Ghosts and rain
Apr. 23rd, 2006 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hildy89On Saturday it rained.
My god did it rain.
Except for short little stretches, the rain kept coming. It was one of those rainy weekend days when you wanted to curl up into little ball in your bed and not reappear until Monday.
However my friend Lisa was in town for the Malice Domestic mystery convention and she wanted to see the Alexandria Ghosts and Graveyard tour while she was here. I had always wanted to go, but never had the chance. In fact, my old Vampyres persona, Alix, gave the occasional tour. I fully expected to find her and her familiar-ghost waiting on some Old Town doorstep demanding to know in flawless French accent why exactly I hadn't written about them in so long. I was relieved no such visitations occurred.
All excited about her upcoming trip, we scheduled in advance for a tour on Saturday night... when the worst of the storm was hitting. We met at the King Street metro. She was easy to spot. At least I was pretty sure there wouldn't be another person at that metro at that moment wearing a Forever Knight "The Raven" t-shirt. Lisa runs the old Forkni list. In fact, that was how we met all those years ago online, when FK was in the throes of disappearing because of David Letterman.
Alexandria has started running a nifty little free "Dash About" service to take people from the metro down King Street into Old Town. We caught that and had dinner at the China King restaurant. Initially we had reserved spots on the 9pm tour, hoping to avoid young rugrats and their hapless parents. With the weather onslaught, we decided to see if we could get on the earlier tour instead.
At the bottom of Ramsey House, we were greeted by our costumed guide Mary who was quite pleased to switch us to the earlier tour. Waiting under the porch, I was amused to discover that one of the little girls on our tour had my name. (Looking at NameVoyager recently, I was startled to discover my old-fashioned name is back in fashion, more popular than even in the 1890s. Probably more due to the popularity of a certain actress currently selling out Broadway but getting awful reviews than anything I did, but it was amusing. Completely irrelevant parenthetical there...)
The tour started with a short history of the city of Alexandria, started as a "planned community" by a bunch of Scottish merchants. Ramsey House was the oldest house in town, but only because it was moved from another location. Our guide also said that all the stories started with some piece of fact with some changing into legends and folklore along the way.
Our first stop started around the corner with the sad wedding story of Laura Schafer and Charles Tennesson in 1868. The wedding was in the house. The groom was downstairs letting in the guests. The bride was upstairs getting ready with help from her grandmother. The nervous bride asked her grandmother to leave her alone to collect herself. She apparently started to pace and the train of her wedding dress came a little to close to the fireplace. She couldn't get the door open until suddenly it opened. The draft turned her into a huge fireball. She wound up dying at the feet of her would-be groom who died five months later. The Travel Channel apparently reenacted this story for one of their programs. Our guide played the grandmother in that reenactment. Interestingly, our guide mentioned a few occasions where someone on the tour would look up at the windows and ask "Who's up there now?" It's a shop, there shouldn't be anyone...
Carlyle House is the oldest house after the Ramsey. It was built after the city was founded and owned by John Carlyle. He married the very wealthy Sarah Fairfax. While the house itself isn't haunted, the grounds are. And from the sounds of it, I wondered about Mr. Carlyle's roofing, since people had a tendency to trip and fall from his roof.
Even the bawdiest stories were told with a wink. There were children on this tour, after all. After telling us about the charming sea captain whose passengers were never seen again, we were told about the place being owned by Miss Netty's school for Girls. That sounded innocuous until you learned that most of her students "tutored" sailors and others in matters of anatomy and physiology... real hands on teaching there.
Our guide combined the ghost stories with stories about the historical periods involved. Sometimes it was fun stuff like flirting with fans and others were more gruesome like the old ice house sometimes used as a morgue. One of Miss Netty's girls died and found her way to the ice house for a fine old wake to send her off. Until people started noticing the ice they were using had a lot of blood, prompting the rather sick joke that the first Bloody Mary was mixed in Alexandria.
The spookiest stories were the ones involving a little precognition. The travelling man whose wife stopped by his bedside to say one last goodbye before she departed this realm... the doctor who saw his assistant in the mirror just before she died.
And then there was the basement apartment that couldn't keep a tenant. The owner asked the people when they left why they had to leave. Two young ladies couldn't stay because they couldn't sleep. One woke to found a man sitting in a rocking chair with a knife stuck in his head. The other kept waking thinking she was on fire. In fine fashion, the owner decided the problem was that he kept letting to "hysterical females". The next gentleman couldn't sleep either. He thought he was falling off a cliff. He did some research though and finally they dug up the floorboards and sure enough there was a well. That explained everything, they thought. They were all intending to fill it in when they shone the light again and found a body with a knife stuck in his head. Apparently there had also been a fire in the building. After the proper burial and blessings, that place finally settled down. So much for those hysterical females...
Not all the ghosts were scary ones. One house had a ghost of a young girl named Brooke who comforted children living there.
Our tour ended in the cemetery of the Presbyterian church. John Carlyle and his wife were buried there. Sarah might have brought the money to the marriage, but he had the bigger tombstone. George Washington's funeral was held at this church, because it was larger than the Episcopalian church he had belonged to. I liked the Tomb of Unknown Revolutionary Soldier. They didn't know if he was Catholic or Protestant so his tomb was put in split the two churchyards to cover the options.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of ghosts and stories along the way. The tour was well worth it. I do wish the weather had been better, but you can never plan that.
