Obsessed with the need to preserve his wife’s exquisite beauty, the captain ordered a form-fitting casket for her body. After she was lovingly placed in the custom coffin, a glass cover was laid on top. All of the air was drawn out of the casket before the glass lid was permanently sealed shut.

Once his beloved was ensconced in her sarcophagus, the distraught widower refused to allow anyone to move his wife’s body from their once-happy house. Finally, as the insistence of family and close friends, his wife was placed at the bottom of her brick vault.

A slab of marble was laid across the top of the tomb, giving the grave the outward appearance of a typical low country burial site. But this one was unique. If the marble slab was removed, the mistress of Daisy Bank was visible in her final resting place.

The widower threw himself into running the plantation. He had acquired Daisy Bank because of his bride. Now he would continue to care for it in memory of her.

Every evening after supper, he walked down to the grave under the live oak and removed the marble slab. Then he sat on the edge of the vault, close to where his wife lay. This ritual became an important part of the planter’s daily routine. Sitting by the vault where he could view his wife’s preserved form was the way he ended each day for the rest of his life.

After the planter’s death, Daisy Bank was incorporated into neighboring Annandale Plantation.

It was not long before black folks from Annandale began avoiding the Daisy Bank gravesite after dark.

The old master of Daisy Bank, they said, still visited his wife’s grave in the evenings.

Danky, a black gentleman born in 1872, was one of the few black people who would walk through Daisy Bank at night. Any evening that Danky passed close to the grave site, he never failed to see the old master of Daisy Bank sitting by the tomb of his wife.

Danky would always tip his hat and say to the spirit, "Good evening, sir," and keep on walking.

Other people from Annandale, however, would walk quite a bit out of their way to avoid passing anywhere near the Daisy Bank gravesite after dark. These individuals dreaded seeing the old master’s spirit because they feared it. It was whispered that he would rise from his seat beside his wife’s grave and chase anyone who broke into a panicky run.