Urban Legend of Woodburn Governors Mansion of Dover, Delaware :: Urban Legends Ghost Story

Woodburn Governor's Mansion of Dover, Delaware The story of Woodburn Mansion has been told to residents of Dover, Delaware for many years. A 19-year-old Caucasian male student at the University of Maryland told this particular version of the ghosts of Woodburn Mansion. Now a sophomore architecture major, he grew up in a small town just outside of Dover, where the story of Woodburn is known all too well. The story was first told to him as a young teenager while actually visiting the mansion with his parents. The telling of a ghost story entails more than the text itself. Lighting, environment, tone of voice, and many other factors affect how well a ghost story is told. As one can see by reading the following story, simply reading a ghost story on paper does not have the same effect as hearing it performed by the teller in a fitting atmosphere. The following story was told one night in a dark, shadowy room filled with five or six college guys. The teller used long pauses, emphasis on certain words, and body gestures to make the story all the more believable and chilling. There’s a haunted house in Dover, Delaware called the Governor’s Mansion, where all of the Governors of Delaware have lived. If you go to the house yourself, you might see or experience a couple different ghosts. One evening, a guest to the house passed an old man dressed in old-fashioned clothes while going down the stairs for dinner. Once at the table the guest asked the owners who the person was. The curious owners asked for a description of the man. The description that the visitor sent chills down the spines of the owners, as it was an exact description of the owner’s father who had been dead for many years, and nobody else was in the house. The father had also been known for getting drunk a lot, so to this day he can still be seen drinking any liquor left out in the open. The mansion is also known for being a part of the Underground Railroad, so lots of slaves were always coming and going through the house at night. One night the house got busted an d one of the runaway slaves ran and hid in a big tree in the yard. The slave was up there for a while and was already tired from his journey to the house.