Sherwood Forest Plantation

On the way home from the Shirley Plantation we stopped at the Sherwood Forest Plantation. It was a beautiful old home that had been owned by our 10th President John Tyler. I didn't know much about the history of this plantation so when I got home I did a bit of research and found that the house has a ghost. Known as the Gray Lady she has been seen by several people over the years. I'm kind of glad I didn't know she was there because we were the only ones visiting the grounds this afternoon. The house itself was not open for tours so we really didn't pay much attention to it other than to peek in the door and two of the windows when we first got there. I don't remember seeing a rocking chair, and my grandson did not seem to have any kind of experiences while we were on the property. I did find out while doing research on the plantations in the area that there is at lest one other one that has some haunting, so I will be going back soon. In the meantime here is the information on this gray lady.

Below is information from the plantation website about her.



*For more photos of the house and grounds visit my Other blog


The Gray Lady is called that because she apparently wore gray. This leads to the assumption that she was in the service of the family that owned the house when she lived there, because servants then wore gray when cleaning at Sherwood Forest.

"It is thought that she was a governess, who had charge of a small child at one time here," Payne says. "She would take the child from a first floor bedroom (which is now known, appropriately, as the Gray Room) and walk her up through the hidden staircase to a second floor nursery. There, she would rock the child on her lap in a rocking chair."


Unfortunately, the child was ill and died soon after. This presents a speculative motive for the Gray Lady's ghost to remain in the house. It could have been that the Gray Lady was not nearby when the child passed away, or she might have perceived that had she been more attentive the tragedy would not have occurred. No one knows for sure.
What is known is that ever since, the sounds of the Gray Lady have been heard in the house - always in the same forms. Her footsteps are heard going up or down the hidden stairway, and the sound of her rocking is heard in the second floor nursery and in the Gray Room.