INTERVIEW

Interviewer: Do you believe that your house is haunted?
Mrs. Tyner: I have had no experiences since I have been living here over the last nine years, but other people have. I guess it depends upon your awareness and perception.

Interviewer: How old is Lessland?
Mrs. Tyner: Lessland has been in my family since 1847. The original house was built in 1847, it burnt down, and this house was built in 1870.

Interviewer: You mention that other people have had ghostly experiences in your house, could you describe some of these experiences?
Mrs. Tyner: The last encounter that I remember was the night before Jefferson's birthday, my grand-daughter and her friend had came up for a visit. They were going to see Monticello the next day. We took a picture of my grand-daughter's friend in front of the house. When she developed the picture and looked at it, she saw a lady in a white dress in the center bedroom upstairs. I could not see the figure in the picture, but my brother clearly could. No one had been upstairs in a white dress that morning.

We rented the house to a family for about two years. She said that the lady saw a "very ugly lady" dressed in black in the back hall. Soon after that experience she moved out of the house. I do not know who this apparition could have been, I went back and looked at family pictures and although they were not beauty contestants, I do not consider anyone in my family ugly. My great-grandmother always wore black and was even married in a black wedding gown. I had an old trunk in one of the rooms in the house that we used as storage which had some old dresses that belonged to my great-grandmother and other family members. Apparently, the lady had gone through the trunk without permission. I just told her that she got what she deserved.

My daughter lived at Leesland for a couple of years. One evening my daughter was upstairs sewing. She glanced out the window, and saw a man looking in through the window at her. Two days later, I received a picture of the tombstone of James Cooper Dickerson, who had been married to her great-grandmother. I thought that this was a bit odd. I located some old family photographs of James Dickerson, and showed them to her daughter. She exclaimed, 'That is the man I saw looking through the window.' My daughter identified the ghost as Mr. Dickerson from the family photographs I showed her. My great-grandmother is buried at Lessland, and Mr. Dickerson is buried in Caroline County, where he was born.

Interviewer:Has anyone ever described the same experience or gave an acurate description of a ghost that matched the description of someone in your family?
Mrs. Tyner: Many people have described different ghosts that they have seen at Lessland. Some have heard noises in the house and on the plantation, such as horses hooves and a piano playing by itself. However, not many of these stories seem to collaborate with each other. My brother and cousins remember seeing strange things in the house as kids, and my brother has seen a confederate soldier walking down the road. All the neighbors believe that the place is haunted, it is the best security system you can get.