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Page 1: Haunted Hot Spots

LAKELIFE MAGAZINE • FALL 20088

s the leaves begin to fall and the cold air creeps uponus, is it easy to tell that autumn is approaching, andwith it Halloween. Soon trick-or-treaters will be outand about and haunted houses, complete with fog

machines, fake blood, and disturbing reenactments, will be openfor another season.

While these shows are indeed amusing, the interest in truehauntings, the stories of forces that some argue to be nonfiction,have a more terrifying edge to them. There is just somethingabout a ghost tale that makes it more spine-chilling when there isa chance the story is not a tale, but rather a perspective that thepast is here in the present.

Although there is certainly speculation as to whether or notspirits and ghosts exist, those who don’t believe sometimes can’thelp but show slight curiosity. Lake Oconee’s surrounding citiesare no stranger to these paranormal occurrences; each town is fullof their own history and with that, comes their own hauntings.

Madison is known across the nation as one of the best smalltowns in America, but what some residents and visitors might notknow is that Madison is considered a paranormal magnet here inGeorgia.

Heritage Hall, an imposing mansion on South Main Street, isa tourists’ playground. Now maintained by the Morgan CountyHistorical Society, it is also the place where some believe theghost of Virginia Nisbet resides. The home was built in 1811 andpurchased in 1830 by Dr. Elijah Evans Jones, Virginia’s father.Virginia and her newborn baby died in 1851, probably due tocomplications of child birth. The room where her presence hasbeen reported is now called “The Ghost Room” of the house.

“Part of the reason we call it The Ghost Room is becausenumerous people have walked in the room and described astrange feeling. Some visitors say they have actually seenVirginia’s ghost lying in the bed,” said Ruth Feliks, director ofHeritage Hall. “However, the most important reason the namewas developed is because there is an etching of a woman on thebottom of the fireplace. The figure is believed to be Virginiaholding her baby. In the past there have been many efforts to sandthe image away but each time it returns just as clear as it wasbefore.”

There have also been instances in Heritage Hall where peoplehave said other strange things have happened. One ladyexperienced a mirror randomly flying off the wall. Former

AWhere the past meets the present in Georgia’s Lake Country

Story & Photos by KRISTI HALL

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employees have also seen a woman whoresembles Virginia standing at the top of thestaircase. Marguerite Copelan, President of the MorganCounty Chamber of Commerce, witnessed one man’sencounter with Virginia.

“I was in Heritage Hall one afternoon when a marriedcouple arrived to tour the home. The pair walked intoseparate rooms while I stood in the middle hallway,” saidMarguerite. “I could hear the man mumbling to himself but Ididn’t think much about it. A few moments later the manexited the room and looked rather frightened. He asked mewhere his wife was I told him that she was in the room across

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Heritage Hall, home to the MorganCounty Historical Society, is said tostill bear the presence of formerresident Virginia Nisbet, right, whodied during childbirth there in 1851.

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the hall.”The man turned pale and explained

to Marguerite there had been a womanin the room with him that he thoughtwas his wife. “She was rubbing myshoulders and having a conversationwith me,” he said.

However, the room, which happenedto be The Ghost Room, had beencompletely empty other than him.“Needless to say, he and his wife left thehouse in quite a hurry,” said Marguerite.

Lucy Monahan and her husband Timpurchased a home, also on Madison’sSouth Main Street, in 1984. The two,along with their children lived in thehome.

“Strange things started happening assoon as we moved in,” said Lucy.“Several times I was alone in the houseand would hear children laughing in theother room.”

The family had been living in thehome for about a week when theirdaughter, who was 6 at the time, had herfirst encounter with a ghost.

Nisbet’s room is now the ‘Ghost Room’ atHeritage Hall and is visited frequently byvisitors who want to see the ‘etching’ onthe fireplace, below. No matter how manytimes the fireplace has been sanded away,an image of a woman cradling her babyalways returns.

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“She was upstairs playing in her roomone afternoon. She came running downthe stairs and said ‘Mommy! An old ladywalked in my room, smiled at me andwalked right out of the window,’” said Lucy

The Monahan’s house had been builtaround 1890 by Susan and Peter Walton.The Walton’s had six children and Susan,who some called “Aunt Susie,” was knownin town for loving children and being avery generous woman. The Monahan’sbelieve Aunt Susie is one of the ghosts wholived in their home.

