halls of First Presbyterian Church in uptown, which was founded in 1821. Many of them center around one ghost: Ambrose, an African-American sexton at the church during the Civil War.
Several longtime church members and staff have claimed to see Ambrose, some as recently as just a few years ago. He’s a friendly ghost, they say, and he doesn’t speak. He tinkles the chandeliers, explodes lightbulbs and lingers in a stairwell.
When we heard these stories, we knew we had to learn more and maybe do a little ghostbusting. It’s Halloween season, after all.
(I ain’t afraid of no ghost.)
We trekked down the street to the church and talked to Senior Pastor Pen Peery, who showed us around the church and told us the story of Ambrose.
Peery started working at First Presbyterian in 2012, and he first heard the story early in his tenure. “That was part of my orientation,” he said.
The story goes something like this, according to Peery: During the Civil War, with Union soldiers bearing down on Charlotte, Ambrose was instructed to build a tunnel under what is now Fifth Street to hide silver offering trays and other church valuables.
After the Union army came and went, Ambrose went to retrieve the valuables. As he did, the tunnel collapsed and he was killed.
“Ever since then there have been Ambrose sightings,” Peery said. “We’ve got a lot of people who have worked here, members who have been here for a long time who claim to have seen him and, you know, felt him. And as a pastor I’m not sure I quite understand the theology of all that, but that’s what our people say.”
Ambrose stays in the church’s sanctuary building, which was built in 1857, with its creaking floors, heavy wood doors and labyrinthine hallways. Peery doesn’t know the location of the tunnel, which supposedly crossed under what is now Fifth Street toward Settlers Cemetery.
Peery said children used to look for the tunnel and elders eventually filled it in with dirt so it wouldn’t be a safety hazard.
One staff member saw him and thought it was a current sexton. When he called out to him, Ambrose disappeared and the staff member had goosebumps until he left the building. When he came back to the sanctuary building, the goosebumps returned.
A longtime church member heard the chandeliers in the sanctuary tinkling and heard a lightbulb explode. Peery knows a handful of people who have reported seeing Ambrose in a stairwell a few rooms away from the sanctuary.
The youth still search for the tunnel and try to summon Ambrose.
“I have not had an experience with Ambrose,” Peery said. “But when I get here very early in the morning I think about him.”
So is there a ghost lingering in the hallways of First Presbyterian?
“This church is almost 200 years old, so it’s fun to have stories like that,” Peery said. “And whether it’s a ghost or not, there’s a lot of memory in this place.”
As for the ghost from that 1876 newspaper, here’s how the short story ended:
“It was, of course, a man enveloped in a sheet, under which he had a pole by which he could raise the sheet to any height desired.
“It was elegant fun, and we’ve no doubt the sportive genius, after getting into the cemetery, laid down and rolled all over the graves, and nearly died in a paroxysm of laughter.”
Photos: Katie Toussaint.
Video: Kennan Banks.
Big thanks to the staff at the Carolina Room in the main Charlotte Mecklenburg Library for helping me find the old article.
This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 1:00 AM with the headline "Ambrose the ghost and the mysterious tunnel at First Presbyterian Church."