by Aaron Mahnke
There are rumors that a pardon was on its way from the governor but that Sheriff Packard was in a hurry to eat his lunch, so he rushed the execution rather than waiting for the governor’s letter to arrive. At noon, the horses pulling the wagon were driven away from the tree, and Ruth Blay fell off the back, where her body swung slowly at the end of the noose. She died soon after.
Those same rumors say the governor’s stay of execution did arrive, just moments after Ruth’s body stopped moving, but there’s no record of a pardon. Instead of freedom, Ruth was given an unmarked grave about three hundred feet north of the small pond in the middle of the cemetery.
Today, visitors to the pond report anomalies in their photos: ghostly images, orbs, and indefinable shapes. Some say their cameras stopped working altogether. According to local legend, a pair of glowing lights has been seen there, and some think it’s Ruth and her infant child.
STAYING BURIED
Between life and death, between the places most familiar to us and that vast expanse of the unknown, sits the graveyard. It has represented the beginning of a journey for countless cultures across the history of humankind. From the Egyptians to the khans, from ancient Europe to modern America, the cemetery is a constant thread, tying us all together.
Philosophy aside, these are places born out of loss and filled with deep emotion. And so it’s no wonder that so many stories exist of the ones who refuse to stay buried. Maybe ghosts are real after all, or maybe we just wish they were. Perhaps it’s both.
One final note: Midnight Mary, the New Haven corset maker who fell into a coma at the age of forty-seven, was buried on October 16, 1872. That night, after the funeral was over and her extended family had traveled back to their homes, Mary’s aunt had a horrible nightmare.
In her dream, she saw Mary still alive in her coffin, scratching at the lining in an effort to get out. She was screaming and moaning with desperation, and the image of that stayed with Mary’s aunt long after she awoke. So much so that she managed to convince both her family and the authorities to exhume Mary’s grave.
After the coffin was removed from the earth, the men opened it. What they found inside would haunt them for the rest of their lives: Mary’s corpse had moved. Her hands were covered in blood and many of her fingernails were broken. The reason was clear after examining the coffin’s lid.
The cloth lining had been shredded. Apparently Mary had finally awoken from her coma, and in her panic, she had tried to claw her way out.
ON AUGUST 31, 1944, a man in southern Illinois woke up in the middle of the night to the smell of something…odd. It wasn’t a skunk, or the telltale odor of smoke from something burning. This was different. Partly because of the acrid, almost venomous nature of the smell. But mostly because of the effect it had on him.
The man said that the smell left him feeling weak and nauseous, and that it induced a violent fit of vomiting. His wife didn’t fare any better. She wondered if maybe their gas stove was still on, so she tried to get out of bed and go check on it. But she couldn’t. In fact, she seemed to be completely paralyzed.
The next day, another resident of the same town reported a similar experience: an odd smell followed by paralyzing effects. Day after day, more reports just like those trickled in. The result, as you might imagine, was group panic. And everyone wanted to find the person responsible. They called him the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, and even now—over seventy years later—no one’s really sure what happened.
It’s amazing how quickly hysteria can spread, isn’t it? One minute there’s nothing, and the next, an entire community is wrapped up in something dark and horrifying. It might be political panic, or religious fervor, or a simple, primal fear of the unexplained. Whatever its flavor, it always has the potential to be powerful. Sometimes even deadly.
Over two centuries ago, something took place that fit the definition of hysteria to the letter, but with a twist. This event had more depth and more power than usual. In fact, it had everything a good folktale needs: cryptids, and witchcraft, and ghosts, oh my. But it also had something else. Something that’s helped it survive to this day.
You see, with hundreds of witnesses on record, this one just might be true.
UNKNOWN TERRITORY
The first British settlers along the Atlantic coast of North America stayed pretty close to the ocean, and for good reason. Those early colonies were deeply dependent on ships from England to bring them supplies and help, and to stray too far from the Atlantic meant putting yourself and your family at risk.
But as time went on, settlers felt more and more comfortable moving farther inland. They followed the rivers. They aimed for the mountains they could see on the western horizon. They chased the dream of wide-open territory, ripe for the taking. Which wasn’t a pleasant idea for the tens of thousands of Native Americans who already called those lands home, and had done for millennia.
The British issued the Proclamation of 1763, which prohibited moving westward past the Appalachian Mountains. But when the British were forced out after the American Revolution, that political borderline evaporated. Thousands of newly independent Americans flooded westward, and by 1800, places like Kentucky and Tennessee had been transformed from wilderness into rustic civilization.
By the time John and Lucy Bell rolled into the newly formed state of Tennessee in 1804, there were already a good number of people there waiting for them. Not that they needed more company; John and Lucy were traveling with five of their children. Their oldest wasn’t with them, having gotten married before the family left North Carolina.
