An American Haunting

No supernatural story in American history is more famous than that of the Bell Witch. In fact, tales of the spirit were so widespread that they caught the attention of a General and future President, Andrew Jackson.

Betsy was tortured by the Witch for several years of her childhood.

What was the Bell Witch? Like most supernatural stories, certain details vary from version to version. But the prevailing account is that the Bell Witch claimed to be the spirit of Kate Batts, a mean old neighbor of John Bell who believed she was cheated by him in a land purchase. On her deathbed, she swore that she would haunt John Bell and his descendents. The story is picked up by the Guidebook for Tennessee, published in 1933 by the Federal Government's Works Project Administration.

According to most accounts, the disturbances began one night in 1817 with mysterious rappings on the windows of the Bells cabin near Clarksville, Tennessee. Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Betsy Bell began to complain of an invisible rat gnawing on her bedpost at night, and the entire family, including the parents, John and Luce, experienced the midnight confusion of having their covers pulled off their beds. When the Bell family arose one morning, stones littered the floor of their front room and the furniture had been overturned. The children, Betsy, John, Drewry, Joel, and Richard, were goggle-eyed and spoke of ghosts and goblins. John Bell lectured his family severely. They would keep the problem to themselves. They didnt want their family to become the subject for common and unsavory gossip. That night, Richard was awakened by something pulling his hair, raising his head right off the pillow. Joel began screaming at his brothers plight, and from her room, Betsy began howling that the gnawing rat had begun to pull her hair, too. Most of the family awakened the next day with sore scalps, and John Bell reversed his decision. It was obvious that they needed help. That day he would confide in James Johnson, their nearest neighbor and closest friend. Johnson accompanied his friend to the cabin that evening.

The tale that Bell told was an incredible one, but Johnson knew that his neighbor was not given to flights of fancy. While he watched at Betsys bedside that night, Johnson saw the young girl receive several blows on the cheeks from an invisible antagonist. He adjured the spirit to stop in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there was no activity from the ghost for several minutes, but then Betsys hair received a yank that brought a cry of pain from her lips. Again Johnson adjured the evil spirit, and it released the girls hair. Johnson concluded that the spirit understood the human language and that Betsy was the center of the haunting. He met with other neighbors, and they decided to help the Bell family as best they could. A committee kept watch at the Bell house all night to try to placate the spirit, but all this accomplished was to bring about an especially vicious attack on the unfortunate Betsy. A number of neighbors volunteered their own daughters to sleep with Betsy, but this only managed to terrorize the other girls as well. Nor did it accomplish any useful purpose to take Betsy out of the cabin into the home of neighborsthe trouble simply followed her there and upset the entire house.

Unexplained Ghost Haunting : Bell Witch's Cave