Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky
Author: William Lynwood Montell
Date: 2001-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Non Fiction; Paranormal; Ghost Stories; Ghosts
Description: William Lynwood Montell has spent years documenting Kentucky’s rich legacy of ghostly visitations. Many of the stories were collected from elders by younger generations and are recounted here exactly as they were gathered. This volume introduces spirits such as the Tan Man of Pike County, who trudges invisibly through a house accompanied by the smell of roses, and the famed Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort, a houseguest who never left. Montell tells the story of the ghost of Daniel Boone calling upon the statesman Henry Clay shortly before his death. He also recounts the tale of ghouls t
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
Rights: All Rights Reserved

Haunted Houses and

Family Ghosts of Kentucky

Haunted Houses
and

Family Ghosts
of

Kentucky

William Lynwood Montell

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Copyright © 2001 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.

Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

12 11 10         8 7 6 5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montell, William Lynwood, 1931–

Haunted houses and family ghosts of Kentucky /

William Lynwood Montell.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-10: 0-8131-2227-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

1.Ghosts—Kentucky. 2. Haunted houses—Kentucky.

BF1472.U6 M662 2001

133.1W769—dc21         2001003508

ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-2227-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Member of the Association of American University Presses

Dedicated to the memory of family and community members who told supernatural and historical legends while I was a child in Rock Bridge, Monroe County, especially my father, Willie Montell, and grandfather, Chris Chapman. They ranked among the best.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1: Haunted Houses

Part 2: Family Ghosts

Notes

Index to Stories by County

Illustrations

Deserted house, eastern Pennyroyal

Owens House, Knox County

Brutus’s ghost, Bourbon County

Jones House, Lyon County

Smith/Richardson House, Breckinridge County

Cocanougher House, Washington County

Pretty House, Monroe County

Haunted house (side view), Butler County

Haunted house (front view), Butler County

Sextons House, Logan County

Map of Kentucky Counties

Acknowledgments

In compiling this collection of ghost stories from 103 counties across the Commonwealth, I was assisted by many people. I owe heartfelt thanks to students of all ages from middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities around the state. Special thanks are hereby extended to students, professors, and archivists at Berea College, Mount St. Joseph Archives, Murray State University (MSU), Prestonsburg Community College, and Western Kentucky University (WKU). Approximately three-fourths of the ghost stories herein were contributed by students of all ages who obtained them from parents, grandparents, and community members, especially members of the older generations. I am also deeply indebted to all persons who told these stories to students or to me personally as I traveled around the state searching for these wonderful accounts. When the person who told a particular story is identified on the archival manuscript, he or she, along with the collector, is credited for providing it.

Singular gratitude for supplying these fascinating accounts of Kentucky’s supernatural entities is due to Roberta Simpson Brown (author), Sister Emma C. Busam (archivist), Judy Hensley Bryson (teacher), Myra Burnette, Connie Carroll (Eastern Kentucky University [EKU]), Ruth Colvin, Elbert Cundiff, Joan Diersing, Mary Ann Gentry (writer), Kay Harbison (teacher), Carol White Harrison, Pat Hodges (Kentucky Library, WKU), Jan Jakeman (writer, photographer), Dr. Loyal Jones (Berea College; writer, speaker), Tracy Jordan (journalist), Stan LeMaster (journalist), Sara McNulty, Kevin McQueen (teacher, EKU), Stacey Manning (journalist), Linda Montell (wife), Linda Nance (teacher), Melinda Overstreet (journalist), Margaret Jean Owens, Debora Reece, Robert Renick (Prestonsburg Community College), Harry Rice (archivist, Berea College), Gerald Roberts (Special Collections, Berea College), Danielle Roemer (teacher, Northern Kentucky University [NKU]),Missy Rogers (journalist), Ginny Snipp, John A. Stegall, Frankie Stone (Kentucky Library, WKU), Michael D. West, and to all other persons who told or recorded one or more of the stories.

Introduction

The central purpose of this book is to feature family and house ghosts, thus to have in print numerous narrative accounts that people feel reflect virtually two centuries of fact and fancy concerning themselves and their progenitors. These accounts that focus on the supernatural also describe an abundance of folk values that tend to make them precious in the eyes of the tellers and those persons who sit spellbound while hearing the stories being recounted.

Kentucky has a rich legacy of ghostly visitations, especially descriptive accounts associated with old houses and deceased family members. These orally transmitted stories are rich in historical detail about these houses and related buildings, and also provide details relevant to people’s assumed-to-be-true encounters with the supernatural. Some of the stories herein go back to pioneer times, and certain others are tied to antebellum homes and family progenitors who were present during those early years. Some even reflect the bitterness of slavery conditions and fratricidal conflict during the Civil War. All in all, ghost stories contain a lot of historical information in that they accurately describe folk practices and beliefs that have long been forgotten except by the older residents. It is important to record and place these stories in print so that the historical and personal information contained in them will be preserved for future generations.

The early generations notwithstanding, most of the interesting accounts in this book portray life and times of recent twentieth-century generations. Whether traditional or personal, such stories are an integral part of Kentucky’s regional identity with the South, and they especially enhance social and cultural ties with family, community, county, and state. From the mountains in the Appalachian portion of the commonwealth, across the lush pasturelands of the Bluegrass region, the hill country of both north-central and south-central Kentucky, and the flat-to-rolling terrain of western Kentucky, no part of the state is exempt. The force of these supernatural stories is strengthened by their obvious intent to portray things as they really happened, not merely to amuse the listeners. In this regard, Kentucky is much like other Southern states. Author Kathryn Tucker Windham writes, “There is something about the South that encourages, perhaps even requires, the presence of ghosts and the measured retelling of their deeds. And, somehow, these stories provide a nostalgic link with the past, with generations who were here before.”[1]

Old deserted houses like this one in the eastern Pennyroyal section of the Commonwealth are frequently the locations of family and community stories about ghostly entities. (Photo by the author)

Virtually all residents of Kentucky have shared, and many still do, in storytelling events involving supernatural visitations. Throughout history, Kentuckians have cultivated and perpetuated the telling of traditional oral narratives. John Johnson, resident of Carter County during the 1930s when he was already in his eighties, offered the following commentary to Milford Jones, member of the Federal Writers Project, about family storytelling situations:

In my growing up or younger days, the fathers, mothers, and older people would sit around the fire of a night at home and tell all kinds of scary stories about things they had seen and heard. These stories kept us children wondering and scared all the time. We were always expecting some great disaster to happen to us, such as the devil or some hideous being would carry us off. These tales and stories made me afraid to be out of a night. When I was a boy, if I had to pass a graveyard or an old deserted house, I was always looking for something fearful, or to be carried off.

The mothers would sing scary songs or tell the children ghostly tales in order to make them mind.[2]

As indicated in the foregoing statement, whether true or not true, these stories may serve as subtle warnings especially to children and, on occasion, to elderly persons as well. For example, after a haunted-house story is told to describe a headless being that roams from room to room with an axe in hand, a parent or grandparent may say to a child, “Stay away from that old house. Old Man Evans thought he would be killed when he saw that thing, and it just might happen to you.” Whether or not the house is haunted, stories such as this may provide sound advice to the child to stay away from that old place so as not to be snakebitten, attacked by animals, or encounter various other dangers associated with the house. In earlier times, children thus understood the situation and were typically frightened into submission.

Peoples beliefs and stories about death and dying, and the return of the deceased as ghosts, tell a lot about who these people are, where they came from, how they deal with religious and traditional beliefs, and how they cope with bewildering facets in their everyday lives. Viewed in this social context, stories about supernatural entities are not merely fictional accounts that people dream up. Instead, they are accounts based on personal experience, trust, and tradition.

Supernatural tales thus describe extraordinary events typically believed by the storyteller to have really happened. People like to hear these accounts because they are told to as “actual experiences of the contributors or of their relatives or friends. In almost every case the original teller, at least, believes that he or the person involved has had a supernatural experience.”[3]And these accounts are usually told to the listener in such a way that the recipient person often feels as if he or she is viewed as a very understanding individual who is being provided with very private, personal information. These accounts of spirit visitations grip the listeners, and especially the tellers, with a genuinely uncanny power. Most of these gripping, spooky stories are believed from the heart, even when logical rationale would assert that what is being described really did not happen. Although encounters with these spirit-like creatures are generally dismissed by hard science, people from all walks of life and in all world cultures nonetheless cling tenaciously to their beliefs in the return of deceased family and community members as spirits. Thus it is that the stories told to describe what happened typically gain a power of felt veracity.

Nelson Maynard II, current resident of Louisville, had the following to say about his belief in supernatural entities during his growing-up years in Pike County:

I can’t tell you exactly why I am so interested in ghostlore, or in the field of folklore in general, but for as long as I can remember I have had an interest in old-timey ways and traditions, and a particular fascination for ghost tales. Clearly, my grandparents grew up in much more interesting times, what with their log cabins and spring houses located on the old countryside….

The notion of earthbound spirits hovering about in the fog and shadows fascinated me. Growing up on Johns Creek, I was absolutely certain our old house and the countryside was positively bursting at the seams with ghosts. … As a lad, I would sometimes wake up during the night scared, then go across the hallway to my parents’ room, but taking care to first pull the sheet from my bed and put it over me so that the ghosts would think I was one of them as I walked down the hall.

This eventually developed into a bit of good preschool dread for me, as my folks endeavored to convince me that there were no such things as ghosts. They were only make-believe and perfectly harmless. Ghost stories were only stories after all. So, I eventually lost my dread of ghostly encounters, but not my fascination for them.[4]

According to folklorist Barbara Walker, “If the supernatural is seriously considered, the events and phenomena reported or described within a group give us evidence of a particular way of perceiving the world. It provides insights into cultural identity…. How groups regard the supernatural contributes to thought and behavior, and by attending to those patterns, we gather a fuller understanding of what is meaningful to the group, what gives it cohesion and animation, and thus we develop a rounder perspective of cultural nuance, both within the group and cross-culturally.”[5]

No amount of formal historical documentation can provide the human understanding relative to beliefs, customs, worldview, and social values as that which is available in oral traditional stories. And while the supernatural visitations described in this book do not offer a total picture of Kentucky’s people, simply reading these accounts helps to provide the reader with central ideas and values that continue to undergird daily life in Kentucky and depict local life and culture in meaningful terms. These oral stories are especially valuable in that they reflect people’s inner lives by articulating their beliefs, fears, dreams, and hopes.

Many people think of supernatural entities as being something terrible, something that is here to scare you, to get revenge, or perhaps even to kill you. On the other hand, those persons who witness spirit visitations from deceased family members such as a grandparent, parent, spouse, or child, often find their presence comforting or informative. Stories that recount the return of a family member as a spirit entity to the land of the living portray the visitations as necessary, so as to warn, console, inform, guard, shield, reward, or save the life of a living relative.

