
DATE: Friday, October 31, 1997              TAG: 9710300255

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: COVER STORY 

SOURCE: BY LORI DENNEY, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:  266 lines

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT IT'S NO SURPRISE THAT VIRGINIA BEACH, A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE HAVE LIVED - AND DIED - FOR CENTURIES SHOULD HAVE SOME HALLOWEEN STORIES TO TELL TODAY. WITH ITS RICH AND COLORFUL PAST, THIS CITY HAS TALES OF THE BIZARRE, SUPERNATURAL AND UNEXPLAINED.

Of course, these tales are largely unsubstantiated, but they've been real enough to have been passed down from generation to generation, told over hot cups of coffee with the neighbors or whispered about in dark corners. In more recent years some have even been splashed across newspaper pages and on television screens.

We can't attest to their accuracy, but here's what we've heard.

GRACE SHERWOOD

This 17th century housewife was undoubtedly Virginia Beach's most famous witch. Even now, hundreds of years after she was accused of witchcraft, her story is legendary.

Grace was a married woman and mother of three sons. The Sherwood family lived near Muddy Creek and apparently their neighbors thought Grace was a strange woman.

From 1697 to her death sometime before 1740, poor Grace was the object of much scorn and many lawsuits alleging that she was somehow ``bewitching'' the neighbors.

In 1706, formal charges of witchcraft were filed against her by county residents and neighbors Luke Hill and his wife. A jury of her peers, all women, said they had found ``marks of the devil,'' on Grace's person.

Eventually, Grace was ordered to a trial by ducking and she was bound and thrown into the Lynnhaven River near what is now Witchduck Point.

The idea was that if she was a witch, she'd float in the water, which had been consecrated by a local clergyman. With hundreds of spectators watching, Grace was tossed into the river. She apparently bobbed back to the surface, which only confirmed what her neighbors had accused her of for years - she was indeed a witch.

Grace was then sentenced to seven years in jail and when she was released, she lived quietly until she died.

CAVALIER ON THE HILL

Carlos Wilson has stood guard at the doors to the Cavalier Hotel for 60 years.

Throughout his long career he has seen many people come and go. And then, he said, there are those who never really left.

One employee in particular sticks in Wilson's mind - a cook who worked the breakfast shift. One day during World War II Wilson was following the cook to the kitchen when the man collapsed in a hallway, dead of a heart attack.

Soon afterwards, Wilson began to hear sounds coming from the kitchen - pans banging together and doors slamming shut - at times when he knew the kitchen staff had gone and no one was in there.

Wilson said he first thought another employee was playing games. He'd walk to the kitchen, two doors down on the right from the hotel's front door, and peer in. There was never anyone there. He'd close the door and start back towards the front when the banging would start again.

This went on for several weeks until one late night, the routine changed. Wilson heard the pans and a door slamming shut. Expecting to see nothing, he opened the kitchen door, and there, over in a corner by the stove, was what he described as ``a gray-looking shadow.''

He walked toward the shadow, but when he got within arm's reach, it evaporated.

Wilson said he knew then that it wasn't an employee playing games. ``At first it kind of bothered me. Now, I'm used to it.''

Wilson also recalls the time when another employee, a friendly man, was leaving to go home. He told Wilson he was sick and his brother was coming to get him. Wilson told him he'd see him later. The man jokingly replied, ``Oh, don't you worry. I'll be back, even if it's in the shape and size of a cat.''

Days later, Wilson learned the man had died. Soon after, a cat began showing up at the hotel's front doors precisely at 5 p.m. ``I fed him for a month and then, one day, he just never came back,'' Wilson said.

ADAM THOROUGHGOOD HOUSE

Adam Thoroughgood was an indentured servant who arrived on Virginia soil in 1621. In 1635, he brought 105 new settlers to the area and was awarded some 5,350 acres of land on the western shore of the Lynnhaven River for doing so.

There is a house today that bears his name, but when it was built is disputed. Some say it was constructed in 1633 three years before Adam Thoroughgood's death. Recent tests indicate it may have been built by his descendants in the early 1700s.

Either way, the home that sports four fireplaces and two huge chimneys is one of the oldest in the country. For years the house, now owned by the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, sat quiet, nestled between pine trees on Parish Road. That is, until 1957 when it underwent a renovation.

