The ghostly drummer of Hickling Broad

 

Potter Heigham is a small village in Norfolk, not far from Hickling Broad. In the winter before the battle of Waterloo in 1815, a drummer boy, home on leave, fell in love with a girl from the village.

Though she returned his love, her father refused to accept a soldier as a son-in-law and the two were compelled to meet secretly at a place called Swim Coots, close to the Broad. Every evening the drummer boy would skate across the ice-covered Broad to meet her, but one night the ice gave way and he fell into the Broad and drowned.

However, his ghost still skated across the ice to meet his sweetheart. It is said that, at 7 o’clock on a misty February evening, the role of a drum can be heard across the Broad as the phantom skater appears through the gloom, beating a tattoo as he tries to summon his long lost love.

© John Welford

McRaven House, a haunted house in Vicksburg, Mississippi

 

McRaven House, on Harrison Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, played an important role during the American Civil War and also features on lists of notorious “haunted houses”.

When General Grant captured Vicksburg in 1863 he established the Union headquarters at McRaven House, from where he was able to direct operations concerned with control of the Mississippi River. Stationed at the house were Colonel Wilson and his aide, Captain McPherson. McPherson’s role was to liaise between the occupying troops and the residents of the town.

One night, MacPherson did not return from his usual tour of the vicinity and was declared to be missing. On the following night, so it is said, the mutilated apparition of Captain MacPherson, dripping with blood, appeared to Colonel Wilson and told him that he had been murdered by Confederate sympathisers and his body thrown into the river.

Since that time, the ghost of Captain McPherson has continued to appear to occupants of McRaven House, each time telling them the same story.

McPherson’s ghost is not the only one to have been seen. Other Civil War soldiers and a woman with long brown hair have also been reported.

Despite the building being blessed by a priest in 1991, ghostly sightings have continued at McRaven House, which has become a popular tourist destination.

© John Welford