The Devil's Tramping Ground:
Investigating an Old Time North Carolina Mystery

N. Reiter

15 July, 2002

Background:

While on a family vacation trip to the East Coast in July of 2002, the opportunity arose to perform a little impromptu investigation of one of those wonderful back-woods "blue highway" mystery sites that pop up here and there across the USA. The site in question, delightfully known as The Devil's Tramping Ground, has been (apparently) known for at least 150 years. It lies about ten miles south of the central North Carolina town of Siler City.

The Devil's Tramping Ground is a circular or ring shaped patch of earth in which it is said no plant life has ever grown, and the which local livestock, pets, and varmints supposedly shun. Accounts seem to vary - giving the diameter as being between 20 and 40 feet. Conflict also appears as to whether the dead area is a full circle, or if it is limited to a ring about one foot wide. The ring shape seems to be the general consensus. Maybe one could call it a perpetual cousin to a crop circle. The barren patch lies in a scant wooded area amidst the small corn, bean, and tobacco fields of the region.

The legends of the circle are said to date to the early 1800's, with claims that it was known and feared by Native Americans even earlier. There do exist a couple of decent web-sites devoted to lore and tales of The Devil's Tramping Ground. Our favorite is this one: http://deviljazz.tripod.com/ The folk tale associated with the site is that it is a cursed place where the Devil comes at night to pace in a circle while he makes his plans to wreak evil and perdition upon the earth. Another version states that it was originally the site of the murder of a Native American chieftain, and the dead circle of earth is an eternal reminder of the woeful deed. In either version, the lack of vegetation and the spooking of animals always are mentioned. Other more recent tales exist that claim that if objects are placed in the middle of the ring at dusk, by morning they will be mysteriously moved aside.

It takes no great stretch of imagination to presume that such a place has been a perennial party spot for the local youth. Litter, un-attended campfires, and general nocturnal country style hell-raisin' haunt the site, even if Old Scratch doesn't!

Rigorous investigation of the DTG seems to be lacking. One vague claim exists that either the North Carolina Department of Agriculture or the USDA tested soil inside of the ring. It was said to contain a very high level of NaCl (salt), and was also supposed to be bacteriologically sterile.

Apart from that, the mystery and legend of the DTG has lived contentedly for many decades without fear of either confirmation or debunking.

Our Visit:

The Middle Earth lands of North Carolina, those Piedmont regions between the ocean and the Smokies, simmer and roll in the summer sun. Here is the land of pickups, barbecue, tobacco, and the sons and daughters of Dixie hanging on for the ride. The accents are smooth, and the local folks helpful and good - providing the traveler shows decent respect for Southern Spirit and doesn't wear their northern-ness too loudly...

We were en route from Cape Hatteras to Mount Airy, a journey that seems to cover all aspects of the world; from the ocean to the hills, and it is about that long. The heat was brutal, running near 100° F, and one could tell that the greenery of fields and woodlands was fading fast. The nationwide drought was no less apparent here than anywhere else we had visited on our trip.

Our route on that day took us through Siler City, and so a stop at the Devil's Tramping Ground was assured. The DTG lies about 10 miles south of the town, as the crow flies, and we did manage to find the gravel pull-off on Devil's Tramping Ground Road with little ado, and only one or two missed turn-offs.

My eldest son Trevor accompanied me into the wooded area there at the pull-off. The remainder of the family chose to stay in the van, not out of fear for the Prince of Darkness, but preferring air-conditioned comfort to another foray into the sweltering mid-day heat. A wide footpath leads straight into the sparse woods there, and we followed it for perhaps 100 feet before it opened into a wide clearing, in the midst of which was the DTG circle. See the photos below.

There it was! My first mental impression, truthfully, was "wow-it's smaller than what they say!" There were no other visitors there at the time. We were alone with the strange...

The DTG was not terribly easy to define, as the drought and generations of thrill seeking visitors had worked together to make the ground hugging vegetation and grass very thin in the entire clearing region, apart from the DTG circle. The DTG was most easily made visible by looking for the bonfire pile and the heap of litter and trash at the very center of the circle. And there was litter aplenty - see the parting musings of this essay for some details!

The bonfire pile appears to be an eternal fixture, where countless nights of partying and dare-dates have their focus. There was some very sparse patchy grass growing near the pile, and this did help to confirm that if the DTG circle exists and is barren, then it is in the form of a ring. The patchy grass does appear to cease, as one moves outward, and there does exist a ring shaped region, maybe 18 inches to a couple of feet wide, where we confirmed that no grass could be found. Beyond this, the grass and weeds resume. But it pays to re-iterate; the sparseness of all the vegetation made these observations very difficult to confirm. If one gave no more than a quick glance to the matter, the DTG would truly appear to be a trampled bare party clearing in a woods - with a big heap of trash in the middle. As stated previously, I was surprised by the size of the circular region. Some Internet resources claimed that the DTG ring was about 40 feet across. This was definitely not so, by our measurement. Pacing off the diameter in two locations, we would say that the ring is between 20 and 21 feet across.

I attempted to wander the location with our Hall magnetometer to look for any evidence of geomagnetic distortion. However the batteries gave out, and I was forced to use a compass instead. There did not appear to be any noticeable distortions. We also walked through the circle with our gold leaf electroscope (to look for regions of electrostatic charge), again with negative results. The DTG was photographed from several angles with both our digital and film cameras.

Trevor had prepared a set of sample baggies, and we procured a few spoonfuls of soil from four locations:

1. Dead center of the circle, near the trash pile.
2. In the middle of the bare "ring".
3. A point five feet out from the furthest limit of the bare ring.
4. A point in the woods, twenty feet away from the ring.

Soil samples were taken with a clean plastic spoon, and we dug each out from a depth of about 3 inches. The soil of the ring area and the surrounding clearing seemed to range from sandy to silty, and was very fine and pulverized. And dry...very, very dry. At the center, near the bonfire and trash remains, the soil was visibly darker due to ash and charcoal from years of burned wood.

Had the weather been more humane, and our schedule less frantic, it would have been a fascinating place to stay and explore. However, our immediate business accomplished, Trevor and I high tailed it back to the air-conditioned van, bidding the DTG adieu as we went.

Analysis and Results:

Upon returning to Ohio, our primary objective was to use our scanning electron microscope with EDS to analyze the four soil samples. What differences would we see if any? What of the claimed salt factor?

Small portions of the four samples were loaded into the SEM and examined. For each sample, we examined several locations with the SEM to get a more assured idea of the compositions. Two representative scans, one from the ring itself, the other from five feet away, are attached as figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1

Figure 2

What we do see is interesting, although admittedly not supernaturally strange.

1. The soil from the ring itself does stand out from the other samples in its composition.
2. If NaCl (salt) was present, it is very marginal, and would be difficult to quantify.
3. However, the soil from the ring appears to be very much carbon depleted! The other samples have carbon levels close to the oxygen levels (oxygen being predominantly from silica and alumina).
4. This carbon depletion may indicate a lack of organic residue - and thus might also say that the soil from the ring is more sterile.
5. The ring soil is more of a pure silica (SiO2), and contains very little alumina, calcium, iron, potassium, and phosphorous.

The soil from the ring does, thusly, appear in at least one way to be somewhat anomalous. It is purer in its composition and may be organically depleted. The salt question, however, remains unclear.

We also tested each of the soil samples with our Baird Atomic 914 Geiger counter. None appeared to be noticeably radioactive.

Our final experiment was intended to see if seeds could be germinated in the soil samples. Ten to twenty grams of the soil samples were measured out into plastic lab cups. A few milliliters of distilled water were added to each, to soak the samples. We then plant in each cup four cucumber seeds (Ferry Morse "Sumter"), and place a glass cover slip over the top.

