Abingdon, Virginia

“About 20 years ago, the Historical Society of Washington County asked my daughter Anna and me to start a walking Spirit Tour,” recalls Rick Humphreys, who along with his wife Susan operates the Black Dog Inn and A Tailor’s Lodging in Abingdon. “I agreed because I thought it would be a good bonding activity for us. But when some 150 people showed up for that first tour, I knew we really had something special that people wanted to know more about.”

And so began Abingdon’s metamorphosis into becoming the most haunted town in the Smoky Mountain region. Abingdon is one of our favorite places to visit anywhere, and during many sojourns we’ve learned about the ghostly legends involving the Barter Theatre, the Martha Washington Inn and The Tavern. But what we didn’t know is that this is a town that sometimes seems to have more buildings haunted than not.

Not long after our arrival at A Tailor’s Lodging, Humphreys felt compelled to issue a light-hearted warning: “You may have a problem with the shower; some of our guests have.’

It seems that May, the youngest daughter of the original owner, Sandoe, never experienced running water during her time on earth and now periodically wishes to see how the shower head works in a house built around 1840.

“Every now and then the problem of water spontaneously coming on seems to happen, and none of the work we’ve done with the valves seems to work,” Humphreys said.

After checking in and learning about May’s water issues we went to the Fields-Penn House on Main Street, where we met Amy Looney, a historical interpreter and also an artisan in the town. She dressed in circa 1770s period dress: a shift (undergarment), short jacket (blouse), petticoat (linen skirt), and apron. Looney also wore a mob cap such as ladies of the time would have worn for protection against daily grime. The haversack she carried was period appropriate, too.

Looney explained that original owner, James Fields, built the house around 1860 but lost it during the hard times after the Civil War. The Penn family then purchased the home. Years later, elder daughter Lucretia expressed her rebellious nature.

“Lucretia wanted to go to a dance with a young man the family didn’t approve of,” Looney said. “The family also didn’t think Lucretia was dressed modestly enough and sent her to her room. It is said she never left it again except at night to go outside and smell the roses growing in a flower garden. People claim to see her from time to time looking out her bedroom window.”

But it is Lucretia’s younger sister, Estelle, that Looney has the most connection to.

“I was leading a tour of the house on Halloween 2015, and nothing happened,” recalls Looney. “So at the end of the tour I said, ‘Estelle, I’m so disappointed in you.’ The next day I had to come back to the Fields-Penn House and saw a door with no handle—that’s always locked—now unlocked and open. Leaves were all over the floor, and the alarm sensor hadn’t gone off to indicate that anyone had come into the house in general or the room in particular.

“I put my lunchbox down on an ironing board and went for a vacuum cleaner. I came back and the lunch box had been knocked off and my meal was on the floor. I don’t think Estelle was happy with my criticism of her.”

We then strolled down Main Street to the Martha Washington Inn, which led to Looney telling us two more ghost stories. For the first one, it seems that a Confederate soldier was tasked with bringing an important message to General Robert E. Lee. The soldier’s girlfriend was working at what is today the inn, and the young man desperately wanted to say goodbye and express his love for her. When he arrived, Union soldiers shot him dead on the second floor.

“The blood stain is still there on the stairs, and it keeps reappearing when someone tries to wash it off,” says Looney.

The second story also involves the Civil War, and it concerns the best ghost horse story we’ve heard since Washington Irving’s headless horseman tale of Ichabod Crane. In the second battle of Abingdon, in December 1864, Union General George Stoneman was waging war on Saltville’s salt mines. Yankee soldier James Wyatt had grown up in Abingdon, had spent time in the courthouse as a prisoner for rowdy behavior, and decided now was the time to seek revenge for his treatment.

Wyatt torched the courthouse and several other buildings and was continuing his onslaught at the intersection of Main and Church when Confederate soldiers shot and killed him.

“Now, periodically, there are reports at night of Wyatt’s horse tied up at the Martha Washington or being seen walking up and down the streets,” Looney said.

The Barter Theatre

The next morning we went to the Barter Theatre where Amber Fiorini, director of sales and services, greeted us and ushered us to the tunnel that runs from the Barter to the Martha Washington. 

“During the Civil War, even then the Barter was used for performances and the Martha, like any large building, was used as a hospital for the wounded,” Fiorini said. “Apparently, the tunnel was built so that weapons could be smuggled back and forth between the two buildings. The story goes that soldiers were killed in the tunnel, but we don’t know all the context.

“But we do know that in 1995, the Barter’s artistic director Rick Rose was in charge of giving the building a major renovation. Workers were laboring 24/7 to finish the job before the performances were to begin. One night around 3 a.m., two workers felt a presence then saw two ghostly men coming out of the tunnel. After that, all of the workers refused to work the night shift.”

Fiorini said that many of the Barter’s staff consider founder Robert Porterfield to be a “benevolent presence” at the theater. Many claim to have spotted him in his white seersucker Southern suit, especially in the far two seats on the stage right side of the balcony. Porterfield himself brought back those seats from the famed Empire Theatre on Broadway when it closed in the 1950s. In fact, during the 1995 renovation, Rose even carried a framed picture of Porterfield around the building and showed him the progress that had been made. Fiorini channeled that action during a 2012 mini-renovation.

“Things just weren’t going well during the 2012 update of the theater,” she recalled. “We were trying to replace wallpaper and were painting some walls, but the building just seemed out of sorts. So I took the same framed picture of Porterfield around to the updates and explained to him that everything was going to be OK. Things went much better after that.”

The Tavern

For the past 24 years, Max Hermann has operated The Tavern, a restaurant that has been in operation as an eatery of one kind or another since 1779. Herman says two ghost stories pertain to the building. The first concerns a young lady of the evening who a client murdered on the second floor in the early 1800s. Late at night, folks claim to see lights on in that room and the lady’s form silhouetted.

During the Civil War, The Tavern served as a hospital, and the charcoal marks numbering 12 beds remain quite visible on an upper floor. Of course, many wounded soldiers died there.

“I am not a believer in ghosts, but …,” Hermann said. 

A long pause ensued. 

“There have been things that have happened in this building.”

Again there was a long pause.

He continued: “I have respect for this building. I will not stay in this building after midnight. One time I tried to spend the night here, and I woke up and felt a presence and decided that I did not need to be here. I also once hired an electrician to do some work upstairs, and he told me that he would never come here again after dark. He said the lights kept cutting off and the charcoal numbers turned red.”

Ironically, one of the least likely places to see ghosts in Abingdon, according to Charlie Burnette of the Washington County Historical Society, is in the town’s Sinking Spring Cemetery. 

“All people talk about seeing there at night is luminescent lights and glowing orbs,” says Burnett. 

Nevertheless, if you visit Abingdon during the Halloween period this year, you might just be prepared to see a haint or two.”