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Haunted
Virginia:
Ghosts
in the Old Dominion
Perhaps
it is Virginia’s 400-year history, but ghost
sightings are so common in the Old Dominion that
there are more than a dozen books on the subject.
Titles range from L.B. Taylor’s five-volume "The
Ghosts of Virginia" to "Virginia
Ghosts" by Marguerite du Pont and
"Virginia Supernatural Tales: Ghosts, Witches
and Eerie Doings" by George Holbert Tucker.
Possible
haunted locations are scattered across the state
from Gunston Hall Plantation in Alexandria and
Federal Hill in Fredericksburg to the Pocahontas
Parkway in Richmond, Williamsburg’s many ghostly
haunts, the Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon and
the Chesapeake House in Hampton Roads. In fact, you
can find a full list at Haunted
Travel in Virginia, a website sponsored by The
Center for Paranormal Research and Investigation.
Civil
War sites seem to be favorite locations for spectral
sightings, even if they don’t date from that era.
Federal Hill, an antebellum mansion in Fredricksburg,
which was used as a hospital by Union soldiers, is
supposedly the home of the jovial Col. Alexander
Spotswood’s ghost. Spotswood, who became a
colonial governor, was once seen raising a silver
cup and toasting his portrait on the wall. The
Laniers, a family who owned the house in the 1940s,
were skeptical, but still decided to have a local
Episcopal rector and his bishop exorcise the mansion
before they moved in ("Local
Haunts," by Virginia Johnson).
There
are several Civil War ghosts roaming the halls of The
Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon. One is said
to be a female student, named Beth, of the former
Martha Washington College for Women. Despite her
Confederate sympathies, she played her violin for a
captured and dying Union soldier. Beth succumbed to
typhoid soon after the soldier’s death and both
are buried in the town’s Green Springs Cemetery.
On nights when there is a full moon, many believe
Beth’s sweet violin tunes can still be heard on
the third floor of the inn where the soldier once
lay.
But
ghosts seem to represent all eras in the
commonwealth’s history. At another Fredericksburg
location, Fall Hill, Katrina, an Indian princess who
was captured in the late 17th century, was willed to
the Thorton family that lived on the estate. She has
been spotted as recently as several years ago. Two
boys sleeping in the estate’s old nursery saw a
woman in black braids staring at them. She then
vanished through a wall at the head of the bed. When
the house was remodeled later, it was discovered
that the old door to the nursery was at the spot
where the apparition disappeared ("The
Ghosts of Fredricksburg").
Then
there is the Pocahontas Parkway (U.S. 895) in
eastern Henrico County near Richmond. Built on
ancient Indian lands where Virginia’s earliest
residents hunted and fished, toll operators and
others have reported hearing drumming, chanting and
even occasionally seen these displaced individuals.
Back
in 2002, a reporter with the Richmond
Times-Dispatch reported that the Old Dominion
even has its own “ghostbusters” – The Virginia
Ghosts & Haunted Research Society, with chapters
in Richmond, Virginia Beach, Roanoke and Northern
Virginia. The organization was founded by Bobbie
Lescar, who saw some curious and unexplainable
events at her grandmother’s home in southern
Virginia when she was growing up. She started
researching ghost stories and even went to college
at Sweet Briar, which has its share of ghost stories
("Not
Fear, Ghosts" (October 31, 2002).
The
VGHRS ghost hunters used fairly simple technology
for their research, including video and still
cameras, tape recorders and electromagnetic field
readers. They even used low-tech devices such as
bells on strings. One researcher, Gregory Maitland,
says his favorite investigation took place at
“Chesapeake House” in Hampton Roads. Well-known
among paranormal researchers, the house has an old
doll with eyes that open and close when the doll is
moved. On two occasions the doll was videotaped with
a marked dilation of the pupils. There have also
been reports that the doll bruises and the
expression on her face changes.
These
are but a few of the commonwealth’s otherworldly
inhabitants. But, whether one is a believer or a
skeptic, Virginia’s ghostly phenomena will fuel
lively debate for years to come.
NEXT:
It’s Not My Neighbor’s Water: Turning on the Tap
in Virginia
--
November 26, 2007
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