Haunted Valentines: Gadsby’s Tavern, Lake Drummond and The Octagon

The journey begins with the Female Stranger at Gadsby’s Tavern Museum in Alexandria and the ghostly lovers associated with Lake Drummond in the Great Dismal Swamp. It continues to Captain Timothy Hill House on Chincoteague Island, The Martha Washington Inn & Spa in Abingdon, the Van Ness family story in Washington, D.C., and The Octagon.

The final accounts include a suicide ghost story from Franklin County, Virginia; Cry Baby Bridge in St. Mary’s County, Maryland; a tale of lost love in Alexandria; and a story called Love Doesn’t Die. The episode treats these as legends and reported experiences while preserving the human emotions that have kept them in circulation.