A Bowling Green woman shared with the author approximately twelve years ago how her grandfather’s spirit saved her life the previous week. In explaining what took place, she stated that she left Bowling Green the previous Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. en route to Louisville. She was alone in the automobile. About the time she got within fifty miles of her destination, she could feel herself falling asleep at the wheel, something she had never done before. Apparently, she did fall asleep. At that precise time, someone’s hand from the back seat of the car grabbed her by the shoulder and began shaking her to wake her up. She saw that she was headed for the ditch, and simultaneously saw her grandfather sitting there in the back seat. She immediately steered the automobile back onto the interstate highway, then pulled over to the side of the road so as to regain her composure. Once the automobile was in a parked position, she turned around to speak to her grandfather and thank him for saving her life. “But even though I saw him after his hand woke me up, he was not there any longer,” she stated. “But how could he have been? Grandfather has been dead for five years.”

This is one of the many, many accounts that people have shared with the author to illustrate the love, concern, and compassion that dead relatives continue to have for the living. Some even tell of the return of a family member to inform a living relative where his or her money was located—money that had been hidden in the house, in a tree, cave, or buried underground for many years. Thus, family ghosts return for a definite reason. Some house ghosts are also those of family members with no explicit reason for their return.

One tenth of the accounts that deal with the return of family members as ghosts claim that the return was as an unseen presence of a known person. All other stories report that the family ghost was seen and fully recognized by the recipient person. In numerical order of appearance, of the seventy-four family ghost stories herein, mothers made the most frequent visitations: twelve total. Of the other spirit visitors, there were nine grandmothers, eight grandfathers, six husbands, five fathers, four wives, three daughters, three uncles, two brothers, two sisters, two grandsons, two cousins, one great-grandmother, one aunt, and one little baby. In seven instances, the spirit visitations included two or more family members at the same time. Whether seen or not, the ghosts let their presence be known by walking on stairways or in hallways, knocking on doors, wailing and moaning, crying, or simply talking to the living.

While some family ghost stories do not explain why the spirit entity comes back to the earthly realm, most do. Articulated reasons for these returns, as indicated in the stories, include (1) the desire to console family members who are in agony, turmoil, sadness, or failing health; (2) to warn a family member of impending death; (3) to place burden of guilt on parents; (3) to reassure a family member that he or she is still loved by the deceased; (4) to tell a spouse that it is okay to remarry; (5) to agonize a former husband who had mistreated her; (6) to reveal buried treasure; (7) to persuade a brother to stop his rowdy behavior; (8) to return to a favorite piece of furniture frequently occupied when the spirit was a living person in this world; (9) to inform a widow how to conduct her business; (10) to say a final goodbye; (11) to occupy a spot where the death occurred.

Numerous Kentucky communities lay claim to a haunted house and its patron ghost. Haunted, or “hainted,” houses thus comprise the largest topical category of Kentucky ghost stories. No other category comes close. Most haunted houses in Kentucky are “people” houses—houses that were primarily designed and built by local people, for local people, using local building materials. And in times past, a residential structure often remained in the family for three or four generations; some even longer. This explains why so many of the stories about an “old hainted house” are about the return of deceased family members, who dearly loved the old home place during their life span here on earth. Of the 214 stories about house ghosts in this book, approximately one-third of the supernatural entities are not unidentifiable; female ghosts are featured in one-fourth of the stories, the exact same number that portray male visitations. Eleven stories describe the return of two or more family members at the same time as ghosts; eight of the accounts focus on babies, seven deal with children of various ages, and five feature animal ghosts.

The stories in the haunted-houses section help the reader discern the nature of ghostly appearances. In terms of numerical frequency, eighty-five percent of these stories focus on ghostly noises—sounds that especially include footsteps, ghastly cries and screams, rattling dishes, closing of doors and windows, hammering sounds, tinkling bells, chairs rocking back and forth, activated sewing machines, musical sounds emanating from various instruments such as pianos and fiddles, and hymn singing.

The next largest category of ghostly manifestations in the haunted-houses section features ghostly entities that are usually associated with the above noises. They are seen by the recipient persons, but there is no said-to-be direct contact with the ghost. Forty-two percent of these returnees are the ghosts of deceased family members; others include headless beings; some represent spirits that return to eke out vengeance against those who did them wrong in their living years; others are spirits of individuals who simply loved the old home place and cannot move out, even after death removed them from their wonderful earthly abode. Often, ghostly entities are seen as hazy, misty figures and shadows, some of whom are former plantation slaves who were cruelly mistreated by their owners. Even animals, such as dogs, sheep, and wildcats occasionally appear as ghostly creatures. No matter how or what was experienced in these haunted houses, numerous families moved out and away from them. They couldn’t take it any longer.

Other ways in which ghosts make themselves apparent to the living is by appearing as a felt presence or as a pair of ghostly eyes; sending out cold or chilly breezes; turning electric lights and electrical devices off and on; moving pieces of furniture and miscellaneous house furnishings from place to place; opening and closing windows and doors, even in the presence of living witnesses. In one instance, a ghost appeared as a puddle of water on the floor.

In the house-ghost category, it is of interest to observe where the ghosts appeared and in what numerical order. The bedroom is the most common place where ghosts were heard, felt, and sometimes seen. Ghostly visitations throughout the house ranks second. The stairway alone is next, followed by the upstairs area in general, the parlor or living room, the hallway, basement or cellar, kitchen, attic, dining room, porch, and the roof.

The manners in which the ghosts made persons aware that they were present included, in order of numerical instances, ghostly noises of many varieties; identifiable ghostly presences seen by viewers; lights, shadows, and misty figures; felt presences; ghostly touches felt by the living; scents of various perfumes; and chilly breezes blowing across the room when all windows and doors were closed.

Regardless as to how, when, and in what form these ghostly visitations occurred, those persons who experienced or witnessed the uncanny manifestations will declare that what they saw, heard, or felt really did happen. As a matter of fact, approximately one-fourth of the house-ghost stories were told as personal experiences by the narrators.

The titles of these stories were, for the most part, assigned by the author after analytically screening a story s contents. Seldom do storytellers verbally provide a title for the story they are about to tell. They simply begin with introductions such as “Now, let me tell you a story about a real ghost. Here’s what happened….” Or, if the account is universally told, and the narrators are aware of this, they may begin with wording such as “Let me tell the story as I know it about the face in the window.”

These narrative accounts are printed here verbatim from four main kinds of sources: those spoken into a tape recorder; those taken down on notepads in shorthand version and then reworded as closely as possible to the way they were originally told; those written and submitted by the narrators, some of them by email; and those that appeared as newspaper accounts I sought to retain the original form of the story; thus I never changed the wording so as to falsify the story or change the story’s intended message to the listener. Most of these stories fit the first category—stories that were recorded as told many years ago—and category three, as many were submitted in handwritten or typewritten format.

It will be of interest to see whether these accounts will be passed along from generation to generation as customarily done during ancestral times. Thankfully, some of the stories herein were told by teenagers. Perhaps this signifies that these stories will be passed along to their children and subsequent generations. So let’s read and share these narrative accounts with no feeling of ignorance, superstition, or disrespect toward those persons who provided these wonderful stories. And as you read them, do not forget to identify and glean the historically descriptive bits of information about people and houses, as such information is not likely to be available in any other source, published or otherwise.

Notes to Introduction

1. Kathryn Tucker Windham, Jeffrey Introduces 13 More Southern Ghosts (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1971), p. 5.

2. Kentucky materials gathered by members of the Federal Writers Project are on file at the State Library and Archives, Frankfort.

3. Ruth Ann Musick, Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1977), p. 4.

4. Nelson Maynard II, Louisville, November 20,2000.

5. Barbara Walker, Out of the Ordinary: Folklore and the Supernatural (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1995), p. 4.

Haunted Houses

1. “Elkton’s Halcyon House”

Todd County

We call this old house Halcyon; it s where Joy and I live here in Elkton. The back part of the house was built between 1812 and 1815, and the front was built in 1837. It’s been in the family for years and years. My parents and grandparents lived in this house. Now, you talk about storytelling: boy, they could do it. I just loved to hear them tell these stories when I was a little boy.

There have been strange manifestations in this house that we’ve never been able to explain. The house has always been occupied by the owners, and they have always been interested in family matters. I remember former slaves who came back to visit my grandmother when I was a child.

My mother was born in a house across the street. Christine Carouthers, my mother s close relative, was the last to live in this house. She died in this room—the library. They didn’t want the house to go out of the family. My mother and daddy moved here in my childhood.

We had brought much of the furniture across the street that belonged to my mother’s grandparents and other relatives. We were sitting here one night on the sofa, very quiet. Suddenly, we heard a great crash in the parlor. We went in there and looked. Grandma’s portrait had fallen off the wall.

I helped put Grandmas framed portrait back up on the wall. But about three months later, “Crash.” Grandma had fallen again. Not Grandpa! His portrait was perfectly secured there on the wall. But Grandma had fallen again. When we came back out of the room, Mother said, “I’m not sure that Grandma is happy here in this house.” I started trying to find out why Grandma would not be happy here. So I asked this lady, an old cousin, who was serving as circuit court clerk, if she could give me a reason as to why Grandma wouldn’t be happy in our house.

She couldn’t think of any reason at first, but two weeks later she told me that this couple that lived here, Lucy and her husband, got into some personal family trouble and Lucy made him leave sometime in the 1850s. But she loved him so very much that she didn’t want to be there when he left. So she went back up to her old home place here in Elkton, a frame house built in 1856. When her husband was leaving her and was passing by her house on his way out of town, Lucy was staring out through this narrow windowpane. My grandmother was watching Lucy as Lucy’s husband drove by for the last time.

As already said, Grandmother and Grandfather moved into this house later on. So the reason that my grandmother’s portrait fell from the wall is the fact that she wasn’t happy living in this house that Lucy and her husband had lived in before Lucy ran him off for the last time.

Having found out what this spirit was all about, I got some large blocks of wood and some large steel nails. I drove about six of those deep into those old bricks, then hung Grandma’s portrait up again. She has not fallen since I fixed the frame, but when I walk into that room, she is staring right at me. I feel that she is not happy, even yet.

2. “Mary Lou’s Story”

Lewis County

Mary Lou and her family moved into a house in Lewis County that everybody said was haunted. The house had belonged to a couple who were having marital problems. Because of their trouble, the wife banned her husband from the house. Having no other place to go, he took up residence in a building which was only a few feet from the main dwelling and was connected to it by a walkway.

That summer was very hot, and the temperature must have made the building unbearable for him. On a very hot day, he was found dead in the little hot building. Clearly, he had died of a heat stroke. After his death, people reported seeing his spirit roaming the grounds on hot nights.

Mary Lou’s family moved into the big house in the spring, and everything seemed to go well except they couldn’t keep the door to the small building closed. Finally, in desperation the husband locked it.

One morning, Mary Lou sat in the kitchen alone drinking a second cup of coffee after getting her husband off to work. She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and then heard the backdoor slam. Funny, she thought, anyone entering the house or leaving would have to pass her first. The footsteps had sounded too heavy for the kids to make, but she checked just to make sure. All were in their beds still asleep. She looked around, and the backdoor was standing open.

The weather turned ghastly hot. She sort of just ignored the noises she heard. Later on that day, she went out into the yard and toiled, then took a cigarette break by sitting down under a tree. Again, the familiar sounds of the door commanded her attention. She looked up at the house and saw the curtains of the kitchen window part as if two hands had lifted them back in order to peer out through them. She again looked, but there was no one there. The window was empty. Then the curtains fell back across the window. As she continued around the house telling herself that she had just imagined all of this, she came upon the open basement door. She was sure that she had locked it. Still thinking it was the heat making her crazy, she locked the door and went back to work. Later, passing by the door, she found it open again. By this time she was really shook up, so she poured out her story to her husband when he got home. He just scolded her for being so silly as to believe that.

Over the next few weeks the weather got hotter, and the unusual occurrences became more frequent. The building in which the old man had died was padlocked, but to her surprise she often found it standing open. She would lock it, only to find it open again. Her husband kept telling her there was a simple explanation for it all, but she continued to witness things.

One morning she heard noises coming from the kitchen. When she got there, she felt the whole room vibrating as if a giant hand was angrily shaking it. Also, there were sounds coming from inside the walls as if someone were tearing at the boards, trying to rip them away.

That night as she lay sleeping, her son came running into the room saying that he heard noises coming from the attic above his room. “It sounds as if someone is up there trying to get out,” the scared child exclaimed. She put him in her bed and lay down beside him to calm his fears. Just as she was about to drop off to sleep, the house was again seized by another fit of shaking. The windows vibrated with such intense tremors that she was sure they would be wrenched from their frames. Her husband, who this time had been witness to what had happened, could no longer deny that some supernatural force was at work here, and that vacating the house was the only answer.

Looking back now, Mary realizes that each occurrence was on extremely hot days or nights. It was as if the poor, tortured soul of the old man kept opening the doors to get air. Mary Lou wonders if someone had locked the door of the building, keeping the old man in there until the hot temperature took its toll on his body, causing him to die and leaving his soul to wander airlessly tearing at the windows and opening doors seeking relief from the devastating heat.

3. “The Blue Lady Ghost in the Keen Johnson Building”

Madison County

College campuses everywhere have a sizable number of ghosts, according to those persons who have reported their sightings. One of EKU’s ghosts is that of the Blue Lady of the Keen Johnson Building. Different explanations exist as to who the ghost is and how she died. One version holds that she was a student actress who didn’t get the part she tried out for, thus decided to quit school. It is said that the train she took derailed, killing several people. Her body was never found, however.

Another version of the legend claims that this student had the lead part in a play but died in a car accident on her way to opening night.

Still another explanation claims that the Blue Lady ghost is that of an actress who played the part of a person who committed suicide in the play. A few nights before the play opened, the actress was up in the bell tower practicing and was so into character that she hanged herself just like the character in the play that she was personifying.

Several people on campus claim to have seen a hazy blue mist hovering around the bell tower late at night. Others say they have heard her voice in the theater when no one else was there.

4. “The Tan Man”

Pike County

These events occurred at Harmons Branch, Pike County, Kentucky. Three houses were built on an old strip mine fill-in back during the 1950s by Rhonda C. Rustin (Clark). Our family was the second family to live there as a whole until 1985. Our youngest son still lives there. He was the only one not to be affected or “sense” what the rest of us saw or felt, with the exception of smelling the roses. Later in the 1980s, this hollow became more prominent. It was then that an FBI agent hid the body of [name withheld] there after he killed her. He was the first FBI agent ever to be convicted of such a crime. Her body had decomposed to just bones when he confessed to the crime. I like to think our “Tan Man” has something else to work with.

We never knew who the Tan Man was but the Ouija board said he had been murdered by two men who were still alive, and he would tell us after they had died and he could rest in peace. We quit asking the board anything because of the obscene language it began to spell out; I threw it away.

I don’t recall when the Tan Mans presence came. It was a gradual awareness by members of our family. Our oldest daughter would often tell us she didn’t like to go into our bedroom or the hallway leading to it; something eerie and strange about it. She had always been afraid of her shadow, so we had never thought much of her remarks.

We had a beagle dog, Sam. He was a grouchy, lazy sort of hound; made his rounds and slept a lot. One day he went nuts. He cried, he cowered, he shook and moaned. The dog was terrified. We called the farm handyman who was good with dogs. He thought Sam had gone mad, and we tried to get ready to put him down. We were all crying and trying to calm the dog, and believe me, it took hours. Thank goodness we didn’t put him down; he was just scared, but by what? This never happened again.

Another event happened during a spring month. As the years passed we would notice April was a busy time for Tan Man. Our eldest son had a souped-up car and had been to Bristol, Virginia, where he attended the auto races. It was 2:30-3:00 A.M. when he arrived home.

As most mothers, I was still awake but in bed and had heard him open the door and start down the hall. He called out to me, “Mother,” then “Mother? then “MOTHER.” By then he was fighting something, grunting and punching all the while, yelling “MOTHER.” I jumped up and went to him. He was pale, scared silly and shaking from head to foot. I took him to the kitchen to calm him down. He said that he saw a figure in the hall and thought it was me, thus the first “Mother.” When he realized it wasn’t me but the outline of a man, he began to fight it.

We sat up for an hour or longer talking it out. I told him that he was exhausted from the long trip and that his car exhaust system must be leaking fumes from the souped-up car. This was my belief at the time. I don’t know if I convinced him, but I was pleased with my idea in my own mind.

I began to notice a really cool icy waft of air playing around my head and upper body as I would sit and read in my lounge chair. So did others. Sometimes it was so heavy my newspaper would move of its own accord. This occurred regularly. I decided I had a bad draft. I lit a candle to try and track the draft down, but no luck. I moved the chair a few feet but still had the icy draft. I accepted that I had a drafty spot in the house. Then things began to happen that made no sense at all. Many times a smoke-like blob would appear in the hall. The odor of the roses filled the doorway between the living room and kitchen. This happened several times, and did after I left the house. My son and daughter have both smelled them. The commode would fully flush and then the bathroom lights would turn on of their own accord. We checked the commode’s “innards” thinking it was leaking water but all was fine and the commode flushed on. The lights have come on as many as 5-6 times in one evening. We’d get up and turn them off, and within a few minutes they were back on and the commode would flush.

I heard my daughter’s flute from her room once. Only thing was, she wasn’t in there! I accused her of going out the window, but she hadn’t.

Since we didn’t want to appear to have lost our minds, we kept everything to ourselves. I had been raised in a funeral home that my parents owned. I was always taught there was no such thing as ghosts. Neither my husband nor I believed in such things. If a ghost was a ghost, wouldn’t a funeral home be the ideal place to show up? I never heard or saw or felt a presence in my parents’ funeral home.

Within a few months of “Tan Man’s coming out,” my neighbor Sue told me about some crazy things going on in her house. Her daughter’s toy piano would play notes by itself. Her volume would go up and down on her television set (so would mine, plus the stereo). She was ironing one day and something kept punching her in the rear. She thought it was her daughter at first and fussed at her, told her to stop, then the child walked in from another room.

One night while making a trip to bathroom, Sue ran into the Tan Man. She said she went on to relieve herself, then called for her husband, and he saw him, too. From that night on, they both went together to the bathroom until they moved out of the house.

My youngest daughter had an old upright piano in her room. She told me many times she could hear a key hit and it would not strike clear but would go “hum, hum, hum.” This daughter had a motor bike. She and a friend would ride around Harmons Branch often. One day they were riding and saw a man in tan clothing standing by a tree on the branch road. It startled them so much that they looked back, and he had disappeared. From that time on, when scary things happened we knew it was the Tan Man. He was dressed in tan working clothes.

He came and went. Sometimes he stayed for long spells. There were times when we had no sense of any presence. He seemed to like the spring months best, but I know now that he was just visiting around.

The most scared I ever was with Tan Man was in bed. My husband and I had just begun to drift off when our bed began to shake just like someone was at the end of it pushing back and forth. I called to my youngest son to quit and go back to bed and leave us alone, but he answered from his room.

I have also seen lights on the wall spinning in a circle. I often prayed to the Lord when I got scared, and for some reason the “happenings” would cease. My husband literally saw the Tan Man. He has also felt Tan Man, who would wake him up by stroking his arm with an icy cold hand.

Tan Man became a part of our life. I would tell him to watch the house if I had to leave. Once I lost my keys to an outside shed and told him to find them. It didn’t happen right away but in 2-3 days the keys were lying on the dryer.

I lived there for twenty-three years and my son still lives there alone. He is thirty-one now and is the only one in the family who has had no encounters with Tan Man. However, he did have a friend up once who claimed that the Tan Man woke him up. It scared him so bad he hasn’t been back.

Our neighbor in the middle house also had a “happening.” She was tending to her baby in her kitchen when she heard the screen door open and heavy footsteps in her living room. She thought it was our other neighbors son, who was retarded and very large, coming in and she called to him. When he didn’t answer, she looked for him but no one was there. Later she heard the steps again and the door slam and she ran to see, but no one was there. She said she had her screen locked. She admitted strange things happened but would never talk about them. She would just shake her head. They moved shortly after this, never wanting to talk about the strange things we were all dealing with.

Many, many uncanny things happened on this hilltop in Harmons Branch. The only thing I can say is if these are ghosts, they are good ones. I have felt Tan Man’s presence many times but I don’t think his intent was ever bad. I never believed in ghosts, but I lived with one for twenty-three years. When you witness and walk in my shoes and live at Harmons Branch where Tan Man lives, you’ll believe “something” is going on.

5. “Ghostly Memories of the Tan Man”

Pike County

When I was a young girl growing up at Harmons Branch in Pike County, there were many unusual occurrences at our house. Too, it seems as if the two other houses beside us were also included in these weird episodes. I may have, in fact, been the first person to ever see the Tan Man, as he became known.

When I was about thirteen years old, a girlfriend and I were motoring home on my Honda 70 trail bike one evening about dusk. As we were starting up the dirt road that led to my house, we saw a man standing beside the road. It struck us unusual because we lived in a rural area and strangers gave rise to curiosity.

I looked over my shoulder as we rode by and there was no one there. I asked my friend if she saw the man, and she said that she had. Needless to say, we went home as fast as the little motorcycle would go. The man we saw was of average height and weight, with khaki or tan work clothes—the Tan Man.

I guess there were things going on before this, however. As children, we were terrified of the ghost. As we grew into adults, it was more like wary acceptance. Occasionally, my mother would mention seeing a misty figure, or hear my flute playing musical scales when I wasn’t playing it. I guess the Tan Man was quite musical, because I remember being awakened at night by a single note being played on the piano in my room. When I would become fully awake, I could still hear the fading vibration of the musical note. I hid under the covers, not daring to peek out.

