We're Not Afraid of No Ghosts

Hauntings Tour Offers Spooky Stories in Leesburg

By Melissa Arseniuk

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

As a persistent drizzle falls from the dark sky, we approach the house. Though we cannot see it from beneath our umbrellas, a full moon is shining down upon us.

Fourteen-year-old Krissy Frye is walking the dark sidewalk next to me. As we navigate the path, I asked her if she believes in ghosts.

"I do," she replied. "I saw my granddad's ghost."

We are approaching our destination, so I quickly ask her about her paranormal encounter.

"At his funeral, I was like, 'grandad, just let me see you just one more time,' and then this black cat appeared and stayed there for 10 minutes, and then left," she said.

She doesn't miss a step as we continue our course along North Street in Leesburg, toward what is simply known as "The Lynch House."

Photo: Melissa Arseniuk

Debbie Etter, left, and husband Rick Etter, right, have been telling the story of Eliza Thompson inside the Lynch House for several years now. The story of Eliza's ghost is just part of the Loudoun Museum's annual Hauntings tours in Leesburg.

Still, she says she can't help being nervous.

The Lynch House has housed several families over the years, and is named after the people who live there now, Tom and Martha Lynch. But they insist they aren't the only ones who call it home.

According to the Lynch family, they share the Gothic Revival-style structure with the spirit of one of the home's former residents: a woman named Eliza Thompson.

Thompson first lived there with her husband, J.B., and their two daughters in the 1850s. Years later, J.B. joined the Confederate effort and the Civil War. After J.B. didn't return from the battlefield, Eliza suddenly found herself fighting a war all her own, as the ownership of the home's deed came under question. Eliza then endured a 20-year legal battle to regain undisputed and rightful custody of her home, which she eventually won.

Today, local legend and the Lynches say Eliza has returned, and once again, is not keen on leaving any time soon.

Those who don't know her by name call her "the lady in white," and over the years, the Lynches say she has visited several times.

I visited the Lynch House as part of the Loudoun Museum's 16th annual Hauntings tour. The six-stop walking tour is now a Leesburg Halloween tradition, both for locals and tourists alike.

Groups are escorted by costumed guides through Leesburg's historic downtown just two nights per year, yet about 400 people take it in.

On opening night, I find myself in a group with just four others. The rain likely deterred the crowds, but I don't mind.

Krissy's mother, Karen Frye, and 15-year-old brother, Ian Frye, join us. They live in Leesburg, but their friend, Sally Austin, drove in from Herndon to hear tales of the undead.

Krissy and I are the only first-timers in the group; the others have taken the tour before and are back for more.

The Lynch House is the second and arguably the most popular stop of the tour. As we arrive, we are greeted by one of the site's hosts, Rick Etter. (The Lynches allow the museum into their home for the tours, but they do not participate in the visits themselves.)

Dressed in costume, Etter looks like he stepped out from a Civil War time warp. He invites us into the house's front foyer, out of the rain.

Etter and his wife, Debbie, have been telling Eliza's story for six or seven years now, and there's no question in their minds that there's an active spirit inside the home. Their suspicions were confirmed once again just last week.

"Tuesday night we had a dry run for the tour guides and everything here," Etter says. "All the guides were standing out front on the sidewalk and I was standing on the porch telling them some of these stories and the doors were open and I noticed some ... were pointing inside (saying), 'Look at that, look at that!'"

As Etter was giving his dry run presentation, he said one of the home's chandeliers began swaying back and forth. And that is just one of many first-hand stories Etter tells.

Once inside, it is obvious that the Lynch House is not your ordinary home. Perhaps it is the tapestries that cover the hardwood floors, or the ornate, Gothic Revival features. Though there's no distinct smell inside, the air is notably different.

To the left of the foyer is a parlor with green-painted walls. Inside, a green couch and green chairs surround a wooden coffee table that is covered in large chunks of amethyst and quartz. The fireplace is full of unlit candles. There is another parlor to the right of where we stand, this one featuring red wallpaper and several mirrors. Framed photos cover the piano, and a mannequin's motionless hand rests upon the keys.

