By Gabrielle Terrett

The Vicksburg Post

The McRaven House and the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation Center will be leading the town into the Halloween holiday season with their ghost hunts.

The SCHF will host their Ghost Hunt Oct. 26 from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tickets for the event are $60 and are being sold in advance.

Tickets for the ghost hunt can be purchased by calling the SCHF at 601-631-2997, and it is open to all ages.

This year, the organization has teamed up with the Mississippi Paranormal Society Crew to lead the hunt throughout the building, which was once used as the campus for St. Francis Xavier Convent and Academy.

The site was taken over by the SCHF in an effort to preserve the historic building built in the 1830’s and the 1900’s.

“There are five different parts of the building,” Stacey Mahoney, director of the SCHF, said. “The first building was built in 1835 and the last building was built in 1955 and it was started by the sisters of Mercy.”

The SCHF made the decision to have this ghost hunt after last year’s ghost hunt fundraiser was a success.

“The ghost hunt started out as a fundraiser for us last year,” Mahoney said.

“The Mississippi Paranormal Society has been interested in this building for quite some time because there is so much history here and so they came and did preliminary investigating and got lots of good activity and decided that if we would have a ghost hunt it would be awesome.”

Along with a ghost hunt, the SCHF will also be having a Fright Night Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. where they will show movies in the courtyard and inside of the building as well.

Tickets for Fright Night are $8 for adults and $5 for children.

McRaven House hauntings

Along with the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation’s Ghost Hunt, another hunt will also be occurring in Vicksburg. McRaven House will be hosting its annual ghost hunt on Oct. 13 and Oct. 27 from 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Tickets are $75 and include refreshments, a tour and a four-hour hands-on ghost hunt throughout each room in the house.

“We are Mississippi’s most haunted house and the spirits here are very very active,” Britney Evans, manager of McRaven, said. “We love being able to have guests come in and witness the history of the home and interact with the spirits as well. It’s a great learning opportunity and we have many non-believing guests who come in here and walk out believers.”

The history of McRaven House is much different than that of any other tourist sites in Vicksburg as it holds antique artifacts from hundreds of years ago.

“McRaven was built in three distinctive time periods,” Evans said. “The first section was built in 1797 when George Washington was president. The addition was added on in 1836 and the front portion was built in 1839, but what’s unique about McRaven is that as each section was added on the previous sections remained the same so it’s literally like we’re taking steps through time, which is why National Geographic has named it the time capsule of the South.

“We have many of the original antiques from families of the home and all of the house is dressed in items from the time periods as well,” Evans said.

The McRaven House hosts ghost hunts year-round that are led by trained investigators on staff.

Each year the McRaven House and the SCHF bring thrills to Vicksburg and this year they each encourage residents to come out and enjoy the hunts.

“Any age is welcome, but we do ask that parents use discretion with their children, because they know what their children can handle, so we ask that they decide if it would be appropriate for their child or not,” Evans said.