I remember the smell of roses, very strongly, in the entranceway from the living room to the kitchen. The smell was always in the entrance only, never beyond. This occurred quite often.

I also recall getting a weird feeling from my parents’ room, like maybe the air was a little cooler or “heavier” in there. My parents had no problem keeping me out of their bedroom. In certain areas of the house it wasn’t unusual to feel a cool pocket of air caressing my face and neck.

When I married, I moved just across the yard from our house, as I married the boy next door. My husband, Jim, had heard the Tan Man stories, but had never noticed anything unusual at his house. But his friends had. Jim’s parents’ house was the hangout for our friends, and if Jim was still at work they would usually wait around the house, playing basketball or listening to the stereo until Jim got home.

One day Jack [pseudonym] was waiting for Jim. He was sitting on the couch watching TV when the front door opened, and the sound of footsteps were heard coming into the room. The steps proceeded across the room and on into the kitchen; they exited through the backdoor. Whatever it was, opened and closed that door.

Jack told me that he just sat there and watched, because there wasn’t really anything that he could do about it. It’s funny, as Jack was a Harley-riding biker, and you tend to think of bikers as a tough lot. But, now, Jack was sort of scared. I know how he felt, because smelling roses, seeing, and hearing something like that tends to hold you frozen in place with eyes wide open, and all senses trained on detecting the slightest movement or sound, touch, or smell.

Our other friend, Ben [pseudonym], used to get “touched.” One day he told me that he believed in the Tan Man. He was at our house that day after work and before we got home. He said that he was sitting in a chair reading a magazine when all of a sudden a cool hand stroked his neck. Aggravated, he swiped at the air around him, but the cool pocket of air continued to swirl and dance across his face and neck like cold fingers gently caressing him. He stated that this had happened more than once. A lot of our friends believed in our friendly ghost and were always looking for anything peculiar to happen.

As I said above, not much happened at Jim’s as far as ghostly activities were concerned, but some things did happen. I noticed it when I quit working and was home more at that point in time.

Mom and Dad had moved to Louisa, Kentucky, an hour or so away. I wasn’t afraid of the Tan man as I had been as a little girl. After all, we had known him for many years now. He had never hurt anybody, except to scare the heck out of them. Many nonbelievers in this sort of thing were converted at Harmons Branch. Thus, I found it comforting in a strange way when I noticed things happening every now and then.

One of these things was the phantom car. I don’t know how many times I’d gone to the door and looked to see who was driving by, only to find no one there. This happened almost weekly, it seems.

Another common occurrence was that of seeing the figure of the Tan Man outside the house, always out of the corner of my eye. So sure was I that someone was outside the house that I would sometimes go outside and walk around the house, never finding anyone. I was chagrined because the Tan Man had pulled the wool over my eyes again.

The last common happening that I recall is about the light bulbs. I could never keep light bulbs in the bathroom or kitchen. It seems that they never lasted like the ones in the other rooms; they would often go out within a short time of each other.

We moved to Paintsville a few years ago and bought an old house and remodeled the downstairs. I had said goodbye to Tan Man and Harmons Branch. The granddaughter of the woman from whom we bought our house in Paintsville told me that we had a ghost in it. I thought, no there’s no ghost here. My light bulbs last too long; there are no cool breezes; there is no feeling of someone being in the same room with you, or of being watched. There’s no music in the night, and no one touches you. And, I want you to know, that’s okay with me.

6. “The Stockton House in Richmond”

Madison County

There is a house here in Richmond owned by attorney David M. Jones. This large, three-story white house is on Lancaster Avenue. It was built about 1880 by the Stockton family.

Jones stated that on the first night he and his wife stayed in the house, a picture in the parlor fell from the wall and broke during the middle of the night. And the lamp in the hallway would come on and off while no one was around it.

Jones claimed that back in 1983, he woke up in the middle of the night and raised up in bed and saw the ghostly form of a woman dressed in many layers of clothing—just floating around in the room. The apparition spoke to Jones, mentioning the words “picture” and “funeral.”

Shortly thereafter, Jones was going through a large collection of papers and artifacts in a small attic-like room on the third floor. When he got ready to leave the room, he bent over to crawl through the small doorway. And there he again saw the face of the ghostly woman! In February 1984 he glanced into the gigantic gold-framed mirror in the front hallway and saw her sitting in a chair in the parlor. Jones’ subsequent research indicates that it was the spirit of Mary Katherine Stockton. Although his wife has never seen the spirit, Jones himself has experienced several sightings, the last reported time being in 1993 or ‘94 while decorating the house for Christmas. He saw her reflection in a mirror.

The following Memorial Day, Attorney and Mrs. Jones passed by the Stockton burial grounds in the Richmond Cemetery and noticed that the stone of Matthew Stockton had fallen over.

The lights in the Jones’ house had not dimmed in a strange manner for more than two years. However, the next morning after visiting the cemetery, a lamp in the dining room flashed off and on several times. Jones entered the room and said, “All right, Mrs. Stockton, I’m going to call the cemetery caretaker and have them put Matthew’s tombstone back up.”

After having the stone restored to its upright position, the light has not flickered since, and the ghost of Mary Catherine Stockton has not been seen.

7. “Mysterious Knocks on the Door”

Breckinridge County

An experience that happened to me took place when I was about thirteen years old. We were living in a house that belonged to Mrs. Willie Edith Allen in Brandenburg. It was a gray brick-siding house that was situated right across the old state road from the Brandenburg High School. Later on, we was told that at one time there was a tree on the other side of our driveway, and a black man—this was back in 1910 or 1911—was accused of raping a white woman. They took him and hung him there on that tree. He proclaimed his innocence, that he didn’t have anything to do with it, but they wouldn’t listen to him and hung him.

Come to find out later on, he was innocent. I think the man who really did rape her was caught and he admitted to it. Well, this tree had been cut down. Wasn’t anything there but a stump when we lived there in that house. The house had an upstairs to it, but we didn’t use it very often as no one could sleep up there, because every time you’d try to sleep up there, you’d hear somebody walking up and down the steps, but you’d never see anybody.

That house had a bath and running water; also a living room, and off that room was Mom and Dad’s room. Then there was a kitchen, and Granddad’s room that was off of the kitchen. Then there was a room where the steps went upstairs, and there was a back porch.

I had a little miniature beagle dog at the time, and I had named him Krypto, after Superboy’s dog. I was into superheroes and all that stuff back then. Well, everywhere I was at, Krypto was with me. One day there wasn’t anybody at home but me, Mom, Granddad, and Krypto. I guess this was on a Saturday, as I wasn’t in school. I was in there laying on Granddad’s bed, and had the door shut. I was reading a book. Mom and Granddad were in the kitchen.

As I was laying there, I heard somebody knock on the door. My dog was snoozing, but he raised his head up and his ears perked up. Course, I said, “Come in.”

Well, nobody came in and nobody said anything; nobody done anything. I went back to reading my book again. Well, it wasn’t very long until I heard knocks again on the door. I laid my book down; the dog was looking at the door with his head kindly cocked to one side. His ears perked up. I said, “Come in if you want to.”

Of course, nobody opened the door, or anything. I couldn’t figure it out; just thought it was Mom or Granddad doing something. When I finished that chapter I was reading in that book, I got up and opened the door and walked into the kitchen. Mom was washing dishes, and Granddad was setting there at the table drinking coffee. Dad wasn’t there.

I said, “What did you all want?”

Mom said, “What?”

I said, “What did you all want?”

Said, “I don t know what you’re talking about.”

I said, “Well, somebody knocked on that door, and I said, ‘Come in.’ They knocked on it twice and I said, ‘Come in.’”

Mom said, “I didn’t knock on the door.”

Granddad said he didn’t knock on the door either. Nobody knocked, according to them. But I heard it, and my dog Krypto heard it, and what that was, was never explained.

8. “The Owens House”

Knox County

The Owens house, once located in Barbourville, was built by John Allen Owens in 1894. Eventually, this historic Queen Anne house deteriorated and was torn down in 1977. Ruth Sanders, who lived in the Owens house in its later years, told fascinating stories about her experiences with the ghosts there in the house. At different times, there were ghostly beings in the dining room making sounds just as if someone were actually sitting at the table and eating a meal. The plates and knives and forks could be seen moving around.

Coffee was smelled on many occasions, as though it were being brewed in the kitchen; yet no coffee was being made at all.

Table rappings were rather common. In one instance, the rapping noise got so loud in the upstairs kitchenette that a person who was up there in the room became so scared that she ran out of the room.

Residents of the Owens House, Barbourville, witnessed numerous, varied ghostly visitations over the years. (Photo provided by Margaret Jean Owens)

Cats were known to walk around certain areas in the various rooms, but they would never walk across a particular area in the upstairs hallway. There was something ghostly about that spot, and the cats could sense it.

A rocking chair in the parlor was known to rock and squeak by itself during the night. It was examined, but no clue was given as to why it made these ghostly sounds.

Another example helps to demonstrate that the Owens house was haunted. It seems that one of the Owens relatives of recent years was spending the night there and was sleeping in an upstairs room. The door to the room typically jammed and was hard to open. During the night when the relative was staying there, the door opened of its own accord on numerous occasions, even though the woman who was there in bed kept getting up to close the door. She finally brought her bulldog into the room to sleep at the foot of her bed, but the dog wouldn’t stay there very long. As soon as the lights were turned out, the dog commenced a low growl, which meant that it felt threatened. The woman eventually gave up that same night and went downstairs to sleep.

Not only were strange actions and ghostly noises felt and heard, the ghost of a woman was also seen on numerous occasions. In earlier years, Margaret Jean Owens’ aunts, Ruth and Dorothy, were sharing the house, when one night they heard something making a great deal of noise in the bedroom next to theirs. They were both so frightened that they locked themselves in the room and sat up all night listening to the strange sounds.

They claimed that it sounded like someone was throwing furniture around and breaking things, but the next morning when they got up and mustered up enough courage to look, nothing was even out of place.

Along about that same time, the Shadles, who owned Shadle Funeral Home across the street, saw a woman’s ghost in the Owens house several times before they ever told anyone. “I suppose they didn’t want to frighten my aunt Ruth Sanders, who was living there at that time,” Margaret Owens stated. Owens then went on to comment, “At another time, one of my cousins was there with her daughter, and the little girl asked her mother who was on the stairs. ‘Mama, who is that?’ she wanted to know. When the mother looked, she got just a glimpse of a gray skirt in the stairwell.”

The ghostly woman that they saw is called the Gray Lady, but is not to be confused with the famous Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort. The Gray Lady of the Owens house was frequently seen in a white dress, surrounded by a red glow all around her. She was seen on various occasions standing in front of windows, walking on the stairway, or walking down the hallway toward the kitchen.

