The Castle (Joseph Johnson House)
Built in the 1850s by Dr. Joseph Johnson in an Italian Renaissance style, this riverfront mansion in Beaufort's Point neighborhood is the town's most famous haunt. Its resident spirit is Gauche, a French court jester and dwarf said to have arrived with explorer Jean Ribaut's 1562 expedition and stayed behind when Ribaut sailed home. Generations of the Johnson family and later guests have described him as a playful presence: furniture rearranged overnight, doors opening and closing, and the ringing of the bells on his costume. He is also said to leave small red handprints on the windowpanes. Dr. Johnson's daughter Lily reportedly played tea party with him as a child, and seances in the house are said to have produced messages tapped out in archaic 16th-century French. During the Civil War, after Union troops occupied Beaufort in 1861, the unfinished house served as a military hospital, deepening its reputation as one of the Lowcountry's oldest documented hauntings.
📍 411 Craven Street, Beaufort, SC 29902, Beaufort, SC · Get directions