Do you believe in ghosts? You just might if you visit this historic house dubbed Mississippi’s “most haunted”
Visitors to Vicksburg, Mississippi, can experience a 230-year-old house that’s alleged to host numerous active spirits.
Billed as the southern U.S. state’s “most haunted house”, a Civil War-era home in Mississippi has been the site of numerous claimed ghost sightings - and visitors are welcome to experience the eery residence for themselves.
The two-century-old building hosts regular ghost tours and even late-night hunts for paranormal apparitions.
McRaven House, a home built in three stages between the end of the 1790s and the mid-19th century, can be found in Vicksburg, a small Mississippian city that proved a crucial location in the 1861-1865 American Civil War.
Sitting on the Mississippi River, Vicksburg was a major Confederate port. When the city was captured by Union forces in the Siege of Vicksburg in July 1863, this marked a major turning point in the war, together with the Confederate army’s defeat in the Battle of Gettysburg the same week.
Who is said to haunt McRaven House?
McRaven House was used as a Confederate field hospital during the Civil War, with “hundreds of [Confederates] believed to be buried in a mass grave a scant 50 feet from the house”, according to CNN’s Jim Beaugez.
What’s more, the house’s owner at the time of the conflict, the wealthy businessman John Bobb, was killed there by Union troops on July 4, 1864 - exactly a year after the Siege of Vicksburg ended. Bobb’s ghost “still strolls his balcony”, claim’s McRaven House’s official website.
Speaking to CNN, McRaven House tour guide Grace Bailey said she has herself witnessed what she believes was the specter of the home’s former owner. “I was on the verge of freaking out,” Bailey said, adding: “It was a moment of, ‘Okay, well, I just saw a ghost for officially the first time.’”
Other ghosts that “now choose to reside here in the afterlife”, per the McRaven House website, include initial owner Andrew Glass, a notorious highwayman who was murdered by his wife. “The haunting of the house began with his surprising death,” says Vicksburg’s visitors bureau.
McRaven House is also said to be haunted by Mary Elizabeth Howard, the wife of a later owner of the residence, Sheriff Steven Howard. Mary died while giving birth at the house in 1836.
“When I left the room, the light stayed on”
Bailey is not the only McRaven House tour guide who has described experiencing alleged paranormal occurrences at the home.
In a 1998 interview on the documentary The Unexplained, Angel Thomas claimed to have seen ghosts of Civil War soldiers. Thomas also reported unlocked doors mysteriously being locked, and spoke of an overhead light turning “off and on at five-second intervals until I left the room. When I left the room, it stayed on.”
Visit the McRaven House “time capsule”
Restored and opened to the public in the early 1960s, McRaven House is maintained as it appeared during the first half of the 19th century, offering what has been described as a “time capsule of the South”.
On top of a more history-focused tour of McRaven House, visitors can sign up for a 75-minute “haunted tour” of the residence. The tour is “led by a theatrical guide in time period costume [and] gives you a brief history of the families before diving into ghost stories,” organizers say.
What’s more, you can have a go at conjuring up a face-to-face with McRaven House’s alleged active spirits, by joining a monthly ghost hunt that lasts until the early hours of the morning.
“You’re invited to stay as late as 2:00am to learn and use our Ghost Hunting equipment," reads the residence’s tours page.
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