No one is sure who the Gray Lady was, but it is believed that she was a sister of John Owens, who built the house, a sister who died in 1901 at a rather young age.

9. “Eva Carrigan’s Ghostly House”

Breckinridge County

There’s an old house in Irvington that is still standing. It has been featured on Channel 11, back when Channel 11 was CBS. Byron Crawford did a report on this house for a Halloween special one year. It is a big, two-story house that at one time belonged to Eva Carrigan and her father, Samuel.

Eva never got married, and she and her Dad had all kinds of money. She loved this house. I mean she absolutely adored it. In fact it was said that every time she went someplace, she would say goodbye to her house. She would tell it that she wasn’t going to be gone very long and that she would miss the house until she got back.

Well, Eva Carrigan lived to a ripe old age, ninety or so. She loved to play the piano, read, and wear good-smelling perfume. She was just a well-rounded lady. She got sick, and the doctor came to see her, back when the doctors used to make house calls.

The doctor told her that she had to go, to the hospital. But she refused to go and leave her house. The only way that they could get her out of the house was to give her a shot to knock her out. That way, they could transport her to the hospital. Something went wrong with her metabolism, and she had a negative reaction to the shot that they gave her. Instead of knocking her out, the shot killed her. They took her out of the house but it was against her will. She didn’t know when she left the house, and as far as her ghost knows, she still hasn’t left the house. According to this program that was on television, this nice couple that live there now still witness her presence. They said that Miss Eva still plays the piano; they can lay a book down and then find it upstairs, or find the book moved. They smell her perfume. I think I remember them saying that they’ve seen her there.

I didn’t know about all this. I’d seen the program, while I was living up in Cincinnati. I was married and had children. Mom and Dad and Granddad lived at the time in a trailer court which is real close to this miracle house. Well, we came down. My brother-in-law Dale came down with us to visit Mom and Dad and Granddad.

I had one of those one-step Polaroid instant cameras, the kind that takes its own pictures. We were standing there looking at the old Carrigan house from the blacktop. I took a bunch of pictures, but the pictures never would develop after five minutes or so, and it generally takes only about 60 seconds. You couldn’t see anything. So I took another picture of the house and waited another five minutes or so, and the same thing happened. You couldn’t see the house, just all fog.

Well, I thought I’d ask Miss Eva if I could take a picture of her house. So I said, “Miss Eva, I think that you have a really beautiful house, and I would love to get a picture of it, if you would allow me to.”

After I said words to that effect, I took one more picture of the house, and it came back just as crystal clear as it could possibly be. I’ve still got the picture.

After we stood there and looked at the picture a while, I decided to go up there and see if the people who own the house were at home. I didn’t know them as well then as I do now. I walked up to the front door on the porch and was getting ready to ring the doorbell. Dale and Valerie were with me, and we heard a piano playing on the inside of the house. We rung the doorbell, but the piano then quit playing. A few minutes later a man came to the door and opened it. It wasn’t the owner, but somebody else. I asked him where the owner was.

He said, “They re in Louisville, Christmas shopping.”

I told him that I had seen the program on television and that I would like to go in and see if Miss Eva is there.

He said, “I can’t let you in because the present owners aren’t at home, and Fm only visiting myself. I’m a relative. They won’t be back until late, and they don’t like talking about it. They got so much publicity from the television program that they just don’t like talking about it.”

So I wasn’t able to go in to see if I could see or feel any indication of Miss Eva being there, and I haven’t been able to get in yet. But I have talked to the couple who own the house. They said that Miss Eva is still there but they don’t like talking about it. The woman then told me that she can lay a book down that she’s reading and be gone for five minutes and when she gets back, the book is not there. She’d find the book upstairs and knows full well that she didn’t take it up there because she hadn’t been up there. And she said that the piano plays all the time. She talks like it is Miss Eva’s spirit still playing the piano. And she said that they can still smell her perfume.

Miss Eva was never married. She and her father, Samuel K. Carrigan, are both buried in the Cedar Hill Cemetery, so she still isn’t very far from her home.

10. “The Gray Lady of Liberty Hall”

Franklin County

The tale of the Gray Lady of Liberty Hall in Frankfort is about a house guest who never left. Since 1817, a ghostly figure of a small, trim, gray-haired lady has appeared in the hallways, on the stairways, and in various rooms there at Liberty Hall.

Liberty Hall was the home of John Brown, one of Kentucky’s great statesmen, his wife, Margaretta, and their children. The Gray Lady is thought by many to be the spirit of Margaret Varick, an aunt of Margaretta, who moved from New York to Frankfort to help comfort Margaretta following the loss of her two infant sons or a seven-year-old daughter.

Not long after her arrival in Frankfort, the aunt died in an upstairs bedroom. The woman’s ghost began roaming the hallways soon thereafter, as if to comfort the bereaved family. John Brown and his wife noticed that little things were being done there in the house, and they couldn’t explain how these things got done, unless it was the aunt checking out things and attempting to care for family members. Robert Norman, then Superintendent of Liberty Hall, said that he experienced the ghost of Liberty Hall through mysterious happenings such as seeing the pages of a wall calendar being torn off and falling to the floor, candles pulled from two silver candlestick holders and thrown to the floor, and seeing the ceiling fan in one of the rooms begin turning, even though the electric switch wasn’t turned on. Even now, people driving by at night often see candles going from room to room.

There is a framed photograph that contains an image of the Gray Lady. The photo is the result of pictures taken to document the damage done to the house when a rug fell across a heat duct and began smouldering. One of the pictures contains the ghostly image of a woman in a gray dress there in the hallway.

In an attempt to explain the presence of the Gray Lady, it is felt that the Gray Lady arises at night and seeks her final resting place. Her unsuccessful attempts are attributed to the fact that no grave is found on the grounds there at Liberty Hall, and if she were buried there, her remains were later removed to the Frankfort Cemetery after its establishment, for there her grave is marked. It was believed by some that the location of her real grave was never marked; thus she still searches for it at night.

Another ghost of Liberty Hall is that of a Spanish opera singer. While attending a party at Liberty Hall early in the 1800s, the singer went to the garden for some fresh air and mysteriously disappeared while outside. Her ghost has been seen there in the garden.

Whoever she was or is, some persons who presently work at Liberty Hall claim to have seen or feel the presence of the Gray Lady as she wanders about the premises of this historic mansion.

11. “Ghosts of White Hall State Shrine”

Madison County

Emancipationist Cassius Marcellus Clay, who was defeated in his bid to become governor of Kentucky, later served as ambassador to Russia for several years, primarily in the 1860s. He was married to Mary Jane Gray, the mother of their ten children. History records that she left their Madison County home when, in 1871, a little Russian boy was escorted to White Hall by a Russian ballerina dancer. This reputedly was a son of Cassius. Mary Jane and Cassius were divorced in 1878 after forty-five years of marriage. The big question is, however, did Mary Jane ever really leave White Hall? Persons who have worked there feel that Mary Jane still loved Cassius and the historic mansion as well. Her spirit often acted as hostess of White Hall, and still does.

At age eighty-four, Cassius married a fifteen-year-old sister of one of his sharecroppers. There are stories that claim that Cassius locked his young bride into the room just off the master bedroom so that she would not run away. It is claimed that she leaped from the only window in that room, trying to kill herself. However, a horseman caught her and pulled her onto his horse, thus saving her life. As recently as 1980, two park rangers were there in the house one night. They saw a light in the room in which Cassius had locked his young bride. Yet there were no light sockets in the room, no furniture, and it was closed away from the other rooms. The rangers drew their guns and searched the lighted room, but found nothing to explain the light. As a result, they resigned from their jobs.

Another ranger quit after seeing a woman, generally thought to be Mary Jane, in a black mourning gown, her head veiled in black, standing in the parlor with her hand resting on the bust of Cassius Clay. On another occasion, one of the beds in an upstairs bedroom had a black mourning dress spread out on it, along with a veil and a fan.

Mary Jane’s ghost is still frequently seen by those who work around the house. They report sightings of her on the stairway, in one of the rooms, standing in front of and staring into the fireplace. Recently, she was seen through peripheral vision walking along the second-floor hallway.

In the early 1980s, the housekeeper at White Hall State Shrine reported that about 2:30 A.M. soft violin music drifted toward the room where her daughter was asleep. Downstairs, somebody was playing a violin, but the only one in the house had no strings. Numerous instances have been reported of furniture that was moved to another point in the room, a movement which employees swear they knew nothing about. Staff members comment that Mary Jane typically appears when they are fussing about a cleaning assignment or when some unusual activity is taking place around the house.

And not only Mary Jane Clay has been seen or heard at White Hall. Other ghosts of the Clay family have been seen on occasion, such as a headless ghost in the cellar, the ghost of a young boy kneeling in front of the dining room fireplace, and even Cassius himself sitting on the stairway smiling smugly at the tongue-tied guide. Ghosts have been heard walking up the stairway or along the upstairs hallway; or heard when mirrors and picture frames fall to the floor.

12. “Ghost Mother among Us”

Hardin County

As children, we played a game called ghost-in-the-graveyard. The way you play is to choose a designated deceased, who would then lie on the ground and everyone else would circle them and sing a song, “Ghost in the graveyard, run, run, run; ghost in the graveyard, run, run, run; ghost in the graveyard, run, run, run,” and as you said the last three words, you would run, run, run.

The ghost would get up and chase everybody like a mummy. The tagged kids would become ghosts as well, and tagged everyone until only the last person was left. That person was the first ghost in the next round. Last rule, you could play only after dark.

Every year in August, my grandparents, Harvey and Lena Wooden, hosted the annual family reunion at the Upton Community Center. When some of the close relatives would gather at my grandparents on Friday and Saturday before the reunion on Sunday, we would entertain the kids. We grew up next door.

One year, Uncle Stanley Wooden built a log house on the property between us and my grandparents. That same year, there were more kids than usual down for the reunion weekend. We played the usual games of tag, stick-in-mud, cow-chip-toss, and truth-or-dare. After supper, we decided to play in the log house. It had no windows or doors yet, just the holes for them. We talked the adults into letting us spend the night there. I think there were about eight or ten of us, both boys and girls.

First we settled in, or as my mother would say, we’d make our nests. We spread our pillows and blankets as we wanted them. We set up our cooler and snack bags and boxes, then we played quiet games like cards and telling ghost stories until all the lights at all the houses on either side of us were out. Then we played a whispering version of ghost in the graveyard. It was loads of fun and quite exhilarating to run around in the dark outside after telling ghost stories.

When we went back into the log house, all of our beds were rolled into neat little bed rolls. Our trash had been bagged up, chip bags and snack boxes were now neatly closed and folded shut. Everything that we’d messed up was now cleaned up. We laughed so hard we hurt. We figured that some of our parents had slipped in to check on us and played a funny trick.

