Old House Woods

Road leading down to Haven Beach, April 2008

One of the most rewarding aspects of writing this little blog is the e-mail I receive.  Sometimes people are searching for this or that and have a question or two relating to Mathews.  I try to point them in the right direction. Other times the writer simply wants to share memories and experiences, and on such occasions I often feel as though I've won the lottery.

Aside from New Point Light, the battle of Cricket Hill, and Tompkins Cottage, Mathews is world- renowned for a few things, one of which is Old House Woods.

Saturday I won the lottery when I heard from someone whose family owned the house of Old House Woods (Haunted Woods) fame in the 1960s.

Don Winant e-mailed some of his memories from Old House Woods, most of which do not involve ghosts but do, of course, involve mosquitoes.

He gave me permission to share some excerpts from our correspondence:

"My father, Barent Winant, purchased 'Old House Woods' in 1960 and sold the home and land in 1969. The ghosts never bothered me but the humidity and mosquitoes sure did. We lived in Virginia Beach (my Dad was in the Navy) and frequented the plantation on weekends and holidays. I bet the property is worth much more than $7000 purchase price in 1960!"

"...As a child it was always fun to spend time at "The Farm", as we called it. Driving past the General Store (actually the only store) in Diggs, take a left onto some road I have forgotten, then a right and then a left onto the long driveway leading to the old 1774 Colonial plantation. It was marshy property, so, yes, the mosquitoes were horrendous!  We smothered ourselves in "Off" bug spray during the summer months. Late Fall, Winter and early Spring were pleasant since the sparrow-size mosquitoes had not yet risen from the marshes. During the summer months we heated the old homestead with oil and the only one of six fireplaces not sealed off...”

CBW would just like to add here that, much like our ants and other insects, the geese mosquitoes in Mathews are abnormally large, aggressive and sometimes mistaken for ghosts predatory birds.
  
Let’s return now to his e-mail--already in progress--which references at least one ghostly encounter in those haunted woods.

"...The home, at the time, had around 6 rooms, plus a library intact with very old books; the bookshelves were stacked to the ceiling with 19th and early 20th century novels! Now that I'm an antique book collector, I wish I had held onto some of those classics. 

During the summer months my brother and I slept on the porch since it was cooler there. One night we heard a noise and this ghost popped up outside the porch! The ghost's face was lit up and he was covered in a white sheet!

I grabbed my BB gun and shot the ghost in the chest---"Ouch!" it said.

Well, turns out it was my dad trying to scare my brother Brent and I.

A paranormal outfit did visit "Old House Farm" (the haunted woods) and set up their eavesdropping equipment, but I don't recall if they ever picked up energy from Blackbeard the Pirate or the generations of plantation owners and slaves who inhabited the home and property.  There is, however, a burial ground on the land for slaves and Native Americans. Except for my dad scaring the wits out of his children, we never felt threatened by paranormal activity. One could; however, if you closed your eyes and quieted your mind, you could feel the presence and energy of past generations (the Native Americans, the Colonists, and  the Slaves)  who traversed the land and the bay of the Tidewater.  ”

April 2008

I can't thank Don enough for sharing his story (and his father's incredible sense of humor) with us. Thank you.

For the sake of posterity, I'd like to include the names of his parents, Navy Commander Barent Parlee Winant III and Laurencia "Toy" Winant.  They lived in Virginia Beach from 1960 until '67; Subic Bay, Philippines from '67 - '69; then Williamsburg from 1969 to 1970 before moving to Seattle.

Click here  for a previous post referencing Old House Woods.