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Mangohick Haunting

 

This experience is not mine, it is my mother's. However, I did play an indirect part in this. Everything I say is true and, as far as I know, accurate. My mother gave me permission to tell this story. Here we go.

My family is originally from eastern Virginia, in and around the historic area of the Middle Peninsula and the Northern Neck. When I was eighteen months to two years old, my mother and father rented a very old home in King William County in a tiny, unincorporated area called Mangohick. My parents did not really have a good marriage to say the least and, according to the both of them, were constantly fighting with each other over anything and nothing in particular. What happened next, I think, set the wheels in motion for a lot of negative activity in and around the house.

My father started to not come home for weeks on end, presumably getting boozed up and having affairs with several women. It was all over town. Of course, I was blissfully ignorant of this because of my age but it obviously hit Mom pretty hard. The fact is my father was never there to witness these things, so it was just me and Mom. What's more, on the rare occasion that he was there and she told him about it, he scoffed at her. So consequently, this is our story.

My mother loved to watch her soap operas everyday as she folded and ironed clothes. The washer and dryer were located in the basement of the house, so she would haul them upstairs to the first floor where the television was and would start to go to work, with me nearby. Well one day, at 3:05 in the afternoon to be exact, she heard something above her on the second floor. Years later she told me it sounded like heavy boots marching in place on the hardwood. Marching, not walking. She said it distinctly sounded like someone was performing a military drill of some sort because of the deliberate steps and uninterrupted tempo that was created. That day, my mother went upstairs to investigate and found nothing out of the ordinary. The next day she went through the same routine: dry the clothes, take them upstairs and go to work. At 3:05, she heard it again. It sounded like someone marching! Again, a quick investigation revealed nothing and so Mom gave up on it and went on to more important matters. Yet it happened every day that she and I were home. After a while, she told me she got used to it. There were, however, some things she never got used to.

Sometimes, usually when it was storming outside, she would hear what sounded like a window pane falling out of its casing and crash onto the floor. Of course, when she checked there was no scattered glass to speak of. She told me this would happen quite a lot, though not as regular as the marching sounds upstairs. Mom never understood why all this was going on; all the while my father was absolutely nonexistent. Other things, like the smell of freshly baked bread and honeysuckle would pervade the house. Yet my mother does not bake and, according to her, there were no honeysuckle bushes nearby. It was just weird things that, on the surface, seemed harmless and even inviting, but still did not feel quite right. She even went so far as to tell me that she always felt a negative vibe while in the home.

One day we were having lunch in the kitchen. I was sitting in my high-chair eating when, all of a sudden, I just started talking. Thinking I was talking to her, she turned around to address me and noticed that I wasn't even looking at her but was looking towards the pantry, which was apparently just behind my shoulder. I was speaking to something behind me. She told me the hair on the back of her neck started to rise as she calmly asked me who I was talking to. I told her "I'm talking to the lady in the green dress." She said that was the first time she felt really afraid in the house.

Fast-forward several months and life has been getting progressively worse for her. My father had left for good and the business she ran was not doing so well. In addition, things around the house had taken a turn for the nasty. The cat that we owned just gave birth to a litter of kittens in one of the outbuildings surrounding the house. Mom said their innocent faces, with eyes not yet open, were giving her a bit of a respite from all of the problems in her life, domestic and otherwise. She told me that both she and I would walk outside every day to spend a little time with them, just playing. One morning, weeks later, she went outside to feed the mother cat when she noticed a chilling silence upon entering the building. As she turned the corner, she saw a grisly scene. One by one, the mother cat ate her offspring. She was actually in the process of eating her last kitten when mom screamed for it to stop. Obviously, she kept this from me until years later. I have heard of this happening before, cats devouring their newborn kittens, but not at this late stage. These kittens were at least a month old. Maybe that's nature, I don't know.

The straw that broke the camel's back, however, came one night when Mom and I were sleeping in the same bed. She told me she had me sleep beside her because she didn't want me in a crib alone. I also guess she either forgave the infanticidal feline or she wanted her to hang around for protection, but either way, the cat was in bed with us as well. At around 4:00 in the morning she just woke up. She remembered thinking it was rather strange to awaken at that hour without any kind of outside stimulus, but that's what happened. As she gathered her senses, she noticed the cat at the foot of the bed start to raise her hackles and hiss at something in the corner of the room. Feeling like something negative was happening, she told me that she looked to her immediate left and saw that the bedroom wall was full of these tiny pinpoints of multicolored lights. She ruled out any outside traffic because of how the room was situated and so she stared at these lights just dancing all around the wall. She mentioned that it was kind of like if one poked a bunch of holes in a paper cup and fitted it over a flashlight and then started spinning it. These little lights were just moving on the wall. Getting angrier and more exasperated by the minute, she finally started screaming: "Get the **** out of my ******** house right now!" and "I can't take this **** anymore, why the **** are you pickin' on me and my boy!?" After several more seconds of this diatribe, it stopped. We were out of that house the next morning.

The really unbelievable part of this story happened years later, when Mom was with my new step-dad and the both of them were visiting her relatives at her parent's house in Tappahannock. A first cousin of my mother, whom she had not seen for years, was down and they were catching up on old times, when the conversation switched to the paranormal. My mother was talking about her horrible experiences in her previous home and she was describing the things that happened there when she observed her cousin looking at her in a peculiar way. She asked him if everything was alright and he affirmed that he, too, lived in a haunted house in Virginia. But he was strangely curious about what Mom had to say and he insisted that she continue. My mother resumed with her accounts and as she talked she kept noticing him out of the corner of her eye. She told me that as she recalled the events, his eyes continued to get bigger and bigger. Finally, he interrupted and asked my mother where all this took place. My Mom told him "Mangohick." Her cousin shook his head in disbelief, "Yeah, I used to live there too." My mother's jaw dropped to the floor. He said that every day, at 3:00 p.m., he would hear marching sounds coming from the second floor.