Within 72 hours, we find that seeds are beginning to sprout in three of the four cups. The only cup not showing any sprouting is the one containing...the soil from the ring! We wait two more days, and examined the situation again:

1. Cup 1- Soil from 20 feet away: Three seeds fully sprouted, one beginning to sprout.
2. Cup 2- Soil from 5 feet away: All four seeds fully sprouted.
3. Cup 3- Soil from center of ring circle, near trash pile: Two seeds fully sprouted.
4. Cup 4- Soil from the "ring": No seeds sprouted at all.

Conclusions:

This was a fun and rewarding opportunity. Old Timey mysteries can sometimes go beyond folklore, it seems. And sometimes they are not easily dispelled, even when one applies a little scientific scrutiny.

The Devil's Tramping Ground ring preserves its own mystique, but it might be allowable to make the following conclusions:

1. The DTG appears to be a ring shaped area of barren dirt, slightly more than 20 feet across, and generally seeming to be about 18 inches wide.
2. While trampled by generations of teens, partiers, and thrillseekers, it remains a visible anomaly.
3. There did not appear to be any sort of geomagnetic or electrostatic anomaly present.
4. The composition of the soil in the ring does appear to differ from surrounding soil, as well as soil at the center of the defined ring area.
5. The ring region soil appears to be purer silica, with fewer alumina, iron, calcium, and potassium compounds, among possible others.
6. The ring region soil appears to be carbon depleted, possibly indicating a sterile condition with few organic components.
7. The soil sample taken from the ring is not radioactive, although it is possible that some form of natural radiation might exist at the ring itself.
8. In a simple seed sprouting experiment, cucumber seeds planted in the ring area soil did not germinate or sprout, while those in all three other soil samples did, as noted previously.

From item #8, we can also deduce one other important possibility. If there is an unknown factor that prevents plant life from growing in the ring, that factor appears to be one that travels with the soil sample! In other words, the soil from the ring did not revert back to a "healthy" or fertile state, once it was removed from the ring.

In a very general sense, the safest notion would be that the secret of the DTG ring lies somewhere in the composition of the soil. But why the soil should be different in the ring, and in what ways exactly... well...that mystery continues 'til another time. Some subtle mineral up-welling? A long lived colony of fungi or nano-bacteria? Sterilizing radiation at the site? An old Native American curse? UFO landing? Or maybe the Devil himself?

No mistake, mysteries like this deserve to be solved, but they also deserve to be solved respectfully. What we discovered and have reported in these pages might be along those lines. We did not solve the mystery, but we did bring some possibilities to light. To be honest, though, our investigation just raises more questions. One can hear Satan snickering in his lair at the irony of that. Maybe no earthly plant or animal life will abide the ring of cursed soil, but the seeds of mystery and puzzlement will always take tenacious root there.

Finally, a few parting thoughts in a more humorous vein...

A Comment on the Nature of The Ultimate Evil:

The mystery of the Devil's Tramping Ground goes on. Perhaps the folk explanation, that the Lord of Lies, Father of Darkness, Old Nick himself wanders the North Carolina woodlands at night is the right one after all!

Well, considering the various artifacts and flotsam scattered in and about the circle of the DTG, maybe we can at least learn a little more about The Ultimate Evil and his habits... So what can we tell from the diabolical refuse?

1. Beer cartons and cans: Satan knows a good bargain in beer. He drinks Anheuser Busch Natural Lite, and drinks lots of it!
2. Rolling paper packs: Satan is no stranger to reefer, and likely rolls up and tokes a fat one before starting every evening's meander.
3. Weenie bun remains: Satan may not be a vegetarian. He appears to love a good burned weenie sam'ich.
4. Auto parts boxes: Satan drives a Ford F150 pick-up.
5. Condom wrappers: What would the Devil be without lots of red hot Devil Girls to keep him company? A real considerate cowboy, though, he apparently practices safe sex, even with his own Hellspawn.
6. A violently smashed country music cassette with tape strung out: Satan hates New Country. He thinks Alan Jackson is a wuss. His own collection is thus likely pretty heavy into the more traditional sounds of whiskey drinkin', bank robbin' and horse thievin': Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings.

These observations may be of supreme usefulness for interested departments within the Vatican, or other churches with Satanic activity watch groups. Appropriate authorities are being notified.

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