Credits, Links, Resources and Suggested Reading:
1. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of The Ghosts of Virginia Volume I by: L.B. Taylor, Jr.
2. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of The Mystery of Ghostly Vera: And Other Haunting Tales of Southwest Virginia by: Charles Edwin Price
4. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of The Ghosts of Virginia Volume VI by: L.B. Taylor, Jr.
5. To read a full account of this story, please pick up a copy of Legends, Stories and Ghostly Tales of Abingdon and Washington County, Virginia by: Donna Akers Warmuth
General Francis Preston built the house in 1832 for he, his wife, Sarah Buchanan Preston, and their 9 children for just under $15,000. In 1858, the home was purchased for 21,000 as an upscale college for women and was named after the eloquent Martha Washington. Actors for the Barter Theater, across the street, often stayed in this inn. During the civil war, many of the young ladies became nurses when the college was used as a hospital for both Union and Confederate soldiers. Since then, many ghost stories have circulated:
Guests who stay in Room 403 often report waking up and finding the ghost of a solider standing at the foot of the bed. A ghost of an accused Union spy has been seen walking the second floor with a hole in his head. This may have given rise to the story that the second floor of the inn is blood-stained, and when a rug is placed over the stain, the blood will either seep through the rug or the rug will be moved all together. Locals, however, tell of a young solider who stopped in to see his secret beloved on the way to deliver important papers and was shot dead by Union soldiers. This is said to play out in front of the current Governor's Suite. Doors have been known to open and close on their own, lights turn themselves on and off and otherworldly conversations can be heard downstairs, in the dead of night.
Captain John Stoves was captured after he was wounded, and was brought to the third floor to recover. One nurse, Beth Smith, tried soothing him by playing her violin by his bedside. Alas, Stoves died of his wounds, and Beth died not too long after of typhoid fever; they were both buried in Green Springs Cemetery. Some people who stay at the inn report hearing violin music playing in the night even to this day.
But not all the ghosts who reside in the Martha Washington Inn are human. The grounds were once used for training during the Civil War, and some say a phantom horse walks the South Lawn at night, looking for its lost rider. Local legend says this is the ghost of a Union solider shot down in December 1864. 1, 2, 3
- In the Virginia Suite, people have reported actually being touches and pushed. 4
- Local legend says that slaves may have been kept in the basement in cells as punishment, and some were even believed to be walled up in the basement; guests have heard strange moaning noises coming from the basement. 5
- The Napoleon Room (Room 302) is the nicest room in the Inn, and the furniture is said to have once belonged to Napoleon himself, and some believe the room was used as a morgue during the Civil War. Guests have reported seeing a whole, silent party going on in the room, and when they sleep at night a young girl in white yanks the covers from the bed. 5
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