Graeme Park's Moonlight Halloween Tours

Graeme Park will be hosting its annual Haunted Moonlight Halloween tours on Oct. 21 and Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tours are $12/person and reservations and prepayment are required as the tour size. Light refreshments are included in the cost.

On the surface, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, mistress of Graeme Park in the late 18th century, seemed to have it all. She was the granddaughter of the former Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania and the daughter of a prominent Philadelphia physician. She was well-educated and well traveled, a noted poet, and salon hostess who moved in elite circles and held her own intellectually with her male counterparts. She was however, unlucky in love and a victim of circumstances when she got caught up in the politics of the Revolution, and it all went wrong for her very quickly. Her possessions were sold at auction and she was at risk of losing her home. Rumors of her husband’s infidelity were spreading through Philadelphia and her very loyalty to the American government was called into question.

Did the events which haunted Elizabeth during her life prevent her from retiring peacefully after her death? Reports of her ghostly presence have been circulating since 1801, just months after her death, when her friend Betsy Stedman reported “passing her on the stairs” of the Keith House at Graeme Park.

Visitors will hear the details of these reports and many others experienced by staff, volunteers and visitors, interwoven with the story of Elizabeth’s life. Costumed actors bring to life the events which may contribute to Elizabeth’s unrest through the ages and relay some of the stories that have “haunted” the Keith House since the dawn of the 19th century on these guided candlelit tours.