January 20, 2013 / Joanne Yeck

Buckingham Ghosts

photo by Joanne Yeck

Linda Hope Doerger, great-granddaughter of Thomas Marshall Phillips, remembers Mary Virginia Adams as a great story-teller and keeper of the family history. The daughter of Callie Phillips Bagby, Mary Virginia relished recounting family legends, sayings, and traditions. They include treasured ghost stories like this one about Buckingham resident Thomas Marshall Phillips (1849-1932).

One night Thomas Marshall Phillips was riding his horse, Olos, in complete darkness when the horse suddenly stopped as if a hand had reached out and grabbed the reins. When he spoke up and told the horse to go on, it started again as if the hand released the reins. Did a ghost stop the horse in its tracks? Or, could it have been a bandit who released the reins once he heard the voice of Thomas Marshall Phillips, a well-respected man in the area?