A Psychic Swirl At Scotchtown

For seven years in the 1700s the great Virginia orator and statesman, Patrick Henry, lived at Scotchtown, a huge sprawling estate in upper Hanover County, a few miles west of Ashland off route 54. Believed to have been built in 1719, Scotchtown is, says the Virginia Landmarks Register, "probably the largest one-story colonial house in the commonwealth." Henry bought it in 1771, but was not happy here due to the distressing and traumatic mental illness of his wife, Sarah.

She was confined—for how long is uncertain—to two dungeon-like rooms in a cold, damp basement of the house and rarely was seen by anyone. When the tormented woman died she was buried in an unmarked grave, then the custom for the interment of "crazy" people. Henry sold the mansion in 1777. It went through numerous owners for 180 years and eventually became abandoned. For a time it was occupied by squatters who "quartered goats in the basement" and raised chickens in one of the first-floor rooms. In 1958 the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities bought Scotchtown and has since restored it with dignity and integrity.

The Association also inherited a reputation that Scotchtown is haunted! There are, conceivably, multiple spirits here, but certainly the predominant one—as attested to by many who have claimed to have seen and heard her—is Sarah Henry. "If this house wasn't haunted, it definitely should be," declares Ron Steele, Scotchtown's director. "It is a very spooky place, especially at night when the wind is blowing. It can get very scary inside. You hear all kinds of noises."

Steele and his wife, Alice, keep check on the house during the off season, and he says there have been occasions when both he and the local police were reluctant to go into the house at night. "We have motion alarm systems inside, and someone or something has to be at least four feet tall to set them off. In the past few years the alarms have been set off a number of times, and when the police come they ask me to go in the place first."

Steele says one of the most frightening phenomena has to do with the portrait of Joseph Shelton which hangs in the dining room. "You go in that room at night and his eyes follow you all across the room, no matter where you go. It is very scary." The Steeles also report that pieces of furniture seem to get moved around inexplicably at times, and the sound of chains being dragged across the floor of the attic can be heard when no one is up there.

Several years ago a tour guide was taking some tourists through the house when they stopped in the dining room, which is directly above the room which Sarah occupied in the basement. When the guide started to tell the story of Sarah, suddenly the group heard shrill screams emanating from the basement. "They all ran from the house as fast as they could," Steele says.

Mary Adams, who resides nearby, lived at Scotchtown from 1933 to 1940 and says she experienced all sorts of strange phenomena. "There were a lot of unnatural sounds, like chains dragging across the floor and other weird noises," she recalls. Once, she was playing in the house with other children when they all saw a "figure in a long flowing gown. She was all in white," Mary says. "We all just stared at it, transfixed. Somehow, we knew it wasn't a real person. We must have watched it for a half minute or more, and then it just disappeared. We bolted out of there. Even after I moved from there, I would always get the feeling whenever I went back to visit, that the ghost lady was there. I still think she is today.

"Was it Sarah Henry? I really don't know. It could have been."