Cohoke Light

Date

The Cohoke Light is a reported ghost light in King William County, Virginia, near West Point. It is often seen along a section of Virginia State Route 632, where Mt. Olive Cohoke Road crosses the Norfolk Southern Railway.

The Cohoke Light is a reported ghost light in King William County, Virginia, near West Point. It is often seen along a section of Virginia State Route 632, where Mt. Olive Cohoke Road crosses the Norfolk Southern Railway.

The light usually appears hundreds of yards away from the railroad crossing. It moves silently and grows brighter as it approaches. Many people from across the state visited the area in the 1960s and 1970s to see the light.

Several theories have been suggested to explain the origin of the Cohoke Light. One story claims that a train carrying injured Confederate soldiers left Richmond after a battle in 1864, heading to West Point, but never arrived. Another tale describes the light as the lantern of a railroad worker who was decapitated in a train accident in the 1800s and now searches for his missing head. These stories are likely not true. There are no records of railroad decapitations near West Point, and during the American Civil War, Confederate forces in the area moved away from West Point toward Richmond, the opposite direction described in the story. Additionally, the earliest reports of the Cohoke Light date to the 1950s, which is long after the events in these stories.

By 2014, sightings of the Cohoke Light had become very rare.

More
articles