'This is home': The haunted history of Poplar Hill

In September of 2014, Tom Maxwell and his family moved into their new Hillsborough home: Poplar Hill. An old country house on a sweeping property, the home is surrounded by trees and wildlife and was cheap relative to its expansiveness. 

They moved in and called the home “Nannie” in reference to Nannie Carr — the wife of industrialist, former Confederate soldier and Town of Carrboro namesake Julian Carr — who purchased the property in 1891.

But nine months after moving in, Maxwell and his family broke their lease and fled “Nannie.” 

The home and its large property, he said, were filled with relentless paranormal presences that demanded to be seen. 

These odd events ranged from sightings of figures on the property, severe drops in temperature in rooms and misty forms that seemed to rise from the floor, as Maxwell describes in his short story for the Bitter Southerner, “We Salted Nannie.”

Maxwell and his family observed many other presences, such as a tentacled figure Maxwell’s wife, Brooke Maxwell, observed in the woods, and a large figure that appeared to be a pinched-face, puritanical woman, Maxwell said. 

After Maxwell and his family left in the summer of 2015, Poplar Hill was briefly occupied but primarily sat empty for two years before Laurel Kilgore and her husband purchased the home in 2020.

In the time since, neither Kilgore nor her husband have noticed any paranormal activity, she said.

When they moved in, the home was in a state of disrepair. Kilgore said 30-foot poison ivy vines clung to trees surrounding the home, every door and window needed to be repaired, and lights consistently flickered in the dining room — all things, she said, that made the home seem haunted. 

Kilgore said her friend felt the presence of a sweet and light spirit that likes what she’s done to the home — a spirit Kilgore believes is Nannie Carr.

Kilgore said she believes Poplar Hill truly was Nannie’s home. The way the house was being treated, as abandoned and deteriorated as it was, was really upsetting Nannie, she said.  

“I think the things that make it seem haunted, once you start fixing them, once the floor isn't creaking so much, once the windows are fixed and once you bring some light and air into it, those feelings disappear,” Kilgore said. “And if there is a presence, they can go in peace.”

Kilgore kept the original flooring and preserved all the brick fireplaces. She said that her renovations, such as adding a new paint color to the kitchen, are done with respect to the current structures and color scheme of Poplar Hill. 

While Maxwell and his family referred to the home as ‘Nannie,’ they did not tie any one spirit to the namesake, rather, the house was a myriad of presences from different time periods. 

Poplar Hill was originally built in 1794 by James Hogg, a Scottish immigrant. The Hogg family owned the home until Julian Carr purchased the home nearly a century later.

In 1980, James Freeland moved to Hillsborough and started restoring and moving several historic properties, including Poplar Hill, to the other side of the Eno River, where the home currently resides. 

The Eno River, the land the house was moved onto and the house itself all contain diverse spiritual entities from different time periods, Barney Caton, who runs Haunted Hillsborough ghost tours, said. 

Much to Kilgore’s dismay, Poplar Hill is a stop on Caton’s tour.

He said the reason why the house may no longer be ‘haunted,’ as Kilgore and her husband claim, is because of Kilgore’s interest in Scotland. As a result, the house has come full circle back to its original Scottish immigrant owners — the Hogg family. 

While Caton said he enjoys the storytelling aspect of ghost stories, they also tell the history of a place and stick around for generations — suggesting some fragment of truth.

“What I always say is, whether or not I believe in ghosts, that I definitely believe in the power of these stories,” he said. 

Maxwell said understanding the history of the home has helped with his understanding of the paranormal activity. To him, the house and its spiritual presence represent the complicated history of the American South and white Southerners' historic exploitation of other bodies.

“And that is the grotesque legacy upon which this country was founded, and it leaves a mark generationally; it leaves a mark in the very land, I believe,” he said.

Kilgore said she is working to get the home officially recognized as a historic property. 

Kilgore currently runs a Scottish art gallery, Saltire Gallerie, out of the home, and for the first time in its history, the home is open to the public every Thursday from 3-6 p.m. 

“This is just — this is my last house,” she said. “Last, big house. And you know, I don't want to leave this house. This is it. So, for me, this is home.”

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