True to the social climate of the pre–Civil War South, the family also traveled with a number of slaves—nine, by most accounts. The entire group aimed for the flatlands around the Red River, where a number of other settlers had put down roots. And then they did what settlers are born to do: they built a new life in a strange place. A couple of years later, they welcomed another daughter. Then a son. Then another son. And as the family was growing, they also deepened their friendship with the neighboring family, the Gunns.
In 1817, something unusual happened to John. He was out in the cornfield one day when he looked up to see an odd animal a dozen or so yards away. It was odd because it seemed to be a mixture of two very different creatures. The body was very clearly that of a dog. The head, though…well, John was sure it was a rabbit.
John raised his gun—no settler on the edge of civilization went anywhere without a gun, after all—and fired at the unusual creature. The shot missed, so he fired again. And again. But whatever it was just turned and ran off toward the woods.
By the time he walked back into the farmhouse that evening for dinner, he’d almost forgotten about it. There was a lot on his mind: the crops, the livestock, the approaching winter. Being a practical man, he wasn’t one to dwell on what had so clearly been a figment of his imagination. That, however, is when they heard the noises.
The sounds came from outside and sounded, for all they could tell, like someone was beating on the house. They ran out to see who it was, but found nothing. A few days later, John’s son Andrew was outside when he saw what he described as a giant turkey. It was larger than any bird he’d ever seen before, but it flew away before he could shoot it.
Not long after that, John’s daughter Elizabeth, known as Betsy, claimed to have seen a dead woman hanging from a tree on the property. She was just eleven, and the sight of it frightened her enough to send her running back to the house, but when she glanced back over her shoulder, there was nothing there.
One of the most unusual stories came from one of their slaves, a man named Dean. Years before, he had found true love with another slave at the nearby Gunn farm, and the couple had married shortly after that. And so each night, after Dean finished his work, he would walk over to the Gunns’ to see his wife and spend time with her.
It was always late wh
en he came back. Late, and dark. But even though the frontier wasn’t the safest place to walk alone, Dean knew the road well enough. It’s just that…well…lately he had been seeing things that didn’t seem normal. One thing, specifically. A dog. Every night on his return trip home, a large black dog would step out of the darkness and cross his path. It wasn’t random, according to Dean. It was regular, happening each night, and had for at least a week before he reported it.
Large and unusual animals on the property. Noises. Visions of dead people. Ominous black dogs. None of it was comforting, and all of it went on for months. But they could always run home, shut the door, and feel safe again. It was upsetting, sure, but at least it was containable.
And that’s when the unexplainable moved inside the house.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
At first it was just knocking sounds. They seemed to creep in through the walls like a winter chill. Odd sounds in a distant part of the house, always without an explanation. But then it changed. Or maybe it adapted…it all depends on how you look at it, I suppose. Because not long after the noises moved indoors, the children began to complain about disturbances in the night.
It sounded to them like rats were chewing on their bedposts. Some of the children claimed they could hear chains being dragged around the house. Others said that their blankets were being pulled off them while they slept.
On at least one occasion, Betsy ran into her parents’ room in the middle of the night, crying hysterically. They lit a lantern and discovered that she was covered in red welts and bruises, as if she’d been beaten. That night set off a string of attacks that all seemed focused on her…noises that followed her, physical assaults, visions.
This new focus wasn’t contained to the house, either. One story tells of how Betsy even tried spending the night at the home of a school friend. She hoped the distance would help. She hoped it—whatever it was—would leave her alone. But it followed her. It always followed her.
One other odd symptom of these unexplainable attacks was that John began to have trouble eating. He said it was like his tongue had a mind of its own. He would put food into his mouth, but it would be pushed back out. It didn’t happen all the time, but once was enough to put him on edge.
John Bell was apparently a patient man. For a long while, he assumed all the trouble would soon go away and eventually be forgotten. For over a year, he and his family bravely endured their mysterious torment. The beatings. The noises. The blankets and chains and all of it. But when Betsy’s friends found out, word began to spread. And John didn’t like that, because he had a reputation to maintain.
That might seem selfish, I know. On the surface, it looks like John was content to do nothing while his family suffered. And then, the moment his reputation seemed to be at risk, he gave in and started to worry. But before you judge him, you have to keep in mind the common beliefs of the time, especially in his part of the country.
This all took place long after the witchcraft panic of the seventeenth century had died out. The Salem trials were the last of their kind in America, and those had taken place over 125 years before the Bells began having odd experiences. But on the edges of the frontier, away from the civilized, modern cities of the coast, old superstition still ran deep.
So deep, in fact, that half a century later, in the very same town as the Bells, a man named James Smith would be murdered. The reason, according to his killers, was that Smith was a witch. So yes, John Bell’s obsession with his reputation does seem a little petty, but it was also rooted in self-preservation.
