Chatham Manor

Chatham Manor was founded in 1768 by William Fitzhugh as a plantation overlooking the Rappahannock River. In their time the grounds have been the site of a slave revolt, a Union headquarters during the Civil War, and a hospital for wounded soldiers. Today the plantation is part of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park and open to the public daily for daytime visitation.

The manor is also said to be haunted by the ghost of an English girl who fell in love with a man of whom her parents disapproved. They sent her to stay at Chatham in hopes that she would find a more suitable potential husband in America, but her lover followed her across the ocean with plans to elope. When the pair was discovered sneaking out by a servant girl the man was arrested and the girl shipped bag to England. She did marry after returning home, bearing ten children, but rumors say she never smiled again. Upon her deathbed in 1790, the woman vowed to return to the only place she was every happy—Chatham Manor—and so she did. Every seven years on the anniversary of her death, June 21st, a ghostly Lady in White is seen walking along a path leading from the manor o the river, leading locals to name the path Ghost Walk.