A Stranger on the Porch

Tommy Presson relates this story from his early days at Grand Gulf.

A couple of months after taking the position of manager at Grand Gulf State Park, my wife was up late one night working on the next year’s budget. The manager’s house was once the overseer’s house to a large plantation at Grand Gulf and is the only original building left over from the town that was located within the park boundary. It has a deep porch located on the front.

A house in Grand Gulf Military Park

As my wife, Ellen, was preparing the budget, she happened to look out the window overlooking the porch, and there was a man staring at her.

Now, this was around 3 in the morning, so you can imagine how terrified she was. She woke me up, and I went outside and looked around, but didn’t see anything. I chalked it up to her being tired. But then a few months later, some Civil War reenactors told me that they saw me the night before walking off my porch, and I appeared to be in my re-enactment uniform.

The famous chapel at Grand Gulf

Of course, it wasn’t me. I heard nothing else ’til a few years later when a forester was camping at the Park. He was staying next to the pavilion, which is where the plantation house had stood. He asked me the next day what I was doing out so late at night. I asked him what he meant, and he replied that he had seen me walk the porch in the middle of the night. I told him it wasn’t me, and told him the story of the previous sighting. He decided that he would be better off staying somewhere else.

The water mill at Grand Gulf Military Park

The sightings remain a mystery to this day.