Tavern

The paranormal phenomena experienced at Abingdon’s Tavern at 222 East Main Street has been chronicled in Charles Edwin Price’s 1993 book Mystery of Ghostly Vera and Other Haunting Tales of Southwest Virginia, L. B. Taylor, Jr.’s 2001 book The Ghosts of Virginia. Vol. 6., Donnamarie Emmert self published 2004 booklet, Haunted Historic Abingdon. Vol. 1. and finally Donna Akers Warmuth’s 2005 book Legends, Stories and Ghostly Tales of Abingdon and Washington County, Virginia. Taylor’s book gives a wonderful summary of the experiences in the Tavern:

The manifestations are multiple, and have been witnessed by a number of people over the years. Tables have been cleared

and reset by unseen hands when no bus boys or members of the wait staff were nearby. Glasses mysteriously fall off the bar

racks and don’t just drop straight down, but fall several feet away – and don’t break! “That defies the law of gravity,” says

[owner] Man [Hermann]. Loud footsteps are heard upstairs when no one is up there. Heavy doors swing open and slam shut –

by themselves. Visions and shadows appear – of young Confederate soldiers swathed in bandages; of a woman who was a

prostitute during [the American Civil War]; of a cattle drover who was killed over a card game; of a man who was shot by his

lover’s jealous husband. (Taylor, Jr., p. 419)

One of the first recorded paranormal events was documented in Price’s book as a mysterious red light:

Every once in a while, on very dark, still nights, a red glow can be seen through a second story window of the old tavern on Main

Street in Abingdon. The light appears to come from a single source, moves slowly from side to side, disappears, [and] then

reappears again. (Price, p. 1)

Taylor goes into more detail about the light and draws the conclusion that it may have been a signal for a mysterious prostitute:

The light has been seen in an upstairs window by townspeople, tourists and staff members alike – always when no one is

upstairs, and always when investigated, there is no rational source to explain its presence. The consensus is it may be a light

said to have been used by a “lady of the evening” in the mid-1800s. (Taylor, Jr., p. 420)

Later in his story, however, Taylor draws a completely different conclusion about the glowing light, writing that the origin was from wounded Civil War soliders that were hospitalized at the Tavern:

[Owner] Max Hermann says when he first took over the restaurant, a maintenance man told him that he had put in new air

conditioning and heating equipment in 1978. He said that during the work, all hell broke loose. For no explainable reason, the

power went out, and when the man went upstairs to check things out, the Civil War hospital numbers, which are black, had

turned “blood red”[!] (Taylor, Jr., p. 421)

Donnamarie Emmert self published 2004 booklet, Haunted Historic Abingdon. Vol. 1. expands on this story:

Though no written history bears it out, it is believed that during the Civil War, wounded soldiers who weren’t fortunate enough to

get a bed at the Martha Washington [Inn] were brought by their comrades down the street to the Tavern. . . . Downstairs, while

travelers still drank and played cards, the wounded were carried up two narrow flights of stairs and put in small rope beds in

the attic. Each bed space was numbered and those numbers can still be seen today, deeply penciled into the original plaster

walls. (Emmert, ps. 16 & 17)

The supposition that the numbers in the attic of the Tavern were penciled in for wounded Civil War soldiers has been questioned by local historians. They point out that at one time the Tavern was called the Virginia House, an inn with a third floor divided by a wall to give men and women their separate rooms. This was documented in a publication by the Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia:

The third floor was used for bedding down the guests. There were two big rooms, one for male guests and one for female

guests. There was no connection between the rooms, and they could each be reached only by one of the two long continuous

stairways from the first floor. The bed numbers are still painted on the plaster in the big guest rooms. (Historical Society of

Washington County, Virginia)

Then where did the legend that the numbers indicated hospital beds for wounded soliders? A newspaper clipping written by Mary Dudley Porterfield at the Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia reveals that:

“Uncle Joe Campbell” and he worked mostly, when not with my father, for Miss Katle Hurt and her brother Uel Hurt (S. F.). One

day he told me the story which happened during the Civil War. He told me that one of his first jobs that he was working as a

house boy in this building ([the] Tavern) when it was turned into a hospital to care for the wounded Confederate soldiers that

came up from the south to help fight the battle near Saltville. The Union soldiers were trying to capture the [salt mines] in and

near the town known as Saltville. The Confederates brought these soldiers from Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. The day

finally came for the big battle which the Confederates had been preparing for. To their surprise the Confederates had great

losses and a large number of wounded soldiers from the three southern states. This is when the building, now known as

Vance’s Tavern, was set up as a hospital to care for the large number of wounded soliders. Uncle Joe Campbell told me that

he was hired to help take care of them. He was very proud of what he did during this crisis to help the wounded Confederate

soldiers. Uncle Joe told me most of these soldiers died of the wounds and were buried in Sinking Spring Cemetery in what is

known as the Unknown Confederate plot. He told me that the numbers that were on the walls were used to identify cots and

beds that were set up for these wounded men. (Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia)

Is it possible that there is some truth to the legend that the Tavern was a make-shift Civil War hospital? According to old deed books at the Washington County Circuit Court, Thaddeus S. and Mary Jane Harris were freed slaves that bought the Tavern in 1858 from Sarah H. Dunn. The Tavern stayed in the Harris family until Mary Dudley Porterfield purchased it in 1965. It is reasonable to assume that if wounded soldiers were housed in the Tavern, the beds from the inn may have been used to care for them.

Price writes that another ghost, a man who was murdered over a poker game, might still haunt the Tavern:

One night, in the early part of the [19th]-century, a weary drover visited the tavern in search of liquid refreshment and

divertissement. Eventually he got into a card game which continued far into the night.