After that, things just didn't seem the same even though the structure of the house itself hadn't been changed, only refurbished. At least, that's according to L.B. Taylor, who

wrote a book on local hauntings in 1990. Taylor said Martha Lindemann Bradley, the first curator of the house, claimed that after the improvements and while she was giving a tour to a group, including the wife of the ambassador of Denmark, ``all of us saw a candlestick actually move.''

There were also stories of windows opening and closing. Once, it's said, that four glass-domed candles levitated and crashed to the floor in front of 30 tourists. Windows reportedly opened and closed by themselves.

Children who visited often reported seeing a small man in a brown suit. A lawyer from Texas also reported seeing an ``oddly dressed man.''

Other strange happenings included cold drafts on one side of the kitchen. Lamps that would light without being lit and even furniture being moved around when no one was in the house.

T. Patrick Brennan, the home's director since 1985, has heard several musings about the home's haunted history. ``Every once in a while we'd come in and find the furniture would be moved around,'' he said. ``That was an unexplained occurrence in the house. Nothing ever set off the alarm.

``When I changed the locks in 1988, it stopped,'' Brennan said. ``I guess they just didn't have the right skeleton key.''

Brennan has also heard rumors of an underground tunnel that leads from the house, through the well-manicured gardens, straight to the banks of the Lynnhaven River.

In fact, a sink hole in the garden was recently excavated by two Williamsburg archaeologists because, ``we thought we found the tunnel,'' Brennan said. ``We thought this was great! We've finally found it,'' chuckled Brennan. ``Turned out we had ground moles!''

THE SIGMA BOYS

Perhaps one of the most perplexing yet well-documented cases of phenomena was the tale of two young boys who lived in what was once called Sigma in the Pungo area.

In 1908, Henry Stone and Eugene Burroughs, both 8, planned a sleepover at Burroughs' farm house. The boys made a pallet on the floor and settled in for the night. Suddenly, it was reported, Burroughs' pillow went sliding out from under his head and flew across the room. He blamed his friend until Stone's pillow went sailing across the room, too.

The boys never figured out what happened. All they knew was that from that moment on, every time they were in the same room together, furniture would move by itself and pictures would fall off the walls and sail through the air.

For 40 years this went on. Incidents were said to have been witnessed by doctors, lawyers, reporters, scientists and common folk.

None of the professionals, much less family members, could explain the happenings. The boys, even as grown men, couldn't explain it either. In fact, it's said that the two men would accidentally meet on a crowded street and debris would begin flying around them.

At one time, it was said that the spirit identified himself through a system of taps. The unseen apparition responsible for the mayhem, was said to have been Burroughs' Uncle Billy, who had died as a very small child.

The men once agreed to attend a Norfolk vaudeville show. Apparently, the audience got more than it bargained for when Burroughs and Stone were able to make a woman levitate above the stage. Not knowing how they did it, the two men apparently feared for the safety of the woman and there was never another recorded case of the two in a show again.

``I myself never experienced any of it,'' said a nephew, J.E. Burroughs Jr., the family's only surviving member and a Pungo area resident. ``A lot of people were skeptical but they never tried to hide anything and didn't charge anyone who wanted to go watch their meetings.

``My mother never allowed them in the house together,'' Burroughs continued. ``She didn't want anything destroyed or broken.''

His uncle is buried on private property off Holland Road.

THE BELL HOUSEThis stately house, now owned by the Navy and situated near Oceana Naval Air Station on Oceana Boulevard, has been known by many names - James-Bell, Bell-Taylor, Cedar Grove and simply The Bell House.

Built around 1810 by a man named Joshua James, the house has changed hands and residents many times. Stories associated with the spacious house with eight fireplaces (four of them working) have been told for years.

Illicit stashes of money and silver are said to be buried somewhere on the property. Alexander W. Bell, who bought the house in 1873 for $4,500, apparently died thereabouts and was buried in the Old Eastern Shore Chapel's cemetery, resplendent in his Confederate uniform, as he had requested.

The graveyard, which was close to the house, was relocated in 1954. One grave was left that no one came forward to claim. Many people assumed the grave was that of the rather disagreeable Alexander Bell, though, that later proved to be false. Today, the grave of the still-unknown person is marked by a small bronze plaque and sits close to an Oceana runway.

