Old White Marsh Church

Maryland's oldest Episcopal church, established in 1655, where the ghost of Hanna — buried alive in the 1720s — still walks home from the cemetery.

Old White Marsh Episcopal Church stands as one of Maryland's oldest churches, erected between 1662 and 1665 to serve St. Peter's Parish on the Eastern Shore. The brick structure predated every other church on the Eastern Shore save Christ Church on Kent Island, which has long since disappeared. When the Maryland Assembly established the Church of England as the state church in 1692, St. Peter's Parish was designated one of thirty original parishes in the colony.

The church's most famous ghost story centers on Hannah Maynadier, wife of Huguenot rector Reverend Daniel Maynadier. Daniel fled French persecution around 1690 and became rector in 1711, serving until his death in 1745. In 1720, he married Hannah Martin, a widow who had previously been Mrs. Hannah Parrott. Their union produced several children, but tragedy struck when Hannah fell gravely ill and was declared dead.

Per her dying wish, Hannah was buried wearing her beloved jewel-studded wedding ring. That night, two grave robbers descended upon the cemetery, hoping to steal the valuable ring. When the swelling of death made the ring impossible to remove, one robber produced a knife to cut off her finger. The moment the blade pierced her flesh, Hannah awoke screaming from what had actually been a deep comatose state. The terrified thieves fled into the darkness.

Bleeding and in shock, Hannah climbed from her coffin still wrapped in her burial shroud. She made her way through the dark countryside, walking a full mile to the rectory. Reverend Maynadier was sitting alone by his fireplace when he heard something fall against his door with a low moan. Opening it, he found the fainting form of his wife, whom he had buried that very day. Hannah recovered and lived for many more years, giving birth to several more children, though legend holds the bloodmarks on her wounded hand never fully washed away. Both Daniel and Hannah were eventually buried side by side beneath the chancel of the church.

The road passing the church bears the family name: Manadier Road (a simplified spelling of Maynadier). Author Mindie Burgoyne, who wrote "Haunted Eastern Shore: Ghostly Tales from East of the Chesapeake," describes the site as "a thin place, where the veil between this world and the next is transparent."

Today, visitors report numerous paranormal encounters. Hannah's apparition has been seen on moonlit nights moving awkwardly down Manadier Road, fretfully clasping her burial shroud as she eternally makes that walk from cemetery to rectory. Both Reverend Daniel and Hannah have been spotted walking near their now-empty graves or standing silently among the church ruins. Witnesses describe apparitions, whispers carried on the wind, and strange musical sounds drifting through the graveyard. Some visitors report a huge bluish-white light appearing near the treeline, only to vanish when they exit the cemetery. Others describe difficulty breathing the deeper they venture into the grounds.

The church itself burned in January 1897 when a farmer clearing brush accidentally ignited the structure. Only the brick walls remain standing today, though partial restoration occurred in 1977. An iron plaque within the ruins commemorates the rector and his wife. The cemetery remains active, with new graves mixed among the weathered colonial headstones.

Notable burials include Robert Morris Sr., the Liverpool merchant whose fortune financed his son Robert Morris, the "Financier of the American Revolution" and signer of the Declaration of Independence. The elder Morris died in 1750 when a cannon wadding struck his arm during a ship's salute, a wound that became fatally infected. Thomas John Claggett, the first Episcopal Bishop of Maryland and the first bishop consecrated on American soil, officiated a confirmation here in 1793. Another rector, Reverend Thomas Bacon (1764-1768), compiled "Bacon's Laws," the authoritative compendium of Maryland's colonial statutes. The graveyard holds nearly four centuries of Eastern Shore history.