A Haunting for No Reason: The Bell Witch
The sinister Bell Witch Cave lies
hidden on
the side of a bluff on the former property of the
fated John Bell family
You hear ghost stories all of the time where the dead comes back to
avenge their death or some wrong-doing. Heck, the whole notion of a
ghost is that it is stuck in some sort of purgatory unable to move
on due to unfinished business. But what of a spirit who torments
without reason? For well over 200 years, one such spirit harrassed
several generations of one family almost within inches of their
sanity...for what seemed like no reason at all.
In the mid-1800s, in the Red River bottomland in Robertson County,
Tennessee, John Bell and his family began their battle with what
would later be known as the "Bell Witch." The irritation began
subtley, with easily dismissable pounding to the walls of their
home and scratching sounds on the children's bedposts. Not to be
ignored, the "spirit" graduated to more physical encounters; it
disheveled bed linen and even began to assault one of the children,
slapping her and pulling her hair.
As time went on, the haunting of the Bells continued. The noises
had gone from a faint woman's crying to loud intelligible hymns,
conversation, quoted scripture, and once even sermons,
word-for-word, at churches miles apart from each other. As the
"spirit" became more aggressive, word of her antics had spread far
and wide. Still, no one knew who or what the entity was, or its
purpose for tormenting the Bell family. The phenomenon was so
puzzling, that even Andrew Jackson - future President of the United
States - came from Nashville to see what all the fuss was
about.
Because of his trip, Jackson gave the spirit the "Bell Witch"
moniker, and with good reason. On the way there, Jackson and his
entourage were halted and chastised by the witch and finally let
through to the Bell home where, once there, one of his men was
attacked for pulling a gun on the spirit. Jackson, a hero in the
Battle of New Orleans four years earlier, was quoted as later
having said, "I'd rather fight the entire British Army than to deal
with the Bell Witch."
Over time, the Bell Witch literally began to ruin the lives of her
victims; her attacks grew less frequent while increasing in damage.
One of the daughters became interested in a young townsboy only to
have her engagement broken from unyielding harrassment from the
witch. The witch continued to express its dislike for "ol Jack
Bell," and relentlessly vowed to kill him. As Bell's health grew
worse, the "spirit" would torture him more severely, until he gave
in after a long battle with a crippling nervous system disorder.
Immediately after Bell's death, the family found a small vial of
unidentified liquid that Bell had partaken of the evening before
his death. The "spirit" suddenly spoke up exclaiming, "I gave Ol'
Jack a big dose of that last night, and that fixed him." As family
and friends began to leave John Bell's burial site, the "spirit"
laughed loudly and sang a cheerful song about a bottle of
brandy.
In April of 1821, the "spirit" visited Lucy Bell and told her that
"it" would return in seven years for a visit. Seven years later, in
1828, the "spirit" returned as promised. Most of this visit
centered around John Bell, Jr. The "spirit" discussed with him such
things as the origin of life, Christianity, the need for a mass
spiritual reawakening, and other in-depth topics. Of particular
significance were the "spirit's" predictions of the Civil War,
World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II.
After three weeks, the "spirit" bade farewell, promising to visit
John Bell's most direct descendant in 107 years. The year would
have been 1935, and the closest direct living descendant of John
Bell was Charles Bailey Bell, a physician in Nashville. Charles
Bailey Bell himself wrote a book about the "Bell Witch," but it had
been published prior 1935. No follow-up was published, and Bell
died a few years later in 1945.
Several years ago, one of John Bell's descendants was rabbit
hunting and shot a rabbit, which wandered into some dense brush.
While searching, he felt a large rock underneath the brush where
the rabbit had entered. The rock turned out to be a part of Joel
Egbert Bell&'s tombstone, and the rabbit was never found. In
the mid 1990's, a picture was taken of a girl sitting on a rock
outside the cave's entrance. When the picture was developed, there
appeared to be a man standing behind her. Upon expert examination,
it was determined that the man-like image was not a
double-exposure, but an entirely separate entity.
