Williamsburg: A Ghost Tour

Back to Williamsburg, Virginia....
Two weekends ago, I went to Williamsburg with my mother and older sister, Caitlin. We did very little in the town due to heat (90 degrees!) and boredom, but we did (along with my cousin who came down for the day) partake in a spectacular ghost tour.

Because we signed up late in the day and ghost tours are in high in demand, we were only able to go on a family-friendly tour, rather than the advanced, "not recommended for children" tour that I can only imagine was completely terrifying.

We left our hotel, where we had spent the later part of the afternoon keeping cool (or in Caitlin's case, sleeping), and feasted on a dinner of appetizers and wine. I, trying to be helpful, broke our coffee pot while putting away the dishes. My mom called for a replacement (which didn't come) but we left in good spirits, full of good food and drink.

Arriving in Williamsburg, we found it once again unbearably hot despite the later hour, but we carried on with our plans. Our tour guide was a short, petite, middle aged woman with puffy hair, formed in the shape of a triangle around her face. She wore glasses, sneakers, a Williamsburg staff polo shirt with capris, and resembled an adventurous elf--one who your would find exploring caves, canyons and deserts during the North Pole's off-season. It was clear that this elf worked in the assembly line fitting bits and pieces together rather than a in a more creative, skilled, or artistic role. I'm sure she is a dedicated worker, but likely not an advanced craftsman and certainly not a children's storybook writer. She had no mind for stories.

"I am going to tell you about the ghosts of today," she told us, and proceeded to tell us, over the course of an hour, 5 modern-day ghost stories as relayed to her (and the entire ghost story walking tour staff) by others who worked in the colonial village. They ranged from lights being left on, to retail items falling from shelves, to the occasional apparition. It seemed as though any time anything was out of place, it was blamed on the supernatural.

"One waitress at The Kings Tavern needed to use the bathroom, but didn't have time to go downstairs to use the staff bathroom. After finishing a table, she slipped in the patron's ladies room, but on her way out, do you know what happened?" (Our elf-guide loved to have us guess the next predictable event in her stories) "The door was locked! But it was a swinging door, which can't lock! The waitress pulled and pulled, for 10 minutes, and couldn't get out! Finally, she did."

We learned a plethora of details about the layouts of the buildings, where stairs are, what types of locks are on what types of doors, etc. We also heard speculations as to which deceased people might be haunting which locations, but the guide would only provide a best guess and never fully commit to the assumptions.

Another gem of a tale: "It was late one night, and a waitress was closing up Chowning's Pub. All the lights were off, when she looked up and saw through a window in the attached building (they buildings are attached by an underground tunnel, but you will see that there is a space between them), guess what she saw?"

You'll never guess.

"The light was back on!" The tale continued with the woman walking back and forth to turn off the light three times to no avail, and finally imploring the ghost to leave the light off as she was tired and wanted to go home. "And guess what happened?"

The light stayed off.

My favorite story was the one about the insolent worker whose complaints about working in a shop resulted in an angry ghost throwing a mounted chess board from the wall, hitting the poor girl in the head. I told Caitlin that she was probably high, tried to climb up on and pull a mounted board from the wall, fell, hit her head, and blamed it on a ghost. A lot of the gave me the eerie feeling that employees weren't doing their jobs well and found the best excuse was to fault a ghost.

The tour complete, we went back to our car, cranked up the air conditioning, and returned to the hotel. When we got back, we were in for a shocking surprise. The coffee pot I had broken was repaired! And in the same spot where I had left it! It was surely the work of a spirit, haunting the coffee machine!

"No, Ashley," my mother said, "I asked them to bring it up when I stopped by the desk before we left."

But I didn't believe her. I know supernatural when I see it.