The McRaven House

Night settles on the porch, the river hums in the distance, and we follow that sound to a Vicksburg mansion that refuses to grow quiet. McRaven House isn’t just “the most haunted home in Mississippi”—it’s a three-part time machine where an outlaw’s bedroom, a grieving mother’s lullaby, and a war-torn hospital all occupy the same breath. We walk the Great River Road, trace the Natchez Trace, and pull at the threads linking moving water, old brick, and stories that won’t lie flat.

We start with Andrew Glass’s two-room hideout, its buttermilk-blue walls and pulled-up ladder designed to stop ambush—until a razor did the job from inside. The story shifts to Sheriff Stephen Howard and Mary Elizabeth, who add grace and light before childbirth steals her future, leaving a soft song many still hear at night. Then the circle widens: the Devil Reverend John Murrell rides the Trace, sermons as disguise, theft as vocation, a conspiracy that boils over in Vicksburg. Names and dates stay anchored even as the uncanny slips through: lynchings, exile, and a city bracing for more violence than law can hold.

McRaven’s architecture becomes evidence. Empire style bridges pioneer bone to Greek Revival polish under John H. Bob, who opens his home as a Civil War field hospital and pays with his life during Reconstruction—dragged to Stout’s Bayou after a garden confrontation, shot in the back and face. The balcony keeps his presence, cigar smoke and orders no one else hears. Union officers take over, and Captain McPherson’s absence ends with a flooded apparition describing a murder and the Mississippi swallowing the proof. Decades later, the Murray sisters choose isolation over modernization, burning furniture for heat as vines erase the house from view. Restoration brings fresh bruises and broken bones, as if the walls have opinions about change.

What remains is a layered account of Southern folklore and American history sharing a single address: haunted Mississippi, Vicksburg siege, Natchez Trace outlaws, Reconstruction violence, and a river that remembers everything. If you love ghost stories anchored by documented lives and places—where the timeline aligns and the impossible refuses to leave—press play, then tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and share your take: skeptic, believer, or somewhere in between?

Support the show

I love hearing from listeners. Please write a review and rate the show. And please, tell your friends and share episodes on your social media.

Your support helps us continue to research and share these fascinating stories from the South.

Thank you!

Support the Show:

You can connect with me by clicking the links below.

Facebook:

Instagram:

Website:

Tiktok: