If this old house's ghost could talk, it would help

By Jane Bloodworth Rowe

Correspondent

Princess Anne

Play old-time games, buy a local map from 1930, or just learn a bit about Princess Anne County history at a Preservation Awareness Event today at the Whitehurst-Buffington House on North Landing Road.

Barbara Vaughan and Phyllis Sawyer, Princess Anne residents, have organized the event to raise awareness of this house, built in 1793 and located near the municipal center.

There will be a silent auction, music and activities such as needlework, checkers or hoop rolling that children "back in the day" might have participated in, Sawyer said.

Visitors will be able to buy a "Sams Map," a detailed map of Princess Anne County drawn in 1930 by Conway Sams, a Norfolk attorney. Information about Princess Anne County's past will be on display.

Vaughan and Sawyer, who still live near the municipal center, where they grew up, said t hey would like the city-owned mansion to be used one day as a museum for Princess Anne County.

"I just have so many dreams and hopes for the house," said Vaughan, who, with Sawyer organized the Friends of the Whitehurst-Buffington House.

The two-story house with a Flemish bond exterior is featured in the Virginia Beach Historic Preservation Partnership's 50 Most Historically Significant Houses and Structures in Virginia Beach, and in "Ghosts, Witches and Weird Tales of Virginia Beach," by Lillie Gilbert, Belinda Nash and Deni Norred-Williams.

Originally a white clapboard like many in the county, the house was built on land owned by Francis Whitehurst, a plantation owner and farmer. It remained in the Whitehurst family until the 1930s, when it was bought by Jay and Emily Buffington.

Buffington was a banker who worked with the old First and Merchants Bank in Norfolk; his wife was a former journalist who became librarian at Courthouse Elementary School. The Buffington family lived there until the 1980s, Vaughan and Sawyer said.

Legend holds that the benevolent ghost of a Civil War veteran visited the estate's children at night. During his lifetime, he loved children, but feared they would be frightened by his disfigurement from battle wounds, the women said.

"But as a ghost, he would appear to the children, because he knew that they wouldn't be frightened of him then," Sawyer said.

Now, the veteran's grave, located near the Whitehurst-Buffington House, has been cleaned up and the tombstone restored. The house, however, is unoccupied, with boarded up windows and doors and overgrown boxwoods, honeysuckle and ivy covering the grounds.

Vaughan and Sawyer, who remember playing near the house as children, said they would like to work with city officials to restore the house and grounds.

"So much of old Princess Anne is being swept up, but there are those of us who still hold that name dear," Vaughan said. "We can't save everything, but maybe we can save this."

Jane Bloodworth Rowe, jrowe28@cox.net