North Carolina's only surviving oval ballroom, built 1818, where Ann K. Simpson was tried for arsenic poisoning in 1850—acquitted here, convicted and executed for a later murder in Minnesota.
225 Dick Street, Fayetteville, NC 28301
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Heritage Square grounds and exterior are free to visit. Interior tours by arrangement with the Heritage Square Historical Society.
Access
Limited Access
Historic freestanding room (single story) with period flooring; grounds at grade
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1818 · Only Surviving Oval Ballroom in North Carolina · National Register of Historic Places · Ann K. Simpson Murder Trial (1850) · Regency Architecture
The Oval Ballroom at Heritage Square was constructed in 1818, originally as an addition to the Halliday-Williams House on the adjacent property. Its architecture represents an unusual survival of the Regency period in North Carolina: the exterior is octagonal, while the interior measures approximately 20 by 30 feet in a true oval form. The room is considered the only surviving structure of its type in the state.
In 1850 the Ballroom gained notoriety as the setting for one of Fayetteville's most widely covered legal proceedings. Ann K. Simpson stood trial for the arsenic poisoning of her husband — described in local press at the time as the 'Trial of the Century' in Cumberland County. Simpson was the first woman tried for murder in the county. The jury acquitted her, ending the Fayetteville chapter of the case.
The acquittal was not the end of Simpson's legal history. She subsequently moved to Minnesota, married a third time, and was later convicted of murdering that husband as well, for which she was executed. The Fayetteville acquittal thus stands as a notable miscarriage, known in retrospect through the Minnesota outcome.
The Oval Ballroom was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Heritage Square historic district in 1973. The Woman's Club of Fayetteville and the Heritage Square Historical Society currently maintain the structure as part of the campus at 225 Dick Street.
Sources
The ghost lore attached to the Oval Ballroom is unusually grounded in documented history: Ann K. Simpson's trial and its bitter coda in Minnesota are matters of court record, and the story circulates in Fayetteville not as vague tradition but as a specific historic wrong.
According to the Distinctly Fayetteville heritage guide and local ghost-tour operators, Simpson's apparition is said to return to the Ballroom, connected to the space where she was found not guilty of a crime she apparently did commit. The framing in local lore is less about fright than irony — a woman acquitted in this room who would later be hanged elsewhere for the same pattern of behavior.
No documented paranormal investigation has been conducted in the Oval Ballroom specifically. The claims derive from oral tradition passed through Fayetteville ghost-tour circuits and heritage guides. The Great American Treasures guide to the site notes the building's unusual architectural character and treats the Simpson trial as the primary draw for dark-history visitors.
Notable Entities
Docent-led tour of the Heritage Square complex including the Oval Ballroom, the Sandford House, and the Baker-Haigh-Nimocks House. The Ballroom segment covers its Regency-era architecture, the 1850 Ann K. Simpson trial, and the building's history as the only surviving oval ballroom in North Carolina.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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Daniel Hertzler built his Pennsylvania-style bank house on this Clark County property around 1854. On October 10, 1867, robbers who suspected Hertzler was hiding a large cash reserve broke into the farmhouse and shot him dead. Two suspects were arrested and then escaped jail; neither was ever recaptured. The unsolved murder left the property in legal limbo until it was eventually acquired as part of what is now George Rogers Clark Park.
Grand Rapids, MI
In 1916, Arthur Warren Waite — a New York dentist who had married into the wealthy Peck family of Grand Rapids — poisoned his father-in-law John E. Peck and mother-in-law Hannah Peck with arsenic at their Grand Rapids home. Waite's subsequent arrest and trial became one of the most covered murder cases of the 1910s, and he was executed in 1917.
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On December 24, 1896, Claude Dunson was shot and killed by Douglas Cooper at this corner in downtown LaGrange, Georgia. The dispute began over a bent dime — a trivial sum that escalated to fatal violence in the public square. The incident was documented in contemporary local accounts and is now a named stop on the Strange LaGrange ghost walking tour.