Merrehope

Merrehope began in 1858 as a small cottage and grew into a mansion that served as the headquarters of General Leonidas Polk during Sherman's 1864 advance on Meridian; it was one of the few buildings spared. The Meridian Restorations Foundation began restoring it in 1968 and it now operates as a house museum and events venue. Staff tell of two spirits. One is a young schoolteacher who boarded there in the 1930s and took his own life, whose playful presence is blamed for breaking-glass sounds and a human-shaped dent in the bed in the Periwinkle Room. The other is a woman in a green plaid hoop skirt linked to Eugenia Gary, whose portrait hangs in the house, announced by rustling and the scent of rosewater.