“Sir Edward”

Nov 26, 2019

This local legend comes from Spirits of Frederick by Alyce T. Weinberg. All of the images are google images.

“With a step, bump, step, bump, one slow stumbling step at a time, the ghost of Edward McPherson climbed the narrow enclosed back stairway of Auburn for years. He was affectionately called “Sir Edward” by his family.”

“Auburn is a 15 room, white colonial mansion built in 1805 on a hill on the west side of U.S. 15, one mile south of Catoctin Furnace. There are many fireplaces and chimneys and archways, and a suspended front staircase 47 feet high in the wide hall. The ghost prefers to haunt the back stairs, which led to the kitchen and the back door.

When Edward was 22, he was slain in a duel in the army of General Winfield Scott during the Mexican War in 1848. His body was interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery. His spirit chose to haunt Auburn…though he was born and raised at Prospect Hall.

A woman, who lived in the house when the book was written, and her husband believe the story of Sir Edward was an old wives tale.

A woman who lived in nearby Thurmont, who was the wife of William McPherson McGill, tells about Edward McPherson’s ghost…

When she was a child, she often visited the home of the local minister – Rev. Ernest McGill (whose son she later married). When the children would be sent upstairs for a nap they would listen for the sound of dragging feet limping up the back stairs, a sword or something bumping along the way. sleep was always out of the question.

She never saw Sir Edward, as she was always too scared to look. she does – or did – have a daguerreotype of sir Edward among her keepsakes.

No one has heard from him in many, many years.

• Could Edwards ghost been confused and not none where to go? Auburn house and Prospect Hall are very similar in build. Not the same, but similar.

• Prospect Hall is still there, at the corner of Butterfly Lane and Jefferson Pike. It is now part of a housing complex and is, I believe, on the National Register of Historic Places, being built before the Civil War. It is said that during the Civil War, it was turned into a hospital.

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“Sometimes the best place to be is nowhere to be found.”

~ unknown