Local Ghost Stories

PoplarHillMansion: A local legend

Stacey Fennimore, Tiffany Smith

Storytelling is an art and a skill. Storytelling is a way to connect children to content through a fun and unique activity. It allows children to develop a story of their own and perform their tale. Showcasing children’s stories is a way to develop public speaking and promote eye contact, use of voice, pacing, and volume. Parents and members of the community are a great resource to invite in the classroom and speak about personal stories or legends.

Phase 1:

  • Introduce the idea of storytelling throughghost stories.
  • Have students brainstorm ideas about ghost stories.
  • Listen to the story of PoplarHillMansion, provided by the teacher.
  • View the virtual tour of the house.

Phase 2:

  • Prepare students to create a ghost story of their own by discussing elements found in a story.
  • The characters are heroic, superhuman, or larger than life.
  • The plottells a story. Usually a struggle between good and evil.
  • The theme usually teaches the reader about human nature or emotion.
  • The setting is in the past.
  • Students will fill out story map to create their own ghost story or a ghost story passed down in their family.
  • Students will publish their ghost story.

Phase 3:

  • Children will participate in an author’s theatre and present their ghost storywith the class.
  • The collection of ghost stories will be copied and put together in a book for the school.

Extension:

  • Invite parents or community members to speak to the class about their own ghost stories or personal experiences.

Standard 6.0 Social Studies Skills and Processes

Students will use historical thinking skills to understand how individuals and events have changed society over time.

Topic

B.Write to Learn and Communicate Social Studies Understandings

Indicator

1.Use informal writing strategies, such as journal writing, note taking, quick writes, and graphic organizers to clarify, organize, remember and/or express new understandings

Objectives

  1. Identify key ideas
  1. Connect key ideas to prior knowledge (personal experience, text, and world)

Indicator

2.Use formal writing, such as multi-paragraph essays, historical investigations, research reports, letters and summaries to inform

Objectives

  1. Identify form, audience, topic, and purpose before writing
  1. Organize facts and/or data to support a topic
  1. Provide introduction, body, and conclusion
  1. Cite sources of information

Standard 4.0 Writing

Students will compose in a variety of modes by developing content, employing specific forms, and selecting language appropriate for a particular audience and purpose.

Topic

A.Writing

Indicator

2.Compose oral, written, and visual presentations that express personal ideas, inform, and persuade

Objectives

  1. Compose to express personal ideas to develop fluency using a variety of forms such as journals, narratives, letters, reports, and paragraphs

Standard 7.0 Speaking

Student will communicate effectively in a variety of situations with different audiences, purposes, and formats.

Topic

A.Speaking

Indicator

1.Use organization and delivery strategies at an appropriate level

Objectives

  1. Speak clearly enough to be heard and understood in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes

The History of Popular HillMansion:

PoplarHillMansion was built as the manor house of a farm outside the small eighteenth century town of Salisbury, which has expanded from a port landing at the head of the WicomicoRiver since 1732. Construction was begun by Major Levin Handy in 1795, when the Major took out a deed for 357 acres of the original 700 acre land patent called "Pembertons Good Will." The house Handy began in 1795-96 was a large Federal-style structure that surpassed anything that was being built in that time. The Major's architectural ambitions were costly and this inhibited him from finishing the construction. In 1803 the property was ordered to be put up for sale for payment of debts. The house still needed to be finished.

In 1805 the title was passed to a prominent physician in Salisbury, Dr. John Huston. When the Doctor died in 1828 the property and house were left to his wife Sarah. In the late 1840s to early 1850s, she partially subdivided it, overseeing the laying out of Poplar Hill Avenue and Isabella Street. The subdivision of "Poplar Farm" continued at a moderate rate before the Civil War. From the 1870s until World War One, the extended area experienced a building boom, creating Salisbury's first suburb, or "Newtown." Mrs. Huston left Poplar Hill to her daughter Elizabeth, who initiated its sale to George Waller in 1881. (Elizabeth and her sister Isabella are commemorated in the names of neighborhood streets.)

George Waller and his family lived in the house from 1882 to 1945. Various early photos and memorabilia belonging to the Wallers are located in the Mansion’s archives. Fred A. Adkins, who purchased the property in 1945, undertook restoration work with the hope of turning the house into the local Masonic Lodge. In 1948, when this failed to materialize, the house passed to Mr. and Mrs. Ward A. Garber, who maintained an 18th century period antique shop downstairs and lived upstairs. Mrs. Garber sold the property to WicomicoCounty in 1970 and since 1974 the City of Salisbury has owned it as a house museum in the public trust.

Information obtained from:

The Legend of the Ghost “Sara”

It has been said that during the Huston Period a 19 year old slave girl named Sara was burned to death in the nursery. She died when her long, full hoop skirt was caught on fire from the embers of the fire place. To this day you can still se the scorch marks on the floor from where she had been standing. To this day you can supposedly see her image on the stairs and in the room.

Other ghost stories related to PopularHillMansion:

Another well known haunting also takes place in the nursery. Supposedly there is a small child that will play deviant tricks on the owner of the house. This child will turn a small child size rocking chair to face the wall as if he/ she were in a time out. The owner has said that she has turned it to face the proper direction and within minutes of leaving the room it will be turned around again.

The current owner of the house also states that she will often hear a loud crash in the middle of the night as if something large has fallen. Then she will hear the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs as if someone were running from or to the sound of the crash.

Story Map for Ghost Story

Title:

What will your legend explain:

Characters:

Setting:

Events:

Plot:

Solution: