Quote from Angela on April 27, 2022, 10:51 am

Just off Route 5, between Williamsburg and Richmond, in Virginia, is the Shirley Plantation.

This is the oldest active plantation in the whole of the State and the oldest family operated business in North America.

Historically, the land was first established in 1613 under the authority of Sir Thomas West who was Third Baron de La Hoya.

The estate survived the native American uprising of 1622 and, in 1638, Edward Hill purchased 2476 acres of the plantation which included a 416 acre island.

In 1738 a mansion was erected on the grounds and named ‘Hill House’.

68 English servants were brought in, and enslaved, at that mansion. An English lady named Mary was one of those enslaved. Mary, known fondly to her family as Miss Pratt, had informed friends that she was leaving to study abroad. 

She stepped onto an aeroplane, and would never see her homeland of England again.

Mary kept a hand painted portrait on the mantel in her room at the mansion.

This item is said to be so haunted it was shipped, and displayed, at the Rockefeller Center in New York. The painting has been seen moving within its glass casing. The phenomena being captured on camera from various angles. This activity got so uncontrollable, and caused so much panic amongst viewers, that it was removed and locked into a storage unit.

But that was not the end of the matter. Staff at the Rockefeller Center reported hearing screaming sounds and bangings emanating from the storage unit and when they further investigated, discovered the painting was missing. To their horror, the painting was later seen hauntingly slithering across the floorboards.

The decision was made to return the painting to Shirley Plantation and placed back on her room mantle. Amazingly the activity immediately stopped. Did this item simply yearn to be back in its original place where it belonged?

One student entered Shirley mansion shouting ‘what a load of baloney this is there is no such thing as ghosts’. Immediately, the doors beneath Marys painting violently flung open, hitting him hard on his back.

There are so many messages left unsaid before people pass on from this world, and with death being so final, it then becomes almost impossible to discover answers to so many vital questions.

What really happened to Mary?

What is trying to communicate to us today?

It is speculated that the mansion today is actively haunted by those enslaved spirits from the past and staff do regularly encounter unexplainable and creepy phenomena from female voices in conversation, to exploding light bulbs, objects flying from shelves and disembodied footsteps heard from vacant spaces.