Category Archives: Virginia

Ellwood Manor

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Ellwood Manor (Wilderness, Virginia)

XashbugX sends a note about this site: “A slightly morbid site awaits you in Wilderness, Virginia, if you ever get down there on a weekend. What horrors await if you trespass on a weekday, I’m not sure, but the Lacy House (private property) is the home of the grave made for Stonewall Jackson’s arm. Seems that after the amputation, he recovered and was moved to another city (I think Chancellorsville), but his arm remained in Wilderness, where it was buried by the surgeon who removed it. Jackson died eight days later and was buried in Fredericksburg, I believe. I wasn’t so interested in his body’s grave as I was in that of his arm! We found the little turnoff to the Lacy House, but there was a wire across the gate to the farm, and the sign said “authorized vehicles only.” We didn’t cross the gate, but a few brave tourists DID, and I only hope they didn’t meet the fate that trespassers in those parts usually do: the property owner’s rifle.”

The national park service website does provide information on how to get permission to visit the site, thankfully.

Old Courthouse

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Old Courthouse (Portsmouth, Virginia)

The ashbug advises a visit to the Old Courthouse: “Visit Portsmouth, Virginia if you get a chance. There’s an old courthouse on Court Street (how original our ancestors were), complete with the ghost of a wrongly-accused criminal. It’s a cliche, I know, but it’s a tingly-good place. Even on hot days the courtyard is usually cool. Trinity Church is across the street, full of morbid tidbits.”

Old City Cemetery

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Old City Cemetery (Lynchburg, Virginia)

Shonagh recommends this site: “If anyone is heading toward Lynchburg, Virginia, there is a great cemetery to visit. It has a huge civil war section, not to mention one German soldier from World War Two. Also right in the cemetery are two small museums. One is a pest house and medical musuem from the Civil War. It is really interesting to see how medicine advanced. then then other is simply a museum chronicling how people were buried in the 19th Century. There are two great things in this museum: a horse-drawn hearse all clad in black. It is open. We have a picture of my mom laying in the back. The second is a wicker casket. That fascinated me, seeing as that anything left outside for a day in Lynchburg instantly rots. I am guessing that wicker caskets weren’t popular. Anyway, it is one of the best cemeteries I have ever been to.”

William13 has additional information to offer: “I had the opportunity to visit the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia. A beautifully maintained cemetery dating from the golden age, it boasts a sizable contigent of Confederate dead, a renowned collection of rose bushes as well as a pond and ‘scattering’ garden for the ashes of the cremated. But most exciting was the ‘Pest House’ where the poor sufferers of smallpox were treated during the great smallpox epidemic of 1862 – 1864. One could almost hear the desperate groans of the blighted souls as the doctor and nurses coated their rotting flesh with various balms and unguents.”