Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

antiquefinder · 01-25-2013, 08:01 PM

(01-23-2013 11:01 AM)Laurie Verge Wrote: Thanks everyone for your kind thoughts. Just a word of advice, don't ever assume that you live in a nice neighborhood and have no crime to worry about. The bad ones are everywhere these days. I never thought that I would live with two deadbolts on each door and have to punch numbers to get into my own house, but that's how I'll be living from now on.

Now, back to the ghost stories: From the 1970s on, we have been regaled with stories of the lady in black who "inhabited" Quarters 20 at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington. Quarters 20 (now Grant Hall) was officers' quarters in all that remained of the original penitentiary building of 1865. The third floor of now-Grant Hall is what is being restored to the Conspiracy Trial courtroom today.

In the early-1980s, the ghost stories surrounding that third-floor apartment were so great that the old TV show, That's Incredible, featured it on one segment. I believe Ed Steers was involved with this production, along with Joan Chaconas, who was then president of the Surratt Society.

The star of all the stories is a lady in black who floated through the rooms, would come to comfort children who cried during the night, who did not like to have the indoor shutters closed over the windows, etc. She was especially fond of floating into the apartment's bathroom. We would laughingly say that she appreciated the indoor plumbing - until we placed an overlay of what the courtroom looked like in 1865 over the then-floor plan and found that the modern bathroom was located where the prisoners' dock would have been during the trial. We stopped laughing.

At one point, I even received a phone call from an officer who was scheduled to move into the apartment. "I understand I'm going to be living with Mary Surratt. Please fill me in on her story."

The neatest story that I have heard so far from families who have lived there concerns a poltergeist experience. One of the wives went to the basement laundry room, but forgot her detergent. She went back upstairs to get it, but when she returned and tried to get into the laundry room, she couldn't get the door to open. She finally called the MPs, who could not get it open either. It was the only means of entrance to the room except for the small basement windows - none of which had been damaged in any way. However, the MPs could see that the washer had been pulled over and placed in front of the door to block it. They went in through one of the windows and corrected the situation. Everyone just chalked it up to another antic from the lady in black. Frankly, it sounds more like a trick that Herold would pull to me.

Hi Laurie- so sorry to hear of your house being robbed! I hope the police can recover all of your belongings. Do you have a dog? Dog's will hopefully scare anyone from walking around your property away. Thank you for remembering to share your ghost stories. I'm assuming the lady in black is Mary Surratt?