Old House Woods, a 50-acre tract of land in Diggs, has long been associated with tales of strange sites and eerie happenings. Local residents are familiar with stories of a headless man searching for his lady love, a pirate ship sailing over land and vanishing into the trees, and the presence of ghosts at the old house, which no longer exists.

Mathews native Rosalind Hammond, now of Ohio, conducted extensive research on the old stories in the 1970s and wrote a paper titled “The Haunted Hudgins House: Excerpts from Folklore of Mathews, Virginia: Ghostlore and Witchcraft.”

While searching recently for information on Old House Woods, which was once owned by his ancestors, Forrest Morgan of Mathews, a history buff, trained amateur archaeologist and Mathews County Historical Society member, came across Hammond’s research.

He discovered that her work had partly been based on first-person interviews and partly on a treasure trove of Works Progress Administration-era files...