Skene Manor

According to regional ghost guides such as New York Haunted Houses and the Glens Falls history coverage of Washington County, the best-known legend at Skene Manor involves the apparition of a woman in a full-skirted gown who wears a large, distinctive ring on her right hand. Witnesses describe her appearing for a few seconds before fading into a glowing ball of light, and some accounts report only her ringed hand materializing near the area that was once the restaurant's bar.

The lore connects this figure to the wife of Colonel Philip Skene, the town's founder. As the story goes, when she died the colonel kept her body in a lead-lined coffin within the house rather than burying it, and after the building became a restaurant an owner placed the coffin behind the bar and built a fountain around it. Skene Manor's own historians and regional accounts caution that this is folklore rather than documented fact: the widely repeated 'coffin in the cellar' tale was, by several accounts, embellished by a former restaurant owner (the Scheer family) to draw patrons, who reportedly installed a grotto with a lady's hand and claimed it held Mrs. Skene's remains. The mansion also postdates Philip Skene by roughly a century, so any literal connection between the Skenes and this specific building is legendary rather than historical.

Visitors today continue to report a Victorian-gowned figure near the fountain area, fleeting lights, and an uneasy presence in parts of the house, and paranormal groups have conducted investigations at the site. The manor leans into this reputation for seasonal events while its volunteers are candid that the romantic 'coffin' origin is a tale grown in the telling.