Perry Hall's Most Renowned and Mistaken Ghost Story

Since today is , I will share with you a folk legend, a tale of an alleged haunting by regular people who met untimely deaths many years ago. Is there any truth to such rumors? I believe not. Still, I offer it to you for your reading pleasure.

According to local accounts, the , built between 1773-1775, is haunted by the spirits of the first two inhabitants of the home, our community's founders, . The story claims the Goughs both died on some distant Halloween evening. Additional accounts allege that about 50 members of the household subsequently died under mysterious circumstances in the years following the Halloween deaths.

Have you heard stories about the Perry Hall Mansion being haunted? Know any other spooky local lore? Tell us in the comments.

This account received the most notoriety when it was included as a vignette in the 2006 book Weird Maryland, written by Matt Lake. He related stories of visitors to the mansion seeing strange lights on, even though they were under the impression that the building did not have electricity. Some folks also claimed that they were unable to record any video of the residence, only sound.

It is particularly easy to debunk just about every element of this haunting myth. First of all, the Goughs' deaths did not occur on Oct. 31. They didn't even die at the same time. Harry Dorsey passed away on May 8, 1808, and Prudence died on June 23, 1822. Moreover, there is no record of any suspicious deaths at the mansion at any time after the Goughs. To be sure, given that hospitals were not prevalent or widely used in colonial days and even well into the mid 1800s, injured or sick family members would certainly have spent their last days in the house. Yet, this does not provide any factual proof for the specifics of the legend.

Since 2007, I have had the opportunity to visit the Perry Hall Mansion on numerous occasions in my capacity as president of the Friends of Perry Hall Mansion. I cannot recall any odd circumstances occurring during those visits.  The mansion does indeed have electric power, as should be evident to all who see the outside lights when lit. Many people have recorded video footage at the residence and no oddities have been noted.

While the building does have , I can assure you that it does not have spirits of the night. This legend, while not based in reality by any means, certainly makes for a good campfire story for Halloween tall tale sessions.

For those who are really interested in finding ghosts (or at least a modern, simulated version of them), then perhaps a visit to Huber's is in order!

Follow Perry Hall Patch on Facebook and Twitter.