If anybody who reads this knows this house and has an idea of what happened there, please get in touch with me. I've actually did a little research on the place and I know who the current owners are, but obviously I cannot just call them up and ask them if their house is haunted. This has been on my mind for years. Thank you.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, owensnee1, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will participate in the discussion and I need help with what I have experienced.

Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-08)
Owen, I totally understand. I moved into a house my husband already owned and that house (which is not the style I would choose to live in) took a hold of me. I have dreams about having to leave and they are so filled with a deep-set grief that I wake up shaking and crying. Somehow houses and land can become part of our DNA. It's just another one of those things we don't always understand...
owensnee1 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-07)
Hey Argette,
You're right. It's weird, and people may think I'm crazy for saying something like this, but if there is an afterlife and I had the choice, that house is where I would want to spend it. It's a part of me. My energy will always be within those walls. I'm really a straightforward and somewhat sane individual, but it's true. Oh well. 😁
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-07)
Owen, I meant to tell you that I know what you mean when you say you get a bit emotional thinking about your soldier and his family - after all, you have walked the same land, breathed the same air, looked at the sun and the stars from the same vantage point.

You are bound by location, bonded by the land.
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-07)
Owen, our house had a winding staircase off a front hall and night after night we heard footsteps down the steps, one for each step. Since my father traveled a lot, my mother had the master bedroom downstairs and she heard the footsteps. We just sort of got used to them.

We four sibs slept upstairs in four bedrooms toward the front of the house. In the back part of the house, there were servant's quarters, not the usual rabbit warren of tiny rooms, but a back hallway, back stairs, two bedrooms, a linen closet and bath. If we had to use those rooms at night we avoided looking at the pink room, which my mother used for storage. We were terrified of that room and it was always cold. We later learned that a housekeeper had died there.

My older brother eventually claimed the room next to it for his own bedroom - a great window-filled room up in the trees - and claimed that he heard knocking in the pink room at night. You never know.
owensnee1 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-07)
Hey Argette,
His name was Milton H. Yeatman and that's where he lived. How and when he died, I have no idea because all it says on the stone is that he fought for the 14th VA Infantry. I did some research on him and found out that he was around 8 years old in 1850, according to the census. After that, nothing. It's frustrating. As for me, I can't help but get a little emotional when I think of him and his kin, who are also buried on the grounds nearby, because that's where I spent the vast majority of my childhood and, subsequently, fell in love with the place. You know? You live in a house and it grows on you. It's yours. But that house has seen so many families throughout the years that it's almost like our family was just another chapter in the book. And by the way, living in a home that old is pretty sweet... But COLD! I'm interested in knowing about some of your house's "issues," as well. Even if they are mild, I'm sure they're still very exciting to hear. Thank you again,
Owen
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-07)
Owensnee, living in a house built in 1790 would be fascinating, even if it's not haunted. A soldier in the yard? What was the story there? I lived in a house built around 1888 by a wealthy architect, and his wife was buried nearby. The house was for her, but she died before it was completed. It definitely had its "issues," but they are pretty mild compared to some of the stories told here.

Thank you for sharing your stories!
owensnee1 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
Hey Argette,
Thank you for taking an interest in my story. I appreciate your very helpful advice and I'm looking forward to doing a little diggin' over the Christmas break. I think the house was built around 1820 which, while still old, is relatively young compared to many of the houses in that area. It very well could be a Civil War related haunting, who knows? I actually lived in a house in Warsaw, Va. That was built in 1790 and it had a Confederate soldier buried in the yard! Sadly, no hauntings though...
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
Owensnee, my first thought is some discrete questions of people you trust plus a trip to the county register of deeds office. The staff there can show you records of the land transactions. These are all public records. Reprints will likely cost you.

Being that it is a rural house, I'm not sure that there are fire maps or city directories or anything like that. You might try the county historical society.

I;d like to know the age of the house. In your part of the country, the marching sounds could mean anything, but I keep thinking "Civil War" - and there's nothing quite like a good Civil War ghost story!
Moongrim (2 stories) (871 posts)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
Thanks for the clear story; it made for an intriguing reading. Definitely this is a place worthy of further investigation.
owensnee1 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
I meant to say "My mother wouldn't step into"... Sorry about that.
owensnee1 (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
Thank you for commenting on my story. It's been a long time since we've been in that house and I am so intrigued by it. The fact that it's not that far away from where my family lives makes me want to find out what happened there. Anything. Does anyone know how to conduct a proper research of a house without crossing that fine-line into matters of privacy? My said she'd never step one foot into that house again! Ha!
Argette (guest)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
I am intrigued, and I looked up Mangohick on Google Maps. Beautiful in the fall, but ask someone desolate with houses far apart on very rural roads. Information is sketchy, but it appears there are many cemeteries in the vicinity. I believe manifestations often occur during times of stress, sadness and isolation. These factors may have been at play here, but it sounds like this house is just plain haunted.

I look forward to other comments. Thanks, Owensnee. This is really fascinating.
venky (1 stories) (48 posts)
 
12 years ago (2011-12-06)
Hi Owensnee we can't say nice but really a fact story looks like. Thanks for sharing. But I am actually from india and also experience this paranormal entity in my life two times.
I have one sugestion please don't intract with this things again may be they will follow you. I know its something wrong with the place but can't say it would not possesed the humans. Please stay away from this and try to gather information about it. I believe this is related to some Milatry man spirit who is still in that house.
Anyway cool story and have great life ahead.

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