Ahead of us is a stairway on the left and a hallway to the right. At the end of the hall, there are two doors, one to the washroom and the other to the rear section of the house. On the hallway walls, oversized picture frames display old pages from the New York Times and the Philadelphia Enquirer, all brown with age. Overhead is the first of many crystal chandeliers, and as we gaze up, our eyes follow the stairwell, which is lined with large, heavy-framed paintings. One of them has a triangular frame and a picture of a moustached woman's visage.

Our gaze comes to a stop at the top of the staircase. And that is where Martha Lynch saw Eliza for the first time.

Mr. Etter tells the story well.

"Mrs. Lynch was home alone one day and ... something at the top of the staircase caught her eye. She turned and looked up and right at the top of the staircase, there, was a young woman, dressed completely in white, standing there looking at her."

We all stare, wide-eyed, at the top of the staircase, waiting.

Etter continues, "She never said a word, (and) when Mrs. Lynch turned to speak to her, she vanished."

Some of us keep staring, but no woman appears.

There have been all sorts of stories about Eliza over the years. Etter tells us that the Lynch's youngest son, Patrick, was the first to make the ghost's acquaintance.

"Not too long after they moved in, Patrick comes running into his parents' bedroom in the middle of the night one night, waking them up, demanding to know who was that woman standing at the foot of his bed." It was two or three in the morning, Etter explains, and Patrick woke his parents from a dead sleep, claiming, "There's a young woman standing at the foot of my bed watching me and she's all dressed in white."

The Lynches figured their son had dreamed the whole thing and dismissed it as a nightmare. "...You had too much pizza before you went to bed, go on back to sleep," they said, and they did the same.

Months later, when guests were visiting for the holidays, however, Mrs. Lynch was told a similar story – twice.

"There was a couple staying in Patrick's room," Etter begins. "Over the next couple days, each one of the couple took Mrs. Lynch aside, separately, and said 'You know, I really didn't want to say anything in front of anybody – because I didn't want anybody to think I was crazy — but last night I woke up and there was this young woman all dressed in white at the foot of my bed. ... Both the husband and the wife came to Mrs. Lynch and told her this. So all of a sudden it was like, whoa, maybe Patrick wasn't having a nightmare, after all."

Etter claims strange things have happened during the annual tours, as well. One year, he said, the umbrellas that now rest at the back of the foyer raised up out of their basket and dropped to the floor unassisted. It gave the young woman standing next to them quite the fright, he said, and though she came back on the tour again the next year, she refused to come inside when her group stopped to visit the Lynch House. Instead, Etter says, she waited outside.

The museum staff muses over the time that members of a network news channel came to visit and left with rolls of nothing but blank videotape.

Photo: Melissa Arseniuk

As Rick Etter tells the story of Eliza Thompson's ghost inside the Lynch House in Leesburg, a mysterious orb is captured on camera. The tale of the so-called "Lady in White" is part of a six-stop walking tour of Leesburg's haunted addresses. The annual event is presented by the Loudoun Museum, and if offered in October.

"They brought in their cameras and their recording equipment and everything and they went away with nothing," Etter tells. "Nothing!"

The crew figured their equipment must have malfunctioned; others say it had more to do with Eliza than faulty equipment.

Nothing strange happens during our visit. "It's kind of a nasty night out ... it's a good night for sleeping," Etter says. "Eliza may be asleep."

As our time at the house comes to a close, I snap a few photographs to document the experience. Despite a clean lens and sufficient lighting, the first one comes back irregular.

It shows Etter telling one of his stories, gesturing to the door at the end of the hall. But there it is: a mysterious orb. It's almost as if Etter is gesturing toward the orb instead of the doorway.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Eliza Thompson," I wonder.

I snap a few more photographs and prepare to leave with the rest of the group. As we pack up, I show the others the curious photograph.

They gasp in disbelief. "No way!" "It's Eliza!" "I knew it!"

Etter brings out the photograph he and his wife had taken a few years back, the year their anniversary fell on one of the Hauntings tour nights.

It, too, has a large orb in it.

Krissy remains silent and just smiles, her eyes fixed upon the photograph. After a few moments she looks up and waves before turning to leave. "Hi Eliza," she says. "Bye Eliza."

And with that, she makes her way out onto the porch and follows the others across the street, where the next ghost story is waiting to be told.

Hauntings tours of Leesburg take place every October and will return next year. For information and tickets for the 2008 tours, contact the museum or visit loudounmuseum.org.

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