The Ghosts of the Danville Museum

John's momma, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew drove up from Texas for a visit.  His momma stayed with us for the week, and the rest drove on to Washington, D.C.

Beth and I played Skip-Bo most of the time, one of her favorite games, but we did manage to get out to a couple of museums and a walk along the Dan river.

The Danville Museum is located in the Sutherlin Mansion.  It was known as "The Mansion in the Grove" at the time of it's completion by the Sutherlin's in 1859.

William T. Sutherlin was mayor of Danville at the outbreak of the Civil War, but resigned after he was elected to the 1861 Virginia Secession Convention.

Apparently, CSA (Confederate States of America) President Jefferson Davis had an agreement that, if the rebel government had to flee Richmond, they would relocate to Danville (some say on their way to Texas), and Davis, of course, would want the best house in town, which belonged to his friend Sutherlin.  In April, 1865, as Robert E. Lee and his troops were retreating from Petersburg, Davis DID retreat to Danville.  Thus Danville became known as the last capital of the CSA.

Upon arrival at the museum, Beth and I were given headsets and CD players for a self-guided tour.  The rest of the story is worthy of an episode on "I Love Lucy!"  Most tours go through a logical procession, but this one went from the front hall, downstairs, back upstairs, across the front hall, etc. etc. etc.  As if that wasn't crazy enough, my first CD player wouldn't work.  I went back to the reception desk calling "Hello!" all the way.  Beth and I seemed to be the only ones in the entire house - kinda creepy.  Finding no one answering my calls, I helped myself to a different CD player.

Back to Beth.  Her CD player, of course, had kept playing, so I was trying to fast-forward mine to catch up with hers.  I would get there, and it would skip back to the beginning.  Again and again I tried, but to no avail. 

Beth said she wasn't doing too good at hearing through the head set, so she decided to give me her player and headset.  I have my hands full of purse, cell phone, brochures, my CD player... so she tried to help get my headphones off of me.  Pretty soon we were both tangled in the wires - and we were laughing so hard we were crying.  Finally, we got untangled and agreed that we could read the interpretive signs a WHOLE lot easier than we could struggle (unsuccessfully) with the CD players.

We were trying to follow the numbers on the interpretive signs, but we got lost.  A museum person would appear, give us directions, and almost mysteriously disappear.  This happened several times, but we never ever saw the same person twice.  Reflecting on it later, we almost convinced ourselves that, if they had been dressed in the clothing of 1860, we were having ghostly encounters!

When all was said and done? We were happy to finish that visit and get on the outside of that place!

Truthfully?  It was a good museum with good interpretive information and very nice, helpful people.  The appearing and disappearing we attribute to the fact that they were trying to get another exhibit set up, and all of their attention was focused there - which is okay with us because now we can tell people that we think the place is haunted!!