Shortly after the accident , residents of Maco and railroad employees reported sightings of a white light along a section of railroad track through swamps west of Maco station , and word spread that Joe Baldwin had returned to search for his missing head . The light was said to appear in the distance , before approaching along the tracks facing East , bobbing at a height of about 5 feet , and either flying to the side of the track in an arc or receding from the viewer . Other reports spoke of green or red lights , or other patterns of movement . The earliest stories supposedly dated from the 1870s , and until the 1886 Charleston earthquake , two lights were often reported : railroad employees said that trains had occasionally been stopped or delayed due to the activities of the light , which had even been seen from locomotive cabs . The journal '' Railroad Telegrapher '' , for example , reported in 1946 that the light had been seen on March 3 that year , and suggested it had been appearing for some seventy years previously . One commonly cited aspect of the legend , that the light was discussed with President Cleveland when his train was stopped at Maco in 1889 , seems to have originated with Atlantic Coast Line employee B. M. Jones , who claimed to have been present at the visit as a young child . Another early account of the Joe Baldwin legend was given by Robert Scott , editor of the '' Atlantic Coast Line News '' , to the journal '' Railway Age '' in 1932 . Similar " headless brakeman " stories have been found associated with other " ghost lights " in the United States , such as the Bragg Road ghost light and Gurdon light : from a folklore perspective the story connected with the Maco light , being substantially the oldest and best-known and having received some national coverage , may have served as the point of origin for the others
1886 Charleston earthquake
1886 Charleston earthquake
Maco light