In The Woods

One of the most haunted places in my area is a place called Old House Woods. I have heard stories about this area for several years so we decided that it was time to check it out...

In the day light that is. With all the stories I had heard I was not about to go here at night.
Here are a few of the most famous stories.

Some of the recurring tales are about British Redcoats, pirates, skeletons in knights armor, mysterious groups of shoveler digging, ghost horses and cows which appear and disappear before one's eyes, a full rigged Spanish galleon which vanishes in thin air, mysterious floating lights in the woods similar to lantern light, and a "Storm Woman" who floats above the pines warning fishermen of impending gales.

Whew, that is enough to scare anyone. As you can see from the photos. These woods look creepy in the daylight.


Looking up and down the road in both directions.


The thick woods.







We didn't stay long and headed instead to the beach area where
Blackbeard, the famous pirate captain supposedly brought some of his treasure here to hide it. He forced several of his men to dig the hole at gunpoint. And then, he shot them, and threw their bodies in the pit with his takings. This is an old pirate superstition that is supposed to protect his treasure from thieves and other adventurers. And some have claimed to have seen men, madly digging in the night,
while another person supervises with his pistol in hand









I've heard the stories of how people digging for the treasure disappear never to be seen again. I wasn't about to take any chances, but.....Ok I confess. I did take one of these pretty shells for a souvenir. Shhhh don't tell anyone. I am not sure how good of a pirate I would make if one of these ghost takes me out to sea on the mysterious ship that has been seen in the area.

Something to look forward too

Author Beth Brown has a new book coming out in the early summer that will feature the haunted plantations of Virginia. I have not had the chance to meet Beth, but have read her book on the haunted battlefields in our area and highly recommend it. I am really looking forward to this book, because I have had a chance to visit many of the places she will be talking about in the book. In a recent blog comment I asked Beth about advance copies of the book and she replied that they may be available about eight weeks before they hit the stores on sites such as amazon.com.
Be sure and check her out and keep up with the release information if your interested.

Tears in the snow

Not far from where I live is the town of Gloucester. Like most small towns it has its tragedies, but none so great as the one that happened one dark winter night. It was sometime in the 1800's that a lovely young girl named Elizabeth went with her father to London. While there she met a handsome young man and fell in love. Alas it was not meant to be because they soon returned home. Her father who was against the match intercepted the letters and they never heard from each other again.
Now the young girl longed for her love so much that she fell ill and died.
Friends say she lost the will to live, and on a late November afternoon they buried her in a grave at the foot of the garden. Snow begin to fall as the grief stricken father made his way back to the house, heart broken that his only child had died.
As the story goes a former butler angry at the family dug up her grave as soon as it was dark. He planned to steal the expensive jewlery she was buried with. He dug away the snow and soon reached the coffin where he found the body. He took the jewels from her neck and reached to take the ring on her finger but found it stuck so he took a knife and cut off her finger. Much to his surprise and horror the young woman who was not dead but simply in a coma woke up. He ran into the night never to be heard from again.
Somehow the young woman crawled across the yard and up onto the porch of the house. Her father who sat by the fireplace lost in thought and grieving paid no attention to the stratching at the door. Perhaps he thought it was one of the dogs, or just the wind.
The next morning the young woman was found outside the door.....Frozen under a pile of snow. There was a trail of bloody foot prints leading from the garden.

To this day when the first snow falls and the fire is crackling in the hearth...the new generations of this family still see the apparition of a young woman walking up the staircase..the rustling of the petticoats. If you look out into the snow, you can see the bloody footprints leading from the garden..She has at last found her way home.
And in the spring near the steps of the house grow the most beautiful violets. Watered by the tears of a young girl, seeking refuge from the snow


I first heard this story when I went on a "ghost tour" of Colonial Williamburg.I was touched by it as soon as I heard it and it was my favorite stories about hauntings in our area.
It can also be found in Volume 1 of The Ghost of Virginia by LB Taylor Jr.

I plan this spring to visit the area where this story took place.

Ghost Hunt

The next few days should prove to be exciting. Coming up on Saturday night I am going on a ghost hunt with a local paranormal group to a cemetery. Then next Tuesday I will be meeting with the group I told you about a few weeks ago that is interested in spending some time with my grandson. We will be meeting at the farm where he first "saw" the ghost lady I have in my photo. The group wants to spend some time with him. I am guessing that they will set up some equipment in the area and see if anything happens. Both trips should provide some interesting post, so check back for them. In the mean time here is a slide show from The Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond VA. (This is NOT the same cemetery that I will be going on with the group this weekend). I know I showed a few photos from there in a previous post, but with approx. 75,000 people buried there I thought you might like to see more.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com