May-Stringer House

Perched on a hill in Brooksville, Florida, this four-story, Queen Anne–era “Painted Lady” has 14 rooms, seven gables, and decorative Victorian spindlework. Today, it serves as the Heritage Museum of the Hernando Historical Museum Association, filled with displays that evoke domestic life, medicine, military history, and communications from earlier eras. 

The house’s story traces back to land homesteaded by Richard C. Wiggins after the Armed Occupation Act. In 1856, John L. May purchased the property and arrived with his wife, Marena; their children; Marena’s mother; and about 40 enslaved people. The family history that followed was marked by early deaths, remarriage, Civil War–era upheaval, and later ownership by the Stringer family, whose name remains attached to the house. 

The museum itself is a community-built act of preservation. The Hernando Historical Museum Association acquired the house after leasing it in 1980 and completing the purchase in 1985. Since then, it has restored the building and filled it with donated local artifacts. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. 

Its haunted reputation comes partly from what may be buried on the grounds. Several family members are thought to be buried in an unconfirmed cemetery on the property, feeding many ghost stories over the years. The most well-known spirit said to live in the house is that of Jessie Mae, the daughter of Marena May and Frank Saxon, who died in the house when she was only three years old.