Reynolds Tavern

Mary Reynolds ran this 1747 Annapolis tavern until her death in 1785, and she's still managing the place. Her ghost exposes thieves (a backpack strap snapped, sending stolen filet mignons across the floor), disciplines drunk patrons by locking them in the bathroom, rearranges silverware that doesn't meet her standards, and sings Christmas carols from her upstairs bedroom in every season.

An employee at Reynolds Tavern was heading for the door with a backpack full of stolen frozen filet mignons when the strap snapped on its own. The steaks went skidding across the floor. Nobody touched the backpack. Staff credit Mary Reynolds, the tavern's ghost, who has been policing this establishment since she died in 1785.

Mary inherited the tavern after her husband William died in 1777 and ran it until her own death eight years later. Before that, William had built the place in 1747 at 7 Church Circle in Annapolis, originally calling it "The Beaver and Lac'd Hat." He'd lost his first wife Deborah in 1746 and watched his two oldest sons, John and Thomas, drown in July 1747. Left a widower with three young sons, he poured his grief into building one of colonial Annapolis's great gathering spots. George Washington drank here. The Corporation of the City used it for meetings. You could eat, play chess, stable your horse, buy theater tickets, or pick up messages.

Mary, in death, has strong opinions about how the place should be run. When tables aren't set to her standards, silverware stacks itself into piles. She turns forks upside down. Drunk patrons find themselves locked in the bathroom or discover drinks spilled in their laps by no visible hand. She doesn't seem to hate anyone. She just maintains order.

The singing is harder to explain. A woman's voice drifts from the upstairs bedroom where Mary once slept, singing Christmas carols at all hours, in every season. July. March. Doesn't matter. Human-shaped indentations appear in the beds upstairs with nobody in them.

When Jill and Andrew Petit bought the property in 2000 for $800,000 and started a $400,000 restoration, the activity spiked. A power drill slid across a surface on its own. Objects vanished and reappeared days later in completely different rooms. Food dishes floated off tables and crashed to the floor. Glassware exploded with nobody nearby. The renovation seemed to wake something up, or possibly just annoy it.

The building has had a remarkable run of near-death experiences over 279 years. John Shaw, the famous Annapolis cabinetmaker, made alterations in 1812 when Farmers National Bank bought it, adding the pedimented entrance porch and an elegant Georgian "bowfat" cupboard. In 1935, Standard Oil tried to demolish it for a gas station. Preservation-minded citizens stopped them. From 1936 to 1974, it served as the Annapolis Public Library before the National Trust for Historic Preservation took ownership.

A 2004 overnight investigation by the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Society, led by sensitive Beverly Litsinger, found evidence of five distinct spirits in the building. Monitoring equipment picked up activity in every area. A plate broke in the kitchen during the investigation, attributed to one of the spirits. The energy stirred up was so intense that the owners decided to stop allowing public paranormal investigations after that.

Today, Reynolds Tavern operates as a restaurant, pub, and inn with three overnight guest rooms. The 1747 Pub in the original basement kitchen still has its stone foundations, walk-in fireplace, and 18th-century Rumford Broiler. Mary is down there somewhere, probably checking if the silverware is straight.