Looney's Bridge: The Real Story Behind the Legend

Looney's Bridge as it may have looked in the 1880s. Image created by Josh Dukes

In a quiet hollow not far from Johnsonville, SC a stretch of weathered road crosses Mill Creek on a simple bridge where there once stood a rickety wooden span. Both bridges are remembered as Looney’s Bridge—a place where a ghost story tied to a teenage right-of-passage and a forgotten local tragedy mix like the dark waters of the creek.

The original bridge here spanned Mill Creek just off the current footprint of Gaster Road near Johnson Cemetery. "There is a clay hill on the back side of the old McCall property and the original roadbed is still there," remembers Benjie McCall.  The McCall family owned the surrounding farm from 1970 to 2015, with the opposite bank once part of the Ned Huggins hog farm. More than a century earlier, George Samuel Briley Huggins' homeplace was near this place, as were those of Springs, Huggins, and Timmons families who lived within a mile of one another in the late 1800s. In fact, an old home known as the Spring house survived - abandoned - into modern times.

This was an isolated corner of Williamsburg County then even more so than now— it was a patchwork of pine woods and small farms stitched together by wagon trails. Families raised livestock, tended to their fields, and crossed the small creeks at Mill Creek and Persimmon Ford to reach the small crossroads at Old Johnsonville.  Many elderly folks still remember when electricity came to this corner of the world for the first time.  Such a place with more than its share of dark rural nights was ripe for legends to spring forth, and they certainly did.  

The Legend of Looney’s Bridge

Looney's Bridge, where countless teens have looked for a ghost.

Photo by Josh Dukes

One particular story that took hold in those pre-electric light days has survived the test of time - the story of Looney's Bridge at Mill Creek.   Locals like McCall as well as Edward Drake and brothers Randolph and Clarence Edward Willis carried down versions of the same eerie tale:

A young woman was returning from a party one night (sometimes a harvest or Halloween ball) when her wagon overturned on the bridge, decapitating her. Ever since, her ghost has wandered the road, searching for her lost head.  For generations, daring teenagers treated it like a ritual. To summon her, you parked on the bridge at midnight facing Johnson Cemetery, shifted into neutral, cut the engine, and circled the car three times while calling out, “Looney, Looney, Looney.” If performed correctly, the car was said to roll uphill toward the graveyard.  Few ever finished the ritual, perhaps spooked by the scrape of buggy wheels, the echo of laughter, or the faint voice of a woman calling from the creek.

In Forgotten Tales of South Carolina (2012), folklorist Sherman Carmichael published the local legend for the first time.  He described a version of the story where a young woman, traveling by mule and wagon, was thrown when the wheel caught in a washed-out trench. In one telling, her foot tangled in the reins as she fell, her head striking the wheel until she died. In another, the mule bolted across the bridge, snapping her neck.  Locals swore her spirit still cried for help from the creek below, and on moonlit nights, they claimed to see her walking the bridge.

The Historical Record: Mrs. Lona Spring (1830-1888)

For years, the tale seemed pure folklore—until an obituary surfaced in Kingstree's paper The County Record, September 19, 1888:

“Mrs. Lona Spring, an elderly lady of Johnsonville, was accidently killed last week. She and Mrs. Timmons were riding in an ox cart, and in going down a hill the ox ran away throwing them both out. Mrs. Spring was thrown against a tree and had her neck broken. Mrs. Timmons was stunned by the fall and otherwise hurt.”

Lona Spring was Lona Ellison Tilton Spring (1835-1888), eldest of 10 children of William Jackson Tilton (1815-1896) and Lydia Hannah Eaddy Tilton (1819-1869). In 1853, Lona married  George Washington Spring (1830-1862). He was wounded in the leg at the battle of Fox's Gap on Sept 14, 1862 during Lee's Maryland campaign, which culminated in the battle at Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862.  He was taken from the field of battle by A.B. Dunnahoe. Spring's leg was amputated and on Nov.14, 1862 he succumbed to pneumonia.  G.W. Spring was buried at the Confederate Hospital Cemetery in Charlottesville, VA.  Although there's no grave marker, Lona's granddaughter Eula Springs Flowers previously confirmed that Lona is buried at the Old Johnsonville Methodist Church cemetery.  This tracks, as many of her her children and close neighbors such as the G.S.B. Huggins family are buried here.

George Samuel Briley Huggins & Emily Timmons
Huggins lived near Lona Springs and Looney's Bridge
Photo restored by Josh Dukes

Lona's name was occasionally listed as "Lony" or "Loney" in contemporary records like the 1880 census. The census lists Lony Springs, a 50-year-old widow, living near Old Johnsonville and Muddy Creek with her children and her sister.  Their farm sat within the same radius of the George Samuel Briley Huggins family farm—right where Mill Creek bends through the countryside

Further - Lona Tilton Spring had at least 2 sisters who married into the Timmons family in Johnsonville, meaning the "Mrs. Timmons" mentioned in the news article may have been one of her younger sisters.   This brief account of her violent passing matches the legend’s essential elements: a runaway wagon, a fatal neck injury to a woman named Lona (Lony), and a Johnsonville location. 

Though the specific location of the bridge over Mill Creek isn't listed in the available notice of her death, It's likely that the older widow, travelling with one of her sisters by ox cart, was close to the Spring home near the creek.  The community's processing of such unsettling news likely propagated over time, at it was time that turned the tragedy of Mrs. Lony Spring into the haunting of Looney’s Bridge. Her ox cart became a buggy leaving an autumn party, her age transformed to youth, and her death site shifted onto the bridge that still bears her name.

The 1880 Census Record showing the widow Lony (Lona) Tilton Spring
as head of household over her children and sister Bec Tilton

Echoes at Mill Creek

Today, the bridge along Gaster Road is a simple concrete span over a quiet swampy creek, the road flanked by pine and pasture. The red-dirt trace of the old roadbed still hums beneath the grass.  And yet, the stories persist. Some say you can still see a glimmer of light on the water at night—or hear a woman’s faint cry carried on the wind.

Whether it’s imagination, tradition, or the lingering spirit of Lona Spring herself, Looney’s Bridge remains one of Johnsonville’s most notorious haunts—and now you know the woman behind the legend.