“The ghosts were always very friendly. Ithink this is because Susie was so happy wehad children around. It was as though shehelped watch over them,” said Lucy.

“When I would lie down at night to goto sleep I could hear footsteps of someonewalking down the hall… It was like she waschecking on the children before they wentto sleep.”

The ghosts also saved the Monahan’shome and possibly their lives. “My husbandwas a pilot so sometimes he would work atnight. One evening the kids and I were in

a room watching television, all of thesudden we heard this huge, loud bangcoming from the hallway. Our dog, a blacklab started growling. All the hairs on hisbody stood straight up. When I leaneddown to touch him a spark of electricity,which was visible to the eye, shot from myfinger tip to his nose. It was bizarre. Whenthe children and I would touch each otherwe could feel the electricity. It was in theair.”

Lucy and her children wereunderstandably hesitant to go into thehallway so they sent the dog. When theyfollowed behind him they saw somethinglying on the floor, in the middle of thehallway. As they walked closer, thewooden object became clearer.

The random object turned out to be thetop part of an antique bedpost. At thispoint the Monahan’s had been living inthe home for years. They had never onceseen the bedpost before nor did they haveany clue where it came from.

“The dog went over to it and startedbarking. When he got close, another spark

shot from the bedpost to his nose. We wentto bed and didn’t move the wood piece.When my husband came home later thatnight I told him about what had happened.He went downstairs to check things out.When he reached for the bedpost piece henoticed a strange smell in the air.”

Mr. Monahan went into the basementand checked the furnace. “It was in flamesand about to catch the house on fire,” saidLucy. “Thank goodness Tim went to checkon the bedpost, if he hadn’t we would havenever known about the fire.”

The Monahan’s lived in the house forabout 12 years before moving. Over theyears the family experienced countlessoccasions when the presence of a differentforce was at hand. One instance was whenLucy had placed a table cloth in the drier.Later, she went upstairs to get the clothout. When she did, the table cloth waslaying in the drier, neatly folded fromcorner to corner.

Lake Oconee’s neighboring college

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town, Milledgeville has its own hauntedhistory. Dr. Bob Wilson, a professor ofHistory at Georgia College & StateUniversity is also the University’s Historian.He is known as the town’s “go to guy,” whenit comes to ghost stories. According to him,there are three buildings in Milledgevillethat he said, “Could really have somethinggoing on.” Wilson, who is a self proclaimedskeptic, said he has experienced some eventsthat could cause him to sway his disbelief.

The episodes he was referring to, tookplace in the University’s Harrison House.The Harrison house is used to forinstitutional research by GCSU but at onetime, was home to Mary Virginia Harrison.

Harrison is described by those who knewher, as an “exotic beauty.” She had a verydistinct look and was known for being quitepopular with the men she encountered.Harrison graduated from Georgia State

College in 1946 and moved away from theMilledgeville area. It wasn’t until later, afterthe death of her second husband, thatHarrison came back to the area and livedwith her mother. After a few years, whenHarrison was 54, she committed suicide inthe backyard of her home.

It was at the Harrison house that Wilsonfirst noticed suspicious activities. He wasmoving his office into the house when it allbegan.

“It was about 11 o’clock at night. I wasalone in the house and putting books ontothe bookshelves in one of the rooms. Therewere three doors in the room, which wasoriginally a bedroom. All of the sudden, thethree doors slammed shut — boom, boom,boom, they went,” said Wilson. “There wasalso a time when the strong smell of perfumetook over the room, it left and the returnedagain.”

Long-rumored to be haunted, former residents of this Madison home experienced numerousparanormal activities during their 12-year stay.

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Sanford Hall is the second buildingWilson mentioned. This residential hallwas built in 1938 and is where people saythe building’s ghost bled to death on thetop, unused floor. In 1952 a girl whoeveryone called Cookie was found severelybleeding on the day of the school’s springdance. She was covered with gashes on herbody. Cookie’s death, although there isdebate, is generally considered suicide bythose who tell the story.

