The Ghost of Christmas Past: In Search of Goodwin’s Ghost
There is an old English custom that had been in place for centuries before Charles Dickens wrote his tale of ghosts, greed, and atonement in 1843: Christmas was a time to tell ghost stories as you gathered about the fireplace—yes Christmas was as much about ghosts as Halloween. Yet as the English tale of the paranormal and penance rose to the forefront of American Christmas culture, the English custom of telling ghost stories at Christmas took a backseat to the frantic dash to buy gifts, along with decorating the Christmas tree (a German custom introduced to America in 1842 here in Williamsburg) and the fireplace on the inside, coupled with putting up elaborate displays of lights and decorations on the outside of the home. In an effort to resuscitate this custom, I began my search for a real ghost—once a man who when alive “communed” with the ghosts every Christmas eve at midnight: “Tonight,” he wrote in 1935, “I am in the Wythe House waiting for the hour to strike for the midnight Christmas-Eve service . . . One is not alone here. The Ghosts of the past are my gladsome companions in the near midnight silence.” He was also a man who learned about Williamsburg’s history from the ghosts. A famous newspaper columnist wrote that it was when this man “was alone, in the starlight, strolling in the night, talking with the ghosts, that he learned about Williamsburg.” He wrote to a ten-year-old that you can “shut your eyes and see the gladsome ghosts who once made these places their home. You can learn to call them back,” he said. “You can train yourself to hear what they have to say.” This man was a rector of a church as well as a theologian, so the obvious question is in death does he continue on this earth with his gladsome companions or does he go to that place of Scripture, myth, and legend—depending on your belief system—where he is rewarded for living a good life?
The man was Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, who first restored his place of worship, Williamsburg’s Bruton Parish Church (built in 1715), and then took on the task of restoring the whole former capital of Virginia to its colonial splendor. The quiet cleric who charmed Rockefeller out of millions to restore Williamsburg, spent many an evening in his office at the Parish House, the original home of George Wythe, a signor of the Declaration of Independence, law tutor and friend of Thomas Jefferson, and the nation’s first law professor (at the College of Williams and Mary). The home was built around 1750, and has been reported to be haunted for many years. (I covered the legends and lore of the house in my first book, Haunted Historic Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia with Breakthrough Ghost Photography.) Evidently Goodwin was familiar with the wraiths that haunt the Wythe House, because he wrote a woman who inquired about them, “they are very elusive ghosts and refuse to be delineated or described within the limits of any paragraph. The only way is to come here and hold communion with them.” If you haven’t gathered by now, ghosts were more than just metaphors for Goodwin—they were very real to a man who is now a ghost himself, who moved on to the realm of his gladsome companions in 1939. Goodwin knew, as I have come to find out, that for the most part, ghosts are not the malevolent and/or demonic variety seen in newer movies like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity, or even older movies like The Exorcist or The Shining, but rather quite innocuous—and sometimes helpful.
As I mentioned in my book, I can’t help but think that perhaps Goodwin’s ghost dwells perhaps in his former Parish House or in the Bruton Parish Church, and walks the streets of the city that he helped restore. For those that would cry foul, and say that the good rector has gone on to meet his Maker and his reward for a life well lived—who’s to say where that reward is? Perhaps it’s just a dimension away from ours, and he may look in upon his former haunts (pun intended) such as the Wythe House, or he may be one of the sentinels atop the Bruton Parish Church that oversee and protect it.
Bruton Parish Church holds a special place in my heart, because it was here that my paranormal odyssey began: I captured a lone apparition over the church of geometrically shaped colored light. If you would like to see that apparition and learn what it did to make such an indelible impression and inspired me to start this journey, check out Chapter 1 of my book Haunted Historic Colonial Williamsburg Virginia with Breakthrough Ghost Photography. It was quite a profound experience, and it was enough visual proof to make this skeptic a believer. Since that evening other apparitions have come out of hiding over top the church, making me wonder just how many ghosts are really there. One evening I even captured these apparitions forming a cross over the old church—something I have not seen since—that photo will be out in book #2. After reading how convinced Goodwin was of the existence of ghosts, I couldn’t help but think it might be him atop the old sanctuary, trying to prod me to make the rest of the world aware that Williamsburg, was more than just “America’s most historic avenue” (Franklyn D. Roosevelt, 1934), the old colonial capital that he knew and loved was a haven for ghosts of its historic past, that are just as real as you and I.
