The case study books chronicling the 19th Century 'Bell Witch' 'talking poltergeist' in Tennessee include circumstances involving slavery during the period preceding the Civil War. M. V. Ingram wrote in An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch (1894) about the tide of westward immigration that brought John Bell and his family to a settlement along the Red River in 1804. Six children had been born to John and Lucy Bell during their twenty-two years in North Carolina. Three more children would be born in Tennessee. John's father-in-law had presented the couple with their first slaves as a wedding gift: a young black woman named Chloe and her son Dean. Chloe would have eight children in all "that had become valuable as slaves . . ."
At the Bells' new home, there were houses, barns and an orchard. John cleared more land for farming and herds of hogs and cattle were maintained. Forty miles north of Nashville, the territory was one where "old friends had preceded them." The Bells' new residence consisted of a double log house with a wide hallway between six spacious rooms, a reception hall, and an extended ell with several additional rooms. Cabins were built for the slaves. Area residents attended local Baptist and Methodist services. Included in Ingram's book are the contents of the manuscript entitled Our Family Trouble, the memoir of John Bell's son Richard Williams Bell recounting the haunting incidents that began circa 1818.
Richard Williams Bell commented: "The witch came and went, hundreds of people witnessed its wonderful demonstrations, and many of the best people of Robertson and adjoining counties have testified to these facts, telling the story over and over to the younger generation . . . Those who came as experts were worse confounded than all others."
Beyond the many bizarre occurrences chronicled to occur with the haunting presence that came to be known as the 'Bell Witch'—acquiring the nickname 'Kate'—details about the lives of the slaves would be a facet of the case that could only be perceived as inhumane by more modern generations of readers. In Ingram's book, transcripts of interviews about the slaves' experiences with the haunting presence would be presented in a colloquial manner using phonetic spelling of words; this endeavor only serving to make more obvious the slaves' lack of education. M. V. Ingram and the author of the other major case study by Bell family descendent Charles Bailey Bell, The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit (1934), overlooked expressing remorse for the predicament of the slaves. Charles Bailey Bell also at times used slave vernacular for incidents described in his book.
As chronicled by these authors, one of the people whose life would be impacted by the astounding manifestations was Mrs. Kate Batts, whom Ingram described as "a noted lady in that community, remarkable for her eccentricities . . . The superstitious believed that she was a witch, and this conjecture was strengthened by her habit of begging a brass pin from every woman she met, which trifle was supposed to give her power over the donor . . ." The need for the pins had a more mundane explanation.
Mrs. Batts kept her negro women employed mostly at spinning, weaving cotton, flax and wool, making jeans, linsey, linen, etc., and knitting stockings after night until late bed time, and always had something to sell . . .
The Spirit was known to state "I am . . ." or ". . . that was me" concerning animals that were seen or various people (living or deceased) whose voices were heard when they weren't present and evidently Kate Batts had been named on one occasion. Ingram wrote what must have become a popular opinion in the community:
The goblin declared that it could not trifle with a preacher or tell Brother Gunn a lie, and if he must know the truth, it was nothing more or less than old Kate Batts' witch . . .
. . . Mrs. Batts had been heard to speak harshly of John Bell in regard to a transaction she had with him years back when he first moved to the settlement, declaring that she would get even with him.
When Mrs. Batts learned of the suspicions about her —
Her eyes flashed fire, and her tongue was let loose at both ends, rolling off epithets like streaks of lightning. She kept every path in the neighborhood hot for a month trying to find the "corrigendum who dared to splavicate her character with the spiritifications of John Bell's witch . . ."
Mrs. Batts would be among the numerous people whose understanding of reality would be altered by the haunting presence that remains known to this day as 'The Bell Witch.'
In the memoir of Richard Williams Bell, the haunting presence is recorded to have expressed what Richard referred to as "a strong aversion for the Negro." However, it was not just the slaves who would feel the wrath of the unseen entity. It is evident that 'Kate'—whose tirades alternated with the voices of other manifesting people, living and deceased—could become verbally or—though invisible—physically abusive to anyone present.
The transcendental communicator Theodore Parker was quoted at a Boston seance in 1869: "It should be understood that each distinct intelligence, or human spirit, retains its own special intellectual integrity after death as before. All are entitled to their own opinions and the expression of the same, if they express themselves at all . . .You make a very great mistake, oftentimes, in supposing the departed spirit to be possessed of an almost infinite amount of knowledge regarding all subjects. You forget that they are still human, bounded about by the conditions of human life. They are not infinite. They are finite still. And though their clairvoyance is largely unfolded in spirit-life, yet it does not extend to infinity. It only reaches a very small degree into the future. It does not perceive all the past, neither does it all the future. It can take cognizance of events as they come within its sphere of action, but no farther. Now, then, consider the friends who come to you from the other life as human, fallible, and entitled, each one, to their own opinions. You gave them that liberty while they were in the mortal form, and if you are wise and just you will give them no less now." (Flashes of Light from The Spirit-Land through the Mediumship of Mrs. J. H. Conant)
Some of the most surprising cases of so-called 'paranormal phenomena' have been known categorically as 'talking poltergeist' cases (a topic of many previous blog articles) — a mere indication of the unexpected manifestations is the following incident involving the unseen 'Michael' described during my 1995 interviews with the Bell / Mc Wethy family in Centrahoma.
