eldritchhobbit

From Myths and Mysteries of Kentucky: True Stories of the Unsolved and Unexplained by Mimi O’Malley and Susan Sawyer:

Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903), son of wealthy planter Green Clay, was an emancipationist, newspaperman and activist, politician and diplomat (who served under President Lincoln as U.S. Ambassador to Russia, where he secured Russian support for the Union during the Civil War), and farmer and philanthropist; in fact, he donated the land for Berea College, the very first interracial and coeducational college in the South, where I currently teach.

Nicknamed “The Lion of White Hall,” Clay was also the father of four notable daughters, including Mary Barr Clay, the President of the American Woman Suffrage Association (who addressed the U.S. House of Representatives on behalf of women’s suffrage) and Laura Clay (who at the 1920 Democratic National Convention was one of two women, alongside Cora Wilson Stewart, to be the first women to have their names placed into nomination for the U.S. Presidency at the convention of a major political party).

The Clays’ home, White Hall, is reputed to be one of the most paranormally active sites in the state. I have it on good authority that those who work there consider it, if not haunted, then at least occupied.

I spent a wonderful several hours there last month and heard some fantastic and spooky stories.

(All photos by AHS.)

From Richmond Register’s “White Hall filled with tales of scandals and hauntings”:

[Curator Lashe] Mullins said tales of ghostly goings on at the mansion have included sightings of a man that many assume to be Clay, a young boy in period dress who seems to like playing hide and seek, a woman in a hoop skirt and even a baby who can sometimes be heard alternately “gurgling” happily, or crying.
“Just about everybody who has ever worked here has had something mysterious happen to them,” said Mullins, who has worked there as a tour guide, and later in her present position as curator at the mansion.
Mullins said she has smelled the waxy scent of burning candles where there are none, and a scent of rose perfume, observations that have been made by others. Like others, she has also heard sounds like moving furniture in the house when nobody else was there.
Mullins said a former curator told her of an incident when she saw a pile of papers levitate across the floor of one of the 10 bedrooms in the house. “Cold spots,” indicative of ghostly activity, have also been reported, as have partial and full materializations of ghostly figures.

Above is Cassius Clay’s study, the room in which he died in 1903. While I myself witnessed nothing unusual at White Hall, I have been told by others that they have experienced inexplicable things in the house, including hearing the original piano play beautifully when no one else was near. (This is particularly noteworthy given that this antique piano today only has five working keys and so could not produce such music.)

By far the most shiver-inducing story I’ve heard relates to the death of the family patriarch, Green Clay, who had the great taste to die on Halloween day in 1828. Below is the room (and the bed) in which he died. Black cloths cover the mirrors as a sign of mourning.

The story goes that Green Clay had been in a comatose-like state for some time, suffering from what historians suspect to be skin cancer. Then on Halloween he suddenly roused, pointed out the window in the direction of the family cemetery, and announced that he saw Death coming for him.

Then he died.