Bell Witch

For the 2007 film, see Bell Witch: The Movie. For the EP by Mercyful Fate, see The Bell Witch (EP).

An artist's sketching of the Bell home, originally published in 1894

The Bell Witch or Bell Witch Haunting is a poltergeist legend from Southern folklore, centered on the 19th-century Bell family of Adams, Tennessee.

An artist's drawing of Betsy Bell, originally published in 1894

John Bell Sr., who made his living as a farmer, resided with his family in Adams, Tennessee in the early 1800s. According to folklore in 1817, his family came under attack by a witch.

In the 1894 book An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch, author Martin Van Buren Ingram claimed that the poltergeist's name was Kate, and that she frequently cursed the Bell family out loud. The activity centered on the Bells' youngest daughter, Betsy, and worsened after she became engaged to a local named Joshua Gardner.

Several accounts say that during his military career, Andrew Jackson was intrigued with the story and was frightened away after traveling to investigate. Other stories claim the family was haunted by scratching noises outside their door after Bell found a half-dog, half-rabbit creature. Some versions end with Bell being poisoned by the witch. Accounts vary with the witch being someone who had been cheated by Bell or a male slave that Bell had killed.

Early written sources

The Saturday Evening Post

The Green Mountain Freeman in Montpelier, Vermont on Feb 7, 1856 republished a story regarding the Bell Witch legend and ascribed the story to the Saturday Evening Post. The unidentified author described the apparition as the 'Tennessee Ghost' or 'Bell Ghost,' and stated the event occurred 30 years or more from the time the article was written. There are three human characters in the account, Mr. Bell, his daughter Betsey Bell, and Joshua Gardner. The author stated that the voice, which spoke freely about the house from all directions, would not manifest itself until the lights were extinguished at night. The phenomenon attracted wide interest. The author claimed to have become well acquainted with Mr. Gardner. When the ghost was asked how long it would remain, it replied, "until Joshua Gardner and Betsey Bell get married." The author goes on to state that Betsey Bell had fallen in love with Joshua Gardner and had discovered the skill of 'ventriloquism'. The author states that Ms. Bell then used her skill to attempt to convince Joshua Gardner to marry her. When they did not marry, the apparition disappeared.

M. V. Ingram, in his An Authenticated History Of The Bell Witch, wrote the following regarding the Saturday Evening Post article:

About 1849 the Saturday Evening Post, published either at Philadelphia or New York, printed a long sketch of the Bell Witch phenomenon, written by a reporter who made a strenuous effort in the details to connect her with the authorship of the demonstrations. Mrs. Powell was so outraged by the publication that she engaged a lawyer to institute suit for libel. The matter, however, was settled without litigation, the paper retracting the charges, explaining how this version of the story had gained credence, and the fact that at the time the demonstrations commenced Betsy Bell had scarcely advanced from the stage of childhood and was too young to have been capable of originating and practicing so great a deception. The fact also that after this report had gained circulation, she had submitted to any and every test that the wits of detectives could invent to prove the theory, and all the stratagems employed, served only to demonstrate her innocence and utter ignorance of the agency of the so-called witchery, and was herself the greatest sufferer from the affliction.

The Daily American

On April 28, 1880 an article was published in The Daily American newspaper, regarding a 'haunted house' in Springfield, Tennessee where knocking on the floor was heard. The author reported that several hundred people visited the home attempting to witness the phenomena with many camped out over night. The author of the article took the opportunity to mention the Bell Witch legend:

It is an actual fact that several hundred intelligent people of Springfield and vicinity have been so excited over the noise as to go night after night to listen to it.... About thirty years ago Robertson county had a sensation similar to this known as the "Bell Witch," and people came from all parts of the country, even as far as New York, to hear or see her.

Nashville Centennial Exposition

Another account of the Bell Witch legend was also published in 1880 as apart of a sketch of Robertson County written for Nashville's Centennial Exposition. The author of this article is unknown. In this account, the Bell entity did not explicitly poison John Bell.

At one time a vial of poison was found in the flue of the chimney, and being taken down, Dr. George B. Hopson gave one drop to a cat, causing its death in seven seconds. The witch claimed to have put the poison there for the purpose of killing Mr. Bell. Being asked how it was going to administer the poison, it said by pouring it into the dinner pot. It is remarkable that, although he enjoyed good health up to the time of this event, Mr. Bell died within [ ] days after the vial was found, being in a stupor at the time of his death. From this time the people visited the house less frequently, although the witch would now and then be heard.

This is in contrast to the Ingram account where John Bell was already suffering from an unknown affliction and bedridden for sometime. John Bell's son, John Bell Jr., found the vial in the cupboard after his father did not wake. The family called for Dr. Hopson, while the Bell Witch exclaimed she had fed the poison to John Bell. Alex Gunn and John Bell Jr. tested the poison on the cat with a straw, which "died very quick." John Bell died the next day on December 20, 1820.

