Haunted Carter’s Grove

The windy road known today as Route 60 leads from Williamsburg to Newport News. VA. and if your not paying attention you won’t notice the  dirt driveway that once led to Carter’s Grove Plantation.  Built in the early 1700’s it was once one of Virginia’s finest plantations. It was closed to the public around 2003,  but tales of hauntings still linger among the locals.

From what I’ve been told a black man in raggedy clothes can be seen walking towards the Plantation from Williamsburg. Could this be the ghost of Jim, a slave who once worked at the Governors Place and walked the eight miles every Saturday night back to the Grove to see his family. From what they say he died of a broken heart when he came home one weekend to find that his wife and children had been sold and no one knew how to tell him where to find them.

During the time the plantation was open for tours flower petals could be found on the floor after being placed in what is known as the refusal room. Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington offered marriage proposals to two different young ladies in the room and were turned down. Rumor has it that one of these young ladies still angry at herself for not accepting the life she could have had tears up the flowers any time they are left in the room. She especially hates white carnations. Could this have been what was offered to her along with the proposal? I suppose we will never know.  

Steps are sometimes heard in the halls. A phantom harp is said to play,  and another legend of Carter’s Grove is that Colonel Banastre Tarleton hacked the staircase as he rode his horse up the stairs to wake his troops during the Revolutionary War.


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I drove past the plantation today, and on a whim stopped at the beginning of the drive. The gates are locked now with big NO Trespassing signs in plain site, but for just a moment I jumped out of the car and took a few photos. When I loaded the photos and took a look I found something unusual in the upstairs window in the center of the house.

Take a look and tell me if it is my imagination or do you see a man wearing white pants and a red shirt.  Could this be Colonel Banastre in his Revolutionary War Uniform?

I may never know now that the plantation is  privately owned but from what I have read sometime in the future the new owners according to the terms of the sale have to open the house one day a year for tours. You better believe when they do, I will be there.