At the Woodruff house near the town of Seaboard in NorthHampton County the light from a fire can be seen from time to time. No one knows where it came from, but some of the old timers just except it as Ephraim's Light after a slave that was burned at the stake years ago. While some people are afraid of it, others are not. Yet no one has tried to find out for sure what it indeed is.

Of the 'haunted railroad' stories in North Carolina, the Pactolus light has the distinction of being the only one with out a train wreck. What is does have, is a tale of love broken by greed and death that leaves a man spending eternity trying to get back to the woman he loves.

Pactolus is a small township in Pitt county near Greenville and ECU. The students there have taken to using the Pactolus light as a hazing ritual without any knowledge of it's heartbreaking origin. But while the light shines brightly, the details of the story have faded in the years.