The Legend of Jebediah Pemberton

The Backstory

One thing everyone in F3 knows about me, and it’s kind of “my thing,” is that I’m a big history buff. A few months ago I was researching some genealogy records at the Main Library and came across an interesting newspaper article from the early 19^th century. It was from the original local midlands newspaper – The Columbia Cryer. Above the ads for Joan of Arc Butter Beans and Dr. Bull’s Snake Tonic, a headline jumped out at me – LOCAL BOY MURDERED! Of course, they didn’t have photos back then, but the drawing that accompanied the article stood out to me. It was of a young man, about the same age as all of us. He appeared to be healthy and in the prime of his life. But when I kept scrolling and looked beneath the fold, I saw a gruesome site. On the other side of the paper was the macabre vision of the rest of this young man, with his lower half severed in twain, and below his torso, the bloodied legs of what might be a goat had been sewn on. Of course, I expect no man could have lived very long absent the necessary appendages for bipedal locomotion. Or could he?

My fascination with those events turned me deeper into the research of Columbia’s history, all the way back to 1817. All this land that we’re sitting on used to be owned by Jebediah Pemberton. He had a farm house right on this very spot, raising alpacas. Back then, Alpacas were used as transportation, long before the trolley lines were put in on Devine Street. Now most folks got along just fine with Jebediah. Most folks but one. The history books will tell you that SC Governor John Drayton if famous for founding the SC College (USC) in 1801. What they won’t tell you, is that Governor John Drayton’s wife Hester was a practicing witch!! Old Lady Hester mostly kept to herself and stayed out of people’s way, but every once in a while she had to venture out of the swamp to get ingredients for her potions. And one of the most important ingredients she needed – was eye of alpaca. And of course, the only place to find alpaca eye in these parts, was on Jebediah’s land.

One early October morning, exactly 200 years ago today, right around this same time, Hester realized she needed some of that sweet sweet alpaca eye. So she sent a few ghouls to Jebediah’s farm to run him off. Once he was off the property, she would be free to collect all the ingredients she needed.  The ghouls showed up to Jebediah’s place and broke into his farmhouse. They murdered his family and then came for him. Jebediah at first tried to fight back. But Jebediah was weak. He used slaves to tend to his alpaca and his body had gotten soft and his muscles had begun to atrophy. What little resistance he tried to put up was quickly met with force, and so Jebediah picked up the head of his dearly beloved wife and ran to the only sanctuary he knew – the local church:

The Thang

<Grab the pumpkin and Mosey from Flag to Shandon Methodist Church> Jebediah’s arms flailed about and he again tried to fight the ghouls off

• 20 Shadow punches IC
• 20 Little baby arm circles IC
• 20 SSH IC
• 20 Imperial Walkers IC
• 20 Merkins IC

But the townspeople were afraid of the ghouls, and the doors to the church were locked, so Jebediah kept running <mosey to Adger/Devereaux>. Jeb was pretty far from his farm by now, and had to jump up to see over the shrubs for a look at his farm. But the shrubs were too high, so next he tried looking under them.

• 1 burpee and 1 merkin, 1 burpee 2 merkins, etc up to 1 burpee 10 merkins, then back down.

After way too many attempts to look above and under the shrubs than a normal person might try, Jeb finally gave up, and kept running <mosey to Adger/Berkeley>. At this point, Jeb reached a fork in the road and couldn’t remember which path to take. So he tried them both – many many times <AMRAP – 8 minutes total>.

• 20 LBCs at top of intersection
• 20 Squats at bottom of Berkeley manhole
• 20 LBCs at top of intersection
• 20 Merkins at bottom of Adger

It was at this point that Jebediah realized he had to stand up for himself. So he ran back to his property <mosey to Devereaux and Adger>. Jebediah flailed his arms about as a series of bats flew down from the sky and rushed at him:

• 20 SSH IC

After fighting off the bats, Jebediah continued on his journey back to the house through the back way. But Hester was watching Jeb through her crystal ball, and sent bears and crabs after him:

• Single file line crab walking toward Princeton, last pax bear crawls to the front

Jeb continued running until he encountered some more bats <mosey to Devereaux and Princeton>. This time he dropped to the ground and tried to dodge them:

• 20 Merkins OYO

Once they were gone, he got up and ran back to the back of his property, which was now overcome by ghouls. Upon noticing this, he quickly ducked down and hid behind a wall:

• Wall squats, half the pax on one side as the ghouls and half the pax on the other

Jeb could hear the ghouls taunting him from the other side <mumblechatter between pax encouraged>. Jeb jumped over the wall and, ghouls be damned, continued running to his property and his beloved alpacas, most of which were now dismembered and littered across the fields. He knew he would need to be stronger for his fight with the ghouls, so he started picking up alpaca heads and trying to throw in some last minute resistance training <mosey to brickpile>:

• 15 curls OYO
• 20 bench press OYO
• 15 curls OYO
• 20 bench press OYO

At this point, Jeb knew that any more training would be futile, and sprinted back to his house for the final confrontation with Hester the Witch.

Upon seeing Hester in his house, covered in the blood of dead alpaca, Jebediah began the final battle. But he was no match for Hester, who, emboldened by the newfound power she had, picked Jebediah up and impaled his back onto a grain hook. With one swipe of her wand, she disemboweled his from the waist. “You love your beloved alpacas so much?” she exclaimed. “Then be with them for eternity!”

With another sweep of her wand she picked up an alpaca’s severed hindquarters and merged them onto the lower half of Jebediah, who flailed and screamed and kicked his legs on the ground for several minutes as he tried to make sense of his newfound but unwanted body:

• Flutter kicks IC (terrible form allowed)

While Jebediah flailed on the ground and the last few minutes of life seeped out of him, Hester cackled maniacally, jumped on her broom and flew away into the night, screaming “So long dear, and thanks for all the Alpaca! It has truly been a devine night!”

And that’s how Devine Street was named.