Meridian, Lauderdale County, Mississippi
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| Photo: Wikipedia |
Standing behind towering white columns in Meridian, Mississippi, Merrehope Mansion looks like the very picture of an elegant Southern estate.
Its long galleries, ornate rooms, sweeping staircase, and brilliant white exterior have survived war, changing fortunes, decades as rental property, near destruction, and an enormous restoration effort.
But according to generations of stories surrounding the house, Merrehope may have preserved more than its architecture.
People associated with the mansion have reported apparitions in its rooms, unexplained footsteps and noises, impressions appearing on beds, and the unsettling sensation that someone unseen is nearby.
Among all of Merrehope's alleged spirits, one name appears again and again.
Eugenia.
The story of Merrehope begins in 1859, when Richard McLemore, one of Meridian's early settlers, gave 160 acres of land to his daughter Juriah as a wedding gift.
Juriah and her husband, William H. Jackson, built a Greek Revival cottage on the property. That comparatively modest cottage became the original heart of the enormous mansion visitors see today.
Then came the Civil War.
In 1863, Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston used the cottage as his headquarters. Later that year, General Leonidas Polk, an Episcopal bishop turned Confederate commander who became known as the "Fighting Bishop," moved into the house with his family and established his headquarters there.
In February 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman marched into Meridian.
Polk and his forces evacuated as Sherman's troops entered the city. Railroad tracks were destroyed for miles, military infrastructure was targeted, and much of Meridian was burned.
Yet the little house that would eventually become Merrehope survived.
After the war, the property began its transformation from cottage to mansion.
Cotton broker John Gary acquired the house after the Civil War and substantially remodeled it. A double parlor, library, upstairs rooms, and ruby-etched glass surrounding the front entrance were among the additions that helped transform the original Greek Revival cottage into a much grander residence with Italianate influences.
Other families followed.
From 1881 until the end of the nineteenth century, the house was occupied by J. C. Lloyd, a Meridian businessman and civic leader, his wife, and their large family.
Then, in the early twentieth century, wealthy cotton broker Sam Floyd undertook another dramatic renovation.
The enormous exterior columns that dominate the mansion today were added during this period, along with the suspended balcony, additional bedrooms and bathrooms, dining and morning rooms, and an elaborate hand-carved walnut staircase.
Electricity was installed, and the house assumed much of the Neoclassical appearance it retains today.
But grand houses do not always remain grand houses.
Beginning in 1915, the property entered a very different chapter of its life. It became rental property and a boarding house, and in 1945 owner Otto Tibbetts divided the enormous residence into eight apartments.
Decades of heavy use took their toll.
By the 1960s, the once-magnificent mansion was in danger of disappearing.
Its rescue began in 1968, when local women traveling to a Federated Women's Club meeting discussed the need for a permanent meeting place in Meridian. One of them knew of the deteriorating mansion and believed it was too beautiful to lose.
Members of Meridian's Federated Women's Clubs organized the Meridian Restorations Foundation and acquired the property.
They also gave the mansion the name by which it is known today.
MER came from Meridian.
RE came from Restoration.
And HOPE represented hope for the future.
Merrehope.
The restoration saved one of Meridian's most remarkable historic homes and eventually transformed it into the house museum visitors can tour today.
It was during Merrehope's restored life that stories about its other occupants began attracting increasing attention.
The most famous is Eugenia Gary.
Eugenia was the daughter of John Gary, one of Merrehope's nineteenth-century owners. She died young from tuberculosis, historically called consumption.
There is one particularly strange detail about the story.
Eugenia apparently never lived at Merrehope.
Yet she is the person most frequently identified as its ghost.
A portrait of Eugenia eventually came to Merrehope with other Gary family possessions. According to the mansion's ghost tradition, a former hostess reportedly encountered the apparition of a young woman and later recognized the figure as Eugenia from her portrait.
Other sightings followed.
Eugenia has reportedly been seen in different areas of the mansion and looking from its windows. Those who believe they have encountered her generally describe the presence as peaceful rather than threatening.
One particularly personal account was preserved by Merrehope's own oral-history project.
A woman who once lived in the cottage portion of Merrehope recalled becoming seriously ill while she was there alone. During the illness, she felt what seemed to be someone sitting on the foot of her bed.
Then she felt a hand gently stroking her head and back.
She believed the comforting presence was Eugenia.
If Eugenia represents Merrehope's gentler supernatural reputation, another part of the mansion has developed a considerably stranger one.
The Periwinkle Room has been associated with unexplained disturbances.
One former hostess reported entering the room and seeing what appeared to be the impression of a human body on the bed, as though someone had just been lying there.
She searched for an intruder.
No one was found.
Other stories from the room describe sudden crashes and loud bangs. When people investigated the noises, they reportedly discovered nothing broken and no obvious source for the disturbance.
More recent local accounts suggest that the supernatural folklore surrounding Merrehope has continued to grow, with people connected to the property describing several possible presences within the mansion.
One of those spirits has been identified in local accounts as a former boarding-house resident named Marcus, sometimes described as a protective presence that reacts when something in the mansion displeases him.
As with many historic hauntings, however, the strength of the evidence varies considerably from story to story.
Eugenia Gary was a real person connected to a family that owned Merrehope, and her portrait and family history became part of the mansion's collection.
That does not establish that an apparition seen inside the house was Eugenia.
Nor does an unexplained indentation in a bed prove that an invisible visitor had been lying there.
Merrehope itself provides plenty of ordinary ingredients for extraordinary experiences.
It is enormous, old, and architecturally complex. Portions of the building date to before the Civil War, while others were added during later renovations. Wood settles. Pipes and walls carry sound. Weather changes pressure inside large rooms. Footsteps can travel through halls and stairways in surprising ways.
And a house filled with portraits, antique furnishings, darkened doorways, and more than a century and a half of history can make the imagination particularly alert.
But Merrehope's ghost stories have endured alongside its documented history.
Perhaps that is fitting.
The house itself is made from layers of different lives.
A wedding cottage became a military headquarters.
A wartime survivor became a wealthy family's mansion.
A mansion became a boarding house and apartments.
A deteriorating building became a preservation project.
And something once nearly lost became a museum dedicated to remembering the people who passed through it.
Today, visitors walk beneath Merrehope's enormous columns and through rooms that survived events that destroyed much of the world around them.
They can climb the staircase, examine the furnishings, study the portraits, and learn the histories of the families who once called the property home.
And somewhere among those portraits is the face of a young woman named Eugenia.
A woman who, according to history, never lived in Merrehope.
Yet according to its most enduring ghost story, she may still come home. 🌹
Visitor Information:
Merrehope
905 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
Meridian, Mississippi 39301
Phone: (601) 483-8439
Website: https://merrehope.com
Merrehope is operated by the Meridian Restorations Foundation and is open to the public for guided historic tours. The mansion also hosts special events and private functions. Tour schedules, admission information, and seasonal events can change, so visitors should check the official Merrehope website before planning a visit.