King's Arms Tavern
Opened in 1772 by tavern keeper Jane Vobe, the King's Arms was one of Williamsburg's most genteel colonial taverns and still operates today as a costumed Colonial Williamsburg dining room. Its resident spirit is a woman remembered as 'Irma.' One version says she was an early live-in manager who died when a fire sparked by a dropped candle swept the building; another holds that she was a 1950s Colonial Williamsburg employee who suffered a fatal heart attack in an upstairs room. Either way, staff and guests blame Irma whenever a dining-room candle inexplicably snuffs itself out, and she is described as a friendly presence who seems to help the servers, with employees saying good night to her at closing. Some accounts also place the spirit of Gowan Pamphlet, an enslaved man turned Baptist preacher associated with Vobe's tavern, among the building's reported phenomena.
📍 416 E Duke of Gloucester St, Williamsburg, VA 23185, Williamsburg, VA · Get directions