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The Ghosts of Dent’s Palace in Maryland

Melissa Berry
A photo of Dent's Palace in Maryland, supposedly haunted

Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry searches old newspapers and digs into historical records to learn about the ghosts haunting Dent’s Palace in Maryland. Melissa is a genealogist who has a blog, AnceStory Archives, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

During the 1960s the Barnett family of Dentsville, Maryland, made headlines from reports of nebulous sightings and strange tapping sounds in their home “Dent’s Palace.” The bogey crew haunting the house: a Continental Army officer; one young female; a Confederate soldier; and one yellow feline.

Photo: Dent’s Palace, Dentsville, Maryland. Credit: Maryland Historical Trust.

To find out more, I searched GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives. For example, one article published in the Evening Star in 1960 by Jim Birchfield was quite entertaining. I also did some digging into the Maryland Archives and historic preservation records on the home.

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 February 1960, page 192

Arnold William Barnett purchased Dent’s Palace in 1958 with his wife Lillian Bowling Middleton Barnett, one of Maryland’s biggest socialites. She was known around the circles as “Cotton Tops” or “Cotton” because of her sparkling taffy hair. Her mother Mary (Mrs. Swaim) lived with the family. The mother-daughter team opened the home for garden parties and occasional historic tours for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Photo: Lillian “Cotton” Bowling Middleton Barnett. Credit: Robert L. Barnett.

The “palace” is a 12-room brick mansion built about 1720, and the grounds had the setting for a good haunt – which included a family burial plot dated before the American Revolution. The original locks, doors, and floors were still intact, and Cotton never made renovations because she did not want to disturb “housemates.” The Barnett’s children (William, Beverly, Robert, and Chris) either witnessed the specters or felt a presence.

According to Cotton, at least two ghosts were explainable, and she had “familial” ties to the phantoms. Her ancestor Martha Burch married the builder of the home, Captain Hezekiah Dent, in 1774. Cotton identified one apparition who visited frequently as Ann Dent Bean, Hezekiah and Martha’s youngest daughter, who “is buried in the family burying ground nearby.” Cotton said:

“The ghost’s clothing seems to be of that period, and she resembles descriptions of Ann. She has appeared in several different dresses, and she always has her head covered by something resembling a scarf.”

Cotton first saw the ghost in the kitchen. Cotton’s mother Mary said of another ghostly visit:

“I, too, was in the kitchen, when I saw this girl standing beside the dining room table. She had a scarf over her head, and her hair looked as if it had been blown by the wind.”

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 February 1960, page 193

Cotton’s son Robert spotted the ghost in the stairway one morning. Robert said:

“She was standing by the stair-rail. She was just standing there, and she had on a long white dress. Her head was covered, just like when the others saw her. I was wide awake, ready to go hunting deer when I looked out of my bedroom door, and there she was.”

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 21 February 1960, page 193

Ann’s husband Thomas Owen Bean acquired the property in 1826. Cotton claimed Ann died in the home from childbirth about 1839; however, records show that Anne died in 1877. A daughter, Amelia, died in the home in 1840 at age 19; I found her obituary in the National Intelligencer. She had returned home from a long absence at school and became ill for many weeks before succumbing.

Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), 22 September 1840, page 3

With a revival of interest in folklore in the 1970s, especially in the area of witches and ghosts, Philip Love of the Evening Star covered the spectral appearances in Dent’s Palace and interviewed the family in 1971.

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

Love’s article covered all four of the Dent’s Palace ghosts. Of the first ghost, he wrote:

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

Which brave Dent hero was feeling a little chilly on the other side? It is hard to say – many brave Dent heroes were known to be hot-tempered patriots and fought in the Revolutionary War.

About Ann (or Anne), the second ghost, Love wrote:

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

Love reported this about the third “human” ghost, the Confederate soldier:

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

Love also wrote about the fourth ghost – the “non-human” ghost – a cat:

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

With four ghosts roaming their house, wasn’t the family frightened? Apparently not, as Cotton explained:

Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 27 December 1971, page 34

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