The drover was lucky at cards, winning most of his opponents’ money. His companions turned surly. He was accused of

cheating. No man could have that much luck at cards without having an ace tucked up his sleeve.

No amount of explanation quelled the rage of his cronies, who slew his in cold blood in an alley outside the tavern. The

murderers escaped, but the murdered man’s soul was imprisoned in the tavern where it was been both seen and heard ever

since. (Price, p. 3)

Taylor writes about the Tavern’s most famous ghost, the mysterious “lady of the evening”:

The evening began reasonably when a group of weary mule skinners stopped in Abingdon for the night. Naturally the

fellowship gravitated to the tavern, their throats dry after many miles on the rough, dusty trail.

One of the mule skinners we’ll call Pete. Pete was a mountain of a man, very strong and muscular, and a hard worker.

You could say that Pete was lacking in the most elemental of social graces. In fact, he was well-known for his cruelties towards

both man and beast. When out barmaid approached Pete that night, she had no idea what she was getting herself into.

At first, the pairing was quite amiable. In fact, both were in the process of getting happily soused on a local vintage and

were soon feeling no pain. Then the girl suggested that she and Pete retire to the second floor.

Fifteen minutes later, the girl’s anguished screams echoed throughout the tavern. Men coming to her rescue found her

battered, blooding body sprawled on the floor of one of the upstairs rooms. (Of the five rooms now upstairs in [the] Tavern, the

consensus of opinion is that she was murdered in the back room on the right.

“Who did this?” one of the men asked.

Breathing her last [breath], the girl indented Pete as her murdered. When the men searched the tavern for Pete, he was

gone.

The sheriff questioned Pete’s fellow drovers. No, they had not seen him. The town and surrounding countryside were

searched. Nothing. Pete had disappeared from the face of the earth and was never seen again in Abingdon. (Price, ps. 3 & 4)

Taylor continues by saying that the image of this woman can sometimes be seen in the second-floor window facing East Main Street:

“But her apparition has, and her screams sometimes still echo on occasion. And, there is that light. It is generally seen from

the street, and usually in the wee hours of the morning when the tavern is closed. Sometimes a faint silhouette is sighted

behind drawn curtains. (Taylor, Jr., p, 420)

Taylor was the first author to write that another ghost in the tavern might be Captain Gordon William Rife who was shot by Stephen Alonzo Jackson:

There is one other theory as to who one of the spirits might be. When one walks into the tavern, there is a picture of a man on

the back wall; a man from another era with a handlebar mustache. The caption beneath the photo reads: “[Captain] Gordon

William [Rife], 1843 – 1880[“]. Buried near Whites Mill, [Rife’s] death allegedly involved an argument over a woman. Oral

historical accounts state [Rife] was murdered when leaving the tavern. As he mounted his horse, Stephen Alonzo Jackson

allegedly shot and killed him. [Rife] dragged himself to the nearby courthouse steps and died there, May 20, 1880. He was 37[-

years-old]. Jackson was acquitted at his trial. [Rife] apparently was a womanizer and Jackson was the jealous husband.

Maybe that was justification for such a crime in those days. And maybe the slaying was justification for [Rife’s] ghost. (Taylor,

Jr., ps. 420 & 421)

The record of the murder exists in the old judgment books at the Washington County Circuit Court. Proceedings began on 10/11/1880 and were continued until Jackson was found “not guilty” by a jury on 10/22/1880.

The supposition that the murder took place at the Tavern over a woman is incorrect. According to the Richmond Dispatch article "Fatal Shooting Affair at Abingdon” on 05/25/1880, the dispute was over logs:

We learned from parties who passed through Abingdon Saturday that a serious shooting affair occurred at the depot at that

place, resulting in the death of Mr. Rife, a citizen of that county. It seems that he had some time since sold to Mr. S. A. Jackson,

a merchant of that place, a large number of walnut logs, and in the settlement between them at the time a disagreement

occurred. Both parties have been embittered against each other since, and on one occasion a fist-fight took place. On

Thursday they met at the depot, and the quarrel was resumed. Rife signified his intentions to chastise Jackson, and taking his

stand in front of him, remarked, putting his hand in his pocket, that he was ready for him; whereupon Jackson drew his pistol

and fired four times, each shot taking effect. The difficulty occurred about [3:00 PM], and Rife died at [7:00 PM]. Rife is said to

have been a desperate character and a great bully. Jackson was arrested, and bailed for a further hearing on a bond of $1000.

(Richmond Dispatch)

Where then does Jackson receive the title of “jealous husband”? The Haunt Masters Club: Tri-Cities Parapsychological Research & Investigation interviewed Abingdon citizen Garrett Jackson, descendant of Stephen Alonzo Jackson and discovered there was much more to the quarrel these two men had. Garrett stated that family history maintains that Rife was a member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Jackson was a member of the Masonic lodge, two societies very much opposed to one another at that time. Rife had approached Jackson for munitions, but Jackson refused to sell. In order to try to convince him, Rife turned to Jackson’s wife, Minter. Understandably, Jackson was not pleased by their association.

Perhaps there is some grain of truth to the story of a confrontation between Jackson and Rife at the Tavern. It was a busy establishment and there is little doubt the men would have eventually ran into one another there. Perhaps the fist-fight mentioned in the Richmond Dispatch article occurred in the Tavern.

With all of the ghosts that are said to haunt the Tavern, employees seem to have encounters with only one, a female who may or may not have been the advertised prostitute. During filming for WJHL’s coverage of the Haunt Masters Club’s investigation of the Tavern on 10/31/2008, employee Amy Jo Stiltner said that staff has nicknamed the ghost “Mary Catherine.” She continues by saying the ghost doesn’t appear to target men, as documented in certain books, but that the ghost tends to target women. She said that pregnant employees experience most of the paranormal events.