Beaver Creek, a stately plantation house nestled just outside of Martinsville, has long held its share of secrets. Chief among them is a chilling local legend: the ghostly image of former plantation owner Marshall Hairston, etched forever into a single pane of glass by a bolt of lightning.
According to lore passed down through generations, the mysterious image appeared in a double-hung dormer window overlooking the fields behind the estate. One stormy day, as the story goes, Marshall was said to be standing close to the glass, watching workers labor in the fields, when a lightning strike hit the window. From that day forward, an outline of his face was supposedly burned into the pane—an eerie imprint no amount of scrubbing could erase. In fact, many claimed that a cleaning rag would stick to the exact spot where the ghostly image lay.
For years, those in the know could point to the very pane bearing the image. Sightings and secondhand stories only fueled the legend, and Beaver Creek earned a quiet reputation among locals as a place touched by the supernatural.
I had the privilege of speaking some years ago with a former owner of the estate—who lived to the age of 95—who recalled seeing the image firsthand. According to them, the haunted pane remained in place for decades until a major renovation took place in the 1960s. During this restoration, as original windows were removed and reinstalled, the pane with the ghostly visage mysteriously vanished. Whether lost in construction or taken by someone who understood its value as a relic of local legend, no one can say.
Yet after further research into the architecture of Beaver Creek, I’m inclined to believe the tale may be more fiction than fact.
Historical records and architectural surveys indicate that the third-floor dormer windows—where the image was said to appear—were not part of the original home. In fact, they were added around the early 1900s by Marshall Hairston’s daughter and her husband, long after Marshall’s death in the late 1800s. Prior to that remodel, the only attic windows faced north and south, positioned between the home’s twin chimneys on both ends of the home. But the fields Marshall allegedly gazed upon lay to the east and west—making the sightline of the story historically impossible.
Could he have been looking out from a second-floor bedroom instead? Perhaps. But the specific details of the story—his face in a third-floor attic window, the lightning strike, the phantom imprint—don’t line up with the house’s timeline or construction.
In the end, the legend of Marshall Hairston’s image in the glass may be just that: a legend. Still, like all great ghost stories, it has endured the passage of time, adding character and mystery to a home already steeped in history.
And while lightning may not have left its mark on the window, the story itself continues to spark the imagination.
Jarred Marlowe is a local resident and historian. He is a member of the Col. George Waller Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Blue & Gray Education Society, and the committee chair for the Martinsville-Henry County 250 Committee. He may be reached at marloweja15@gmail.com.Â
