McRaven House featured on ‘Haunted Towns’ TV show tonight

Published 6:12 pm Monday, September 4, 2017

Vicksburg, and specifically McRaven House, will be featured tonight when the new television series “Haunted Town” airs an all-new episode on the Destination America channel.

The show follows the Tennessee Wraith Chasers, a ghost-hunting team investigating some of the more notoriously haunted towns across America. The team, which consists of Chris, Doogie, Porter and Brannon, interview witnesses, investigate hotspots using the latest paranormal technology and follow leads until they can pinpoint who is haunting the town and why.

McRaven House, considered by many to be the most haunted home in Mississippi and one of the most haunted in the nation, certainly has a history of ghostliness associated with it.

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The team will focus on the spirit of John Bobb, one of the former owners of McRaven House, who was reportedly killed by a group of Union soldiers after occupying Vicksburg during the Civil War.

But Bobb isn’t likely the only spirit roaming the grounds and home of McRaven House. Kendra Reed, who along with her husband Dr. Steven Reed bought the home in 2015, says she has been told by ghost hunters that as many as 14 spirits are on the property.

“Not counting the Civil War Confederate soldiers in the yard and the Native Americans because this was also a path through the Trail of Tears,” Kendra said in a previous Vicksburg Post article.

McRaven, which had been closed since 2008 before the Reeds purchased it, was built in three sections, and each section of the house is still furnished true to the time period in which it was built. The first in 1797, before Mississippi was a state, is the frontier or pioneer style portion of the house with an upstairs bedroom and a kitchen underneath. Andrew Glass, who was known to rob travelers, was the first owner.

Vicksburg namesake, Newitt Vick, owned McRaven for a short time. Then sheriff Stephen Howard bought the house in 1836, and the second section was built in an empire style with a second bedroom above a dining room. Mary Elizabeth, his 15-year-old wife, died during childbirth in the new bedroom.

In 1849 it was sold to Bobb, who built the final section of McRaven. This section has another bedroom set above a parlor room and entryway with a grand front porch in a Greek revival style. The porch has since taken on a more Italianate style since its beating during the siege.

McRaven was used as a field hospital during the Civil War. Bobb argued with, and eventually threw a rock at, Union soldiers who were picking flowers out of his yard. Shortly after, Bobb went to the courthouse to inform Gen. Henry W. Slocum of his actions. The apology was accepted, but as Bobb walked home, he was met down the street by a number of Union soldiers who killed him.

Years later William Murray purchased the house and raised his family there until his death in the house in 1911. His wife and two of their children all died in the house.

The TWC team gained notoriety on Destination America’s series “Ghost Asylum,” which investigated America’s most frightening asylums, sanitariums, penitentiaries and haunted hospitals.

The eight-episode first season of “Haunted Towns” premiered earlier this month. Tonight’s episode will air at 9 p.m.