West Virginia, Jefferson County

Charles Town. Ghosts aside (see next item), the Zion Episcopal Church cemetery is historically notable for the “approximately seventy members” of President George Washington’s family buried here, including twenty who were born at Mount Vernon, and especially for the unique gravestone of a non-Washington, Mary Ann Marbury Morsell (1798-1831), who died at age 32 of complications from childbirth.  

The lines on Morsell’s gravestone were written by a family friend and amateur poet—none other than Francis Scott Key, whose 1814 poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” set by others almost immediately to an 18th-century tune, became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the official U.S. national anthem. Less well known is his engraved epitaph in the Charles Town churchyard: 

“A LITTLE while,” this narrow house, prepared 

By grief and love, shall hold the blessed dead; 

“A little while,” and she who sleeps below 

Shall hear the call to rise and live forever; 

“A little while,” and ye who pour your tears 

On this cold grave, shall waken in your own, 

And ye shall see her, in her robes of light, 

And hear her song of triumph. Would ye then 

Partake with her the bliss of that new life? 

Tread now the path she brightly marked before ye! 

Choose now her Lord! live now her life! and yours 

Shall be her hope and victory in death. 

This text is from a page devoted to Mary Ann’s sketchy first husband: Browne, John. “Fitzhugh, Richard Henry (dates unknown).” The Story of Ravensworth. 2022. https://ravensworthstory.org/people/owners/fitzhugh-family/fitzhugh-richard-h/#fnref-1319-2. The “(dates unknown”) in Browne’s title acknowledges a bit of historical vagueness: That Mary Ann remarried is clear; less clear are when her first husband died, and/or when he and Mary Ann divorced. Her gravestone identifies her as Judge Morsell’s “Consort," which wasn't eyebrow-raising in the 19th century; the many titles of Queen Victoria's lawful husband included Prince Consort. 

Incidentally, Mary Ann’s father—who outlived her—was the wealthy, disgruntled office seeker who filed Marbury v. Madison, the 1803 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared its ability to rule on the constitutionality of federal laws. The defendant was the rather more famous James Madison, then President Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of state. Though SCOTUS said, almost as an aside, that Marbury was entitled to claim the title Justice of the Peace, he never did. Certainly he didn’t need the money. Like countless historic troublemakers since, he apparently sued only on the principle of the thing. 

See “More History” at the Zion Episcopal website, https://www.zionepiscopal.net/more-history, and “William Marbury,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Marbury. Mary Ann’s Find a Grave entry is https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/170579658/mary-ann-morsell.  

Charles Town: Civil War. The Zion Episcopal Church and its small, stately cemetery are probably the most active ghost site in Charles Town,” writes Rosemary Ellen Guiley, who doesn’t even mention Mary Ann Marbury Morsell’s remarkable epitaph (see item above). “The most often seen ghost in Charles Town,” Guiley says, is that of Mary Allibone, who grieved herself to death after her brother, an unsuspecting passer-by, was fatally caught in the crossfire of John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. 

When Turner’s body was returned to his home in Charles Town, Mary collapsed in grief and agony. Long after he was buried in the Zion cemetery, Mary continued to wear black and remain in deep mourning. She lost her will to live and died. She was buried alongside her beloved brother. Her ghost wanders the cemetery, still dressed in black, and sobs out the name of her brother. 

“Another restless Zion ghost,” Guiley says, is that of John Yates Beall, “an engineer credited with building the cemetery wall.” Shot in the lung and invalided out of the Confederate army, Beall continued to plot against the Union. Convicted of trying to derail a train, he was hanged in New York in 1865. 

Beall’s ghost has been seen near his gravesite, wearing a suit and bow tie. He has a mustache and goatee. His head, however, is not on straight but lies to one side on a shoulder. 

None of this is on the church website. See Guiley, Rosemary Ellen. The Big Book of West Virginia Ghost Stories. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2014. Pages 28-29.