In The Ghosts of Virginia Volume VI, L.B. Taylor, Jr. says that Cullop’s Old Stone Tavern was built in 1765 and is considered one of the oldest limestone houses in the county. The oldest section of the building has 5 bedrooms, one of which Mrs. Julia Tevis stayed in, in 1822. An exert from her diary (provided by Clara Hill Carner in 1975) gave readers of Smyth County News a picture of a tavern back in time, when people would lodge there on the trip between Abingdon and Wytheville.
The first spirit believed to haunt this private residence is that of Thomas Jefferson Snavely who bought the house in the 1800s. One of the horses was sick and the medicine looked just like horehound candy. Unaware of the circumstances, Snavely mistook the medicine for candy, ate it and died a few days later.
The second ghost the house sports is that of the house’s namesake, Fredric Cullop. Legend says that one day he sold one of the slave children and the mother became hysterical. Mr. Cullop was the father of the child, she said. Distraught, he locked himself in the western front room on the first floor and shot himself. From then on, the blood would not come off the floor. Try as owners might, the bloodstains simply returned from washing to washing. In 1904, a new wood floor was placed down in the room, and the bloodstains seeped through. Mrs. June Eller, 79 years old at the time she spoke to Clara Hill Carner, said her mother had tried to clean the spot up with lye in hot water, to no avail.
During more recent renovations, workers reported hearing voices, doors opening and closing on their own, and even footprints that led into the closet. When they would open the closet door, no one would be inside.
