Stories of the Bell Witch - Told Yet Again -

 

As regular as tobacco barns start their annual smoking phase, the tales of the Bell Witch or Spirit begin to appear. This year Spirit: The Authentic Story of the Bell Witch of Tennessee returns to the stage in Adams, Tennessee.  It will continue through October 31, 2026.  (LINK to TICKETS)

Nancy Johnston Ayers, the daughter of John & Martha Johnston
was said to have been spanked by the witch. 

Recently, I found a review of the Martin V. Ingram book that recorded the historic tale. This 1919 article relates the story and presents some interesting questions.

A new book gives what purports to be an accurate account of the experiences of certain members of the family of John Bell, who in 1804 moved to Robertson County, Tennessee from North Carolina. The author [Martin V. Ingram] affirms that he " only assumes to compile the data, formally presenting the history of this greatest of all mysteries, just as the matter is furnished to hand, written by Williams Bell, a member of the family, some fifty years ago, together with other corroborative testimony by men of irreproachable character and unquestionable veracity ". Appended to Mr. Ingram's compilation are detailed reports of interviews with his informants, several letters from persons able to speak with authority, and an extended history of " Our Family Trouble " by Richard Williams, son of the unfortunate John Bell.

Mr. Ingram declines to propound any theory regarding the cause of the phenomena he records, nor has he, he affirms, " any opinion to advance concerning witchcraft, sorcery, spiritualism or psychology in any form "; yet he devotes a chapter of thirty pages to the presentation of a mass of evidence tending to establish the reality of supernatural phenomena. He cites the Bible and John Wesley, Richard Watson, Adam Clarke, and other commentators, as well as several modern instances, of which the mysterious " rocking of Dr. William Smith's cradle, which occurred in 1840, in Lynchburg, Va.," may serve as an example.

"According to the author, the Bell homestead was situated on the south bank of the Red River, about a mile from the spot now occupied by Adams Station, the latter being some forty miles north of Nashville, on the southeastern branch of the Louisville and Nashville (the old Edgefield and Kentucky) Rail Road.

After a brief sketch of the social and religious life of the simple, frontier community in which the Bell family settled, Mr. Ingram describes a long series of persecutions which John Bell and his daughter Betsy suffered at the hands of an invisible being who took up its abode at the Bell homestead and made itself a general nuisance. At intervals the " witch " frequented other places in the community, among them Fort's mill, about a mile from John Bell's house. The machinery was often heard running at night after the miller had left the building. It first revealed its presence in 1817, and, when questioned regarding its origin, claimed to have come from North Carolina. Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by four other airy personages denominated Blackdog, Mathematics, Cypocryphy, and Jerusalem, it filled the house with wild laughter, profane language, and coarse jests. The smacking of unseen lips and strange sounds "like rats gnawing the bed posts . . . dogs fighting ... or trace chains dragging over the floor" made sleep impossible. Covers were pulled from the beds, chairs were overturned, " chunks of wood and stones" fell unexpectedly in the path of the farm laborers, ghostly lights flitted around the house, and various members of the family were struck by unseen hands. At times the demonic family sang sweetly, and the " witch " quoted Scripture with astonishing accuracy. In 1817 " Mr. Bell, while walking through his corn field, was confronted by a strange animal, unlike any he had ever seen, sitting in a corn row, gazing steadfastly at him as he approached nearer. He concluded that it was probably a dog, and having his gun in hand, shot at it, when the animal ran off. Some days after, in the late afternoon, Drew Bell observed a very large fowl, which he supposed to be a wild turkey, as it perched upon the fence, and ran in the house for a gun to kill it. As he approached within shooting distance, the bird flapped its wings and sailed away, and then he was mystified in discovering that it was not a turkey, but some unknown bird of extraordinary size. Betsy walked out one evening soon after this with the children, among the big forest trees near the house, and saw something which she described as a pretty little girl dressed in green, swinging to a limb of a tall oak. Then came Dean, the servant, reporting that a large black dog came in the road in front of him at a certain place, every night that he visited his wife Kate, who belonged to Alex Gunn [a neighbor], and trotted along before him to the cabin door and then disappeared.” "The Goblin's favorite form, however, was that of a rabbit, . . . the hare ghost took malicious pleasure in hopping out into the road, showing itself to every one who passed through [the lane in front of the house]."

Witch-doctors and other persons attempted repeatedly to discover the cause of the strange events, but to no purpose. " The want of some satisfactory explanation or the failure of all investigators to throw light on the witch mystery, gave rise to the speculative idea that John and Drew Bell had learned ventriloquism and some subtle art. . . , and taught the same to their sister Betsy, for the purpose of attracting people and making money", but, as investigation showed, it was no such matter.

The unseen visitor's own account of itself was far from satisfactory. At one time it claimed to be the spirit of a child buried in North Carolina. At another it was a disturbed ghost seeking a lost tooth under the Bell house. When, however, the flooring was removed and the dirt sifted, no tooth was found, and a mocking voice from the air declared it was " all a joke to fool ' Old Jack'," as the " witch " called John Bell. On another occasion it was the ghost of an early settler, come back to reveal the whereabouts of hid treasure; but the money was not found, and the " witch."

