Creepy tales, cider offered at Dumfries museum walk

Dumfries, Va. –– Have you ever heard the one about the civil war soldier in Dumfries who didn’t know his way to Potomac Mills? How about the janitor who’s been dead for years but can still be seen at Dumfries Elementary School?

Those who attended the ghost walk at the Weems-Botts Museum Friday night got an earful of these haunted tales, and got to hear the voices of what are said to be the ghosts of two little girls who live in the Weems-Botts house, captured on audio tape.

The house dates to the 18^th century and was briefly owned by Parson Weems – the man who made George Washington with stories about cutting down his father’s cherry tree and tossing a stone across the Rappahannock River.

But it’s the creepier stories, the ones about the ghosts of two little girls that live in the house, that drew Cynthia Paul to the museum.

“Violet [a ghost] opens the window, and Annie [a ghost] was seen by a woman coming over from the museum annex to get some stuff from the museum, which was locked that was locked. The lady came in and Annie ignored her, so she went to the back room and called up and complained the next day about the little girl in the house who was all alone,” said Paul, who just heard the story.

As it turns out, the woman returned to the museum, this time with a tour guide, pointed to an more than half-century-old photo of “Annie” hanging on the wall, and then told the guide that was the girl she saw.

In addition to the house, the tour takes walkers to an old cemetery that dates back to the 1600s, and to a gazebo where that civil war soldier once stood, according to lore.

As the story goes, when a woman saw a man who looked to be a civil war reenactor and asked him directions to a nearby shopping mall, the man never broke character and said he didn’t know of such a thing. It turned out there were no civil war reenactors at the Weems-Botts Museum that day, leaving the woman looking for directions and museum curators puzzled.

Gordon Robertson was sprucing up on his ghost stories, as he prepared to play tour guide Saturday night.

“It’s fun to hear about these ghosts stories, and I like the history of the town. It’s the oldest, contiguous chartered town in Virginia,” said Robertson.

The ghost tours will be offered at 6:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and again Oct. 29.

It’s $5 per person, reservations are recommended, and hot chocolate and apple cider is available at the conclusion of the walk.