My god did it rain.
Except for short little stretches, the rain kept coming. It was one of those rainy weekend days when you wanted to curl up into little ball in your bed and not reappear until Monday.
However my friend Lisa was in town for the Malice Domestic mystery convention and she wanted to see the Alexandria Ghosts and Graveyard tour while she was here. I had always wanted to go, but never had the chance. In fact, my old Vampyres persona, Alix, gave the occasional tour. I fully expected to find her and her familiar-ghost waiting on some Old Town doorstep demanding to know in flawless French accent why exactly I hadn't written about them in so long. I was relieved no such visitations occurred.
All excited about her upcoming trip, we scheduled in advance for a tour on Saturday night... when the worst of the storm was hitting. We met at the King Street metro. She was easy to spot. At least I was pretty sure there wouldn't be another person at that metro at that moment wearing a Forever Knight "The Raven" t-shirt. Lisa runs the old Forkni list. In fact, that was how we met all those years ago online, when FK was in the throes of disappearing because of David Letterman.
Alexandria has started running a nifty little free "Dash About" service to take people from the metro down King Street into Old Town. We caught that and had dinner at the China King restaurant. Initially we had reserved spots on the 9pm tour, hoping to avoid young rugrats and their hapless parents. With the weather onslaught, we decided to see if we could get on the earlier tour instead.
At the bottom of Ramsey House, we were greeted by our costumed guide Mary who was quite pleased to switch us to the earlier tour. Waiting under the porch, I was amused to discover that one of the little girls on our tour had my name. (Looking at NameVoyager recently, I was startled to discover my old-fashioned name is back in fashion, more popular than even in the 1890s. Probably more due to the popularity of a certain actress currently selling out Broadway but getting awful reviews than anything I did, but it was amusing. Completely irrelevant parenthetical there...)
The tour started with a short history of the city of Alexandria, started as a "planned community" by a bunch of Scottish merchants. Ramsey House was the oldest house in town, but only because it was moved from another location. Our guide also said that all the stories started with some piece of fact with some changing into legends and folklore along the way.
Our first stop started around the corner with the sad wedding story of Laura Schafer and Charles Tennesson in 1868. The wedding was in the house. The groom was downstairs letting in the guests. The bride was upstairs getting ready with help from her grandmother. The nervous bride asked her grandmother to leave her alone to collect herself. She apparently started to pace and the train of her wedding dress came a little to close to the fireplace. She couldn't get the door open until suddenly it opened. The draft turned her into a huge fireball. She wound up dying at the feet of her would-be groom who died five months later. The Travel Channel apparently reenacted this story for one of their programs. Our guide played the grandmother in that reenactment. Interestingly, our guide mentioned a few occasions where someone on the tour would look up at the windows and ask "Who's up there now?" It's a shop, there shouldn't be anyone...
Carlyle House is the oldest house after the Ramsey. It was built after the city was founded and owned by John Carlyle. He married the very wealthy Sarah Fairfax. While the house itself isn't haunted, the grounds are. And from the sounds of it, I wondered about Mr. Carlyle's roofing, since people had a tendency to trip and fall from his roof.
Even the bawdiest stories were told with a wink. There were children on this tour, after all. After telling us about the charming sea captain whose passengers were never seen again, we were told about the place being owned by Miss Netty's school for Girls. That sounded innocuous until you learned that most of her students "tutored" sailors and others in matters of anatomy and physiology... real hands on teaching there.
Our guide combined the ghost stories with stories about the historical periods involved. Sometimes it was fun stuff like flirting with fans and others were more gruesome like the old ice house sometimes used as a morgue. One of Miss Netty's girls died and found her way to the ice house for a fine old wake to send her off. Until people started noticing the ice they were using had a lot of blood, prompting the rather sick joke that the first Bloody Mary was mixed in Alexandria.
The spookiest stories were the ones involving a little precognition. The travelling man whose wife stopped by his bedside to say one last goodbye before she departed this realm... the doctor who saw his assistant in the mirror just before she died.
And then there was the basement apartment that couldn't keep a tenant. The owner asked the people when they left why they had to leave. Two young ladies couldn't stay because they couldn't sleep. One woke to found a man sitting in a rocking chair with a knife stuck in his head. The other kept waking thinking she was on fire. In fine fashion, the owner decided the problem was that he kept letting to "hysterical females". The next gentleman couldn't sleep either. He thought he was falling off a cliff. He did some research though and finally they dug up the floorboards and sure enough there was a well. That explained everything, they thought. They were all intending to fill it in when they shone the light again and found a body with a knife stuck in his head. Apparently there had also been a fire in the building. After the proper burial and blessings, that place finally settled down. So much for those hysterical females...
Not all the ghosts were scary ones. One house had a ghost of a young girl named Brooke who comforted children living there.
Our tour ended in the cemetery of the Presbyterian church. John Carlyle and his wife were buried there. Sarah might have brought the money to the marriage, but he had the bigger tombstone. George Washington's funeral was held at this church, because it was larger than the Episcopalian church he had belonged to. I liked the Tomb of Unknown Revolutionary Soldier. They didn't know if he was Catholic or Protestant so his tomb was put in split the two churchyards to cover the options.
I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of ghosts and stories along the way. The tour was well worth it. I do wish the weather had been better, but you can never plan that.
