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Winchester Tales, Winchester, VA (2026)

10/18/2026

HALLOWEEN FUN - 👻 🎃

“Medizin! Medizin!” The man downstairs sounded desperate. Upstairs, a woman lay awake beside her sleeping boyfriend, listening to two strangers argue in a house where neither belonged. It was October 1992 at 424 South Loudoun Street. She nudged him. “People are in the house.” He listened. German. They were speaking German. The couple crept downstairs, but with each step the voices grew fainter, until there was only silence—and the empty room waiting below. According to the tenants, other things happened there, too. Children laughed in the attic. A man in colonial clothing appeared in a doorway, then turned and faded away. One night, the young men renting the house returned to the smell of a wood fire. The great cooking fireplace looked as though someone had used it. But the chimney was sealed. A fire should have filled the house with smoke. Someone, it seemed, had forgotten that.

Nearly 220 years earlier, German immigrant Godfrey Miller had built his family’s home on that corner of Loudoun and Leicester Streets, reportedly using timbers salvaged from the deteriorating Fort Loudoun. A stocking weaver by trade, Miller and his wife, Anna, raised nine children beneath its roof. There would have been small feet on the stairs, laughter overhead, and long evenings beside the cooking fire. Miller also dealt in medicines, giving that desperate German cry a troubling place in the house’s history. Medizin. Medicine. Was someone calling for help for a feverish child? An ailing wife? Godfrey died in 1803. But if the tenants’ story is true, someone was still downstairs in October 1992, asking for medicine—and still waiting for an answer.

10/15/2026

The oldest section of “Homespun” was built around 1790 beside an old dirt road that would later become Cedar Creek Grade. Originally part of Isaac Parkins’ landholdings in the 1750s, the farm encompassed more than 500 acres when it was sold to Godfrey Miller in 1790. The sale carried one condition: Miller had to build a brick or stone dwelling within a year. He constructed a “dogtrot” house, with two separate sections connected by an open central passageway.

Through marriage, the Miller and Bell families became connected, and by 1852, Homespun belonged to John Newton Bell, Sr. The Bell family used the property as a country retreat, surrounded by some 400 acres of apple orchards and woodlands. John and his second wife, Margaretta, had four children, including Stewart Bell, Sr., who was born in the basement of the family’s Cameron Street home during the Third Battle of Wi******er. Homespun itself stood amid the turmoil of the Civil War, with fighting during both battles of Kernstown sweeping across its grounds. This photograph, taken around 1905, shows John Bell, Jr., in the woods behind Homespun.

10/14/2026

The voices woke him again. In 2017, the man living in the first-floor apartment at 418 North Loudoun Street couldn’t sleep. A heavy sadness hung over the rooms, and even alone, he felt watched. That morning, men were talking on the porch. Women answered, offering food and blankets, while outside came the shuffling of countless footsteps and the groan of wagon wheels. He lay still, listening to what sounded like hundreds of people passing his apartment building. Perhaps there was a historical event at Fort Loudoun across the street. But when he reached the kitchen window, Loudoun Street was empty. No wagons. No gathering. No one on the porch. Behind him, his apartment door stood wide open. The strange experiences reportedly continued until he eventually suffered a mental breakdown. Yet the voices he described bore an unsettling resemblance to a day more than 150 years earlier—a day when this exact house had opened its doors to suffering and dying men.

On July 8, 1863, wounded Confederates streamed through Wi******er from Gettysburg. Reverend John Broadus found bandaged soldiers crowded onto Anne Magill’s porch as she and her daughter Mary handed out buttered bread. He was put to work making coffee; Mary was sent for more bread, and a woman called above the weary procession, “Who needs a blanket?” They worked until their provisions were gone, but still the wounded came. Inside, critically injured officers were laid in the front parlor, where some drew their final breaths—the same room that had once welcomed Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate commanders. After Mary’s arrest and removal south in 1864, Anne sold the house to hardware merchant William F. Keller. Death followed him home, too. One evening, a robber shot Keller near Cecil Street as he walked from his store. Mortally wounded, he stumbled back to 418 North Loudoun Street and died in the front room. More than a century later, a resident awoke to voices offering comfort to men he could hear but could not see. Outside, the street was empty. Inside, the door was open.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131881592/william-f-keller

10/14/2026

The first night sold out so we decided to do a second night!

Come join us at Gypsy Jane’s on October 22nd at 6:30pm for a little Ghosts and Gumbo! I’ll be telling the story of the old McCoy house which once sat along Back Creek Road in Gore. 👻 🥘

The price is $27.95 and includes a gumbo bar with authentic New Orleans Chicken & Sausage Gumbo, Seafood Gumbo, and Pumpkin Gumbo…served with rice and garlic French bread pistolettes. The dessert is cinnamon sugar beignets.

Reservations are required…just call Gypsy Jane’s at 540-450-8438.

10/12/2026

It was 1817, and Americans were arguing over politics. Sound familiar? Political divisions, bitter disagreements, accusations, and strong opinions were nothing new, even in the early days of our republic. That year, in a small printing shop at the corner of Loudoun and Cork Streets in Wi******er, Virginia, Jonathan Foster printed and bound a book with a rather remarkable title: “The Olive Branch, or Faults on Both Sides, Federal and Democratic, A Serious Appeal on the Necessity of Mutual Forgiveness and Harmony” by M. Carey. Even 209 years ago, someone thought Americans needed a gentle reminder to get along! The book's very title acknowledged something that remains familiar today: people could passionately disagree over the direction of their country while still sharing a common future. Some of its chapters might seem surprisingly familiar to modern readers. Apparently, the art of disagreeing with our neighbors has been around nearly as long as the nation itself.

