John Wornall House

An 1858 antebellum farmhouse built by Jackson County farmer John Bristow Wornall, now a museum. During the 1864 Battle of Westport, which occurred just blocks away, the house served as a field hospital treating soldiers from both Confederate and Union armies.

The John Wornall House, built in 1858 by prosperous Jackson County farmer John Bristow Wornall, stands as both a beautifully preserved antebellum home and a repository of some of the most intense Civil War hauntings in the Kansas City area. Located just blocks from where the Battle of Westport raged on October 23, 1864 -- the engagement sometimes called the "Gettysburg of the West" -- the house was pressed into service as a field hospital where soldiers from both the Confederate and Union armies were treated side by side, their blood mingling on the parlor floors as surgeons worked to save what lives they could.

The Battle of Westport involved over 29,000 troops and produced thousands of casualties in a single day of savage fighting. When the battle swept past the Wornall farm, the family's elegant sitting room was converted into an operating theater where amputations were performed while the sounds of combat raged just outside the windows. Wounded and dying soldiers from both armies were laid on the floors of every room, and many of them never left. John Wornall, who had tried to maintain neutrality despite his Southern sympathies and slaveholding, watched as his home was transformed from a place of prosperity into a charnel house.

The ghosts of those soldiers have never abandoned their posts. Full-bodied apparitions of men in Civil War uniforms are among the most commonly reported phenomena, with figures in both blue and gray seen standing guard at the doors and patrolling the balconies. One recurring spirit wears a Union uniform and positions himself at the main entrance, refusing to move -- still following orders to secure the hospital more than 160 years after the battle ended. In the bedroom where the most severely wounded soldiers were placed, visitors report feeling a desperate tugging at their pant legs, as if injured men on the floor are reaching up to beg for help.

The spirit of Eliza Wornall, John's wife who died in the home, is seen roaming the hallways and standing in front of the windows, a silent figure who seems to be watching over her house with the same quiet determination she showed during the war years. The silhouettes of two little girls in 1860s clothing are frequently glimpsed in the yard -- believed to be the Wornall daughters who died in childhood. The scent of pipe tobacco fills rooms without any source, a phantom reminder of daily life that once filled this house.

The Wornall/Majors House Museums operates the property today, offering historical tours, spring and fall paranormal investigations, and ghost story events that draw visitors eager to experience one of the most documented Civil War hauntings in the nation.