Abram's Delight


The oldest house in Winchester, Virginia is known as "Abram's Delight." The history of the home goes back to the 1730s days when Abraham Hollingsworth received a land grant consisting of 582 acres in present-day Winchester. His land was a “delight to behold,” and he built a log cabin alongside a natural spring.

Hollingsworth died in 1748, and his wife passed away a year later. His second son, Isaac, inherited the property, which would stay in the Hollingsworth family for two hundred years. Isaac built a stone house that served as the first quaker meeting place in the area, and it holds the distinction of being the oldest house in Winchester.

Old homes and hauntings go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so, of course, Abram’s Delight has its share of ghost stories.

Abram’s Delight underwent restoration in the 1950s. During this time, workers began seeing a tall man, over six feet in height, dressed in quaker’s clothing, walking in an out of the house. Marguerite Du Pont Lee, who penned the classic book Virginia Ghosts, wrote the following:

The ghost walks up the front steps and onto the porch, passing through the closed and often locked front door. In about ten minutes, the figure emerges once more through the closed door, and upon reaching the grounds, walks a short distance, then vanishes! So familiar is this apparition, that workmen, seeing the ghost enter the house, would lean on their shovels and watch for its reappearing. They were never disappointed.

Marguerite Du Pont Lee, Virginia Ghosts

In my book Haunted Shenandoah Valley, I cover Abram's Delight and its hauntings as well as other haunts in the city of Winchester.

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