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City's most ghostly sites explored on annual tour
Ghost tours abound in old townsDate published: 10/25/2009 BY EMILY BATTLE About a dozen University of Mary Washington students gathered around tables at the entrance to Fredericksburg's Market Square on Friday night. Some wore black T-shirts and jeans, and others donned Revolutionary and Civil War period costumes, along with a heavy helping of white and grayish face paint. For the 25th year, UMW's Historic Preservation Club was preparing to lead families on its Ghost Walk tour, an annual fundraiser. The tours, which stroll past many historic downtown buildings, ran Friday and Saturday nights, and club member Tara Lescault said they fit the club's mission well. "It's a way to introduce people to Fredericksburg's history," she said. Cities all over the world offer ghost tours and haunted walks to tourists. Most are wrapped around major historical disasters or other notable events. Chicago ghost tour guides have the Great Fire of 1871 to work with. New Orleans reaches into its history of voodoo and pirates. In Fredericksburg, at least two other ghost walks are offered in addition to the UMW Preservation Club's annual fundraiser. Mark Nesbitt could be called a pioneer of the urban ghost walk in America. He started the Ghosts of Fredericksburg tours in 2006, more than a decade after starting a similar venture in Gettysburg, Pa., where he lives. Nesbitt has been a ranger for the National Park Service, and had written several books on ghost tales he'd collected about Gettysburg when a town councilman there asked him to start a ghost tour. "He thought ghost tours would help bring people into the downtown area," Nesbitt said. That was 1994, before most of the other ghost tours in the U.S. had been started. But it seemed that Nesbitt was on to something. He said the number of ghost tour operations in Gettysburg has exploded since he started the first one. Now there are more than a dozen, some more authentic than others. A few years later, Nesbitt was asked to give a talk about "ghosts as a product" to a tourism and public relations conference. It was there that he and Fredericksburg tourism director Karen Hedelt started talking about the possibility of his starting a tour in Fredericksburg. When he got here, he learned he wasn't going to have any problem finding tales to tell.
Read more stories about Fredericksburg Date published: 10/25/2009
Growing up in the area
(posted by
returninghome
, Oct. 25, 2009 4:41 pm)
I lived here threw my child hood up to 90's and moved away and came back recently. In school they surely didn't teach us about local ghost, I guess my school taught more important issues than Fredericksburg ghost's ... I did sight seeing when I was a kid, dead mans curve and Kenmore and down town. When I was growing up down town closed up at 6pm, since there were no malls until 1980 no big restaurants to go to, nothing to do in down town then .. and no night life in the 70's but a movie theater, that was i
........
(posted by
rayne
, Oct. 25, 2009 12:42 pm)
then you must not have paid attention in school...or driven downtown after dark during october...or gone to any of the historical sites at any time of the year...or youve just been living under a rock all 30 years....
Ghost ?
(posted by
returninghome
, Oct. 25, 2009 10:00 am)
Ghost of Fredericksburg . Hey I grew up here and there were no ghost tours (no ghost stories either ).. hmm I guess ghost commuting from Northern Va like the rest of every one else lol Sounds nice though and will be money comming in ..but too funny for 30 yrs i lived here no ghost tours. or big ghost stories
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