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 familyYou 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.
