Why does She Haunt her former house? Pt.1

The Mysterious Tale of Nell Cropsey

     Located at 1901 Riverside Drive in Elizabeth City, North Carolina there stands a beautiful white, two story home, a private residence of course but occasionally it’s current owners will welcome a visitor or two during Elizabeth City’s annual ghost walk. See, there’s the ghost of a young woman who is haunting the property and why not? It once was her home!

     Anyone living in Elizabeth City, or for that matter, in the State of North Carolina, can tell you the sad tale of Nell Cropsey. I will of course, save many of you from having to hop in your car and travel to this quaint little coastal community in North Carolina (unless you’re there already) and have to ask someone you run into on the street, and will relate to you the tale as it was related to me.
     Her full and proper name was Ella Maude Cropsey but she went by Nell. Originally from Brooklyn New York, her father moved the family to Elizabeth City in 1898. Nell was a young and beautiful woman and it didn’t hurt that she was part of a wealthy family. She and her new home gained her the attention of others rather quickly. One person more than the rest.

     Nell began regularly courting a local gentleman by the name of Jim Wilcox, a courtship which by the time of her disappearance had gone on for three years. Needless to say, Nell was becoming impatient with Jim Wilcox in regards to his hesitancy towards a life of wedded bliss. And so in the hopes that her actions would lure Wilcox to proposing to her, she began to flirt with other men in public. Unfortunately it seems that her plan went askew and on the evening of November 20th, 1901, the two were witnessed having a heated argument. The fight was loud and everyone in the Cropsey household could hear the both of them, yelling at one another although unable to properly hear the actual words of the fight. By the end of the evening, some of the family stated that the two had made up and the night between them ended with peace. What is also noted in all of the reports is that although Nell and her beau were outside of the house, but where outside the house? No one can remember seeing Nell once she stepped outside of the house with Jim Wilcox and it was the last time that anyone seen her alive...
     Ollie Cropsey, Nell’s sister claimed to have heard something bang heavily against the back of the house on the night of her sister’s disappearance, claiming that the sound she heard occurred shortly after Jim Wilcox had left. When she went to investigate, she discovered that the screen door had been broken but saw no signs of who or what had broken the door. Ollie headed upstairs to see if her sister was okay and in bed, but upon opening Nell’s door, saw the her bed and the entire room was empty. Feeling a bit uneasy by her sister’s absence and the breaking of the screen door, Ollie nevertheless returned to her own room and made an attempt to go to sleep.


     Shortly afterwards, a neighbor awakened the entire house, yelling that someone was attempting to steal the Cropsey’s pig. The whole family rushed downstairs as fast as they could where they found the front door hanging wide open and it was at this point that everyone noticed that Nell was nowhere around. Next to the door however, was an umbrella belonging to Jim Wilcox which no one had remembered seeing earlier that night. When morning came and there was still no signs of Nell, the hunt for her began in earnest. Police were summoned and the entire town was searched high and low but nothing could be found of the missing young woman.

     Suspicion regarding Nell’s disappearance automatically seemed to fall on Jim Wilcox who was the last known person to have seen Nell alive on the night before. He maintained that he had no idea of what had happened to Nell, but that wasn’t good enough for the police so Wilcox was arrested on suspicion of kidnaping and held in the local jail. For the next month, with Wilcox in jail and denying having anything to do with Nell’s disappearance, everything kind of sat in limbo, That is until the night of December 27th, a month after Nell’s vanishing. On that night, Nell’s mother spotted something floating in the river near the family home.  Sending a couple of boatmen out to investigate, she realized moments later that her hopes of seeing Nell alive and well would not come to light. What she had spotted floating in the water was that of the lifeless body of Nell Cropsey, her daughter. What had brought Nell’s mother out to the river and the discovery of her body?
     A few days before the discovery of Nell’s body, the Cropsey family had received a letter postmarked from New York, a letter which gave the reader a detailed account of what had taken place that night of Nell’s disappearance. According to the letter, Nell had interrupted a vagrant who was attempting to steal the family pig. The vagrant had grabbed a heavy tree branch he’d found lying on the ground and hit Nell over the head. He then carried Nell down to the river, stole a rowboat which the unidentified man had found. He rowed out to the center of the river and pushed her overboard. The letter had included a map on which was marked the spot where the man had dumped Nell into the river, a location not too far from where her mother had found her floating. Who sent the letter and whether or not the events of that night described in the letter is a true event of what occurred, continues to remain a dark mystery to this day!

Part Two Tomorrow