The home, well-preserved by the military, is now inhabited by Capt. Eric Benson, his wife, Barb, and their 17-year-old daughter, Katherine.

``When we moved in, they said, `you know about the snakes, right?' Then they said, `you know it's haunted, right?' '' Benson said.

The family has lived there since 1995 and though Barb Benson claims to have heard and seen nothing, the Captain and his daughter aren't so sure.

``Everyone who's lived in the house has an opinion about it,'' said Eric Benson. ``One alleged legend is a young girl died in the house and her spirit still wanders around. I haven't met her yet, though.''

``There are a lot of creaks and groans and sounds of doors closing and that kind of thing,'' he added.

Katherine Benson has told her parents that she's heard faint strains of someone humming ``Old McDonald.''

There are a few slithery things around the house that the Bensons are sure about. The crawl space and surrounding land seems to be a haven for black snakes.

``We called an exterminator once and he said, please don't kill the snakes. It'll upset the ecological balance of the house,'' said Barb Benson.

CHIEF BLACK FOOT

AND VICTORIA MAURICIO

In 1975, Beach resident and psychic Victoria Mauricio began dreaming about Indians.

A big man, adorned in beads, appeared to her, and when she asked who he was, he told her to go the ``room of many books'' and look in a book about the Plains Indians. There would be a picture of four Indians, and he would be the one holding a tomahawk.

Mauricio went to the library and there in a book was the picture. Under it was a name, Black Foot, a ``chief of chiefs'' from the Crow tribe in Montana.

When he next appeared, Black Foot told Mauricio he wanted her to help his people find his remains. He had died on white man's land and was not buried on his reservation. He wanted Mauricio to lead his people to his remains and have them buried on the reservation. When Mauricio called the reservation in Montana she found out that Black Foot was indeed a great leader and that one day he and his wife had ridden out to hunt and never returned. It was believed that they both died of pneumonia, and his people had been searching for his remains for 100 years.

Over time, Black Foot gave Mauricio five clues to his whereabouts. He said to look for a pitchfork, seven white women, three odd-shaped rocks and a tree ``like a finger,'' the ground would glisten, and an animal's scratching would be heard. Following the clues Mauricio gave them, Crow people set out to find Black Foot's remains. After weeks of searching, they came upon Pitchfork Ranch, which was owned by a woman with seven female heirs. They heard an owl hooting and then saw the rocks and a ridge. When darkness fell and the searchers pulled out flashlights, their beams illuminated the ground and made it appear to glitter.

As Black Foot's people climbed the ridge to investigate, Black Foot came again to Mauricio, who was asleep at home in Virginia Beach.

He told her he would be found that day.

A young Indian ventured into a cave on the ridge. There, he found what appeared to human bones surrounded by crystal beads. Archaeologists called to the site believed the bones to be that of Black Foot, a man known for his big stature. Black Foot's wife was never found.

Black Foot came to Mauricio again and told her he wanted to buried on Oct. 4, 1978, and even told her where, near the Bureau of Indian Affairs office at the reservation.

Mauricio flew out for the event where Black Foot's remains were given a proper Indian burial and he is supposed to have appeared to her again to thank her.

Her story, confirmed by the Crow Indians and the discovery of Black Foot's bones, was told on radio shows, an NBC documentary, in newspapers and and on two episodes of ``That's Incredible.''

Mauricio could not be located for this story. MEMO: Information was gathered for this story using old newspaper

clippings, interviews, Stephen S. Mansfield's ``Princess Anne County and

Virginia Beach, a pictorial history,'' L.B. Taylor's ``The Ghosts of

Tidewater . . . and nearby environs,'' and personal

interviews.Information was gathered for this story using old newspaper

clippings, interviews, Stephen S. Mansfield's ``Princess Anne County and

Virginia Beach, a pictorial history,'' L.B. Taylor's ``The Ghosts of

Tidewater . . . and nearby environs,'' and personal

interviews.Information was gathered for this story using old newspaper

clippings, interviews, Stephen S. Mansfield's ``Princess Anne County and

Virginia Beach, a pictorial history,'' L.B. Taylor's ``The Ghosts of

Tidewater . . . and nearby environs,'' and personal interviews. ILLUSTRATION: ON THE COVER