Finding My Normal

Ch 56: Trapped Ghosts

"George Washington! Dungeons! Pirates! Ghosts!  Very exciting history here at the Old Exchange Building. I am Finley a docent here and I'll be giving your group a brief tour before letting you explore on your own. I understand you have some questions to answer and some sort of report to turn in?"

The crowd of students surrounding me groans while nodding at the older gentleman before us. He is a costumed docent wearing tight burgundy pants and burgundy overcoat on top of a long sleeve frilly white shirt. It's making me feel itchy just watching him, but he seems to be comfortable.

The Old Exchange Building is huge and spacious. According to the small brochure Mr. Morris gave us at the entrance it was constructed and designed to symbolize, at the time named, Charles Town's elite and it achieves just that. The beautiful exterior features Palladian style architecture adorned with white Portland stone around each archway. It's beauty exudes thoughts of the rich, the powerful, the elite, but inside houses ugly, treacherous history to erase all of that.

The structural symmetry gives the illusion of order and peace, however the chaos of organizing patriots and preventing kidnappings by pirates permeates the history of this town and building. In addition, the very same balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read was also the sight of slave auctions. Originally intended to house factories, inventory and imports, it at one time housed prisoners. This building is full of contradictions.

We begin our tour on the top most level learning about the politics and business done within these walls. The Great Hall, as it is named, has been known to host events important to the American Revolution and the War of 1812 as well as meetings with George Washington.

The main floor features original stone flooring as well as many display booths featuring items from the U.S. Post Office when it was once housed here. The most famous part of the Old Exchange Building is the Provost Dungeon on the lowest level. Here the walls are made of heavy brick to prevent against attacks. The vaulted ceilings give way to many sections of the floor including the council chamber, a jail and storage to house goods or weapons.

The docent continues the tour and gives us the history of these dark walls, "Many of the visitors and employees have sighted ghosts walking these corridors. The paranormal experts tell us the ghosts are trapped here by a dark force!" He chuckles at the last bit and continues on with stories about the prisoners and pirates the city boasted.  

The dungeon is giving me bad vibes, not only because of the history the docent is reciting to us, but also because in many sections they have recreated scenes with stuffed dummies and props. They look so real, but at the same time... don't. It's like those wax figures you know are fake, but you still expect them to move or jump out at you.

With a general sense of where everything is now, the docent lets us wander on our own to take more notes for our assignment.

My friends and I make our way through each floor filling in notes and answering questions on our prompt sheet along the way. It's a little strange; most of the students broke off into groups of three or four. We're a group of eight and it makes things crowded when we get to displays and it makes us work slower.

"Guys we have four more things to get to on the worksheet and only fifteen minutes left." Kota informs our group.

"Let's split the questions and we can gather them tonight." Victor suggests.

"Sounds good to me. I get Sang Baby." North quickly adds.

I hear a small huff from Gabriel, but everyone else divides up, chooses a question and takes off. North and I need more information about George Washington's visit here so we head towards the elevator for the third floor.