Smyrna mansion of a Revolutionary governor, said to be haunted by a sentry shot in a 1777 British raid
217 Smyrna-Leipsic Road, Smyrna, DE 19977
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
State-owned historic property. Open for occasional tours and events rather than daily hours; check current scheduling before visiting. No standing admission price published.
Access
Limited Access
18th-century house with stairs and uneven historic flooring; rural grounds.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1773 · Built by Governor Thomas Collins · Revolutionary War site · National Register of Historic Places (1971) · Documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey
Belmont Hall stands on the Smyrna-Leipsic Road in Kent County, a brick Georgian house built around 1773 by Thomas Collins. Collins held a string of public offices — High Sheriff of Kent County, brigadier general of militia during the Revolution, and ultimately president of Delaware, the title the state used for its chief executive, from 1786 until his death in 1789. He was, by Wikipedia's account, the only person unanimously elected to that post by the Assembly.
Because Collins was a prominent patriot, his house was a target. He fortified the property with a stockade and posted sentries in the rooftop tower, the widow's walk. In 1777 a British party came to the house attempting to capture him. They shot the sentry stationed on the walk; the man died in the room below. The Daughters of the American Revolution later placed a plaque in the front hall commemorating his death.
The house and its outbuildings, including the gate lodge, were documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Belmont Hall passed to the State of Delaware in 1987 and is maintained as a historic property, opened for tours and events rather than daily public hours.
Sources
The ghost story at Belmont Hall is tied directly to a documented death. During the 1777 raid, the sentry posted on the rooftop walk was shot and died in the room below. From that fact grows the tradition that the house's banquet hall is haunted by the guard, and that a stain on the second floor — pointed out as the spot where he collapsed — is his blood, still visible after more than two centuries.
Regional travel writing on Smyrna's haunted reputation repeats the account, framing Belmont Hall as the centerpiece of a small town with an outsized number of ghost stories. The persistent detail is the bloodstain: visitors are told it marks where the sentry died and that it has resisted removal. No name survives for the guard, which keeps the story anchored to the event rather than to a personality.
The DAR plaque in the front hall is the bridge between history and legend. It commemorates a real wartime death, and the haunting tradition simply extends that memory into the present tense. The house is shown by arrangement, so the story is usually told on a guided visit rather than encountered by drop-in tourists.
Notable Entities
Belmont Hall is a state-owned Georgian mansion outside Smyrna that opens for periodic tours and special events rather than on daily hours. The house is shown by arrangement, and the banquet hall with its Revolutionary-era ghost story is part of what guides discuss. Confirm current scheduling before traveling; the property is not staffed for daily drop-in visits.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Macon, GA
Built between 1855 and 1859 for businessman William Butler Johnston at a cost of approximately $100,000, the Italian Renaissance Revival mansion at 934 Georgia Avenue has been called the 'Palace of the South' and is a National Historic Landmark. The Felton family held it through the Civil War period; Confederate general Henry Gray Felton occupied it during the war. The Hay family acquired the house in 1926 and donated it to The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation in 1977.
Indianapolis, IN
Hannah House is an 1858 Italianate mansion at 3801 Madison Avenue on the south side of Indianapolis, built by Alexander Hannah, an Indiana businessman who returned wealthy from the California Gold Rush. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Charles City, VA
Benjamin Harrison IV built the current mansion at Berkeley Plantation in 1726, making it the oldest three-story brick structure in Virginia. The plantation became the birthplace of President William Henry Harrison in 1773 and the ancestral seat of a family that produced a signer of the Declaration of Independence and two U.S. Presidents. During the Civil War, General McClellan used the mansion as his headquarters and the cellar held Confederate prisoners.