Haunted for 300 Years: The Ghosts of White Chimneys

On the rolling farmland outside Gap stands one of Lancaster County’s more storied homes. Known as White Chimneys, the estate dates back over three centuries. With its elegant, whitewashed walls and commanding presence along Route 30, it has witnessed the rise of a nation, the march of armies, and the quiet rhythms of farm life. Yet for all its beauty and history, White Chimneys is also a place where the past refuses to remain silent. Those who have lived within its walls tell of whispers, footsteps, lights, and faces that seem determined to remind the living that history is never truly gone.

The story begins around 1718 when Francis Jones, a Quaker and early settler, built a tavern on the property. By 1720, it was already serving weary travelers along the busy road between Philadelphia and Lancaster. Colonial taverns were more than places for food and drink. They were inns, trading posts, post offices, and safe havens where news of the world was exchanged by candlelight. White Chimneys became a popular stagecoach stop on the way to Lancaster.

History’s great figures found shelter there. Lafayette certainly visited. Washington may have paused during his travels, and Benjamin Franklin himself is said to have stayed. Even members of the Continental Congress once broke their journeys at the Jones tavern.

In 1779, ownership passed to Henry Slaymaker, whose descendants would hold the property for more than two centuries. The family became prominent in business, building the successful Slaymaker Lock Company, and their estate was both a working farm and a symbol of status. Through nine generations, White Chimneys stood as a monument to continuity. Yet within its walls, echoes stirred.

By the mid-twentieth century, the Slaymakers themselves were recording strange experiences. In his memoir Captives’ Mansion (1973), S. R. Slaymaker II recounted an unsettling discovery in 1958 while cleaning the attic on a snowy Saturday. He and his brother uncovered two cobwebbed daguerreotypes of Henry F. and Rebecca Slaymaker, long forgotten beneath stacks of dusty wine bottles.

Holding the portraits beneath a bare bulb, Slaymaker froze. The face staring back at him was one he had already seen — not in photographs, but in the mirror during an earlier encounter he could only call ghostly. Shocked, he muttered a half-explanation to his brother, who quickly realized that something uncanny was afoot.

The family’s oral traditions further confirmed the supernatural elements present at the estate. Tenant farmers who once lived in the mansion’s back rooms spoke of a dreadful nocturnal sound in the front bedroom: the rasping of a death rattle. That had been Amos Slaymaker’s chamber, and the tenants fled in terror. Others reported unexplained lights glowing in the front wing, flickering without a source until cooks and caretakers refused to stay overnight. Slaymaker himself admitted to dreams of the same lights. He tried to dismiss them as nightmares, but the daguerreotype discovery made denial difficult.

“Perhaps Amos did not like tenants in his mansion,” he wrote, half in jest, though the unease lingered. To him, the house seemed to exert a kind of hold, almost as if it trapped those most attuned to its past.

Not all the stories are so grim. Some of the most enduring tales are of children’s laughter drifting through the halls when no one is there. Current owner Jessica Meyer recalls that when her daughter Hannah was small, she often spoke of playing with Isabelle and “the other Hannah.” These were not imaginary friends but the names of two of Amos Slaymaker’s real daughters from the early nineteenth century.

To the family, it seemed as if the girls had never left. Their ghostly presence was playful, not threatening, echoing the lives they once led. Guests, too, have claimed to hear the faint patter of children’s feet on the stairs or the sudden burst of a giggle carried on still air. The halls of White Chimneys may be grand, but they remain a playground for spirits of the past.

The LaCorte and Meyer families, who purchased White Chimneys in the early 2000s, speak candidly of their first years in the house. During renovations, they often heard footsteps in rooms that should have been empty. More than once, they opened doors expecting to confront an intruder, only to find nothing. At night, the atmosphere was heavy enough that some family members refused to go downstairs alone. Even the children instinctively moved together from room to room.

Alongside the footsteps came voices. Indistinct murmurs drifting through walls. There were also smells: a pungent whiff of tobacco smoke or the sweeter tang of cherry pipe tobacco, despite no one in the family smoking. Sometimes a cloud of white smoke seemed to appear without explanation, vanishing as suddenly as it came.

For a time, White Chimneys felt unsettled, as though the house itself was watching the workmen and listening to every hammer strike.

Yet as the years passed and restoration brought the home back to its former glory, the atmosphere shifted. The owners now describe the spirits as benevolent, even comforting. Far from a place of dread, White Chimneys exudes warmth. The presences seem to approve of the family’s devotion to the property and their respect for its history.

“Everything we feel here is positive.” Jessica Meyer once explained, “I feel like they know what we’re doing, and they’re here to help us.”

The family even frames the spirits as part of a legacy they hope to pass to their children: a sense of continuity, history, and memory that lives within the house itself.

Today, White Chimneys serves as both a working farm and an event venue, its grounds hosting weddings where laughter and music mingle with those of the past. Visitors come for the historic charm, unaware that they may be sharing the space with unseen guests.

In its long life, White Chimneys has been a tavern, a family seat, a stage for history, and a vessel for memory. The living and the dead coexist within its walls, not in conflict but in quiet companionship. Some spirits rattle, others laugh in play, and still others stand watch to be sure the home is cared for.

For over three hundred years, White Chimneys has endured. And if the voices, footsteps, and phantom smoke are any indication, its story will continue to be told by both the living and the dead.

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Read more stories like this in Uncharted Lancaster’s Ghosts, Monsters, and Tales of Adventure book. This 283-page book is packed with 64 unforgettable stories, all set right here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

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Learn More

• Haunted Lancaster White Chimneys Video
• Captives’ Mansion
• White Chimneys Estate celebrates its history with living history event
• From frontier inn to wedding venue, White Chimneys Estate celebrates 300th anniversary July 3