Haunted places guide · Williamsburg, Virginia

The Haunted Peyton Randolph House, Williamsburg: History and Ghosts

A rust-red house on Nicholson Street where a knight died slowly, smallpox swept through the household, wounded soldiers lay after the Battle of Williamsburg and generations of guides have sworn they saw someone at the window. Here is the real history, and what the ghost stories rest on.

By The Haunted Rooms Team · Updated November 2026 · How we rate places

4.5/5Haunted Rooms Score

c. 1715Oldest part built

27Enslaved people who lived here

Our nearest ghost hunt: Berkeley Plantation, VAMeet the ghosts

The Peyton Randolph House stands on the corner of Nicholson Street and the Palace Green in Colonial Williamsburg, a long, two-story frame house painted a deep rust red. It was home to Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses and first president of the Continental Congress, and to 27 enslaved men, women and children whose lives the house now tells as well. Colonial Williamsburg restored it from 1938 to 1940 and opens it to visitors on guided tours.

It is also, by reputation, the most haunted house in Williamsburg. Writers have called it one of the most haunted houses in America, the College of William & Mary’s student paper ran a story under that headline in 2013, and almost every ghost walk in town ends up outside it after dark. This guide sets out what is documented, what is told, and what has no record behind it at all.

History of the Peyton Randolph House

The oldest part of the house, the western half of the main block, was built around 1715 by William Robertson. In 1724 it was bought by Sir John Randolph, a College of William & Mary alumnus and the only colonial-born Virginian ever knighted, who also built a second house on the lot to the east. Sir John did not enjoy it long. He died there a few years later, and Colonial Williamsburg historian Taylor Stoermer told the Flat Hat in 2013 that he probably had stomach cancer and suffered for about a month under the treatments of the day: “They’re bleeding him, they’re sweating him.”

His son Peyton joined the two houses with a new middle section, which is why the building is so long today. Peyton Randolph became Speaker of the House of Burgesses and, in 1774, the first president of the Continental Congress. He had no children, but he supported his patriot nephew Edmund, while his own brother John, a loyalist, left for England. When John died there his body was brought home and buried in the crypt of the Wren Building chapel beside his father and brother.

The house was not a quiet one. Records show that during the smallpox epidemic of 1748, four of the 23 people living here died, most likely servants and enslaved people. Colonial Williamsburg’s tours now focus on the 27 enslaved people who lived and worked on the property, and on how they held on to their humanity while the men who enslaved them talked of liberty in the rooms next door.

The Randolphs left in 1775 and came back in 1784 to a town ruined by war and a house in poor repair. In the 19th century it passed through many owners. The Peachy family owned it during the Civil War, and after the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, 1862 it was used as a hospital for wounded soldiers. Some of them may have died here.

Colonial Williamsburg restored the house between 1938 and 1940. The original east wing was in such poor condition that it was taken down and rebuilt, and during that work, and the building of the Colonial Parkway tunnel nearby in 1941, graves and Native American pottery were found in the ground. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and is a National Historic Landmark.

The ghosts of the Peyton Randolph House

What is documented, and what is legend

Nothing about the ghosts of this house is documented in the way its history is. What exists is a long run of stories told by residents, staff and guides, collected by writers such as L.B. Taylor, who spent decades gathering Williamsburg’s ghost stories, and by the College’s student newspaper. The deaths behind them are partly real: Sir John’s slow illness, the smallpox of 1748 and the hospital of 1862. Other deaths often listed, such as a boy who fell from a tree and a girl who fell from a window in the late 1800s, appear in ghost writing but we found no record of them.

The man in knee breeches

One of the stories Taylor told on Colonial Williamsburg’s own podcast in 2010 concerns an employee who went down to the basement and met a man in knee breeches she did not know. She left in a hurry. Others have described a man in colonial dress inside the house when it was locked.

Hands on the stairs

The most repeated experience is the feeling of being touched or pushed, especially on the staircase. Taylor recorded a woman who felt a nudge on the stairs, and later writers add a security guard who said he was held down. Former owners described a wavering figure wringing its hands in an upstairs bedroom.