Goodspeed's History of Tennessee

Another written account prior to Ingram's book was in the Goodspeed Brothers' 1886 History of Tennessee, published almost 70 years after the events. The single paragraph fails to mention Andrew Jackson or the elder Bell's death.

A remarkable occurrence which attracted wide-spread interest was connected with the family of John Bell, who settled near what is now Adams Station about 1804. So great was the excitement that people came from hundreds of miles around to witness the manifestations of what was popularly known as the "Bell Witch." This witch was supposed to be some spiritual being having a woman's attributes, such as voice. It was invisible to the eye, yet it would hold conversation and even shake hands with certain individuals. The feats it performed were wonderful and seemingly designed to annoy the family. It would take the sugar from the bowls, spill the milk, take the quilts from the beds, slap and pinch the children, and then laugh at the discomfort of its victims. At first it was supposed to be a good spirit, but its subsequent acts, together with the curses with which it supplemented its remarks, proved the contrary.

Paranormal investigator Benjamin Radford, as well as Brian Dunning, conclude that there is no evidence that Andrew Jackson visited the Bell family home. During the years in question, Jackson's movements were well documented, and nowhere in history or his writings is there evidence of his knowledge of the Bell family. According to Dunning, "The 1824 Presidential election was notoriously malicious, and it seems hard to believe that his opponent would have overlooked the opportunity to drag him through the mud for having lost a fight to a witch."

Martin Van Buren Ingram

Most accounts of the legend are drawn from two sources. In part, the Goodspeed article was a source, but newspaper publisher Martin Van Buren Ingram provided most of the material. Seventy-five years after the Bell Witch events, he wrote An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch. Ingram states that he based his book on the diary of Richard Bell, who was a son of John Bell, Sr. The events happened when Richard Bell was 6–10 years old, but he didn't write the diary until he was 30. According to Brian Dunning no one has ever seen this diary, and there is no evidence that it ever existed: "Conveniently, every person with firsthand knowledge of the Bell Witch hauntings was already dead when Ingram started his book; in fact, every person with secondhand knowledge was even dead." Dunning also concluded that Ingram was guilty of falsifying another statement, that the Saturday Evening Post had published a story in 1849 accusing the Bells' daughter Elizabeth of creating the witch, an article which was not found at the time.

Evaluation

According to Radford, the Bell Witch story is an important one for all paranormal researchers: "It shows how easily legend and myth can be mistaken for fact and real events and how easily the lines are blurred" when sources are not checked. Dunning wrote that there was no need to discuss the supposed paranormal activity until there was evidence that the story was true. "Vague stories indicate that there was a witch in the area. All the significant facts of the story have been falsified, and the others come from a source of dubious credibility. Since no reliable documentation of any actual events exists, there is nothing worth looking into."

Dunning concludes, "I chalk up the Bell Witch as nothing more than one of many unsubstantiated folk legends, vastly embellished and popularized by an opportunistic author of historical fiction." Radford reminds readers that "the burden of proof is not on skeptics to disprove anything but rather for the proponents to prove... claims".

Joe Nickell has written that many of those who knew Betsy suspected her of fraud and the Bell Witch story "sounds suspiciously like an example of “the poltergeist-faking syndrome” in which someone, typically a child, causes the mischief."

Bell Witch in popular culture

Signs at the entrance to the Bell Witch Cave promote ghost tourism in Adams, Tennessee.

There have been several movies based, at least in part, on the Bell Witch legend, including The Blair Witch Project in 1999, Bell Witch Haunting in 2004, An American Haunting in 2005, Bell Witch: The Movie in 2007, and The Bell Witch Haunting in 2013.

Charles Faulkner Bryan, as apart of a Guggenheim Fellowship, composed The Bell Witch, a cantata which premiered in Carnegie Hall in 1947 with Robert Shaw conducting the Juilliard Chorus and Orchestra.

The Danish metal band Mercyful Fate have a song titled "The Bell Witch" on their 1993 album In the Shadows.

Seattle-based doom metal band Bell Witch took their name from this legend.

The American television series Ghost Adventures filmed an episode at the Bell Witch Cave.

An American television series - "Cursed: The Bell Witch" - based on the latest members of the Bell family trying to end the curse. It premiered October 2015 on the A&E Network.

Tennessee author William Gay wrote a novel, published posthumously in 2015, entitled Little Sister Death, about the Bell Witch.

See also

• List of ghost films
• List of ghosts

External links

• MonsterTalk episode on The Bell Witch
• The Bell Witch by researcher Pat Fitzhugh.
• The Historic Bell Witch Cave
• Prairie Ghosts - The Bell Witch