To find help, John called on his local minister, James Johnston. Johnston arrived later that day with his wife, and the couple agreed to spend the night at the farmhouse and offer their own opinion on the activity. And they apparently had a plan to help with whatever might come their way.
After dinner, the Johnstons led the Bell family through a selection of Bible readings, and then followed that up with a few hymns and a prayer of blessing for the house and the people inside it. Then, with the evening at an end, everyone retired to their rooms for the night.
It was only when the lights went out and darkness took over that the invisible force became active. And that night, it seems, the focus would be on the newcomers. The Johnstons woke to the sound of loud noises, and then later their blankets were pulled off the bed.
Frustrated and more than a little frightened, the minister jumped out of bed and shouted into the darkness, “In the name of the Lord, who are you, and what do you want?”
His demand was met with silence. No more noises. No invisible forces tugging on the blankets. Just silence. But that silence wouldn’t last long. In fact, it turned out to be the calm before the storm.
Within hours, the spirit did something that no one in the house expected. It spoke.
A VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS
When the Bell family gathered for breakfast the following morning, the Johnstons joined them. There was conversation about the previous night. There were panicked looks. There were frustration and fear and a lot of hopelessness. If the minister couldn’t help them, what chance did they have?
It was during that conversation that something unexpected happened. Something that defied all laws of nature. Because according to everyone at the table, that’s the moment when the spirit in the house actually spoke to them.
What did it say? Well, it appears to have taken a liking to the words of the minister. The otherworldly, disembodied voice repeated back, word for word, the Bible passages the group had listened to the night before. It repeated the prayers, too. And then it vanished.
After that, word spread fast. John and Lucy received a letter from their oldest daughter back in North Carolina, who mentioned hearing of their troubles from someone else. This was more than just a bit of family drama now. It was a public spectacle. And the odd occurrences kept piling up.
Weeks later, the Bells hosted two local ministers for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. The two men were from churches separated by thirteen miles, and both had preached their sermons at the same time that day. Yet the spirit seemed to have heard both, reciting each of them back to the people gathered at the table.
Which didn’t help solve the mystery. Because if we assume one of the older children was responsible for all of this, then how could that one person have listened to—and memorized—two sermons so far apart at the same time?
Of course, they tried to figure out who or what the spirit was. Some thought maybe it was the ghost of a local Native American, angry about the settlers’ presence. Others thought it was the demonic spirit that inhabited a local witch. The voice even identified herself as Kate, apparently named in honor of the witch in question. But having a name didn’t make the problem go away.
Things began to escalate. It got so bad that the family started to discuss moving away. Some of the older children suggested returning to North Carolina. Others didn’t care where they went; they just wanted to leave the farmhouse forever. But could they really get away from it?
The spirit did, however, reveal a helpful side at least once during the spring of 1820. That’s when Betsy’s mother, Lucy, became horribly sick with a lung infection. It hurt to cough. It hurt to breathe. And she wasn’t getting better.
That’s when Kate, if that was her name, literally dropped a remedy in Lucy’s hands. Grapes and hazelnuts, which at the time were thought to have powerful medicinal qualities, simply appeared out of thin air. Lucy apparently recovered a short while later.
The worst of it all, however, fell on John Bell. Maybe it was because he was the most prideful and resistant to believing the spirit actually existed. Perhaps it was because he was the one dragging the local church into the situation. All we know is that the spirit did not care one bit for John.
Sometimes it was verbal. Insults would often be heard shouted at him from thin air. He was called n
ames and told that his life wasn’t worth carrying on, that he should end it. Other times, though, the spirit became violent. And that odd thing with his tongue returned in force, leaving him unable to eat or even speak.
Whether it was the lack of food or some other influence from the spirit, John spent much of 1820 very ill. By autumn, he was forced to spend over a month resting in bed. When he did recover, it wasn’t for long, but John tried to make the most of it.
His son Richard told the story of how John followed him outside one day when he needed to check on the pigs. I can imagine John was feeling a bit helpless and just wanted to contribute. Farms are a lot of work, after all. But while they were out of the house, Kate decided to attack.
First it was his shoes. Richard described how, no matter how tightly John tied the laces, his father’s shoes would fly off his feet. When they turned around to return to the house, Kate slapped John across the face. The older man sat down to recover himself, and the spirit filled the air with laughter and song.
In early December 1820 he took a turn for the worse and took to his bed again. On the nineteenth, John slipped into a coma, and no matter what the family or neighbors did, they couldn’t wake him up. They didn’t know what had brought it on, but they had a theory.
John’s wife, Lucy, found a small glass vial among their household medicines, but she had never seen it before. There was a dark liquid inside it…or at least there had been. There wasn’t much of it left. So Lucy did what any desperate person would do in her situation: she shouted out to the spirit for answers. What was this mysterious medicine?
