A Ghost in the Family
by George G. Morgan

Growing up in a small town has its benefits, one of which is the need to be creative in order to keep yourself and your friends occupied. Halloween was always a special time of year, with cool weather and colorful foliage. We anticipated trick-or-treating by coming up with our own special costumes, seldom store-bought in those days, and by carving the scariest looking Jack-o-lantern conceivable.

I don't know about your hometown or your neighborhood, but we had a couple of houses that qualified as “scary” places in which either the most evil or grumpiest town citizen lived. In one particularly run-down house lived an elderly woman who, according to the tales that children share on dark nights, had murdered her husband and son. Rumor had it that she dismembered the bodies and buried them in the rather sizeable, well-tended rose garden at the side of the house. On Halloween night, her house was the one that we dared one another to run up to, ring the doorbell, and wait to say “Boo!” when the woman opened her door.

I guess we were being foolish and cruel, but actually we were pretty normal kids, and we all turned out alright. It wasn't until I grew older and began getting interested in genealogy that I began reading about “real ghosts” in families. Now, I am no expert in the paranormal, but I have to admit a certain speculative interest in ghost stories and legends. Occasionally stories cross my desk that seems amazing and, coincidentally, a dear friend just sent me a book on North Carolina ghosts and legends. Hmmm. Maybe there's a force behind this week's "Along Those Lines..." column.

The Herlong Mansion
There is a small, quiet town south of Gainesville, Florida, called Micanopy. The town is named for an Indian chief who lived in the area almost two hundred years ago. Micanopy's main street has numerous antique shops and a few other businesses. Its quiet streets and lovely old homes are shaded by huge live oaks draped with Spanish moss. It's such a lovely and peaceful place, one that I enjoy stopping to visit and shop in when I travel on I-75 on business.

It turns out that there is a haunted house in Micanopy. It is the elegant Herlong Mansion, a stately Southern mansion home that now is a charming bed and breakfast. If you visit the mansion's website (www.herlong.com), you won't find any prominent ghost story but you will find a page titled “Meet Inez." It is Inez whose spirit is believed still occupies Herlong Mansion.

The original house was built circa 1845 as a two-story affair with the detached kitchen, standard in a time when a kitchen fire could spell disaster. In 1910, the original structure was “encased within a brick classic revival imitation of a Southern colonial design.” There are four obligatory Corinthian style columns on the front of the house that evoke a much more elegant time. The interior of the house was fitted with fine leaded-glass windows, fine wood paneling, and intricately-laid floors using oak, maple, and mahogany. What a showplace!

The Legend of Inez
The Herlong Mansion website indicates that Inez Herlong Miller was one of the daughters of Zetty and Natalie Herlong. The house was placed in the mother's name. Following Natalie's death in 1950, her will left the house to all six of the couple's children, all of whom wanted the house. What followed was eighteen years of family fighting, culminating in Inez finally buying out her siblings' shares in the family home after their father's death. She had great plans and the money, apparently, to restore the magnificent old home, which had fallen into disrepair during the intervening years between her mother's death, the subsequent death of her father, and the family infighting.

One account tells us that when Inez finally had possession of the home, she was 68 years old, a former schoolteacher and dress-shop owner. She drove to the home and marched inside, apparently making her way to her old childhood room. It was there that she was found some hours later in a diabetic coma. Inez Herlong Miller died less than a month later without ever regaining consciousness. The house was closed up and fell into further disrepair until it was purchased to be turned into a bed and breakfast.

While work was being done on the house, construction workers sleeping in the downstairs parlor were awakened to footsteps and doors opening and closing. Running upstairs, they found no one and nothing unusual. Some carried guns to the job site but the inexplicable noises continued, and specifically the scraping sound of one particular door--the door to Inez's bedroom.

Spectral Manifestations
Through the years and multiple owners of the Herlong Mansion, there have been numerous reports of Inez's presence. One Gainesville woman told reporters that, as a child, she and friends had seen furniture move by itself and a wisp of smoke float up the main staircase. A couple who stayed in the Inez Suite in the late 1990s reported the next morning that, “in the mirror over the dressing table, was an apparition floating across the room. It couldn't be seen in the room itself, only in the mirror. It had a red shawl or hood over its head, and I couldn't make out the facial features, though I felt it was a woman.”

Another female guest reported waking before dawn one morning and sitting on the second floor veranda sipping coffee. The woman, a paralegal, recounted that she became aware of being watched. She looked up to see a mysterious woman standing about 30 feet away near a potted plant on the veranda. The woman wore a long blue dress with sleeves to her wrists. Her hair, brown and flecked with gray, was piled high on her head. The guest was so startled she spilled a cup of coffee she had brought outside with her. When she looked up again, the mysterious figure was gone.

Other ghostly manifestations in the house include footsteps in the upstairs hallway, day and night, slamming doors, and the sound of a woman speaking gently in the night. Some guests staying in the Inez Suite have been awakened in the night by a fine spray of water sprayed on their faces or the smell of a distinctive perfume. The spirit, whoever it is, does not carry out any malicious activities. It merely seems to want to be in and around the house.

Fact or Fantasy?
Scientists and paranormal investigators have visited the Herlong Mansion and have used electromagnetic detectors, photographs, and other equipment to examine the house. Some of the electromagnetic pulse readings in Inez's room and also at the top of the stairs are high, but then who is to say what causes them? Psychics, paranormal psychologists, and even exorcists cannot say with any degree of certainty whether there are such things as ghosts. However, who can contradict an eerie, otherwise unexplainable personal experience?

Your Family Ghost?
I've met a few genealogists who know of family ghost stories and haunted homes. They are usually delighted that any manifestation of a haunting draws attention because it causes more and more records to be sought out. They then have pointers to primary sources that they perhaps have not seen and to stories that may just have a grain of truth to consider in the overall family tradition. Do you have a family ghost story that needs to be told?

Happy Haunting!
George

George G. Morgan would like to hear from you at atl@ahaseminars.com but, due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every message, and he cannot assist you with your individual research. Feel free to visit George's website at http://ahaseminars.com/atl for information about speaking engagements.

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