Maryland State House

A plasterer named Thomas Dance fell 94 feet inside the dome in 1793, died hours later, and was never paid. His employer told the widow that "dead men don't get paid" and kept his tools. Guards still see a man in colonial garb walking the dome's balustrade after hours.

Thomas Dance fell 94 feet onto a marble floor in 1793 and still hasn't been paid.

Dance was an English plasterer working on the dome of the Maryland State House in Annapolis when his scaffolding collapsed. The February 28, 1793 edition of the Annapolis Maryland Gazette reported that he "being at work on the inside of the dome of the State House, and making a false step, fell nearly 100 feet to the floor and died a few hours afterward." He left behind a widow and several children. His employer refused to pay the wages owed, telling the family that "Dance was dead, and dead men don't get paid." The employer also kept Dance's tools, preventing the widow from selling them for income. Left destitute, the family was deported back to England.

The dome he was plastering is the largest all-wooden dome in the United States, built entirely without nails. Timber from Maryland's Eastern Shore is held together by wooden pegs and wrought-iron straps. A 28-foot lightning rod at the top was built to specifications designed by Benjamin Franklin. The dome rises 121 feet from base to weather vane. Dance died before he could finish the job.

Two centuries of people have seen him trying. Guards and night staff report a figure in colonial garb walking the balustrade inside the dome after hours. He's been spotted outside the dome near the lightning rod at night, which is a place no living person would casually stand. Some visitors have assumed he's a costumed re-enactor or tour guide before realizing they're looking at someone who shouldn't be there. An Annapolis local once captured a blurry photograph of a man in a tricorn hat leaning on the balcony railing.

Staff report blasts of cold air strong enough to knock you backward, even when every door is sealed. Water pitchers topple on their own. Furniture moves. Phantom footsteps circle the rotunda long after the building closes.

The Old Senate Chamber has its own history that explains the other presences. On December 23, 1783, George Washington stood in that room and resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, establishing civilian control of the military. Less than a month later, on January 14, 1784, the Treaty of Paris was ratified in the same chamber, officially ending the Revolutionary War. This is the only state house in America that also served as the nation's capitol, from November 1783 to August 1784.

Thomas Stone, one of Maryland's four signers of the Declaration of Independence, is felt most strongly in the Old Senate Chamber around the anniversary of Washington's resignation on December 23. He died in 1787, but security officers and legislative aides describe a presence in the chamber on that date, along with voices from no visible source and papers that seem to shuffle themselves.

A woman in mourning clothes from the early 1800s walks silently through the lower level. She's been seen standing beside the grand staircase and peering into the archives. Witnesses describe a rush of cold air and a wave of sadness that takes a few minutes to shake.

The building was completed in 1779 and has been in continuous legislative use ever since, making it the oldest state capitol still serving that purpose in the country. The dome's exterior was finished in 1788, and interior plastering continued until 1797, four years after Dance's death. Someone else finished his work. He seems to want credit.