West Virginia’s wacky, weird tales of cryptids and ghost sightings cannot be beaten. Because of the antiquated nature of every Mid-Atlantic state, many of which have endured long-term suffering, been subjected to unspeakable tragedies, and experienced countless unresolved closures, each rightfully lays claim to its own renowned historical hauntings. But it may be argued that West Virginia boasts the most ghosts and other legendary lore surrounding unexplained phenomena per capita.
If you look into the anomalous accounts on record for any town or borough within the state of West Virginia, you’re guaranteed to come across a surplus of supernatural sightings and other reports. Some are far more famous while others remain esoteric at best. It would be a vast undertaking to tackle the tales in each jurisdiction, so to narrow things down a bit and in the spirit of Halloween, for this Flashback Friday feature, I’m sharing a handful of longstanding tales of reported hauntings within the Lewisburg Historic District.
Lewisburg History
Before delving deeply into the reported ghost hauntings, it is first worth reviewing a brief bit of history surrounding Lewisburg’s overall establishment. Long before American Independence and back when West Virginia was still part of the Commonwealth of Virginia, folks began settling on the land that would one day comprise Lewisburg. Among these early residents was a young surveyor named Andrew Lewis. Lewis and his encampment arrived in the area in 1751, settling at the location near a naturally occurring spring. The spring later came to be known as Lewis Spring after its discoverer.
Colonists continued to settle throughout the region, sometimes coming into conflict with the Indigenous People who already laid claim to the land. Many brutal, bloody, and often fateful battles resulted, all of which may have led to some of the unsettling surrounding energies and paranormal phenomena to be claimed later on.
The official establishment of Lewisburg as a city came about in 1782, by an act of the Virginia General Assembly. Again, the naming was obvious. Today, Lewisburg is best-known for being the county seat for Greenbrier County.
The Lewisburg Historic District
Throughout the course of its existence, the region making up today’s Lewisburg community experienced lots of trauma and turmoil. From the aforementioned Native American conflicts early on to several Civil War engagements, including the Battle of Lewisburg in 1862, the still-standing carnage in surviving remnants is a telling testament. Coincidentally, many such sites and edifices can be found throughout the town, particularly in the Historic District.
The Lewisburg Historic District as we know it today was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. It contains 112 buildings built between 1763 and 1977. Some of the log cabins can actually be traced back to 1755.
Included in the lineup of the Historic District’s most distinguished structures are “the Barracks,” Mount Esperance (1814), Williams-Henning Store/house (1814-1820), Welch-Bell House (1824), John W. Dunn House (c. 1834), John Withrow’s Store/ House (1836), Greenbrier Valley Bank Building (1897), and Carnegie Hall (1902, the Old Stone Church, Greenbrier County Courthouse and Lewis Spring, John Wesley Methodist Church, Gov. Samuel Price House, Mt. Tabor Baptist Church, Supreme Court Library Building, James Withrow House, and John A. North House.
Ghosts of Notoriety
As any paranormal enthusiast can attest, all of these buildings, structures, and various other unattached locations throughout Lewisburg are hot spots for hauntings and reported ghostly encounters. The following represent the most notable ones.
Spirits of the Old Stone Church
Founded in 1796, this is actually the oldest church building that’s been in continuous use west of the Alleghenies. Because it was repurposed as a temporary hospital for Union and Confederate soldiers alike during the American Civil War, it was exposed to sadness, trauma, and pain on a high-energy level. This is perhaps where most of the reported hauntings come from—those soldiers who suffered and died here.
The soldier hauntings are so profuse, there aren’t actually any viable identities that can be attributed to the sights and sounds reported in the church. But the accounts are all similar. Most reported sounds are heard during the evening hours, often taking the form of moans and cries of pain.
General Ghosts at General Lewis Inn
This notable area inn has been actively operating as such since 1929. But let it be known that some sections of the house (eastern end, including the dining room, kitchen, and suites) date back to the early 1800s. The inn’s storied past may be the reason why it is the permanent resting place of so many versatile spirits. At least three of them have been identified.
First, there’s Uncle Reuben, who is frequently reported to be seated in the dining room. As the story goes, Uncle Reuben was an enslaved man who once resided here. He was hanged in 1861 in a location believed to be this part of the house for a revolt that never actually came to fruition.
Guest rooms 206 and 208 are particularly notorious for spotting spirits. In the first room, alternately known as the “John Withrow Room” (after a former owner of the house), countless guests and even staff members have made claims to hear both cries and laughter from a child within. When the door is opened to reveal the noisemaker, the room appears inexplicably empty.
The other room, 208, features a portrait of unknown origins. Its subject is a mysterious woman in white who has even been seen in residence. However, by eyewitness accounts, the woman is always wearing gray Civil War-era garments instead of white. More often than not, she is described as hovering a little off the ground.
The Case of the Greenbrier Ghost
This may very well be the most famous, or rather infamous, haunting of all and the one that truly puts Lewisburg, and by extension Greenbrier County, on the map. The most intriguing part of this tale is the fact that a ghost’s personal interaction with her own mother led to a verifiable courtroom conviction that foiled her husband as her murderer.
As the tale recounts, noted town resident Elva Zona Heaster Shue was found dead in her home back in 1897, much to everyone’s grief. Her blacksmith husband, Edward Stribbling Trout Shue, was especially distraught, so much so that he did not entrust anybody but himself to handle her body. The coroner’s report initially concluded that the cause of death was heart disease.
It may have seemed like the end of a tragic story, had it not been for Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, claiming to have had contact with her dead daughter after the fact. According to her, Zona proclaimed that her own husband had killed her by breaking her neck. After hours of finally convincing the local prosecutor to reopen the case surrounding her daughter’s death, an autopsy and exhumation confirmed that Zona’s neck had in fact been broken. The official report concluded that the windpipe was crushed. There were also finger marks on Zona’s neck, indicative of strangulation. Edward was eventually arrested and convicted of murdering his wife.
This bite-sized handful of hauntings represents a small portion of weird and wacky accounts of the paranormal throughout Lewisburg and West Virginia as a whole. And it isn’t just ghosts, either. Creepy cryptid reports and stories of uncanny occurrences of many kinds also lead in the lineup as well. Even the overly sensationalized tabloid serials about Bat Boy originated here locally! So, all in all, West Virginia is a paranormal pleasure for those seeking more unconventional experiences.