We told more ghost stories and laughed at the thought, “What if a ghost mother was among us?” We really laughed but every time that possibility was mentioned, there was an eerie feeling and quietness for a moment. We didn’t get a lot of sleep that night, and just to be safe we slept in shifts. Two of us were awake at all times. When we got up the next morning, all the tools used in constructing the log house were very organized, placed back in the toolboxes and so on…. All the sawdust that we’d scattered was gone. None of it was even under our blankets. No one saw or heard a thing that night that might have done all this. There was never any mention of this again, not even up to this day.

13. “Strange Happenings at Grandma’s House”

Butler County

I want to tell you the history of my house and the strange occurrences that have taken place there over the years. This consists of stories told to me by my grandmother, my mother, uncle, great-aunt, and my own personal experience with this house. This house is located in Woodbury, just about five miles out of Morgantown. It was built in the late 1800s as a one-room doctors office. When my grandmother, her two small children, and her parents moved to the house in 1953 from Louisville, the house had grown to a five-room house. There was even an old slave house beside the house, but they immediately tore it down.

My great-grandfather soon began adding on to the old house to make it feel like home to the family. He added a huge concrete porch that wrapped around almost half of the house, and he built on a lovely kitchen and made two rooms out of the one room upstairs. Before long, they were completely comfortable and content with the country life.

Some twenty-five years later, after both of my great-grandparents had passed on and all of my grandmother’s children had moved out (except my invalid uncle, who my grandmother took care of), strange, mysterious things began to frequently take place in the presence of both Granny and Uncle Danny. There had always been peculiar goings-on, but hardly anyone had ever questioned them before.

At times, while they were sitting in the living room watching television, a loud, steady thumping would occur in the ceiling, just above their heads. The air would be virtually wind-free on these days, so it could not have been a limb hitting the roof. They also heard very loud snoring noises as if they were coming out of the same spot in the ceiling. My deceased great-grandparents’ room was directly above that location in the ceiling where all those strange noises were coming from.

Finally, one day during those strange noises, my grandmother couldn’t take it any longer and went upstairs to investigate. As she slo-w-l-y ascended to the top of the stairs, the noises became louder. They were definitely coming from her parents’ old room. She gathered all the courage that she could muster, then cautiously opened the door. She was met with complete and utter silence. She checked everything in the room to see if there was someone or something there, but she couldn’t find a single thing.

Defeated, she went back downstairs and told my uncle of what she discovered—not a thing. Then suddenly, the slow, steady thumping started again in the ceiling above them. This time, determined to solve the problem, she went into her bedroom first and snatched up a small bottle of holy water and once again started back up the stairs. Again, when she opened the door, the noise stopped instantly. She sprinkled some of the holy water around the room, while saying a prayer, and then she went back downstairs. She and my uncle waited for the noise to reappear. The noise had stopped and it has never been heard since.

A few years later after my mother and father got a divorce, my mother and I moved into the house with my grandmother and uncle. I was only two at the time and glad to be living in such an enormous old house. I shared a bed with my grandmother when I was a small child because I did not yet have a room of my own and I was afraid to sleep by myself.

I began to experience unexplainable encounters with mysterious things in the house. One morning, when I was four, I distinctly remember waking up on the floor of my grandmother’s room. I wasn’t frightened, since I was constantly sleepwalking as a child. I sat up and looked out of her open bedroom door and in the hall I saw a very strange figure. It was a dark shadow in the form of a tall, slender man, and he was wearing a cap. I sat there on the floor, mesmerized by its presence. It could not have been my uncle, because he had been confined to a wheelchair his entire life. When the figure disappeared, I quickly ran into the kitchen and told my grandmother what I had seen. Upon listening to my story, her eyes lit up with surprise. She told me that I had just described her dead father perfectly. She took a picture from the bottom of the drawer and showed it to me. I could not believe my eyes. The man in the picture was identical to the figure I had seen in the hall. I still wonder to this day if that was his ghost that I saw standing out in the hall.

One of the strangest occurrences to ever take place in the house happened when I was nine years old. I was in my room one night, sitting on the floor in front of my shelf that contained my boxed dolls. I was looking at a magazine when all of a sudden every one of my musical items in the room all came on at once and began to play music. I sat there, frozen to the floor, completely unable to move. My porcelain clowns moved around in circles while they played the music, my porcelain novelties played their songs, and my jewelry box even played its music. In a feeble attempt to not show my fear, I said, “Is that the best you can do?” I said this in a very mocking tone.

My attempt of defiance was indeed a big mistake, because as soon as I had uttered that question, the boxed dolls above me came crashing down upon my head. I was overcome with shock and surprise. I quickly ran outside to get my mother and grandmother. However, when we got back to my room, the music had stopped. There were only the heap of boxed dolls on the floor as proof of what had just occurred.

My uncle had a very strange experience that we still wonder about to this very day. One night after Granny had put him to bed, his wheelchair began rolling back and forth, colliding into his bed. The mere thought of this actually happening would have been dismissed as impossible because the floor in his room was sharply slanted downhill and Granny always put his wheelchair at the downward end of the floor. How could it have been possible for the wheelchair to go up and down the slanted floor unless someone had been pushing it? My uncle began hollering and my grandmother went to his room, but the wheelchair had stopped rolling and remained still for the rest of the night.

My mother, grandmother, and uncle have all heard mysterious footsteps pacing in the hall and a chorus of voices in the hall. Of course, when they open their bedroom doors, the hall is silent and no movement or sounds anywhere.

My grandmother’s sister, Aunt Helen, came down from Louisville to visit us for a week. She went to my grandmother’s room one afternoon for a short nap. She could not go to sleep, so she was just relaxing in bed, with her eyes shut. While she was lying there, an unusual voice called out to her, “Hey you!” At the exact moment those words were spoken, an unseen hand took a tight grip of her shoulder and gave it a good shake. Startled, she got out of bed and asked if anyone was there. She checked downstairs and upstairs. When she couldn’t find anything, she came on the porch and asked us if we had been in the room. None of us had, since we had been sitting on the porch for over an hour so she could take a nap. She looked bewildered, but she just went back into the house. She waited until the day she was to return home to tell us what had happened to her in my grandmother’s bedroom.

My mother had several frightening experiences upstairs in her room. One Saturday she was cleaning her room and vacuuming her carpet. When she finished vacuuming, she turned the vacuum off, unplugged it, and set it in the corner. She suddenly heard a strange noise, almost like a strong wind blowing in the room. Pictures were knocked off her dresser and her shelves and curtains were moving. All of the windows and doors were shut tight. She turned around, facing a full-length mirror that hung on her door, in time to see an unusual flash go across it. She went to the mirror and gently touched the glass. Her vacuum cleaner suddenly came on, even though it was unplugged. She was terrified for a moment as she approached the running vacuum cleaner. Right before she reached it, the vacuum cleaner shut off.

Another strange experience that my mother had was that her pictures kept falling over. She had pictures of me placed all over the house, such as in the living room, her bedroom, and in the downstairs hall. She would always find these pictures laying facedown or on the floor. At first she thought it was faulty picture frames so she bought new ones, but the pictures kept falling. After about a month, the picture incidents stopped.

The most frightening occurrence happened in the presence of all four of us. We were in the living room watching television, when a copper vase actually floated from one side of the room to the other side. We sat rooted in our chairs in silent terror. A few minutes after this happened, my picture on the television fell over and then completely fell off the television. We never told anyone but our priest about these experiences, because we were afraid they would think we were crazy. After we told our priest of all the unexplainable occurrences, he came to the house and said a blessing over the house. After he did this, we never had any strange occurrences to take place.

I know all this might sound unbelievable, but they are all true. Whether you believe them or not, they should be passed down to future generations by storytelling.

14. “The Old Slave Man”

Hardin County

As a child I grew up just a field away from the Brackett Cemetery. I had always heard ghost stories about this place but chose not to believe them. However, many a night I would lay my pillow in the window next to my bed and fall asleep looking out in the direction of the old cemetery. Often I would see what appeared to be figures or shadows wandering about out there. Sometimes, they even looked as if they had eyes that were glowing and bouncing around. But I was more intrigued than frightened. Most usually, by morning I would have convinced myself that it was flashlights, lanterns, and cigarettes of hunters, although often there was nothing in season to hunt. It made it easier to believe, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

I dated a guy once who told me stories about his family who were buried there. One night he took me there, and when he leaned over to kiss me his car horn went off and got stuck. We had to leave, but the minute we left the grounds, the horn stopped blowing.

Not long after that, some friends and I went camping in my dad’s backfield that bordered Rainey Brackett’s farm. I think the cemetery is on his property. Anyway, the campers and I decided to roam the countryside.

I remembered an old cabin I’d seen and heard stories about, and though it was dark I thought I could find it again. I had always seen it in the daylight and with adults who would not let me go in. I was just dying to see if I could see if the Slave Man stories were true.

When we got to what I thought was the yard, we met an old dog with a limp. This gave us an eerie feeling. Everyone wanted to return to the campsite, but I was so intrigued by the stories, I just knew that I had to enter the old cabin.

As we entered the old well-built cabin, I turned on my small flashlight. As we followed with our eyes trained on the small dot of light across the worn log, mud, and rock walls, and we were beginning to relax our thoughts, we heard what we assumed was a small varmint in the cellar. I wanted to check it out, and the others didn’t want me to do it alone. As I opened the narrow wooden door, it creaked so loudly it echoed for what seemed an eternity. The well-worn, squeaky stairs were so narrow we could barely get down them in our close-knit single-file pattern. As we hit the third or fourth step, we froze in our tracks. We heard this low groaning sound like that of an animal in pain. Then we heard the sound of a chain rattling. We paused, our hearts beating just like they were going to beat right out of our chests. Too far to turn back, too afraid to leave a possibly injured animal, I led the troops ever so slowly down the remaining steps.

By now, I was shaking so much that we couldn’t focus our eyes on anything in the wiggling dot of light. I grasped tightly with both hands in order to steady the light so we could see. When my feet hit the dirt floor, there was an unexpected “drip, drip” sound. We caught reflections of our meager supply of light in a small pool of water in the far corner of the tiny cellar. I laughed as nervously as they did, then I said, “See, gals, there’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

As we prepared to creep back up the narrow stairway, I flashed the light around for one final look. Then I heard a sudden gasp. One of my fellow campers had caught sight of a splattering of blood glistening on the wall. When she pointed our attention to it, no one could make a move or utter a sound.

My small dot of light seemed to have control of itself now. As the light followed the crimson trail on the wall, the light seemed smaller by inches than it was when we left home. Through no effort on my part, the light moved to a hand on a shackle—that of a black man. Then the light followed an arm to a face and eyes that were full of pain and tears. The head was covered in sweat and the chest of the old man was full of stripes as if beaten by a recent cane or whip. He was crying and begging for mercy.

Needless to say, the three of us ran so fast we don’t even recall crossing the two fences between there and home. We totally forgot about our camping gear, and didn’t go back to get it until daylight.

