I'm Bored with Talking About Traffic. Anyone in the Mood for a Local Ghost Story? (Arlington: hotel, house)

[normie]

Is it just me, or has our forum fallen into a rut lately?

I'm in the mood for a completely different topic... and there's something about hot summer nights that puts me in the mood for sitting around telling ghost stories. Anyone else interested? Because I just happen to know a few and I was thinking it might be fun to post some of the shorter ones.

These are local ghost stories (mostly from around Reston/Herndon/Leesburg). I'm sure some of you guys in Alexandria or Arlington have heard a story or two. Hey maybe there's even an interesting tale from when they built the Springfield Mall or when they built the Wilson Bridge. I think we could come up with quite a few good ones. But before I go to the effort of starting sucha thread, I want to see if there's any interest.

So what do you guys think, would a thread for local ghost stories be fun?

[oneasterisk]

Bunny Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[mdcrim]

I'm sitting cross legged waiting for the stories to begin... Waiting... Waiting...

I don't really know any although Balls Bluff and Manassas Battlefields are rumored to be haunted.

[Alicia Bradley]

Yes, indeedy! I don't know any NoVA ghost stories since I'm such a newbie (besides what they tell you on the "Haunted Alexandria" Tour, that is.. hehe), but I would love to hear some.

[normie]

OK, this first one is from a little town called Wiehle. Wiehle eventually became the area that today is known as Reston.

The Man Who Tried To Get Beer From a Milk Cow

Today, Sunset Hills is busy road lined with big shiny buildings. At the turn of the century, however, the road was a dirt path that led to the Sunset Hills dairy and a distillery.

One year, two workers named Weaver and Ned got a little tipsy and decided it would be funny to feed the cows the hops from the distillery instead of their usual hay. They thought they could milk a cow and get beer!

The cow didn't like this idea at all, and before long it gave Ned a strong kick. He never recovered from this injury, and eventually he died. As for Weaver, he was dismissed from his job and he left the area for many years.

To be continued....

[normie]

The Man Who Tried To Get Beer From a Milk Cow, continued

Decades later, Reston was developed. Eventually, Weaver returned to the area and bought a small tract house near the former site of the dairy farm.

As the years passed, he claimed that he would be visited by the ghost of Ned. He told people that he and Ned would walk the path that once led to the distillery, where he would then have some beers for both of them. People listened politely, but most everyone thought he was a bit off his rocker.

Of course, times had changed and so had the road. Weaver was no longer walking along a dirt path--Sunset Hills was now a dangerous 4-lane avenue with speeding traffic. The distillery had long ago closed, so he and Ned had to wander to a store for their beer.

Still the two continued their strolls, a man and a ghost, until the late 1980s, when Weaver was struck by a car and died… but to this very day there are people who claim Weaver and Ned still walk the road from the dairy
to the distillery.

Now that they are both ghosts, they can walk down the middle of the road...

and if you’ve been having a few beers, they may just appear in front of you!

[normie]

The Ghost Who Wants His Ashes Back

Following the Civil War, the land that was to become Reston was put up for auction to satisfy back taxes. It was sold to Dr. Carl Wiehle and William Dunn for $20,000. Wiehle envisioned building a new town on the site, complete with a hotel, industry, parks, and a community center. Although only a few of the streets were ever laid out, many of Wiehle’s plans were completed; unfortunately he died at the young age of 50 and plans for continuing the town were abandoned.

However, six or seven families built homes in the town. This is the story of an old man named John, who frequently visited one of these families.

During his last visit, John had an aneurysm and soon after he died. In the next few weeks, John's brother and the family that lived in Wiehle got into a bitter fight over what to do with John's ashes.

You see, John had always said that when he died, he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread at dusk from a canoe in the middle of the Potomac River. It had come to him in a dream that that was what he should do. But after he died, his brother fought the idea. Eventually they decided to split the ashes. The family in Wiehle took a canoe out onto the river and when they reached the middle, they tossed their half of John’s ashes into the wind.

But John's brother kept his half of the ashes in a small urn that he eventually buried in his backyard. To this day, when the tide is low, John’s ghost returns from the river to the site of his brother's house, searching for the urn that held his ashes.

[Samara11]

Oooh, can the next one be about Leesburg please.

[VRE332]

.....Scranny moves to Leesburg-Wilkes-Barre....

[normie]

Leesburg has a couple of great stories about ghosts in the court house. I'm going to have to look them up though, can't quite remember how they go. Here's a Leesburg story from the late 1940's:

The Fortune Telling Photograph

Back in the 1940's on a sultry Saturday night, a family of five attended a concert at a church near Leesburg, Virginia. Someone in the audience brought a parrot, and the entire family joined the crowd watching the parrot, giving the mother a chance to take a family photograph.

Now the mother, was not a very good photographer, and her photos were often blurry or distorted. She frequently chopped off the top of people’s heads... but this particular photo had a strange flaw nobody in the family had ever seen before.

When they developed the film in a little darkroom down in the basement, they found one photo was very peculiar. One of the sons did not have a head.

There was only a black smudge where the head should have been, giving the appearance of a decapitated body. Below this smudge, the boy's shirt remained in perfect detail. The rest of his body was not visible (but this was probably because he was standing behind the others).

To be continued....