Percival Goodhouse


Percival Goodhouse was supposedly one of the first patients admitted to the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds in Williamsburg, Virginia, after its opening on October 12, 1773. A popular story tells of Goodhouse, a paranoid schizophrenic, escaping the asylum shortly after his admittance and fleeing to the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg. The story says that he was found in the Palace's garden maze, clutching a large knife, was later tried and convicted of treason for attempting to assassinate the governor and was hanged on August 2, 1774. His body was then left to rot in a field just beyond the old College campus, with students often uncovering his remains as a prank. The story is likely hearsay, as none of the surviving newspapers published in Williamsburg during 1774 make any mention of this incident or the execution.
Several instances of supposed ghost sightings in the garden maze have been attributed to Goodhouse. One account describes the encounter of a student from the College of William & Mary with a pair of "milky, white, transparent" feet which disappeared upon closer examination. Another story, concerning the murder of a female student in the 1960s, has sometimes been associated with Goodhouse.