Ashton Villa

Ashton Villa, an Italianate mansion on Galveston's Broadway, was built in 1859 for businessman James Moreau Brown and is one of the grand houses that stood through the 1900 hurricane. It is best known for his daughter, Miss Bettie Brown, a world traveler who never married and lived here until her death in 1920; local legend says she still looks after the house. Visitors and staff have described apparitions in old-style clothing, a sense of not being alone and the sound of movement in empty rooms. The Galveston Historical Foundation, which cares for the house, offers ghost tours here, especially in October.