The woman with the black cat

Guide Heidi Hartwiger told the Flat Hat that colleagues’ lantern glass cracked in front of the house, and that a fifth grader’s photograph seemed to show a woman holding a large black cat. Local lore pins this on Mrs. Peachy, a former owner known for her black cat, who is said to come to children because she misses her own. Another figure, an elderly woman remembered as “the shrew,” is said to warn visitors of trouble.

Faces at the windows and a party after dark

Night tour guests say they have seen figures at the front windows. In 2017 members of a Hampton Roads paranormal team told WYDaily that one of them saw a maid-like figure moving inside the closed house, followed by a loud bang on the door, and that another, listening at the door late at night, heard what sounded like a dinner party, with clinking cups, every time.

Lafayette and the cold hand

The best-known story is that the Marquis de Lafayette, staying here during his 1824 visit to Williamsburg, felt a cold hand grip his shoulder and heard voices in the night. It appears on almost every list, sometimes with a long quotation said to be from his own letters. We could not find that quotation in any source, and the history pages we checked do not mention it, so treat it as legend.

A curse

Some guides explain everything with a curse: an enslaved woman, separated from her son when they were sold to different owners, is said to have cursed the house, and Betty Randolph’s treatment of the people she enslaved is blamed. It is a story about real suffering, but the curse itself has no record.

Where to look

• The staircase: where visitors and staff describe being nudged or pushed.
• The basement: where Taylor’s story of the man in knee breeches is set.
• The upstairs bedrooms: the setting for the hand-wringing figure and the sound of voices at night.
• The front windows on Nicholson Street: best seen from outside on an evening ghost walk.
• The yard and outbuildings: where the enslaved community lived and worked, part of the daytime tour.

Visiting the Peyton Randolph House

The house is a Colonial Williamsburg exhibition site, so you need Colonial Williamsburg admission to go inside. When it is open, tours run every 15 minutes and include the spaces where enslaved people lived and worked. Opening days change by season and the site sometimes closes for staff or maintenance reasons, so check the daily schedule on the Colonial Williamsburg website before you plan around it.

For the ghost stories, come back after dark. Colonial Williamsburg’s own Haunted Williamsburg tour is an hour-long candlelit walk that starts at the Courthouse, goes inside some historic buildings and is suitable for ages 8 and up. Several private companies run nightly ghost walks through the Historic Area as well, and the Peyton Randolph House is on nearly all of them.

There are no public ghost hunts inside. If you want to investigate a historic house yourself, Haunted Rooms runs after-dark ghost hunts at Berkeley Plantation, a 1726 Harrison family mansion about 30 minutes away on Route 5.

• Visiting Colonial Williamsburg exhibition site, guided tours with admission
• Tours Tours every 15 minutes when the site is open; check the daily schedule
• Ghost hunting No public ghost hunts; join an evening ghost walk instead

Tips for your visit

• Tour the house by day first, so you know the rooms when you hear the stories at night.
• Book the Haunted Williamsburg walk early in October, when evening tours sell out.
• Park at the Visitor Center and use the shuttle, or park near Merchants Square for evening walks.
• Look for the long red facade from the Palace Green side for the best view after dark.
• Pair your visit with our Berkeley Plantation ghost hunt for a hands-on night.

More haunted places nearby

• The George Wythe House: Lady Anne Skipwith and her one shoe, a few steps up the Palace Green
• The Public Gaol: where Blackbeard’s men were held in 1718
• Berkeley Plantation ghost hunt: our own after-dark ghost hunts on the James River
• Haunted hotels in Virginia: including Edgewood Plantation down Route 5
• Haunted places in Virginia
• Haunted places in Williamsburg

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the official website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as staff, visitors and investigators tell them, and we say where records contradict a story.

• Wikipedia: Peyton Randolph House
• Colonial Williamsburg: Peyton Randolph House
• The Flat Hat: America's most haunted house (2013)
• Colonial Williamsburg podcast: Ghosts of Williamsburg with L.B. Taylor (2010)
• The Flat Hat: The College of William and Scary (2020)
• WYDaily: Ghost hunters name haunted spots in Hampton Roads (2017)
• Colonial Williamsburg: Haunted Williamsburg tour
• Southern Spirit Guide: The haunts of Williamsburg