Have you ever passed by a home in Beaufort with a front porch clearly visible and noticed the ceiling painted blue? That’s not just an ordinary blue, it’s haint blue. For over 300 years, folks in the Beaufort area have been painting their porch ceilings this color out of tradition and superstition.
‘Haint’ is the Gullah pronunciation for ‘haunt,’ or spirit. A restless spirit caught between life and death would find a dwelling to haunt, but there’s one problem for them…. they cannot cross water. Legend says that haints tend to be mischievous and dubious and will enter your home and wreak havoc on your family and your belongings.
Tricked by the blue ceilings or painted window frames, these angry spirits fear the water and avoid the house. The haints who are then floating above a home would see this color on the porch ceiling and keep away from that house. Protecting the family inside from the evil spirits and their destructive tendencies.
This method of driving evil away was told and told and then retold by the Gullah when they were brought here as slaves to Beaufort’s sea islands in the 1700s.
Haint blue is said to have many properties in addition to warding off evil spirits. It’s said to be instrumental in preventing bugs from nesting on the porches, and also is renowned for having a calming effect. That will help you relax and enjoy sipping that sweet tea on the porch during a sweltering summer day.
The story is so old, the color is so popular and so regionalized, that the paint experts at Sherwin Williams even wrote a story about the color and have it published on their website.
Take a stroll through the Old Point Neighborhood, or along Craven or North Streets in downtown Beaufort and you’ll see haint blue porch ceilings everywhere. At least you’ll know that you’e safe from any evil spirits getting you.
Today, haint blue porch ceilings are more of a tradition that helps keep Beaufort’s storied cultural past alive and well.
And, they’re awfully pretty too.
