Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Francis Bacon
Along a lonely stretch of SR 1103 on the southern tip of Pasquotank County near the shore of Albemarle Sound stands the two-story Shannonhouse-Lister House. Constructed around 1816 and now abandoned to the elements, the dwelling is one of the most haunted places in North Carolina.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, Thomas Lynch Shannonhouse and his wife, Elizabeth, settled in this land of swamps, cypress trees laden with Spanish moss, and dark, murky water. Here, on a spot of rich, fertile high ground, the prominent couple built an impressive Federal-style house. Fortunately, they never knew that the house of their dreams would become one of misery, death, and horror.
Over time, Thomas and Elizabeth became the proud and happy parents of ten children. One of their sons, John, born in the house in 1824, came into possession of the property after the death of his parents. John’s favorite among his own children was his pretty daughter, Ellanora. A happy child of great charm and poise, Ellanora was pleasantly surprised on her sixteenth birthday—August 7, 1866—with a very special present from her doting father. John gleefully watched as the apple of his eye mounted the spirited pony he had given her. Thereafter, day after day, week after week, Ellanora spent many a pleasurable hour riding her treasured animal about the estate.
But on a Sunday afternoon six weeks after that wonderful birthday, a tragedy occurred that forever transformed the happy home into a place of sadness, gloom, and loss. On that fateful day, the teenager was critically injured when she was thrown from her pony.
For two days, Ellanora—her grief-stricken parents ever present at her bedside—clung to life, but there was no hope for her. Her heartbroken father was holding his precious daughter when she looked at him and whispered ever so softly, “But Father, I can’t die so young.” With those tender words, she closed her eyes forever.
In an instant, John’s sorrow and grief changed to bitterness and anger. Before he left his dear Ellanora to the cold clutches of death on that night of September 20, 1866, he cried out in anguish a curse: “My most cherished possession has been taken from me. I hope all who inhabit this house may know the pangs of death which so pained me!”
From almost the very time that those words were uttered until the Shannonhouse-Lister House was abandoned in the second half of the twentieth century, at least one member of every family who lived in the home died there. Soon after Ellanora’s death, the Shannonhouse family moved away, and the dwelling was acquired by Ephraim M. Stanton. Two of his small children promptly contracted diphtheria and died. In 1870, Stanton conveyed the house to a local farmer, Elisha Lister. As time passed, three of Lister’s children died of disease in the house.
At the time of each such death, it was claimed by the inhabitants that a vague presence pervaded the house. For example, one of the subsequent deaths involved a farm laborer who fell victim to consumption. Just before he died in an upstairs bedroom, he spoke of seeing a girl riding down the road on a white horse. But no horse or rider had gone down the dead-end road the entire day.
In 1909, Elisha Lister’s cousin was visiting the house when he died suddenly while sitting on the front porch. According to an eyewitness, he “suddenly pointed to the road, unable to speak, clutched his chest, and died instantly.”
In 1923, three years after the Markham family moved into the house, Mrs. Markham was swinging on the front porch with her infant son. As she gazed down the road, she observed someone dressed in shimmering white atop a white horse. After receiving no response to the greeting she called out, Mrs. Markham walked into the yard with her child in her arms, only to see the horse and rider vanish before her very eyes. The next day, her baby fell ill. In a week, he was dead. Family members who were in the house when the tiny child passed away noted that the walls in the rear part of the parlor emitted a cracking sound. When the infant breathed his last, the strange noise abruptly ended.
In the late 1930s, the Markham family quickly moved from the house when another son grew ill. He survived, but the unfortunate families that followed suffered deaths. From time to time, the owners rented the house to families who were unaware of its dark history. None of the tenants stayed very long. One family moved out in the middle of the night. The young daughter of another tenant family reported that she was awakened one night by the sound of footsteps in the hall. Her bedroom door swung open. Suddenly, she felt the presence of someone at the foot of her bed. The terrified girl screamed and turned on the light, only to find nothing there. Other tenants reported hearing strange noises in an upstairs bedroom—the very room where those haunting words were spoken by John Shannonhouse so many years ago.
The last death took place in the house in 1969. Since that time, it has stood deserted, as no family is brave enough to challenge the curse that has brought sadness to so many. Perhaps, then, it is best that the house should forever remain empty, save for the restless spirits of a teenager and her pony.