On a foggy rainy night in 1867 there really was a tremendous and tragic train wreck near Maco in North Carolina's New Brunswick County about 15 miles down the track west of Wilmington. Somehow two trains got on the same track at the same time and the faster passenger train slammed into the rear of the heavier slower moving freight train. The flagman on the caboose of the freight train and several people on the passenger locomotive were killed.

The Flagman's name was Joe Baldwin and believe it or not but his head was cut off in the accident and flew off to the side into the swamp on one side of the wreck. His signal lantern was found several days later on the other side of the wreck away from his body. His head was never found and a few days later his body was buried with out a head.

And it was not long before Joe's headless body was back on rainy nights walking up and down the track with his lantern looking for his missing head. Joe's ghostly lantern was always seen in the area of the train trestle and even though the tracks and the trestle were removed in the early 1970's people still see the ghostly light there on rainy nights.

In 1879 President Grover Cleveland saw the light as have hundreds of people over the years. Joe's sudden and tragic death seems to have locked him in time and its said that even today on a rainy night even though there is no longer any train tracks or train Joe Baldwin continues to walk the track with his lantern looking for his head.