It was at least two weeks before I could close my eyes in sleep for more than just a few minutes without seeing the face of the old slave man and hearing the crack of a whip followed by the pain-filled moans and pleas for our help.

15. “A House Too Haunted to Live In”

Hopkins County

Many communities have haunted houses. In the Beulah neighborhood, the Lynn house was about one mile from any other dwelling. There were old graves around this old house. People said that travelers who stopped there for the night were killed, robbed, and buried in the backyard. These activities took place at least 150 years ago.

Sixty years ago, Sally and Edd Hicks married and set up housekeeping there. Sally, who was considered a truthful woman, was not easily frightened. Edd could easily be frightened. Sally did not like to tell about her ghostly experiences because people laughed at her. She said that perhaps we didn’t have some things now that we did have back then. She told me earnestly that there were weird things that went on at that house.

One night Sally awoke to see a great ball of fire in a corner of her room. She got up to extinguish it, but it wasn’t there, it had just disappeared. It appeared again, but she just covered her head until it was gone.

One night, a large dog reared upon her bed. It was a strange dog and twice as large as any dog she had ever seen. They moved the next day, and the house was never occupied after that.

16. “Dark Secrets of an Old, Abandoned House”

Logan County

One rainy night a traveler stopped at this large house hoping to spend the night to get out of the bad weather. The house was empty and badly in need of repair. When he was eating, he heard footsteps, and a young, beautiful girl and a young man came in. They were really upset and were talking softly, and then she started crying and the man started kissing her, trying to comfort her. Suddenly, loud footsteps were heard and a huge middle-aged man walked in. He scared the girl really bad, and he and the young man started fighting. Finally, the older man killed the young man and took him into a secret room that opened with a hidden panel. The girl ran crying into the room where the old man had put the young man he had killed. The older man just shut the panel and left them both in there.

The traveler had hidden and watched the whole thing, and as soon as he thought the way was clear, he went to the police and told them what had happened. They went to the house to investigate and sure enough they pressed the panel and the door to the room opened, and in the middle of the room were two skeletons clasped in each other s arms.

The police told the man that the owner of the house had taken this young girl who had been engaged to a young man, who was real poor, and married her because her parents wanted the old mans money. Later, the young man disappeared, too, and they had heard that all three had finally died. Nobody ever found out exactly what happened that night in the house, but the next year on the same day the house fell down during a storm and hid its secrets forever.

17. “Daniel Boone’s Ghostly Visit to Henry Clay”

Fayette County

“…. Daniel Boone, a national as well as a local hero, has been rather completely written up but I have heard a story concerning him in a sort of postmortem way, that I do not think has before been published. I heard it from a distinguished member of the family associated with the incident; and, while it is strange, there are too many well-authenticated statements of similar occurrences to lightly doubt the evidence.…

“Back in the times when Burr wore powder and shorts, when Andrew Jackson was a plumed knight, and people still remembered how ill Lord Cornwallis looked on the day of his surrender, Henry Clay was a rising young lawyer—perhaps a member of the State Legislature. Coincidentally, Daniel Boone was the honored and famed pioneer; the aged father of the Commonwealth; the universal encyclopedia of Indian lore and frontier adventure…. He was already an old man, for a tree is shown near the Virginia line with an inscription cut by his own hand, T). Boone killed a barr nere this tree, 1760.’

“A drenching thunder-shower pounded the roof of the [Henry Clay] house and rang chimes on the glass covering of the conservatory, which opened directly out of the library. The conservatory doors had been bolted and padlocked on the inside, and the house locked up for the night. While the storm was at its height, and immediately following a terrific peal of thunder, the family were startled at seeing a tall, lank figure stalk in from the conservatory. The unbidden guest was grizzled and weather-beaten and grim of visage. On his head he wore the historic coon-skin, and his raiment was of buckskin from neck to moccasin. He carried one of the six-foot rifles used a hundred years ago and a powder-horn of huge size and antique appearance hung at his side. From cap, hair, rifle, and every part and garment of the strange visitant water was streaming, and the first thought of those present was that he might be some wanderer from the mountains who had marched in, mountain fashion, without knocking, to escape the rain; but this did not seem a sufficient explanation, for the house was known to be carefully closed, and such costumes had become extinct even in the neighboring hill country twenty-five or thirty years before.

“The figure walked across the room, and without a word, deposited his rifle in the corner and seated himself in a large arm-chair opposite and facing the table at which Mr. Clay had been writing. The statesman was pretty well used to the intrusions of political admirers and lion-hunters, but something about this particular intruder seemed to give him uneasiness; however, he said pleasantly, ‘Friend, it’s a wet night to be out,’ but the man in the buckskin answered never a word, and continued to stare mournfully at his unwilling host for some seconds, after which he shouldered his rifle and departed as he had come.

“Two gentlemen of the family followed instantly, but nothing was to be seen or heard of the wild huntsman. The doors were still bolted and padlocked; nothing had been disturbed, and what was even more remarkable, the dripping rifle in the corner had left not a trace of moisture on the floor where it stood, neither was the thickly upholstered chair, in which the figure rested, the least bit dampened by contact with the streaming clothes of the visitor. The circumstances made a very painful impression on Mr. Clay, and after that night he was never known to refer to it; but his family knew that he had seen his old friend Daniel Boone, and that he regarded the appearance as a warning of impending death. Whether it was so intended or not, it is certain that the great political chieftain died soon afterward.”

18. “The Woman Who Fought Off Indians in a Haunted House”

Anderson County

… A legend has continued to haunt a log house on Ninevah Road for more than 200 years. Close your eyes for a moment, and depending on the scope of your imagination, the sound of walnuts being crushed under the car’s tires on the road becomes eerily not unlike that of crunching bones. The fallen leaves, disturbed by your footsteps, might rustle with the sound of an approach that makes you look back over your shoulder.

Yet, no one is on the path. No one visible.

Built in 1783 by Samuel Hutton, a spy serving under Captain John Hutton, the two-story house sits above a spring—like many homes constructed during the period.

Legend says that Indians entering through an opening in the stone foundation around the spring might have gone up a ladder to the interior of the house and attacked the occupants.

The savage cries that once disturbed the calm of the sloping hills down toward the spring and the house have never been entirely erased by time.

Nancy Hutton, Samuel Hutton’s wife, was left alone during one of his absences to defend their home. Her nerves must have been raw as she warily opened the trap door that led from the house to the lower floor where the spring flowed. But her eyesight was unaffected by the jitters.

Hiding behind the ladder, Nancy Hutton spotted the feathers of a red-skinned man. Her hand closed over an ax.

No one knows how many of the savages Nancy Hutton fought off and killed with her ax as they attempted to rise to the upper floor. No one can say whether it is the spirit of the murdered or of the murderess that still clings tenaciously to the unoccupied, historic dwelling.

Capable not only of fighting off the visitation at the log house, Nancy Hutton stood up to her husband in a way few women of her era dared. In 1800 Samuel Hutton was ordered to appear before the Franklin County Court for nonsupport of an infant.

Apparently, Nancy had left the child at the courthouse in a demand that her husband be made to support her and the baby.

It is not difficult to imagine that a woman of Nancy Hutton’s dauntless spirit might, even now, refuse to leave the home she so valiantly defended.

19. “Brutus and the Teen Square”

Bourbon County

No one actually saw Brutus sitting in the chair at the end of the long line of chairs against the wall. That wasn’t surprising since Brutus was a ghost and none of the kids had noticed Brutus when he was still registering 98.6 and was the apple of his mothers eye. But those days were in the past now, and on this tenth anniversary of his death, Brutus returned to the place where he had spent some of his last hours as a mortal.

The chairs were a motley collection of seats for the less popular kids—a place where they could sit while their more fortunate peers were dancing at Teen Square, the Paris hangout for young people in the 1940s and ‘50s. The chair where Brutus was sitting was almost directly under the memorial on the wall that was dedicated to him, with his initials “BFS” prominently displayed. The memorial had been put up a few weeks after Brutus’s death and was now dusty and showing signs of wear. It had made the kids who ignored him in life feel better, but it had soon become just a part of the furnishings.

Two of the younger girls walked closer to Brutus’s chair. “I dare you to sit in that chair,” said Nancy to her friend Betsy.

Betsy shook her head and exclaimed breathlessly, “I wouldn’t sit there if it was the last chair on earth.”

Several of the Teen Square regulars had sworn that they could see the outline of a boy sitting in the chair—especially around Halloween, the anniversary of Brutus’s death. Some of the older boys claimed they weren’t scared, but everyone gave the chair a wide berth, especially the girls.

Brutus wished that they weren’t all scared of him. He wanted someone to talk to him and tell him that they cared about him and missed him now that he was gone. Somehow, he felt like when that happened, he’d be able to move on to the next phase of not living—whatever that might be. But unless he got that closure, he just might be forced to return to that hated chair every Halloween forever.

Just then, Phyllis walked in the door. She was dressed as a nurse for the Halloween party and Brutus thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. He hoped maybe she would be the one, but after ten years he was beginning to lose hope. After all, Phyllis hadn’t even known him when he was still alive. She had moved to Paris just a few months ago and so was on the outside looking in, much like Brutus had been. She hesitated after walking into the room then finally came over and sat down in the chair next to the one in which Brutus was sitting.

Brutus’s ghost. (Photo courtesy of Price Huston)

Some of the other kids noticed her choice of a seat, but no one said anything to her. She seemed nice enough, but the rest of the kids had known each other all of their lives, something she would never be able to share.

The jukebox started playing music, and couples filed onto the dance floor. Brutus sat where he was, as usual. Phyllis sat beside him, and after a while Brutus began to think that she knew he was there. She kept shooting sideways glances at him. The strange thing was, when she looked at him, Brutus began to feel more “real” as if he weren’t a ghost. Finally, Phyllis cleared her throat and said hesitantly, “I’ve never seen you here before.”

From across the room, it looked as if she were talking to an empty chair, but the other kids were too absorbed in each other to notice. In a rusty-sounding voice, Brutus told her that he only came to the Halloween parties now. He asked her if she liked Paris.

“Well, it’s all right, but I wish we still lived in New York,” Phyllis replied wistfully. “I had a lot of friends there, and it isn’t easy fitting in here. So few people move here that they just don’t seem to know how to deal with new kids.”

Brutus nodded. He had once been a new kid, too, and even death couldn’t make him forget how hard it had been. “I know it can be hard, but if you can just stick it out, in a year or two it will be a lot better as everyone gets to know you and you make some friends,” he said hesitantly.

Phyllis looked sad and her lip began to quiver. “I don’t know if I can stand another year,” she said softly, almost to herself.

But Brutus heard her, and it brought back memories of how he had felt his last few days on earth—hopeless and sad. “You know, things will get better, and then you’ll look back on this and be amazed that you were so upset,” he said quickly, the words coming fast now without the rusty sound. In fact, I’ve been watching the other kids over there and that guy named ‘Mike has looked over here several times when he thought you weren’t looking. I think maybe he likes you.”

