VICKSBURG, Miss. (WLBT) - McRaven House in Vicksburg is considered by many to be the most haunted building in Mississippi. WLBT digital team members Josh Carter and Jacob Gallant toured the home after dark and hunted for ghosts. Our gracious hosts Jessica, Grace and Michael showed us around the home, told us the history and delved into the reasons why the home continues to frighten the locals. This is what we learned and found inside the historic home:
: The most haunted house in Mississippi does, in fact, look haunted.
It stands at the end of a Vicksburg street miles away from the state’s largest cemetery and mere feet away from train tracks.
The first section of McRaven House was built before Vicksburg officially existed on a street once called McRaven.
And, like any good haunted house, the history of McRaven is marred in death.
The home was used as a field hospital during the Civil War and past owners have also died within its walls, some of old age and some during child birth.
Others were dragged from the home’s property and shot in the head - this being the fate of John Bobb, whose murder was the first recorded act of violence by Union soldiers after the Siege of Vicksburg.
In the year 1882, the home was purchased by William Murray. Most of his family would live and die there, and the home was eventually left to his hermit daughters, Annie and Ella.
Upon their departure, the daughters would leave the home in such squalid conditions that neighbors wouldn’t even know it still existed. It would also be learned that some of the home’s antique furniture had been used by the sisters as firewood.
In recent years, McRaven has undergone an extensive facelift and was sold to its current owners for over a million dollars. It is now used for tours, both haunted and historical.
And once a month, the home is opened for a ghost hunt.
JG: You’d think when the walls begin shaking and a shrieking sound screams out while you’re inside the walls of a haunted house at midnight, there would be reason to panic.
This is simply a reality of McRaven House. And no, it’s not because of the ghosts.
As I walked up to the front of the home, I was greeted with a loud shriek and constant chugging in my ear. Because there was no significant source of light, my first assumption was the housekeepers were playing sound effects to add to the ambiance of the house.
As I got closer, I realized it was a nearby train.
Actually, to say the home is “nearby” train tracks is probably underselling it. The tracks practically cut through the front lawn.
“This train has been going by for 10 minutes,” Josh told me as we walked up.
As we finally moved into silence, we were greeted by crickets and not much else. In a way, this was even more unsettling. Besides, how can we hear the Confederate soldiers whistling if there’s a loud train passing by?
Another five or so trains passed by in the preceding hours we spent at the historic Vicksburg home. One particularly obtrusive train sped by, rattling the home, as we were upstairs calling toward the Bobb family to speak to us.
