Dark staircases, pirates, and perhaps a few ghosts, are all part of the story of Verdmont Museum.

And now a new exhibit called 'Verdmont: A House and Its People' sheds light on the many people who have lived and died in the house since it was built in the early 1700s.

The exhibit was coordinated by Linda Weinrub of Fluent, a museum exhibit production and design company. Andrew Baylay, museum curator and collections manager, assisted.

Items in the attic exhibition shed light on all facets of life for Verdmont dwellers over the last 300 years from chamber pots to portraits to telescopes, and an original food safe designed to keep out ants.

The Royal Gazette recently took a tour of the new exhibit with Ms Weinrub, Mr. Baylay, and Bermuda National Trust volunteer Diana Chudleigh. We also talked to two former residents of the property.

"The house was originally built by John Dickinson and his wife Elizabeth who were married in 1693," said Mrs. Chudleigh. who wrote 'Smith's Parish' and 'Hamilton Parish' in the Bermuda National Trust's Architectural Heritage Series.

"It is unknown when it was built, other than sometime between 1693 and Mr. Dickinson's death in 1714."

Mr. Dickinson was a ship owner and merchant. He was an important man locally, being Speaker of the House of Assembly from 1707 to 1710.

Besides his land, Mr. Dickinson's most valuable asset was his sloop, the Elizabeth and Mary, named after his two daughters. After his death it was valued at £ 400.

"In the 1690s, Captain Thomas Tew of Rhode Island came to Bermuda to encourage Bermudians to become shareholders in his venture," said Mrs. Chudleigh.

"Captain Tew obtained a letter of marque to cruise against the King's enemies but this expedition smacked more of piracy than it did of legalised privateering.

"In 1691, they overstepped their mandate and sailed into the Indian Ocean on the Amity, near the entrance to the Red Sea and robbed an Arabian ship.

"The captain wanted to stay on and rob a few more, but the Bermudian crew onboard didn't want to.

"So they went to Madagascar and made merry. Many people in Bermuda got very rich, as a result of that venture. John Dickinson's wife's father, Colonel Anthony White, was a shareholder in that venture, and her second husband [after Mr. Dickinson's death] was a shareholder."

The house was passed down through various branches of the Dickinson family, mostly through the maternal line, into the Smith family, the Greens, and then to the Trotts.

The Trotts were the last of Mr. Dickinson's family to own the property.

Emancipation came during the Trott era at Verdmont, on Verdmont Road in Smith's Parish.

Some of the exhibit items detail the slaves who lived at Verdmont, who outnumbered the white family at the house.

"The last person born a slave in the house was a boy called Geoffrey who was about five at the time of emancipation," said Mrs. Chudleigh.

Unfortunately, although there are lists of enslaved people at Verdmont, they do not include surnames.

"They are just called Tom or Dick in the lists," said Mrs. Chudleigh. "Maybe they took on the name of their owner after emancipation, or maybe they didn't.

"Geoffrey may have become Geoffrey Trott."

She said after emancipation, many of the newly freed people at Verdmont, chose to stay on.

"There is a list drawn up afterward, and they are practically all still at the house," said Mrs. Chudleigh.

Mrs. Chudleigh said that like many families, the people at Verdmont had their share of tragedies.

When the Trotts' two daughters died there, one at age two, and the other in her twenties from typhoid, their mother refused to live there anymore.

"I presume they moved to town," said Mrs. Chudleigh. "The house was sold for the first time in 1860 to a farmer called Rupert Spencer.

"His niece Emma married Stafford Joell who became the next owner. Their daughter Lillian, was the last family member to live in the house."

Lillian, born in 1875, walked to town every morning to work at a law firm.

Her nephew, Alan, lived nearby at Seamont on Collector's Hill. Mr. Joell's children, including twins Alaine and Diane, would frequently visit their aunt.

"At that time, what is now St. Patrick's Road running to the South Shore led to Verdmont," Alaine Joell Saunders told The Royal Gazette. "But we used to call it 'The Deep Road' because it was overgrown with sage bushes. My father, Alan Joell, sold that off."

She said when she was a child growing up in the 1940s, there was no electricity or plumbing at Verdmont.

"My aunt would have five or six camp stoves lined up in the kitchen," said Mrs. Saunders. "That's what she cooked with. It's a wonder she didn't set the place on fire.

"There was a space in the staircase to put a candle. You took the candle when you went upstairs because it was dark."

But she said she didn't remember the house being spooky or haunted.

"There used to be a little porch upstairs on the house," she said. "We would take the chairs from the living room out there and have tea. It had a very good view of the South Shore."

The porch was dismantled when the house was purchased in 1951 for £8,000 by the Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust, forerunner of the Bermuda National Trust.

The house was restored and furnished and portraits in the house painted by John Green were returned after having been sold out of the house. The former detached kitchen was remodeled to become a curator's cottage.

It was officially opened as a museum on November 21, 1957 by Governor Lieutenant-General Sir John Woodall.

Over the years, many visitors to Verdmont have claimed to feel a ghostly presence at the house.

"When I wrote my book, people asked if I was going to include the ghost stories," said Mrs. Chudleigh. "I said yes, but only if there are photographs and documented evidence. There wasn't."

But Michael Fox, whose mother Lillian Fox was the curator at the museum for 28 years, definitely felt that the house was haunted.

"There was always something happening," said Mr. Fox. "You could sit and watch doorknobs turning.

"Every morning there was always broken glass outside the door.You always had a funny feeling."

But his wife, Elaine, said she'd once spent the night in the house and hadn't felt anything.

"My kids always felt there was a presence," she said. "I really believe some people have that sixth sense about the supernatural.

"My kids always felt uncomfortable, being left there alone. Lilly would often ask them to shut up the museum. The shutters had to be closed, and that sort of thing. They didn't like doing it."

Lillian Fox was curator until her death in 1983.

In October Verdmont is open Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

In November it will be open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and by appointment only in December.

Admission is $5 for adults, and $2 for children.

For more information telephone 236-6483.