Focused on Mississippi: The Haunted Pond Store

Posted: Jun 8, 2020 / 06:32 PM CDT

Updated: Jun 8, 2020 / 06:32 PM CDT

WILKINSON COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) – The Clark Creek waterfalls are an oddity for Mississippi. If you ever visit the waterfalls, then you’ll stop at the Pond Store first. You’ll want to stock up on water and a snack before you tackle the falls. And the store is fascinating.

“And Mr. Lemkewitz, the Russian Jew that owned the place, had escaped from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. He had been educated by the Russian government. So he was supposed to go into the Russian army and serve and all of these things,” said Liz Chaffin, who owns the Pond Store.

When Lemkewitz came to America, he ended up as the proprietor of the Pond Store, and Chaffin’s parents went to work for him in the 1920s.

“And mother and dad lived with Mr. Lemkewitz and his family first. His wife was here, and she died. And then it was just Mr. Lemkewitz, and my mother and daddy took care of him in his old age. So when Mr. Lemkewitz died, my dad bought the business from his family.”

Lemkewitz told Chaffin’s parents that if it were permitted after he died, he might drop back in on the Pond Store from time to time and check on things. And there are those who say he has.

“Yes, and I’ve had several people that have seen him. I’ve never seen him. I had a young man in here, he was working with the electric company. And he was getting something to drink, and he comes to the front and he’s all white and he says, ‘Do you have a ghost?’ Well, Mr. Lemkewitz. He says, ‘I just saw him. I turned around and there he was.’ And then I had a couple that spent the night here that the next morning she said that this elderly man was standing at the foot of her bed last night. And I said, ‘If he comes back tonight, tell him to come to my room because I’ve never met him.’ The chair rocks or the wind blows and the door slams and this kind of thing, but I haven’t met him.”

The interesting things you can see out the country, and maybe more interesting, the things you don’t see.

The Clark Creek waterfalls and the Pond Store are closed right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the waterfalls reopen, Chaffin said they will reopen the Pond Store.