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Bardstown, KY Presents 'Shadows of Federal Hill'
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Bardstown, KY Presents ‘Shadows of Federal Hill’
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New ghost tour experience at My Old Kentucky Home – Oct. 23 and 24, 2015
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Bardstown, KY – October 2015 / Newsmaker Alert / Ghosts of Halloweens past return this year to My Old Kentucky Home when the Stephen Foster Drama Association and My Old Kentucky Home State Park present “Shadows of Federal Hill” on Friday and Saturday, October 23 and 24. Guests will meet the judge who commissioned Federal Hill, along with his dueling partner, his daughter, Rebecca, and nephew, composer Stephen Collins Foster – and Death. To learn more about this new ghost tour event, visit www.VisitBardstown.com.
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Bardstown, KY Presents ‘Shadows of Federal Hill’Guests entering the grounds of My Old Kentucky Home State Park will follow Death along a lantern-lit path to a 19th century hearse and the Visitor Center draped in black swags, a mourning wreath hanging ominously on the front door. Here, they will be greeted by an undertaker who will lead them into Federal Hill mansion, itself cloaked in mourning cloth and with atmospheric music playing in the background.

“Tragedy, sickness and mystery can be found lurking in the history of My Old Kentucky Home,” said Johnny Warren, managing artistic director of “The Stephen Foster Story.” “This ghost tour provides a peek into the darker side of the historic mansion. So many people enjoy the spirit of the Halloween season and we believe Federal Hill is a fantastic place to get spooked while celebrating the history of a Kentucky treasure.”

Guests will meet the “shadows” of Federal Hill who move about restlessly. In the library, a mortally wounded Dr. Chambers talks about his duel with Judge Rowan. Regretting the duel and reciting a poem in the parlor is Judge Rowan, his death mask perched on a side table. Hollow organ music, ghostly characters and spooky portraits and other props all help tell the stories of the many deaths at Federal Hill.

In each room along the tour, guests will meet up with various residents of and visitors to the home, originally built between 1795 and 1818, and lived in by the John Rowan family. These shadows include Stephen Foster himself, who stayed here with his cousins, the Rowan family, in 1852. After talking about his sister, Charlotte, who died while with the Rowan family, and about his own death in a Pittsburgh hotel room, Foster is joined by the mansion’s ghouls to sing a song he composed about life and death, “Gentle Annie.”

“Shadows of Federal Hill” is an hour-long ghost tour experience that begins each evening at 6 p.m. Admission is $16/adults and $10/children, and includes Victorian treats (cookies and candy), a fortune teller and hay rides.

Make it a haunted weekend and overnight in Bardstown, one of the most haunted places around, according to world-renowned Certified Ghost Hunter Patti Starr, who conducts ghost treks through the streets of Bardstown every Saturday night (with Fridays added in October). Several of Bardstown’s 17 bed and breakfast inns are known to be haunted, including the Jailer’s Inn and Old Talbott Tavern.

Click www.VisitBardstown.com for more information about “The Shadows of Federal Hill” and to find your haunted accommodations.

Media Contacts:
Matthew Bailey, Park Manager, 502-348-3502
My Old Kentucky Home State Park

Dawn Przystal, Vice President, 800-638-4877 x 114
Bardstown-Nelson County Tourist & Convention Commission

Photo: “Shadows of Federal Hill” is a new haunted tour experience in Bardstown, KY, created by My Old Kentucky Home and Stephen Foster Drama Association.
Credit: My Old Kentucky Home State Park

Hi- and Low-Res photos available.

About Bardstown, KY
Located in the heart of Kentucky Bourbon Country and situated at the trailhead of the famed Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, Bardstown is more familiarly known as the “Bourbon Capital of the World.” It is home to six distilleries, including Barton 1792 and Willett Distillery, and these four Kentucky Bourbon Trail® distilleries: Heaven Hill, Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam and Four Roses’ second campus. Major attractions include the outdoor musical, “The Stephen Foster Story,” My Old Kentucky Home State Park, the highly regarded Civil War Museum of the Western Theatre, My Old Kentucky Dinner Train, The Kentucky Railway Museum and Whisky Magazine’s Visitor Attraction of the Year – the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History. Additionally, Bardstown has four 18-hole golf courses, three wineries, two haunted tours and numerous religious attractions. Fodor picked Bardstown as one of “America’s Best Small Towns” and AARP named it one of its “10 best small towns.” It led TheCultureTrip.com’s list of the “10 Most Beautiful Towns in Kentucky” and was named the “Most Beautiful Small Town in America” in the Rand McNally/USA Today 2012 “Best of the Road” contest. Bardstown landed in the top 20 of “America’s Favorite Towns” by Travel + Leisure – which also recognized it as having one of “America’s Most Beautiful Town Squares.” In 2013, Bardstown was designated a certified Kentucky Cultural District, one of only six Kentucky cities to achieve this honor. www.facebook.com/BardstownKY

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Publishing Dates: 10/06/15 – 12/06/15
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