Since her death, there have beencontinuous stories of doors opening andclosing, and strange noises coming from thetop floor. One student came forward andsaid she actually saw the ghost of Cookieand was able to pick out Cookie’s picture inan old yearbook.

The Walker House in Milledgeville isalso known for unusual commotion. In the1800’s Sam Walker moved from PutnamCounty and remodeled the house. Sam,who later became the mayor ofMilledgeville, had two children, Joel and

Alice. Joel was in school at MercerUniversity and had returned for summerbreak.

“There was an outbreak of meningitis atschool and it is possible that Joel hadcontracted the disease and brought ithome,” said Wilson. “However, Sam hadplans for Joel that break; he wanted Joel towork.”

When Joel explained that he wasn’tfeeling well, Sam thought he wasattempting to relieve himself of the chores.He didn’t take the complaints too seriously.Joel became more ill and very dehydrated.

It is said that Joel was standing at the topof the steps in the house when he collapsedand died. Sadly it was not just Joel whobecame victim to meningitis. According to“The Life and Times of Mayor Samuel R.Walker” by James C. Turner, both Aliceand Sam’s wife, Molley, also lost their livesto the disease that same week. Since then,

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the house has been reconstructed and turnedinto a duplex where mostly college studentslive.

“Several people who have lived in the oldWalker house believe it is haunted. They saydoors open and close randomly and thatfootsteps can be heard throughout thehouse,” said Wilson. “One night a womanwho lived on the second floor, in the roomacross from Joel’s, heard what sounded likecannon balls being dropped on the floor.The house had just recently turned into aduplex at this time so she was the onlyresident. The lady said there had beenseveral instances when she believed there tobe a ghost in the house, but that this was thefirst time she was truly scared.”

While it is still uncertain who the WalkerHouse ghost is, most assume it is either Joelor Sam. However, there was an instancewith another former resident that makes it

seem as though Sam’s daughter, Alice,haunts the house as well. A teacher atGCSU lived in one of the rooms with heryoung daughter. One day the daughter toldher mother, “I don’t want to play with heranymore,” referring to the girl’s newinvisible friend she had met in the duplex. Itcould be presumed her daughter haddeveloped an imaginary friend. On the otherhand, it is coincidence that Alice Walkerwas only 10 years old when she died.

Greensboro’s town historian Joel McRayknows of several homes in Greensboro thatare said to be haunted. As a matter a fact, heactually lives in one of these houses. McRaylives in “Hopewell Haven,” which he namedafter the ship that brought his ancestors toAmerica.

“My house has its own ghost pet,” saidMcRay. “I am not sure if the animal is a cator dog, but it has been seen on many

Mary Virginia Harrison, above and right with her parents, committed suicide in the backyard of herMilledgeville home. Today, strange occurrences keep people guessing as to whether or not Harrisonstill visits her childhood home.

Behind the circular window on the unused top floor of Sanford Hall on the GCSU campus, a studentallegedly committed suicide in 1952. Today, students living in the dormitory continue to hear strangenoises coming from the top floor.

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Madison is listed on numerous websites as one of Georgia’s haunted locations andis also featured on two episodes of Ghostvillage Radio’s Ghost Chronicles. Theepisodes, which take a closer look at Heritage Hall, Rose Cottage, and theRestaurant Town 220, can be heard on the Ghost Village website(www.ghostvillage.com episodes 57 and 50).

From the book True Ghost stories of Georgia:In The Eatonton Messenger in 1960, Louise Hunt is quoted as telling thepostmistress, “I first saw Sylvia when I was sitting here in the library. I looked up andsaw this beautiful girl leaning over the banister of the stairs and laughing at me. Ijumped up and said, “Who are you and how dare you laugh at me in my ownhouse?” She laughed at me again and then came gliding through the room, stilllaughing, and disappeared into thin air.”

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occasions and people sometimes trip over it.”It is not just ghost animals that wander in

Hopewell Haven. “One night I was sitting atmy kitchen table talking to a friend. I turnedaround there was a man in a black, turn-of-the-century suit. He was propped against thedoor way,” said McRay.

