The Cursed House

I found this story in an old book.  The book, Ghosts in American Houses, was published in1955 and given to my grandmother in 1965.  Although this is a fascinating story, the only evidence of anyone mentioned in the story I could find outside of the story  itself was in old genealogical records.  I couldn't find any information on the famous, cursed house.

According to the story,  Phillip Noland who lived in Loudoun County, Virginia in1750 and acquired a track of beautiful land.  Noland was a rich planter whom had married into great wealth.  Noland had a grand vision of building the most extravagant house in the South.  He saw his verdant land as the perfect setting for his dream home and began construction on it.  The house would be four stories of red brick and would possess every luxury a house of this scale could possess.  It would even have a ballroom.  The house was so beautiful, that early in construction it entranced General Anthony Wayne.   Wayne and Noland became friends and Wayne followed the progress of the construction of the house with great interest. 

Years passed, and the house seemed to grow no closer to completion.   In fact, it just seemed to drain the once wealthy Noland's financial resources.  Noland's own money dwindled and then the extravagant inheritance his wife left him dwindled until the only thing Noland had left in the world was the house that seemed impossible to complete.  Many thought the house was shrouded in some kind of curse because no amount of work or money ever brought the house closer to completion.  There was a Hessian prisoner camp near by the house and when several of the Hessians escaped, the were shot dead after being chased into the house.   It was said that these men left behind their ghosts in the house.  Their ghosts rattled around inside the unfinishable house torturing Noland to his dying day.  When finally Noland died, his ghost added to the general cacophony inside the house until Wayne died and joined them.

According to the author, the house was still unfinished when he wrote his book on haunted houses in the early 1950s.  It lay in disrepair.  Its ballrooms still laid exposed to the weather and the entrance hall, that was once lit by a glass fan, was still only partially done, waiting for the ghosts inside it to finish it.