Dr. Steven Reed, local optometrist, is usually found working with his patients at Family Vision Clinic in Magee. But this Saturday, Oct. 7, he can be found on The Travel Channel’s top paranormal show, Ghost Adventures, as a guest personality.
The crew of the show filmed Dr. Reed recently at McRaven, an antebellum home in Vicksburg which he and his wife Kendra bought several years ago.
The home is reputed to be “the most haunted house in Mississippi,” and the cast of Ghost Adventures tried to stir up a little paranormal activity for the episode.
“These guys were intense!” said Kendra Reed of the interview. “They used a couple of our regular tour guides as ‘ghost bait’ during filming.”
Kendra was present for the filming but did not participate and could not reveal whether any of McRaven’s ghosts came out for the event, but she knows that the whole episode will focus on McRaven.
The historic home was built in 1797 by a highwayman who robbed travelers on the Natchez Trace. The original structure was just one room built over another without stairs so that the robber could escape capture by climbing up through an opening into the top room and pulling his rope up after him.
That original structure is still part of the home, but other rooms were added as new owners moved in through the years and created spaces to serve their own lifestyles.
“You can see all this history in the house, but it’s an odd, unusual place. It’s not a bed and breakfast, because you couldn’t live in it,” said Kendra.
The house is said to have a long history of housing ghosts, however.
The second owner’s wife died in childbirth in the house at about the age of 15. Her bed is still in the home.
“She’s quite an active spirit in the place,” Kendra said.
The third owner was murdered there in 1864 by a Union soldier. “His ghost is still there, too,” she said.
During the Civil War the home was used as a Confederate campground and then as a field hospital for the soldiers. Many of the patients who didn’t survive are buried in a mass grave on the grounds.
“Steven actually found a bone pile there, where they had done amputations,” Kendra said. “It was gross!”
In more modern times, the Murray family occupied the house for 80 years. Two spinster sisters spent their whole lives there, adding to the paranormal reputation of McCraven. Kendra says the neighborhood kids thought the sisters were witches because of their reclusive lifestyle and because they cooked and washed clothes which they stirred in a big cauldron on the front porch.
“This house has a history of being haunted for 100 years,” she said. She’s not sure which story of McCraven’s haunting The Travel Channel will use Saturday night because there are many.
The Magee couple bought the old house to save it from vandals or the ravages of Mother Nature.
“If a house like that is destroyed, that’s over 200 years of history gone that can never be rebuilt,” said Kendra.
“It takes every ounce we’ve got in us to keep the house going,” she said, “but if this is what it takes to save it, this is what we’ll do.”
To provide an income for the maintenance of the place, the Reeds set up tours with guides who take guests through McRaven every half hour every day and relate its history.
“Haunted tours” are done at night on weekends at 7 and 8:30 p.m. with ghost stories and explanations of the darker history of the home. During October, Kendra says they are “slammed” with business, so an extra night has been added with tours running Thursday through Sunday nights. She says they can’t get to the house every weekend themselves, “but we go as often as we can.”
Both McRaven House and this Saturday night’s episode of Ghost Adventures featuring Magee’s own Dr. Steven Reed promise to be the perfect stimulation for creating a Halloween atmosphere this month.
