WINONA - The old Stafford Wells Hotel has another reincarnation or two coming, say its current owners, Linda Kay and McBee Barbour.
The hotel was built in 1889 by "a Dr. Washburn from Greenville, who had lost a child in the yellow fever epidemic and moved his family here," recounted Mrs. Barbour. "This was a real resort. Dr. Washburn didn't name it after himself, but after the lady who sold the property."
Two deteriorating pump houses are reminders of the place's period as a resort.
Upstairs and downstairs, there are porches and railings. The rear, however, is walled in with metal sheeting, painted white to keep time with the rest of the structure. There's good reason for the blunt means of sealing up the east end, according to the Barbours, who moved into the place around Halloween 1992.
Portions of the hotel were lost to fires - a huge dining hall and the old kitchen. One day, those lost pieces will be rebuilt. The Barbours have already consulted an architect, who has sketched what the couple hopes will be a bed and breakfast establishment containing four bedrooms with baths upstairs and one combination room downstairs.
Now, there are nine rooms upstairs in the old hotel style. "Nothing's electrified upstairs," Mrs. Barbour said.
Her husband continued, "We hope to build a cottage for ourselves somewhere on the property, out of the way. We have six acres here. Maybe the project will be done in a couple of years."
The hotel is located in the Scotland community, about 21/2 miles off Highway 407 south of Winona, past the airport.
Stafford Wells has just been named to the National Register of Historic Places. Perhaps recurring visitations by the ghost of Charlie Smith helped clinch the honor.
Mrs. Barbour and her son, John, now a college student, saw the ghost. They didn't see it that first Halloween, but the following March and April.
She was in her bedroom, when she heard mysterious sounds of footsteps coming down the hall.
"The sheepdog wanted out. McBee wasn't there; he was working nights. I let the dog out, and then I heard her barking outside. I let her back in. I was in a sort of twilight state and heard what sounded like footsteps until they got to my bedroom. The sound sort of went into the walls. I was frightened and called John; I thought it was somebody. I told John he had to stay in my room. I faded out and then I heard the sounds again. I thought it was John; then I heard the commode flush back of the house, so I knew it wasn't John who was making the sounds.
"It was weird. I had John hanging onto the bedpost in disgust, wanting to go back to sleep. Then we both heard the footsteps. I knew he heard, because he turned around like he was braced to fight it. We couldn't see anything as the sounds came into the bedroom," Mrs. Barbour said.
Frightened but not at all informed about Charlie Smith, the Barbours rang 911. It was about 1:30 a.m., and a classmate from high school answered. "I always heard that house was haunted," he said, before dispatching two policemen to check out the prowler.
The police officers were young - one black, one white, and their eyes were as big as saucers. They went upstairs to look around, but they didn't find anyone or anything.
"We didn't hear about Charlie until later," Mrs. Barbour said. They learned of the ghost when an elderly cousin of the former owner, Claudette Jones of Brandon, came to Winona for a funeral. "Oh, has Charlie Smith been here?" the cousin asked, nonchalantly.
"This has a name?" Mrs. Barbour asked.
Charlie Smith was an old hobo, who was among those wanderers who'd walk north on the road past Stafford Wells or south, depending upon the season. This road was the "old 51 highway." The hoboes would learn which were the "friendly houses," where they could stop and get something to eat and rest.
"There was a huge wing off the south, with a dining room in the days before the fires," Mrs. Barbour said.
Jones, Mrs. Barbour said, "was clueless. She must have been protected from learning about the ghost when she was growing up here."
The Barbours, too, don't know why Charlie came again. But he hasn't been back.
"I've never had an encounter with Charlie," McBee Barbour noted, "but there have been a few others who say they have. I had an encounter with another spirit at another time. Others."
A native of Yazoo City, Barbour went to Belhaven. One of the things he and his friends would do was visit the Chapel of the Cross, a tiny Episcopal chapel outside of Brandon. "We saw doors open and figures climbing trees, and faces in the window - things like that, there," Barbour said. "Heard the organ play at midnight."
Yet the manifestation that was perhaps the most disturbing occurred in a 3rd floor dormitory room back at Belhaven.
"I heard hilarious laughter down the hall and went into the room where I thought it had come from. The guys in there were white as sheets. They hadn't laughed. We said, okay, if there's a spirit here, give us a sign. Nothing happened. We left, went to get burgers, or something. There'd been a box of matches in the room. Thirty minutes later, we returned, and there were matches strewn everywhere. The two roommates were the only ones who had keys."
As a family, the Barbours spent 20 years in Jackson before moving to Montgomery County. Mrs. Barbour grew up in the neighborhood and is now a teacher. McBee has been in different food service careers, but he was ready to do something different.
Ironically, the solution presented itself when the Barbours took a learning trip in 1999 to New Orleans. They stayed in bed and breakfast houses along the way and got to talking to a clerk in a shop at St. Francisville. The shop sold imported ironworks and pottery gifts and curiosities made in Mexico.
"He said, 'you need to talk with my boss,'" Barbour said. "We went to Baton Rouge and met the man, Rick Lambert."
Now, the Barbours are into the same type of business. They started out bringing the stock and arranging it under the trees. More recently, they built a metal shop on the hill to the northeast of the old hotel. The Barbours have added some glass items, too, and there are iron and pottery items still dotting the landscape.