He believes the ghost is the man whobuilt the home, Peter Printep. This is not theonly time Mr. Printep’s ghost had been seeneither. McRay said his mother, who lived

with him, saw the ghost several times in theback hall.

Peter Printep is not the only ghost whohas been seen at Hopewell Haven. Oneafternoon, McRay was entertaining and hadguests over. One of his friends approachedhim and said there was a young, pretty girl inthe front hall who was wearing anantebellum dress.

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The Walker House in downtown Milledgeville is home to one of the town’s oldest reported ghosts.Former mayor Sam Walker, ‘the meanest man in town,’ allegedly still walks the halls mourning the lossof his wife and two children, victims of an outbreak of meningitis in the late 1800s.

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LAKELIFE MAGAZINE • FALL 200816

“He asked me who she was, but I didn’thave an answer,” said McRay. “There wasno one at the gathering dressed like that.My friend said he had spoken to the girland she just smiled and turned away.”

A different night, McRay was upstairsin his room reading. He heard the soundof glass shattering downstairs. “It soundedlike someone had smashed though thewindow, I called the police immediately,”said McRay.

When the police arrived, no brokenglass could be found anywhere. “It isweird instances like this, which make mebelieve my house is haunted. There is noother explanation for these events.”

McRay also believes there areadditional homes in Greensboro thatcould be haunted; Early Hill is one ofthese. The former plantation was builtin the1700`s and is said to be hauntedby the young daughter of past owners.The girl died unexpectedly when the

branch she was swinging from in thebackyard, broke. People who lived in thehouse said they could clearly hear a younggirl singing from upstairs even though noone was there. Some say there have beenoccasions when the young girl has been seenswinging from the tree at night.

“It has also been mentioned that you cansee strange reflections in the mirrors; like thegirl getting her hair brushed by her mother,”said McRay. “There have also been timeswhen the vision of an elderly woman hasbeen seen rocking on the front porch. Assoon as you approach the steps, shedisappears and the chair continues to rock.”

Eatonton also has its share of famousforces as well. Sylvia, the ghost of a youngwoman is said to reside in a home outside ofthe town’s square. Some say Sylvia was firstnoticed by Mr. and Mrs. Hunt. The twobought the mansion in 1891 and named itPanola Hall. Mrs. Hunt wrote a poem aboutSylvia which was later published with other

The spot in the backyard of her home in downtown Milledgeville where Mary Virginia Harrison tookher life in the late ‘70s.

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35 Years

poems, after her death. According to True Ghost Stories of Georgia, byBarbara Duffey, Mr. Hunt would even read the poem to visitors of thehouse.

In the book, Duffey explains that Mrs. Hunt at first didn’t tell herhusband about the ghost. It wasn’t until an out of town guest visited theHunts that Sylvia’s presence seemed undeniable. The man who wasvisiting met Sylvia, not knowing she was a ghost, on the staircase of thehouse. He described her as a striking woman with a rose placed in herlong dark hair. The man later joined the Hunts for dinner and askedwhy the young lady wasn’t accompanying them. It then becameclear that he had met Panola Hall’s ghost, Sylvia. The man was soinfatuated with Sylvia that it is said that his last wish was “to beburied with a copy of Sylvia’s poem in his hand and placed justabove his heart.”

Because Mrs. Hunt was unsure what the name of the ghostwas, she chose to call her Sylvia, after a popular song at that time.Because it is still uncertain where exactly the ghost came from, thename Sylvia has stuck. It has been speculated that she is the spiritof one of the Trippe daughters. The Trippes, who built the housein May of 1836, had two daughters, Mary and Louisa. Perhapsthe ghost is one of them.

It is also rumored that another young lady, a friend of theTrippe daughters committed suicide by throwing herself offthe second floor balcony because her lover, a confederatesolider was killed. This would explain why Sylvia is usuallyseen near the stairwell.

After seeing anapparition in Sanford Hall, a studentat GCSU in Milledgeville was able to identify ‘Cookie,’standing center, from this old yearbook photo. ‘Cookie’ bled to death onthe top floor of the dormitory on the day of the spring dance in 1952.