Legends And Folk Tales Of Old Alexandria Virginia

The award-winning journalist and author of Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C. combs through the haunted past of this Virginia colonial town. The ghost of a Revolutionary War spy that fosters a centuries-old grudge against the British, two young lovers parted by fire but reunited in death and Union and Confederate soldiers who still battle at the Hotel Monaco are among the haunts of Alexandria, Virginia. Beside the Potomac and the twice-blooming wisteria, local author Michael Lee Pope takes readers on a thrilling journey with his collection of historic ghost lore. Join him as he searches for the identity of the Female Stranger of Gadsby’s Tavern and wanders the lonely halls of Woodlawn Plantation to encounter Alexandria’s restless souls. Includes photos! “A thrilling journey . . . [A] Halloween crowd-pleaser.” —Local Kicks

Hauntings lurk and spirits linger in the Old Dominion State Reader, beware! Turn these pages and enter the world of the paranormal, where ghosts and ghouls alike creep just out of sight. Author L. B. Taylor shines a light in the dark corners of Virginia and scares those spirits out of hiding in this thrilling collection. From poltergeists that make trouble at Blue Ridge Pottery, to a phantom light on Holston Mountain, to specters haunting the battlefield of Cedar Creek, there’s no shortage of bone-chilling tales to keep you up at night. Around the campfire or tucked away on a dark and stormy night, this big book of ghost stories is a hauntingly good read.

Delve into a world of kelpies, mermaids, selkies, ghosts, warlords, and fairies. This collection gives you Celtic tales, previously unrecorded or only found in obscure compilations. Mostly collected by the author on her ancestral home of the Isle of Barra in the Hebrides, these lesser-known tales from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales are supported by a brief history of the Celts, a glossary of the Gaelic integrated in the stories, an appendix of superstitions about fairy protection, and bibliographies that reflect the author's extensive research. Seventeen ballads collected almost one hundred years ago and excerpts from the author's journal of travels in Scotland make this book a unique and valuable resource for anyone who tells stories.

Before Alan Brown wrote Haunted Places in the American South, only the locals knew what was lurking in these locations. Slamming doors, eerie lights, and Confederate soldiers' ghosts kept some folks too scared to talk with outsiders. Above Peavey Melody Music in Meridian, Mississippi, children may be heard giggling and running down an abandoned hallway that turns icy cold. At the Jameson Inn in Crestview, Florida, an apparition appears on surveillance tapes after filling the lobby with sweet-smelling cigar smoke. Seldom told and rarely—if ever—printed stories such as these join tales from haunted inns, mansions, forests, ravines, and prisons to create Haunted Places in the American South. The book collects ghost stories from fifty-five historically haunted sites in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Alan Brown gathered these stories from newspapers, magazines, museum directors, archaeologists, hotel managers, and many others who shared their disturbing experiences. Most of these stories have never appeared in book form, and some, such as the haunting of Peavey Melody Music, have never been published at all. Haunted Places in the American South differs from most other collections of southern ghost stories, for the featured sites include more than just haunted houses. Bridges, forts, governors' mansions, prisons, hotels, woods, theaters, cemeteries, and even a large rock are included as focal points for these tales. The book provides directions to the sites, notes, and a bibliography that will be useful to folklore scholars and to travelers seeking that cold and creepy brush with the supernatural.

People with only a slight interest in history will enjoy these fascinating, short and easy to understand stories. Serious history buffs will like these lesser-known episodes, not the stories we've heard a million times. For example: try to find anyone who knows about the attempted slave insurrection in Fairfax County, Virginia. With Mary Lincoln's spending habits, who knew that Abraham Lincoln actually saved an enormous percentage of his presidential salary? A slave honored in Virginia with a monument; the history of Lee Highway which 'opened' with great fanfare in 1923 as a 3,000 mile road from Washington, DC to San Diego; a story about the Little River Turnpike, the second oldest turnpike in America, built partly by slaves and captured Hessian soldiers. You'll read about two Civil War ships that collided in the Potomac River. Victims included wounded soldiers' wives and one soldier's six-year-old son. You'll read a great account of the massive Civil War corruption. You'll learn about the disastrous condition of the treasury (sound familiar?) during the Revolutionary War. The government tried everything, including a lottery to get the country afloat in a sea of red ink. But the most fascinating story may be about the Revolutionary War soldier who faked his own desertion to defect to the enemy with the highly secretive mission of going behind enemy lines to capture and return for trial the worst traitor in American history: Benedict Arnold. Bet you never heard of this story. There are many other stories in this eclectic, heavily-researched manuscript. There's a story about the Christmas Truce in World War One, about long-forgotten holidays in Virginia, about the retrocession which sent an area of Washington back to Virginia in 1846, and about the impeachment of a Supreme Court justice (it happened only once). And more!