Tales of the spooky, supernatural, and unexplained
Venables in the Moonlight
An audio telling by John Burton of the Farmville-Prince Edward Historical Society can be found here.
Another Hampden Sydney haunting is that of the Venables. Samuel Woodson Venable was the first student at Hampden Sydney and later went on to be the first alumnus on the Board of Trustees. He went on to be top of his class at the College of New Jersey in 1780. One of his greatest accomplishments was earning the rank of colonel, but his largest victory was in marrying Mary Carrington. He lived a happy, successful life until his death in September of 1821. Many years later it was discovered that while Mary and their son were buried in Prince Edward, Samuel’s body was missing.
It was discovered that in his old age Samuel would visit a ‘healing spring’ in Monroe County, Virginia. He passed away on his final trip to Monroe, and he was buried in the spa’s cemetery. This would have been a peaceful resting place for Samuel, but West Virginia broke from Virginia and joined the Union, leaving Samuel in “enemy territory”, as Burton said. Odd sounds and lights appeared around Samuel’s grave, and it is said that Mary’s spirit sits on her grave on evenings of the full moon to try and reach her husband’s restless soul from over a hundred miles away.