Woodlawn Plantation

Rangers, staff and visitors at Woodlawn are said to have heard phantom footsteps in empty hallways, a harp playing a melody from about two centuries ago, rustling gowns on the stairs and anguished cries from the cellar where enslaved people once lived. Woodlawn has long had a reputation as supernatural, and the site's Halloween tours draw on residents' letters, including the premonition of Agnes, a young girl who foresaw her own death. Woodlawn was built in 1805 on land George Washington gave to his step-granddaughter Nelly Custis and her husband Lawrence Lewis, and its tours now tell the stories of everyone who lived and worked there, including enslaved people and free Black and Quaker families.