Maxine: I'll tell you something else. I went with Twyla. I drove her car. Steve was going to police school in Oklahoma City. They lived in Paden so me and Twyla drove up there. Snow was still on the ground, wasn't it? And we drove to her house. And her mother and daddy-in-law came up there, and we all went to his graduation. Well, when Steve and Twyla were bringing me back home and we got into Holdenville we were passing a police station. Michael hollered at the police there, "PUSSIES!"
Brenda: And he tells you dirty jokes too.
Q [Me]: It's hilarious.
Maxine: Steve laughed and he said, "Well, am I one, Michael?" And he said, "YOU ARE NOW!" (laughs)
Richard Williams Bell wrote about the slave named Dean, mentioning him as having told "miraculous stories" about the 'witch' while referring to him as "a kind of autocrat among the darkles, and by the way, was a good Negro, father's main reliance for heavy work, and noted for his skill with the axe and maul and wedge. He was worth two ordinary men in a forest clearing. Dean could see the witch any time when alone, or on his way to visit his wife, who belonged to Alex. Gunn." Richard didn't accept Dean's accounts as "altogether reliable; he was allowed a wide range for his vivid imagination"; however, this is the predicament of everyone who has experienced so-called 'paranormal' phenomena. One sequence of events reported by Dean is included in the preceding blog article and the following is another from Chapter X "Negro Stories" by Ingram in An Authenticated History. (In this article contemporary grammar is provided for excerpts from colloquial renditions of the slaves' speech as presented in the case studies books by M. V. Ingram and Charles Bailey Bell.)
There are many persons still living in Robertson County who remember Uncle Dean. He lived to a very old age, and was noted throughout the surrounding country as the famous rail-splitter, a distinction which he was very proud of . . .
The Negroes and children in the neighbor hood delighted in gathering around the old darkie to hear his hair-raising witch stories. Dean carried a prominent scar on his forehead, which gave his physiognomy a very conspicuous cast. A good lady connected with the Bell family, describing Dean to the writer, says he declared to the day of his death that this scar was caused by an unpleasant contact with "Kate," the witch, in which he was knocked in the head with a big stick. Dean was a great possum hunter; Autumn came in all of its glory. The luscious persimmon was ripe, and possums fat and plentiful, and Dean's heart panted for the woods, as did his appetite long for "possum and taters."
Hearing the Witch in the house carrying on at a great rate with the visitors, he concluded that was the opportunity to make a short round, and return before "Kate" adjourned the meeting. So he swung his axe over his shoulder, whistled to old Caesar [dog] and struck out. Next morning Dean was missing, and Mr. Bell was very uneasy for a time, but soon after breakfast he showed up with a great gash in his cranium and was very bloody.
"Well old master, I'm going to tell the truth about it, that I is. For God sake, it was jus this way. I heard the old witch in the house speaking with the white folks . . . Then I concluded it was a mighty good time to go out and catch a possum for dinner Sunday, supposing I could get back before the witch knowed it. So I slipped off around the field, and directly old Caesar he treed a big possum up on top of that high stump side of the fence. I just left him there, because I knew he wasn't going to get away from old Caesar. Then I took and cut down a little sapling about six feet long, and split one end of it, then took the possum down and pulled his tail through the split, and laid him down to get my axe. Then I hear something coming down the other side of the fence, tippity tippity tip, tippity tippity tip, and the next thing I knowed, there stood a great big old rabbit, and Caesar he took off he did. Then I knew something was going to happen, because that dog never left me before this. Then the old rabbit said, 'Hello, Colonel Possum, what's all of that ornamentation you've got on your tail?' just so. Then the possum said, 'Oh Colonel Rabbit, I'm so glad you've come; this isn't no ornamentation, it is a split stick Dean put on my tail to keep me from getting away. Oh it is hurting so bad. Please Colonel take it off.' Then Colonel Rabbit, he said, 'Why aren't you like me, Colonel Possum; I don't have no tail, then the n-----s can't put a split stick on you.' Then Colonel Possum said, 'If I don't have no tail like you, how am I going to hold on to the limbs and shake simmons down for you?' 'That's so,' says Colonel Rabbit, just that way. Then Colonel Rabbit he commenced swelling like blowing up a bladder, until he got bigger then Master Frank Miles, and he took hold of that stick and jerked the split wide open, he did, and told Colonel Possum to go on and shake that simmon tree. Then he turned around to me, Colonel Rabbit did, and says, 'Dean, I'll learn you some sense about putting a poor possum's tail in the split stick. Next thing you'll be twisting all of my hide off to get me out of the hollow.' Then he struck me kerwhack on the head with that stick, and I knowed nothing more until sun up." This explanation satisfied "old master," and he told Dean to go to Aunt Chloe and let her bandage his head, and lay up until he got well, and hereafter always wrap the possum's tail around his thumb and carry it in his hand, and never draw another one through the split of a stick. From that day to this, no one in this part of the country has been guilty of the barbarous act of drawing a "po" possum's tail through the split of a stick, or of twisting a rabbit out of a hole.
