In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, stands the restored Drish House, a stately home that now holds a spot on the National Register of Historic Places. However, the Drish House has not always been a priority for preservation. In fact, the Drish House has changed hands many times since the tragic deaths of its original owners, and some think this has to do with tales of its haunting.

Built over the course of two years starting in 1837, the Drish House belonged to slave owner John Drish and his wife Sarah. The marriage was a second for both of them; their first spouses had both died, and Sarah’s husband had left her quite wealthy. Drish’s slaves were instrumental in the building of the new home, and much of its rich architecture can be attributed to their work.

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In 1867, tragedy struck. Drish, an alleged alcoholic, was said to be sobering up after a night of drinking when he “got the shakes” and, in a hallucinatory state, ran across a hallway and threw himself from the upstairs balcony, killing himself upon impact at the bottom of the stairs.

Sarah, now a widow twice over, was devastated. Drish had left elaborate burial requests for his funeral, and she ensured that these were carried out to the letter. After his death, however, the widow became obsessed with her grief. Sarah insisted that when she died, she was to have the exact treatment as her husband—she even saved the candles that had been used at his wake, so that they might burn at her funeral. Yet when Sarah did die in 1884, she had hidden the candles so well that no one could find them and honor her dying wish.

Many see this failure to carry out a mournful woman’s final request as the spark that ignited the Drish House hauntings. Not long after Sarah’s death, a local was alarmed to discover a fire burning in the front tower of the home. An emergency call was made. Yet when responders arrived, no fire burned. These phantom fire sightings happened repeatedly. Some surmised that it was Sarah’s spirit lingering in the tower that set the space ablaze, angered—or disappointed—that her husband’s candles had not been burned at her own funeral.

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The house changed ownership multiple times in the ensuing years. The building was used as apartments during Tuscaloosa’s population expansion; as a school owned by the Tuscaloosa Board of Education; as a wrecking company; and as a church, during which time an adjacent structure was built to house various Sunday school classes. These transitions brought the house into the late 20th century. When the church finally closed in 1995 for financial reasons, the old Drish House slipped into abandonment and was eventually condemned by the city.

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