When I was young I saw a movie that I can still recall: The Sentinel (released in 1977, but I’m not sure when I saw it, because I saw it several years later on television). It was a film about a blind, damned clergyman that guarded the gates to hell, innocuously disguised as a Brooklyn brownstone. I’m sure that we all would be less than impressed with the movie’s special effects now, but the story was frightening. I’ve heard pastors talk of the malevolent spirits or demons out in the world, and this movie reminded me of that visually. When I first saw the apparition over the Bruton Parish Church, it made me think of that lone sentinel guarding not the gates of hell, but the doorways to the church. Several years later I was reminded what that sentinel atop the church might be guarding it from. One evening, the first night I set out on this Christmas quest, I captured an apparition on the bench just outside the doorway to the church. As I looked at the apparition, it brought back all the memories of that movie and its malevolent spirit forces. Take a look at the photo; what do you think it is? It resembles a red dragon(s), but is it a ghost? A demon? An alien? Were you as surprised as I was to see it right outside the doorway to a church?
Here’s the photo of the red dragon(s)-like apparition that appeared on a bench right outside the Bruton Parish Church:
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If you haven’t realized from the footnotes, I have taken all of W.A.R. Goodwin’s quotes from an article that Ivor Noël Hume wrote in the C.W. Journal in 2001 entitled Dr. Goodwin’s Ghosts. You see Hume had experiences in his native England with ghosts, and as a consequence has a visceral sense that they exist. He sought to prove his intuition by bringing a small group to the George Wythe House some years ago, hoping that the photographer that accompanied them, equipped with infrared film, might capture evidence of a paranormal presence at the old Wythe manor. Alas, he was unable to produce viable proof of the paranormal, but you can see some of the Wythe’s wraiths in Chapter 8 of my book. After reading Hume’s article on line, I thought what a great Christmas odyssey to hunt not for the ghosts that haunt the Wythe House, some of which I had already found, but instead to search for the ghost of Goodwin himself. Perhaps he is in some heavenly place of unimaginable beauty light years away, or just maybe he is just a dimension away, trolling the streets at night, or perhaps hanging at the Wythe House or the Bruton Parish Church. I cannot say where he is or what he is doing, but it would be great to search for Goodwin, either in the church that he helped restore, or in the larger church of political thought called Williamsburg. In his efforts to restore the ancient capital, he often spoke of its origins in Jamestown, and how the founding fathers such as Jefferson, Washington, and Henry, among others, discussed and debated these ideas in the homes and buildings of Williamsburg, to help form the first real democratic society in the modern world—that was his selling point to restore the capital. Of course my selling point for Williamsburg is that not only are those ideas for democracy still here, but also some of the purveyors of that ideology still linger, and perhaps among them—Rev. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin. The search is on . . .
(Stay tuned for Part II of this Christmas saga: The Ghosts of Christmas Past—the Search for Goodwin’s Ghost.)
Ivor Noël Hume, Doctor Goodwin’s Ghosts: A Tale of Midnight and Wythe House Mysteries, CW Journal http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring01/wythe_ghosts.cfm (Spring 2001; Accessed Nov. 7, 2016)
Ibid
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After 2 years of research, a lot of experimentation, and over 10,000 photographs, check out the world’s first groundbreaking photographic study of ghosts: Haunted, Historic Colonial Williamsburg Virginia with Breakthrough Ghost Photography available at both Schiffer Publishing and at Amazon:
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Amazon: http://amzn.com/0764350609
Tim Scullion is a published author, photographer, and musician. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary, with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree Cum Laude. In addition to the book mentioned above, Tim has written a novel, a series of instruction books on the guitar, a children’s book (all available on Amazon) and has a photo-essay published by the University of Virginia in the book Troubled Times Companion, Vol. III.
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