Haunted Annapolis: Ghosts of the Capital City

By Mike Carter and Julia Dray

The authors of Haunted Fells Point tour Maryland’s capital and “detail ghostly sightings at some of the city’s best known landmarks” (Capital Gazette).
 
Beneath the statehouse dome and from the banks of the Severn River, the ghosts of Annapolis rise to roam the red-bricked streets of the old city. The capital of Maryland since 1694, the city hosts the restless dead who never left the narrow alleys, taverns and homes where they met their ends. Come dine with Mary Reynolds at the tavern she’s been keeping since the 1760s, stand vigil at the sarcophagus of Admiral John Paul Jones and search for the figure of Thomas Dance, who plummeted from the heights of the statehouse dome in 1793. From headless men and ghostly soldiers to unlucky bootleggers and ominous gravediggers, Annapolis Ghost Tour founder Mike Carter and tour guide Julia Dray narrate the eerie tales of these and other supernatural residents of Annapolis.
 
Includes photos!
 
“Based on years of research by the duo into the history behind some of Annapolis’ most notorious ghost stories.” —Broadneck Patch

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781614236702

Mike Carter

Mike Carter is the founder and president of Tours & Crawls of Annapolis and Baltimore, which has been in operation since 2002. His Annapolis Ghost Tours are consistently rated among the top five paranormal tours in the country, while his Baltimore tours are quickly becoming just as popular and well received. He earned his BA from the University of Maryland, College Park. Julia Dray is a professional musician, writer and performer. After attending St John's College in Annapolis she worked as a restaurant manager, technical writer, magazine editor and pianist before joining Annapolis Ghost Tours in 2007. Locals and visitors alike know her as the "ghost tour lady."

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE MARYLAND STATE HOUSE

THE AGGRIEVED GHOST OF THOMAS DANCE

Annapolis is a city that rises from the waters of the Severn River and Spa Creek in a clutter of houses and streets, and capping the landscape is the Maryland State House. Built upon the highest point in town, the capitol building has an eighteenth-century heart and a modern digestive system; the historic chambers of the 1772 building grew too small to handle the growing number of state senators and delegates, and new chambers were added to the western side of the building in the early twentieth century. Seen from the east, however, the building appears entirely of the late eighteenth century, with a severe Georgian red-brick facade, a portico of marble blocks and Corinthian columns and symmetrical windows. When it was designed in the 1760s, this statehouse was to demonstrate that Maryland was a colony of civilized men, and it was filled with touches that spoke of culture and an understanding of classical design. They were even supposed to have used mysterious ratios and proportions in measuring the rooms and placing doorways, and there have always been rumors of secret chambers and storage spaces that were placed in the building for reasons conspiracy theorists can only imagine.

The building is actually the third capitol to stand above Annapolis; the first lasted less than a decade before it burned to the ground in 1704, and the second was a dilapidated mess by the middle of the 1760s. Construction on the new capitol began in 1772 but was interrupted by the outbreak of the American Revolution. The designer, Joseph Horatio Anderson, topped his statehouse with a cupola when it was finally finished in 1779.

The Maryland State House, shown here in the 1880s, was placed on the highest ground in Annapolis and ultimately crowned with a dome that rises nearly two hundred feet into the air. Until 1996, the building was protected by the Franklin lightning rod installed in 1793, the metal rod covered by a copper-sheathed wooden acorn. A common decorative element in the late eighteenth century, acorns symbolized stability—to be sound as an acorn meant something was without flaw. Courtesy of the Historic Annapolis