Is ‘The Gray Lady’ Ky.’s oldest ghost?

Maggie Menderski

Two hundred and five years ago, Margaretta Varick stopped in Frankfort to see her niece while on her way to see her children in Illinois.

She never left.

Varick fell direly ill and suddenly died in an upstairs bedroom at what’s now Liberty Hall Historic Site at 202 Wilkinson St. Her family buried her in a small gravesite behind the late 18th-century home, which is now one of the oldest homes in Kentucky.

Varick was never supposed to be in the Bluegrass State long-term. The New York woman had only planned to stay in Kentucky a day or so to comfort her niece,MargarettaBrown,whowasgrieving the death of a daughter. Even so, this kind, thoughtful woman has earned herself a prominent, spooky place in Kentucky lore. Jessica Stavros, executive director of Liberty Hall Historic Site, believes the legend of “The Gray Lady,”may be the oldest ghost story in the commonwealth.

Aunt Varick, who picked up “The Gray Lady” nickname sometime in the early 20th century, is a mostly pleasant spirit known for moving rocking chairs, teleporting objects, ripping off calendar pages, and leaving gold bracelets behind for museum’s curators to find, Stavros explained, as we sat in the bedroom where Varick died more than 200 years ago.

Early accounts of Aunt Varick reference her “doing chores” and “keeping busy,” but it’s not quite clear what that means. She’s often said to have a “calming presence.” Over the years she’s appearedtoguestswhilethey’resleepingin the two residential apartments at the museum. Once, a museum employee went to raise the American flag and couldn’t find it. Eventually, it appeared neatly folded in front of Aunt Varick’s bed.

A few years ago Anna Campomanes, the museum’s educator and volunteer coordinator, had her hands full and was struggling to get in a door – when she felt it open in front of her.

She thought a colleague had helped her, but once she was inside, she realized no one was there.

“Thank you,” Campomanes said, out loud, so the ghost could hear her. Several stories in the museum’s “ghost file” indicate The Gray Lady listens when you speak directly to her.

Aunt Varick has a reputation for being helpful ... even if that kindness might also send a chill up your spine.

A ‘ghost file’ full of more than 100 entries

Stavros says there may be older, spookyfolklorethatlivesonineasternor western Kentucky, but she has yet to find a ghost story that goes back nearly as far as The Gray Lady. That’s not for lack of trying, either.

There are dark tales around places like Waverly Hills Sanatorium in LouisvilleandtheKentuckyStatePenitentiary in Eddyville, but Aunt Varick had already been wandering the grounds at Liberty Hall for more than 60 years before those structures were even built. She first appears in the museum’s “ghost file” in 1820,justthreeyearsaftershedied.Most ghost stories in this region really don’t starttakingholduntilthelate19thcentu- ry with the rise of the American Spiritualism Movement, Stavros explained.

Kentucky separated from Virginia and joined the Union as the 15th state in 1792. John Brown, whose family was the first generation to live in the home, became one of the state’s first U.S. senators and he served for three terms until 1805.

When Brown and his wife, Margaretta, moved to Liberty Hall in 1801, the region was very much frontier. An early 19th-century map of Frankfort shows a fewhomes,achurch,acoupleoftaverns, and not much else. Brown and his descendants occupied Liberty Hall and its neighboring Orlando Brown House until the 1930s.

The Browns understood their importanceintheformationofourstateandits history, so much so, they documented everything – the family ghost, included.

Stepping into Liberty Hall feels like steppingbackintime.Theroomsarestill furnishedwithBrowns’furnitureandthe tables are set with their china. The pages are extremely delicate, but the library is filledwiththesamebooksthattheyread.

The “ghost file” at Liberty Hall has more than 100 references to Aunt Varick’s spirit that span more than two centuries, but she didn’t become a true fix- ture in Liberty Hall folklore until the 1880s. Mary Mason “Mame” Scott, who was part of the fourth generation of the Brown family to live in the house, was sleeping in the bedroom as a young girl when she woke up to find a tall woman veiled in gray. This happened for three consecutive nights. In her writing, she refers to Aunt Varick as “Our Beloved Ghost” and she becomes obsessed with spiritualism and the afterlife.

Mame grew up to read palms, tell fortunes and hold seances inside Liberty Hall.

‘The right place at the right time for this ghost story’

On the day we visited, the bedroom newspaper clippings from throughout the 20th century were spread out across the neatly made bed. The Gray Lady made her first appearance in The Courier Journal in 1922. In 1937, Old Kentucky Homes and Gardens wrote a story that identified the long-time cook and the Gray Lady as the two most important features of Liberty Hall. With Mame’s help, Aunt Varick became incredibly popular and that sustained itself through most of the 20th century. In 1995, the National Enquirer listed Liberty Hall as one of the top five most haunted places in the United States.

Even today, she makes regular appearances in political cartoons in the Frankfort State Journal

The bedroom also has a copy of a photograph that shows a blurred figure standing in the stairwell of the house in 1965. The picture was meant to show off repairs in the home following a terrible fire, but it unwittingly captured The Gray Lady, or it was manipulated to make it seem like it did.

You could argue either point. Stavros is a pro on both sides.

Ghoststorieswereextremelyinvogue in the1960s, Stavros says, and Aunt Varick certainly isn’t the only Victorian lady dressed in gray haunting a historic home that doubles as a museum. Stories like The Gray Lady were a reminder of your immortality, and in a way, kept people tethered to their religion. The curator at Continued on next page