The Restless Spirits at Waverly Plantation

Wavery Plantation Oaks

A loving husband had this unique Southern plantation home designed and built for his wife in the mid-1800s. But she tragically died, before Waverly Mansion, located in Clay County Mississippi was finished.

George Hampton Young was a colonel who moved from Georgia to Mississippi to establish a cotton plantation along the Tombigbee River.

Waverly Mansion--today.

Young and his ten children moved into their new home in the 1850s. He ran an impressive farm.

Waverly, besides providing large quantities of cotton had a tannery, lumber mill, gristmill, brick kiln, icehouse, gardens, orchards, and livestock. The plantation also manufactured its own gas, which was piped into the house to illuminate it.

Waverly has a unique architectural feature, not often seen in the South, a massive copula sits atop this home that affords the visitor a 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside.

This mansion also is known as one of the most haunted homes in the South.

The Young family maintained Waverly until the last of the ten children died in 1913. It then was left to slowly deteriorate.

Robert and Donna Snow fell in love with the old house and spent several years in the 1960s, restoring it to its original splendor. It was made a National Historic Landmark in 1973.

During this time, the Snow’s became acquainted with an assortment of ghosts that haunt Waverly.

The home today is run as a house museum.

During the Civil War several Confederate officers, friends of the Young family, recuperated from battle wounds at Waverly.

In one mirror from this period, a strange sight is seen. Visitors report a Confederate soldier standing behind them, only to turn around and find no one is there.

Colonel Young’s wife, who never lived in the house, is observed wandering through the second-floor rooms. She turns and stares at visitors and then slowly disappears.

Waverly family cemetery.

The Colonel himself is seen riding a phantom horse near the family cemetery. He is also seen walking through this graveyard and in the yard near the mansion.

The most active ghost at the plantation has been seen and heard by many tour guides and visitors.

This four-year-old girl is believed to be the daughter of a Young family friend. Her apparition appears so real that visitor’s on tours have tried to find what adults she belongs to.

Staircase landing.

She is usually spotted on the landing of the spiral staircase between the second and third floors.

It is believed that she died of diphtheria in the home during the Civil War.

This young ghost is also heard crying for her mother.

Another sound often noted involves many voices attending a dinner party—they are heard laughing and enjoying music in the mansion’s ballroom.

Here is a brief video about the young ghost, known as “Little Girl Lost.” The Snow’s daughter and another witness are interviewed.