The Haunted Belmont Inn, Abbeville: Room 12, Abraham the Doorman and the Wandering Widow

The Belmont Inn stands at 104 East Pickens Street on the town square in Abbeville, a small upstate town that calls itself the birthplace of the Confederacy. It opened in 1903 as the Eureka Hotel, a place for railroad men, traveling salesmen and the touring theater companies who played the Abbeville Opera House, and today it has 25 restored rooms inside the Abbeville Historic District.

Local author Marjorie Blalock has called it reputedly the most haunted place in Abbeville. Staff talk about Abraham the doorman, a Scotsman on the main staircase, a widow in a long black dress, a cook called May Bell and a soldier named Charlie, and Room 12 is said to be the busiest room in the house. There is no Room 13. It appears in our guide to haunted hotels in South Carolina.

The ghosts of The Belmont Inn

Abraham the doorman

The Belmont’s best-known spirit is Abraham, usually described as a former doorman or bellman. Discover South Carolina says he is seen on the ground floor, and staff say you tend to catch him only from the corner of your eye. A writer for Visit Old 96 was told he walks the halls at night checking that guests’ doors are locked, which makes him one of the more reassuring ghosts in the state.

The Scotsman on the main staircase

The second long-standing story is a man on the main staircase, often called the Scotsman. According to Discover South Carolina, he and Abraham knock on guests’ doors at night, move objects and break glasses. When the door is opened, nobody is there. OnlyInYourState notes that some people see a man’s figure on the first-floor staircase when no one is actually standing on it.

The Wandering Widow and Miss May Bell

A woman in a long black dress, known as the Wandering Widow, is said to haunt the check-in area. In the kitchen the story belongs to Miss May Bell, a former cook. A bartender told South Carolina Living in 2026 that May Bell has touched her shoulder and hidden her knives, and staff have described items such as an ice scoop flying across the room.

Local tellers also connect the hotel to an actress who fell ill during a 1914 production of Ben Hur at the opera house, recuperated at the hotel and later died there, according to Marjorie Blalock. Whether she is one of the women seen today is anyone’s guess.

Charlie, the bellhop and the businessman

South Carolina Living’s list of the inn’s ghosts also includes Charlie, a Civil War soldier, a bellhop and a mysterious businessman, the sort of traveling salesman the Eureka was built for. A visitor from Visit Old 96 reported that her doorknob rattled during an overnight stay, and a waitress at a neighboring restaurant said a manager once saw a mist moving between the tables on security footage.

A past owner has insisted the ghosts are all positive, with no negative energy in the building. Most guests seem to agree.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 12: Said to be the most active room. South Carolina Living notes that psychics once held automatic writing sessions here, according to Marjorie Blalock’s book The Apparitions of Abbeville.
• The missing Room 13: There is no Room 13 at the Belmont, a detail ghost hunters like to point out.
• The main staircase: The Scotsman’s territory and the best place to sit quietly late at night.
• The ground floor and check-in area: Where Abraham and the Wandering Widow are reported.
• The kitchen: Miss May Bell’s domain, according to staff.

History of The Belmont Inn

In June 1902 the Abbeville Press and Banner announced plans by a local businessman, P. Rosenberg, for a new and modern hotel on the square. Work began that fall, and the Eureka Hotel opened on August 19, 1903, at a cost of about $30,000. Abbeville sat on the rail line between New York and Florida, and the hotel was built for the traveling theater and road show companies, railroad men and salesmen who passed through.

Those theater companies needed a stage, and on October 1, 1908 the Abbeville Opera House opened beside the square. The Eureka had 34 guest rooms with shared baths, a dining room, parlors, shops and a sample room where salesmen laid out their wares. Through the first half of the century it served railroad and textile workers and opera house audiences, and it was known as the Belmont by the 1950s.

The hotel closed in 1972 and sat empty. Joseph Harden and his wife bought it in 1983 and began a restoration that cut the rooms to 25, each with a private bath. The Abbeville Historic District, including the inn, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in May 1984, and the Belmont Inn held its grand opening that November.

The decades since have brought several owners, more renovations and a foreclosure in 2015, when local business owners stepped in to keep it open until a buyer was found. OnlyInYourState described the hotel as having risen from the dead on at least three occasions, which seems fitting. Today it is open again, with 25 rooms and a tavern on the square.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Call the inn and ask for Room 12. Small inns like this handle room requests best by phone.
• Check the Abbeville Opera House calendar before you go and pair your stay with a show; the opera house has a ghost story of its own about an actress on the third-floor balcony.
• Sit on the main staircase late in the evening, where the Scotsman is said to appear.
• Walk the square after dark, then visit Secession Hill and the Burt-Stark Mansion, two of Abbeville’s best-known Civil War sites, by day.
• The Partridge Inn in Augusta, Georgia, a little over an hour away, makes a good second haunted night on a road trip.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Partridge Inn, Augusta: a historic haunted hotel across the Georgia line
• Haunted places in South Carolina: more ghost stories around the state
• Haunted places in Columbia: the state capital, about two hours east
• Haunted hotels in Charleston: the Mills House, the Old Citadel and more
• Haunted hotels in South Carolina

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• South Carolina Living: A night at the haunted Belmont Inn (September 2026)
• Roots and Recall: 104 East Pickens Street, Abbeville
• Visit Old 96: Ghosting in Abbeville
• OnlyInYourState: The Belmont Inn
• Discover South Carolina: 10 haunted South Carolina inns
• The Belmont Inn: official site

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