Читать книгу Nashville Haunted Handbook - Jeff Morris - Страница 26

directions

Near downtown, you can get to the Belmont Mansion from the heart of the city in less than 15 minutes. Simply take Broadway out to 12th Avenue South to Ashwood Avenue. Turn right onto Ashwood Avenue. Almost a half mile down Ashwood, take a left onto Belmont Boulevard. The mansion is on the Belmont University campus and will be on your left.

history

The mansion itself dates back to 1853, and throughout the years of its existence, it has seen its share of pain and drama. Most people believe that the ghost who walks these halls is the ghost of Adelicia Acklen.

Ms. Acklen was known to be quite good at manipulating men, and she used this skill to her advantage often, eventually becoming one of the wealthiest women in post–Civil War Nashville. While most people from the South were impoverished to some extent during the years just after the war, Adelicia flourished and flaunted her wealth without reservation.

Despite her financial luck, she did meet with her own share of personal heartache. Several of her children succumbed to disease and died in the house at very young ages. This completely devastated Adelicia, and she would withdraw from society for long periods of time after each death. Often, it would take her months to emerge from her depression.

During the latter years of her life, Adelicia would often comment to guests that “you can’t take it with you.” In 1887, Adelicia herself died in the mansion. Today, the mansion is the largest house museum in Tennessee and the only such house whose history centers upon the life of a woman.

ghost story

It seems that Adelicia is attempting to defy her own adage and has indeed taken her grand mansion with her into the afterlife—or perhaps she just never left in the first place. All of the activity in this house can be attributed to Adelicia’s ghost.

Most of the ghostly sightings here actually involve a full-figured apparition of Adelicia herself. People will see a woman dressed in a lavish mid-1800s dress walking the halls of Belmont. People will see her all throughout the mansion. Sometimes she is glimpsed at the end of a long hallway before she immediately vanishes. Other times she is seen standing by the windows in upstairs rooms. Once, a woman visitor was walking down a hallway in the building and turned a corner, only to find herself face-to-face with the ghost of Adelicia. Turning around and fleeing in terror, the witness didn’t wait to give the apparition a chance to vanish.

Some say that Adelicia stays at the mansion, waiting for her deceased children to return to her. Others claim that she loved her life and her home so much that she was unwilling to leave. Everyone who has seen the ghost believes that it is Adelicia herself, as permanent a fixture in the area as the house.

visiting

The mansion is closed to the public at night. But this doesn’t mean that it is impossible for you to encounter the ghost of Adelicia Acklen. The mansion itself is a museum, and it is open for tours during the day all throughout the week. From Monday through Saturday, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Sunday it is open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Guided tours move throughout the house during the day and take about 45 minutes to an hour. These tours are your best chance to explore the building and perhaps catch a glimpse of the famous ghost. Admission to the mansion does cost $10 for adults, but even if you do not catch sight of the ghost, it is well worth the money to see the historic mansion itself.