Let’s continue with this story.

Kate Batts was a sort of gigantic Mrs. Malaprop, whose propensity for using long words and whose evil tongue made her at once the laughing stock and the terror of the neighborhood. After the " witch's " assertion it was recalled not only that Mrs. Batts had an old grudge against John Bell, but also that certain events connected with her history savored strongly of witchcraft. She had a habit of " begging a brass pin of every woman she met, which trifle," adds the author, " was supposed to give her power over the donor" (p. 63). "The most incontrovertible evidence [however] was that a certain girl in the vicinity was given the task of churning, and after working the dasher diligently for two hours without reward, and no sign of butter coming, she declared that old Kate Batts had bewitched the milk and she determined to burn her. Carrying out this decision, she stuck an iron poker in the fire, and after it had come to a white heat, she soused the iron into the milk, setting the churn away; then making some excuse for the visit, she called on Aunt Kate to ascertain the result of her experiment, and found Mrs. Batts sitting in the corner nursing a burnt hand, which had been badly blistered through a mistake in taking the poker by the hot end that morning" (p. 69 f.). Mrs. Batts violently denied all connection with the Bell " witch," and the matter was never brought to a test.

Whatever may have been the cause of the phenomena described by Mr. Ingram, the persecution of the " witch" brought naught but sorrow to the Bells. The father became despondent and in 1820 died; Betsy was forced to give up her lover, and the household was finally broken up.

The following clipping, taken apparently from the query column of the Nashville, Tennessee, Banner, has some bearing on the events described in Mr. Ingram's book:

"' Is there such a thing as a Bell Witch near Springfield, Tenn. ? If so, please tell some of its doings of the past.'

" A great many of the most reputable among the older citizens of Springfield and Robertson County are convinced that there was an unexplainable manifestation of some sort which was generally regarded as a ghost, and which came to be called the Bell Witch. It was said to jump on the steeds of men returning home from Springfield after dark, shriek in an unearthly manner and of other alarming things (sic). In the eighties, when there was a recurrence of what was supposed to be the Bell Witch manifestations, the Banner sent Mr. John C. Cooke to investigate. He concluded that there was not at that time any supernatural manifestation, though he heard noises that were not explained. Mr. Cooke is still a member of the Banner staff. While he does not accept the ghost theory, he is convinced that there was a mysterious something that alarmed many of the most intelligent people of that community. Mr. Martin V. Ingram of Clarksville wrote a book undertaking to give all the facts and circumstances in which the Bell Witch figured, and this book can probably be obtained from second-hand book dealers."

The student of folklore will recognize at once that we are here dealing with a series of phenomena long associated with haunted houses. Buildings rendered uninhabitable by terrorizing agencies have existed in fact from time immemorial, and their horrors have formed the basis of skeptical or sympathetic treatment from the ancient classical drama to the more modern Gothic romance and the contemporary penny-dreadful. Moreover, it should be observed that, although houses may be haunted by vampires, ghosts, and other uncanny beings not necessarily associated with witchcraft, the ills which befall the occupants have frequently been attributed to maleficium. During the great period of witch mania in Western Europe many buildings in the British Isles and on the Continent were disturbed by the Devil or his human emissaries. A few well authenticated instances of English and American houses troubled by diabolic forces will make it obvious that the agency responsible for the misfortunes of the Bell family did but illustrate the excessive conservativeness with which the powers of evil stick to tradition.

Extraordinary events closely resembling those described in The Bell Witch are outlined by E. B. Miles in a series of sketches of life in the Cumberlands (The Spirit of the Mountains, p. 108ff.). They concern "an old woman, or the spirit of one," who annoyed the family of Beaver. As a result of the visitations the head of the family pined and died.

In 1654-5 the family of Gilbert Campbell, a weaver living in Galloway, Scotland, underwent a series of similar annoyances as the result of Campbell's having refused alms to a sturdy beggar named Alexander Agnew, " who afterwards was hanged at Dumfries, for Blasphemy." When questioned by the minister, an invisible demon confessed that he was the author of the trouble and showed himself even more learned in the Scriptures than did Kate Batts. About the year 1661 a series of persecutions strikingly similar to those described in The Bell Witch were suffered by the household of Mr. John Mompesson, of Tedworth, Wilts. An invisible force pulled the children's hair and night-clothes and even lifted the children themselves bodily out of bed, scattered the grandmother's garments and hid her bible in the hearth, moved furniture, opened and shut doors, and "The commissioners blamed the disturbance on the Devil, but an eighteenth-century tradition, which it must be admitted is not above suspicion, has it that the perpetrator was one John Collins, a loyalist who, by concealing his real opinions secured a place with the commission and who was well acquainted with the trap-doors and secret passages of the building.

The story of the Bell Witch will continue to captivate the residents and visitors to Robertson County. To learn more about the families of this region, visit all of the great history museums in Robertson County, and don't miss the story told in Spirit: The Authentic Story of the Bell Witch of Tennessee.  Limited tickets are available for next week -   https://bellwitchfallfestival.com/