Dunlora Forest Community Tour in Charlottesville, Virginia
Dunlora Plantation is doubly-haunted, first by slavery, and secondly by a witch who supposedly killed some boy scouts. I’ll leave slavery aside for brevity’s sake and focus on the witch.
Legend has it that in 1920, a group of six boy scouts and their scoutmaster got lost on a hike in the woods around Charlottesville. They inadvertently wandered onto a witch’s property and set up camp for the night. The scoutmaster was awakened in the night by a noise and checked on the boys, only to find their tents were empty. He began searching, calling their names in the night, but could find no trace of them. Then he saw a light in the distance in the woods. He followed it, only to arrive at an abandoned mansion on the Dunlora Plantation. He searched inside the dark house, and lifted his lantern to reveal the face of a wizened crone, who cackled, I’m sure. Freaked, the scoutmaster ran. Down the road, he looked back and saw all six of the children standing stock still by the side of the road staring at him, their stomachs ripped open. He collapsed and went insane. The boys were later found in their tents, dead and disemboweled.
A few weeks later, seven fully grown trees appeared on the road to the plantation—six straight up and down, and one gnarled and bent over. Legend has it that the straight trees each contain the soul of one of the boys, imprisoned by the witch for all time. The seventh was the scoutmaster, his soul twisted for eternity.
Dunlora is now a private community of rich people now, descendants of slave masters and maybe witches, and they’re being haunted by teenagers who drive through their community in the middle of the night looking for the mansion and the seven trees. The residents and “historians” deny that any of the events described above actually happened, but isn’t that exactly what they would say if they were trying to cover up unspeakable evil?
