A Beaux-Arts library built on a coal baron's bequest — staff report a mustachioed apparition at the rotunda windows who never lived to see the doors open.
100 West Piccadilly Street, Winchester, VA 22601
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public library; no admission charge
Access
Wheelchair OK
Indoor public library building; Beaux-Arts structure with rotunda
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1913 · Beaux-Arts Architecture · Philanthropic Bequest · Regional History Archives · Winchester Landmark
John Handley was born in Ireland around 1833 and made his fortune in Scranton, Pennsylvania's coal industry. He had ties to Winchester through visits and reportedly admired the city. In his will, Handley left $250,000 to Winchester with the instruction that it be used to build a free public library accessible to all residents — a significant gift for a man who had no formal connection to the city beyond sentiment.
Handley died in 1895. The city used his bequest to commission a Beaux-Arts building at the corner of Piccadilly and Braddock Streets. Architect, Boston-based firm Stewart and Aiken designed the structure with a prominent central rotunda, domed roof, and the symmetry and ornament typical of the style. The library opened in 1913 — eighteen years after the man who funded it had died.
The building has operated continuously as Winchester's central public library for over a century. The Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, housed in the library, holds one of the more significant regional history and genealogy collections in western Virginia. The rotunda remains the building's most distinctive architectural feature, drawing visitors even apart from its book collection.
Handley's portrait hangs in the building he funded but never saw.
Sources
The most detailed apparition report associated with the Handley Library describes a man with a drooping mustache and a long frock coat, visible at the rotunda windows. Staff accounts, documented by the Southern Spirit Guide, identify this figure as Judge Handley — a characterization based on his portrait's resemblance to the described appearance.
Beyond the visual sighting, library workers have reported phantom footsteps in corridors that turn out to be empty, and books found in positions different from where they were shelved. The Winchester Gazette documented staff accounts of feeling watched in the stacks and objects rearranging in the archives area.
Handley's particular situation — dying two decades before his funded library opened, never standing in the rotunda he paid for — makes him an unusually plausible candidate for an unfinished attachment. The accounts have circulated among library staff for years without formal investigation.
Notable Entities
Visit the working public library and take in the Beaux-Arts rotunda and reading rooms that Judge Handley funded — the building he never saw completed. Staff accounts of the apparition are informally shared at the circulation desk.
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Winchester, VA
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Staunton, VA
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Harrisonburg, VA
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