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It’s time for Halloween, when ghouls and goblins creep from their crypts, and, for Sailors on the high seas, Davy Jones comes in search of souls for his crew.
It is no secret that creepy superstitions are abundant this time of year, especially for the Sailors aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73). Rumor has it that the estate of the ship’s namesake at Mount Vernon is haunted.
George Washington’s Mount Vernon Ladies Association, the time-honored American patriots who are tasked with the protection and preservation of our first President’s estate for more than 150 years, is well-versed in reports of supernatural occurrences at Mount Vernon. Over the years, the group has received reports of an interpreter seeing a man disappear and a supervisor feeling an invisible force push her out of a room. Some say that George Washington himself haunts the estate, with stories of his ghostly presence dating as far back as the 19th century.
“In March of next year, I will have been on the Mount Vernon staff for 40 years,” said Mary Thompson, a research historian for George Washington’s Mount Vernon. “While I have never had personal experiences with ghosts, I began hearing stories of ghosts, apparitions, and strange events within weeks of starting to work here, even though there was an unwritten rule that we were not to talk about such things. Over the years, I have asked other staff members to share any experiences with me.”
One report states that in the yellow room of the Mount Vernon estate in 2006, a supervisor from the historical interpretation department had multiple encounters with what she believed to be a ghost.
After making sure all of the visitors were out, she walked near the yellow room and Washington’s bedroom. She felt someone’s hands on the back of her shoulders, pushing her. This happened a few more times on her nightly rounds, but only if she was in the estate alone.
Shortly after these unexplainable instances of an unknown force pushing against her, the supervisor choose to never walk her nightly rounds all by her lonesome ever again. This supervisor is certainly not the only one to have felt the presence of the supernatural at Mount Vernon, however.
“A number of my co-workers have had these experiences, as have visitors to the estate, who came here before we put some of the stories on the website,” said Thompson. “They wouldn't have known before they came here that there was a history of ghost stories.”
Another superstition, dating around spring or summer of 1980, tells of an interpreter seeing a figure disappear right in front of her in the main hallway of the estate.
The interpreter heard some noises in a blocked off room, so she went to investigate. After arriving at the room, planning to remove any unauthorized visitors, the interpreter was given a glimpse of something unexpected and unexplainable. Standing in front of her was an old man dressed in 19th-century clothing and sporting a mustache. Before her mind could make sense of what she just witnessed, the old man vanished from sight.
Later in the day, she saw a portrait of the same person, but that person had been dead for 50 years.
“While one of them claimed to be psychic, which might lead some people to distrust her motives for telling the stories, others were the last people in the world whom you might have expected to pass along such tales unless they had experienced them,” said Thompson.
Examples of further encounters with the spiritual and supernatural abound.
In 1890, a guest told stories of odd sounds and sputtering candles while sleeping in the room where George Washington passed.
One visitor informed staff they had seen George Washington himself. A few other visitors, who slept in the room where George Washington died, claim they were kept awake by routine visits to the chamber by George Washington’s spirit.
Sailors aboard George Washington have enjoyed a strong connection with their namesake for the better part of three decades. With Halloween on the horizon, these Sailors may be wondering if the spirit of George Washington, long rumored to make the rounds at Mount Vernon, might make a ghostly appearance on this ship soon.
For more information about the ghost stories at George Washington’s estate, Sailors can visit https://www.mountvernon.org/preservation/mount-vernon-ladies-association/mount-vernon-through-time/ghost-stories/ .
| Date Taken: | 10.12.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 12.09.2019 14:15 |
| Story ID: | 354130 |
| Location: | NEWPORT NEWS, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 637 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The Haunting of George Washington’s Estate, by PO3 Cory Daut, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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