And perhaps that is the most fascinating thing about history. Every generation tends to believe its challenges are unprecedented, its disagreements more intense, and its times more uncertain than those that came before. Yet here we are, more than two centuries later, discovering that Americans in 1817 were wrestling with many of the same human tendencies. Political figures come and go, arguments rise and fade, and yesterday's great controversies eventually become chapters in dusty old books. Through it all, our country has endured, imperfectly perhaps, but always moving forward. Two hundred and nine years from now, someone might discover an old account of our own times and exclaim, "Wow! That's exactly what's going on today!" And maybe that's the real lesson from a little book printed on Loudoun Street in 1817. We aren't nearly as unique as we think we are. History doesn't always repeat itself word for word, but it certainly has a way of sounding familiar.

10/07/2026

It was May 3, 1758, when Lieutenant Colonel Adam Stephen returned to Wi******er with Virginia troops who had spent nearly a year serving in South Carolina. At Fort Loudoun, Colonel George Washington awaited their return. Picture Stephen approaching the fort to report to his commander, a red wool waistcoat extending below his hips, its gold lace and gilded buttons catching the spring light. At his throat rested a gilt brass gorget engraved with the British royal crest and the initials “GR,” signifying King George. A remnant of medieval armor, the gorget now served as a symbol of an officer’s rank and authority.

A Scottish-born physician and soldier, Stephen served as Washington’s second-in-command of the Virginia Regiment. The two had met in Wi******er in April 1754 and endured both the surrender at Fort Necessity and Braddock’s disastrous defeat the following year. Stephen’s home, The Bower, stood within the sprawling boundaries of colonial Frederick County, on land now in West Virginia. By his return in 1758, Fort Loudoun had been under construction for almost two years and was serving as Washington’s headquarters. Today, Stephen’s red waistcoat and brass gorget survive at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History—remarkably personal reminders of a man whose life crossed Wi******er’s streets and whose military service placed him beside a young George Washington.

10/07/2026

In the spring of 1744, James Wood looked across the little frontier settlement he was helping create and surely imagined what it might someday become. He had surveyed the land, laid out streets and lots, and helped plant the beginnings of the town we now call Wi******er. Wood was a respected surveyor, businessman, public official, and the first clerk of Frederick County—but he was also a man of the Virginia frontier, and apparently not immune to having a little too much to drink. In May 1744, Frederick County established its new grand jury, and in one of those wonderful little twists of history, James Wood became the second person presented by it—“for being drunk.”

The irony is almost too perfect. Here was the man helping create a town and establish its government, finding himself on the wrong side of the very system he helped put into motion. The customary penalty for drunkenness was five shillings—a meaningful little hit to the pocketbook at the time, perhaps roughly comparable to $75–$100 today, depending on how such historic money is measured. Yet the incident doesn't diminish James Wood. If anything, it gives us something that statues, portraits, and history books sometimes cannot: a glimpse of the actual man. Wi******er's founder had ambitions, responsibilities, successes—and apparently at least one bad night. Nearly three centuries later, that tiny entry in an old court book reminds us that the people who built our town weren't marble figures. They were human.

10/06/2026

In Wi******er, the name Dixon already belonged to a legend. Tommy Dixon, Handley’s beloved coach and Hunter Maddex Hall of Fame inductee, even has his name on the school’s basketball court. His daughter Kara grew up alongside that remarkable legacy, but soon began building her own. An honor student, student government vice-president, and four-sport athlete, she helped Handley’s record-setting 4×400-meter relay team win a state championship in 2010. Then she traded the track for a different pursuit: telling people’s stories.

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Kara’s reporting career took her to Texas and back to Virginia’s WAVY News 10. In June 2023, she and photojournalist Jack Noonan earned an Emmy for “Road to Reconciliation: Uncovering Our Past,” exploring the buried history of Williamsburg’s First Baptist Church, one of America’s oldest Black congregations. Kara had stepped beyond her father’s considerable shadow and forged her own way—earning a place in Wi******er’s story by helping others tell theirs.

10/06/2026

I saw a picture in a doctor’s office today, and for a moment, it was 1975 again.

Fall was my mom’s favorite time of year. Back in the mid-1970s, she was a manager for Home Interiors and Gifts, going from house to house holding decorating parties—or “shows,” as she called them. Friends and neighbors would gather to browse the catalog, and the hostess would receive free items for opening her home. You may not remember the company’s name, but I bet you’d recognize the pictures. They seemed to hang in every living room and hallway, fitting right into the orange, green, and brown palette of our childhood.

My sister and I sometimes tagged along, and I remember how much Mom loved those evenings. She was in her element, with a glow about her as she talked about the newest picture in the catalog. Seeing that familiar print today brought back more than the look of those homes. It brought back Mom, happy and doing something she loved.

Do you remember a favorite Home Interiors picture—or one that seemed to be in everybody’s house?

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