The story of the Bell Witch has been a mainstay around campfires in the Tennessee area for many years. It is considered to be the most well documented haunting in American history. In 2005 the story received national attention when it served as the basis for the movie An American Haunting starring Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland. The movie, unfortunately, was not an accurate retelling of the story. It took the basics of the story and shoehorned it into a Japanese style ghost-revenge flick. The real story of the Bell Witch is far more interesting and frightening than the movie ever thought about being.
In the early 1800s a man by the name of John Bell decided to follow the lead of many other Americans at the time and seek opportunities out west. He uprooted his family from the Carolinas and moved to the Red River community in Tennessee, present day Adams, Tennessee. John was very successful in Tennessee. He acquired a large amount of land and a large house in Tennessee to raise his family. He also became a high-ranking official at his local church. His success would unfortunately come with an unbearable price.
The haunting did not start until 1817, after the Bells had been settled in their new house for several years. One day John was inspecting his crops when he spotted something strange in his field. He slowly approached the animal armed with his gun. The creature was an abomination of nature. It seemed to have the body of a large dog, but with an unusual head that resembled a rabbit. John took several shots at the animal before it got away from him. John thought nothing more of the incident, as guns in that time period were not known for being accurate, so he just assumed he had missed the strange animal.
Side note: Why do you think wars in this time period were fought where people stood in line and took turns taking shots at each other? It was to increase the chances they would hit something. This is not a joke, but the truth. This is how inaccurate weapons were.
That same night the Bells began hearing strange noises outside of their home. Sometimes it would sound as if someone was beating on the house from the outside. Other times it sounded as if an animal was loudly gnawing on something. As time went by the Bells frequently began experiencing these noises. The Bell men would often rush outside when the noises would start and try to find the source of the disturbances but to no avail. One day the noises moved to the inside of the house. The children began claiming that they were hearing the gnawing noises coming from within their rooms and were having trouble sleeping. The activity became more intense when the children began complaining that something was jerking the covers off them and taking their pillows while they tried to sleep.
As time passed the entity appeared to gain strength. Soon the family started hearing a faint voice in their homes at night. What the voice was saying was impossible to determine, but it appeared to be the voice of a feeble old woman. The voice eventually become more clear and would sing church songs, quote scripture, and sometimes even took part in conversations, though the voice was always cynical in these discussions. The entity even began identifying itself as the “witch” of Kate Batts, a former neighbor who John had several verbal altercations with after a slave purchase between the two ended badly.