Here are two anecdotes from Richard Williams Bell's memoir involving the family slaves Harry and Anky from Our Family Trouble.
Harry, the house boy, however, had cause for believing every word Dean told. It was Harry's business to make the morning fires before daylight. He became negligent in this duty, and father scolded and threatened him several times. Finally Kate took the matter in hand, speaking to father, "Never mind, old Jack, don't fret. I will attend to the rascal the next time he is belated." This passed off like much of such gab, but a few mornings after, Harry was later than ever and father commenced scolding harshly, when the witch spoke again, "Hold on old Jack, didn't I tell you not to pester; I will attend to this n-----." Harry had just laid the kindling wood down, and was on his knees blowing the coals to a blaze; when some unseen force apparently seized him by the neck and frailed him unmercifully. Harry yelled and begged piteously, and when let up the witch spoke, promising to repeat the operation if he was ever derelict again. Father said he heard the blows as they fell with force, sounding like a paddle or strip of wood, but could see nothing but the boy on his knees yelling for life. Harry was never late after that.
So one evening after supper Anky quietly slipped in the room with her pallet and spread it under mother's bed, fixing herself comfortably on it, to await the coming in of visitors and the witch and hear the talking. It was a high bedstead, with a white-fringed counterpane hanging to the floor, hiding Anky completely. She was delighted, and not a soul except mother knew she was there. Very soon the room was filled with visitors, keeping up a lively chit-chat while waiting the coming of Kate, and mother had taken a seat with the company anxiously waiting to see the outcome of her scheme. Presently the voice of the witch angrily rang out above the din of conversation, with the exclamation, "There is a damn n----- in the house, it's Ank; I smell her under the bed and she's got to get out." In an instant a noise was heard under the bed like that of a man clearing his throat, hawking and spitting vehemently, and Anky came rolling out like a log starting down hill, her face and head literally covered with foam like white spittle. She sprang to her feet with wonderful agility, frantically exclaiming, "Oh missus, missus, it's going to spit me to death. Let me out, let me out," and she went yelling all the way to the cabin, "Let me in, let me in." The witch then addressed mother, "Say Luce, did you bring that n----- in here?" "Yes," replied mother, "I told Anky that she might go under my bed, where she would be out of the way, to hear you talk and sing." "I thought so," replied Kate, "I guess she heard me. Nobody but you, Luce, would have thought of such a smart trick as that, and if anybody else had done it I would have killed the damn n-----. Lord Jesus I won't get over that smell in a month!"
What happened to the 'house boy' Harry is very similar to an incident reported by Richard Williams Bell to have occurred to his brother Joel when the familiar manifesting voice encouraged him to get out of bed and he responded by saying "some ugly things about 'Old Kate.'" Many of the recollections emphasize the threatening aspects of the Spirit; however, the only anecdote involving a significant injury—excluding the complicated circumstances of John Bell's demise—is the one that had been described by Dean when he was hunting possum (read the preceding article).
In Richard's memoir, the voice phenomena included the house boy Harry's own voice being heard when he wasn't physically present to call the dogs to prevent a couple riding on horseback from Shakertown to visit the Bells. After "the fame of the witch had become widely spread," Richard recalled the haunting presence laughed upon describing to the Bell's houseguests the incident involving the Shakers.
Ingram's interview transcript with Nancy Ayers included an incident she'd heard described by her father, John Johnson, after the author inquired about "the witch doctors and conjurors" who investigated the phenomena.
"The Bells allowed every one who came along to experiment to his full satisfaction, and the witch always got the best of them. I remember one incident that amused him [Father] very much. This fellow put some silver, twelve dollars, in a bowl of water, performed his incantations, and set the bowl away, that the silver might remain in the water all night to work the enchantment when the witch came. Betsy Bell had to drink the enchanted water. Next morning the money was gone, which caused a mighty stir. A negro was charged with stealing the money, and Mr. Bell was threatening the servant with a whipping. This was one of the times that Kate came to the Negro's rescue. 'Hold on, old Jack,' spoke Kate, 'that negro is innocent; I can tell you who got that money,' and did tell. Mr. Bell dropped the matter and said no more about it. Several evenings later father went over to entertain the witch while the family and visitors slept. After all had retired and everything was quiet, father said he sat leaning his chair against the wall, waiting for Kate. Presently he felt something touch him on the shoulder, and he was directly accosted by the voice of the witch. 'Say Jack, did you hear about that money scrape they had here the other evening?' 'Yes,' replied father, 'I heard something about it.' 'Well, it was funny; I saved that n----- from a good whipping by telling old Jack who got the money,' and then went on to state that the person who got the money went to Springfield yesterday and bought lots of nice things with it. 'Ha, ha, ha, I guess they will quit fooling with these witch doctors now.' Father had occasion to go to Springfield a day or two later, and inquired about the transactions of this person as told by Kate, and found that the witch had reported correctly."
In the chapter of Charles Bailey Bell's book "Recollections Given By Some Of The Slaves," the author recalled that he'd "heard the first of the Spirit from the lips of old Harry, who came to cut wood for the fires at J. T. Bell's home, many years afterward." 'Old Uncle Harry' was known as 'Uncle Hack' by the children.
At this time Uncle Hack told of the "Witch’s" (the negroes always called it Witch) accuracy in "telling a person when the weather would change, it knowed these sudden changes was coming and if it were going to snow or rain. Lord, children, young Master John always asked that Witch if it was going to rain before he cut down any hay, and every day during crop time he inquired of it about the weather, and it kept him told when to expect frost in tobacco cutting time; it would just tell him how the cold weather was going for a long way from here, and when it would hit us. It was mighty fine about the weather, but nothing else." Harry always looked around to be certain of no danger of being heard before he made the last remark.
Many white persons and negroes have told of recollections of neighbors going to John Bell’s during crop season to learn what the weather would be and in no instance were they misguided, for frost, rain, snow or continued fair and warm weather were accurately foretold.
There was one anecdote suggesting some feelings of compassion among the Bells for the slaves.
Willis, a colored man who greatly assisted in the bringing up of J. T. Bell [the author's father], was highly regarded by that gentleman, who was often heard to say, "If any man deserved a home in Heaven, it was Willis." When Willis was about middle age, J. T. Bell, then a boy, taught him to read and write; then, later on, grammar and other school studies. Willis was an apt pupil; he soon began reading the Bible and became a preacher, a real one.
Charles Bailey Bell mentioned: "Willis was a neat, well-dressed man and spoke far more correctly than the average white man, and had the reputation of being an able preacher." The book also includes remembrances from Dean's wife's sister Ibby. Here is another excerpt from this chapter.
At the mouth of Sturgeon creek, where it empties into Red River, north of the Bell farm, was a celebrated baptizing place for the negroes; this was used for that purpose until comparatively recent years, and white folks always attended. During the Spirit’s reign it was always on hand.
At times the negroes were so scared that the ceremonies were all but broken up; then the Spirit would command them in a stern voice to stay right there and do their duty or it would follow them, throw them into the river and drown all those converted negroes, preacher and all. It joined in the singing; told them what songs to sing, and when a negro well known among his fellows as a real sinner was baptized, it would call out, "Parson, put him under again and keep him there a little longer." The parson always did it. Once in a while a negro would be a candidate for baptism who had been baptized two or three times. The Spirit would at once admonish such ones to make good this time, "the next time I catch you here I am going to have you drowned."
The Spirit quoted correct Scriptures to these negroes and assured them that their parson was a good man, and not to forget that they had been baptized; quit all their sins and be good to each other.
The Civil War is reported to have been prophesied by the Spirit.
The Spirit then said that the most unfortunate occurrence in the history of the United States would be a war between the States, resulting in making the negro slaves as free as their present masters. It said that it had already been so determined by the Director of All Things; and with all its dislike for the negro race, it would agree with John that while the loss would be great to the South, that in the end it would be better to free the negroes.
John Jr., believed if it could be so agreed that the negroes’ owners be paid for them they should be freed when it would not be a social evil, which would be many years. He himself did not think slavery could go on indefinitely in the United States, yet he thought the negroes brought to the United States and made slaves had been much improved by their contact with civilized people. He assured the Spirit that he knew just as much of the negroes in his own country, as it did, and had no cause for such dislike of them as it had shown; that the most barbarous negroes in Africa would become less cruel and saner in their actions after six months slavery in Robertson county than it displayed toward his father and Betsy. There was no answer whatever to this charge.
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