Phyllis glanced furtively across the room to where Mike was sitting with a couple of other boys. “Do you really think so? I like him. He’s in my English class, and I think he’s cute.”

Already the sadness was fading from her voice and Brutus hoped that he had made her feel better. He knew, though, that the improvement would be only temporary until she made friends in her new home.

Just then, the music started again and the lights dimmed as the juke box began to play a slow tune. Mike got up from his chair across the room and started to walk toward the chairs where Phyllis and Brutus were sitting. They both held their breath, although Brutus just sort of remembered how it felt to hold his breath since air was one of the many things he no longer needed.

Mike stopped in front of Phyllis. “Would you like to dance?” he stammered.

“Yes, thanks,” she replied. “And thanks to you for making me feel so much better,” she whispered to Brutus.

“Who are you talking to?” Mike asked her.

“Why, to that nice boy there in the chair,” she said, glancing behind her as she headed to the dance floor. She stopped in amazement as she saw that the chair was empty.

“I must have been dreaming,” she thought, but wisely decided to keep that to herself as she and Mike began an awkward first dance that would one day lead to love.

20. “Renovations Awaken Mischievous Spirit”

Nelson County

There are things that happen in Ernie and Susan Powell’s South Third Street home that cannot be explained. Closet doors have flung open, trinkets and books have moved when no one was in the room.

“We bought the house from a woman whose mother had passed away,” Susan said. “The day we signed the papers the woman sat back in her chair with a look of relief and said, ‘I am so glad to get rid of that house.”’

The Powells couldn’t understand why anyone would want to get rid of a beautiful, historic home. The house is on a lot purchased from Bardstown’s founder, William Bard, in 1797. They believe a log cabin may have been on the land before their home was built in 1880. The Powells bought the home in 1991.

“When we asked her why she was glad to get rid of the house, she told us strange things had been happening there,” Susan said.

According to Susan, the house had been empty for a while after the woman’s mother’s death. The daughter was responsible for moving furniture and antiques from the house before it was sold.

“She told me the lights and fans would come on by themselves,” Susan said.

Susan said she and her husband didn’t think much about the woman’s comments. “I was the most skeptical person in the world,” she said.

Susan’s skepticism lessened when she and her husband began to renovate the house. The first strange occurrence happened while Susan and a friend were painting the dining room. “He was in one corner and I was in the other. We had our backs to each other and a bucket of paint was on the table in the middle of the room,” she said. “There was a crash and the paint fell off the table, ended up on the floor.”

Susan and her friend could find no explanation as to why the paint spilled or why her friend’s glasses, which had been on the table, were on the floor with both lenses popped out.

Later during the renovation, the Powells took down a chandelier from the dining room and placed it in the front room of the house. One evening Susan was startled by an unexplained sound. When she went to find the noise she saw two glass globes on the chandelier had shattered, but others were untouched.

Throughout the renovation, the Powells would come home and find their lights and fans on when they were certain they had turned them off before they left.

One feature in the house that has the most unusual activity is an antique lawyer’s bookcase in the dining room. “This part of the house was added on,” Susan said. “It used to be part of the courtyard.”

One evening, Susan meticulously arranged books and other items on the top shelf of the bookcase. She left the room and when she returned, one of the books had been moved. Susan could not understand how the book was out of place. “I put it back and made sure it was even with the others,” she said.

But when she came back later, the book was out of place.

“I was home alone and I was tired,” Susan said. “I screamed at it to stop and it did.”

While the Powells had no other occurrences that night, another strange event happened later. The Powells had vacationed in the Caribbean and brought home a sixteenth-century Dutch gin bottle. Susan placed the bottle at the back of the top shelf and put other items in front of it.

One night another crashing sound brought Susan back into the dining room. The gin bottle was shattered on the floor, but all of the items in front of it were untouched.

The renovation process took the Powells about three years. When renovation stopped, so did the ghostly occurrences—until April of 1999.

Ernie Powell, a collector of movie posters, decided to bring a part of his collection into the house because he was thinking of selling them. The Powells put the posters on the top shelf of the closet in their bedroom.

“In the middle of the night, I heard a boom,” Ernie said. “It was like an avalanche.”

When the Powells turned on the light, they were shocked to see both of the closet doors open and posters scattered across the floor.

“We were certain the doors were closed before,” Susan said.

Who is this mischievous ghost on South Third Street? Susan Powell isn’t sure she wants to know. While she thinks neighbors would know if someone died in the house, Susan doesn’t want the answer.

“Sometimes I act like things don’t really happen,” she said. “I used to be scared a lot. I would wait for things to happen, but not anymore.”

21. “The Disappearing Ghost”

Caldwell County

Just outside the city limits of Princeton stands a big, old, deserted mansion. This mansion stands on a dark, lonely hill grown up with weeds that gives it the picture of weirdness.

The overgrown path leads you to a door with creaking hinges. As you ascend the old steps, the loose boards groan with the weight of your footsteps. The dark mysterious stairs wind to the sky and you can see the cobwebs and crawling insects that live in the old house. The furniture, covered with white, gives a ghostly appearance to the eyes. The old clock, now run down with the years, stands on the dust-coated mantle. The “drip, drip” of the faucet in the kitchen rings like an alarm bell in the dense quietness of the night. The night cries of the animals float in through the windows sending chills up your spine. As your proceed further up the stairs and into the hall, a weird cry is heard. The wind, blowing through a broken window, cries like a tormented child. Beneath the house lie many secret tunnels and passages that provide flight after a crime of evil-doing has been committed. In this old, dark deserted house on a dark, stormy night these secret tunnels were used by the owner of the mansion.

Early in the evening a gay party was in process. The leading residents of Princeton were present to celebrate a new industry which had come to Princeton. The women were dressed gaily and were enjoying themselves. The men were congregated in the library discussing the new industry and its possibilities.

As the evening went by everyone pretty well got drunk. One by one the guests began to leave. Finally, all but a few of the men had left. They were discussing politics. The discussion became very heated between the host and one of the guests. It finally broke into a fist fight. The guest drew a knife and went for the host. They fought for a few minutes. Then, as the other guests tried to separate them, the host slipped into one of the secret tunnels. When everyone finally quieted down, they noticed he was gone, but they didn’t know how or where.

The police were called in, but they could never find any clues or any of the secret tunnels. To this day, this man has never been seen again. No one knows where he disappeared to or even if he is dead or alive.

The people of Princeton were shocked by this experience and nobody ever goes near the mansion for fear the host may appear. There are many tales of his appearing around the house in the night, but he always disappears when one tries to move closer. Whatever really became of this man, no one may ever know.

22. “Mysterious Ghostly Noises”

Barren County

When I was in grade school, we lived in a house here in Glasgow at the corner of Liberty Street and West Washington. Both the bedrooms were upstairs, and they had winding steps that went up to each of them. We had to go through the living room to get to one of the bedrooms and through the den to get to the other bedroom. At the bottom of the stairs there were doors with locks on the bedroom side that we would shut and lock at night. They were the kind of locks that had the straight bar that you just slid into the notch. My bed sat at the top of the stairwell.

While we were in bed one night, we heard something running across the floor downstairs. It was running so hard that it made the whole house jar. My dad got up and came to my room and was going to whip me because he thought I was up running around, but I was sitting up in my bed scared to death. He came in and sat down with me and we heard the same noise again. All of a sudden, the lock on my door started clicking back and forth like somebody was trying to open the door. Daddy went and got his shotgun, and we all went downstairs to see what was there.

All the windows were shut and locked, and so were the doors. There was nothing there. Daddy said if he ever lived in a haunted house, that was it. Later on, he found out that this house used to be the old courthouse of Barren County, where they used to hang people.

23. “The Jones House Footsteps”

Lyon County

The Jones house is a dark and mysterious building sitting silently upon a small hill in Lyon County. It is hidden by large, sheltering trees as if it holds a secret it does not want to share. This old house, empty and dark, stands locked inside itself and lives only in the memories of witnesses. To this day, a haunted soul walks through the Jones house searching for a way out. Could it be trapped there by an unfulfilled need, a tragic death, a life cut short? What keeps this soul wandering within the walls of the Jones house? Its not easy to believe the stories about the Jones house, but if you were there, if you heard, its impossible to forget.

The Jones house is a small four-room home built in the 1940s. It has a small front room which opens into the kitchen. In the back corner of the kitchen stands the door to the basement. The old squeaky basement door opens to a dark, empty hole accessed only by a simple wooden plank stairway. It is here where my story begins. It is here where I became a believer.

It was our senior year in high school. Jamie Bundren and I set up our weight equipment at the Jones house. One night while lifting weights we heard sounds over our radio coming from the basement. It sounded like furniture smashing against the walls. One crash after another in an empty basement made our hair stand on end. The sounds grew louder and louder; we were so frightened we ran from the house.

We returned the next day to inspect what had happened in the basement. I worried in fear that someone must have been in the house trying to get out through the small basement windows. As we walked down the wooden stairway into the basement, we were amazed and frightened by what we saw. No furniture, no boxes, just empty space and tightly locked windows. Only four damp concrete walls stood witness to what took place the night before.

Contemporary generations have experienced ghostly footsteps and other sounds in the Jones House. (Photo by Wade White)

A few nights later, we were working out again at the Jones house. After a few minutes we heard noises in the basement. We listened, intent upon pinpointing the cause of the sounds. But next, we experienced what has become the Jones house phenomenon. Someone was walking up the stairway! It was as if silence had fallen upon the world as the loud footsteps on the wooden planks approached the basement door. We heard nothing but the footsteps, which had us frozen in fear. We couldn’t move; we couldn’t run! But just before the footsteps reached the basement door, we ran from the house in pure terror. The sounds we heard were so real, yet so unex-plainable, we no longer wanted to be at the Jones house at night.

Two weeks later, during daylight hours, we were taking down our weight equipment to move it to a new location. Jamie and I were in a small room off the kitchen when we heard someone walk into the house. We looked at each other wondering who it might be. The footsteps walked through the front room and stopped just short of the kitchen. We were only eight feet from where the footsteps had stopped. Just around the corner someone stood silently, or so we thought. We were not afraid at first, but when no one answered my call, we began to worry. So, to see who was there, Jamie ran around the corner bedroom as I stepped into the kitchen. I knew by the sound of the footsteps that I would be face to face with the person who walked into the house, but no one was there. We searched inside and out but found no one, no cars, nothing. We knew something very strange had occurred, something that could not be explained. But this was only the beginning.

Two friends from school, not knowing our story, went to the Jones house one week later. It was a cloudy, dark night. Outside they could hear an approaching thunderstorm. Through the windows, lightning gave brief glimpses of the old trees violently weaving in the wind. Thunder shook the walls like miniature earthquakes. Then, during the midst of the storm, they heard odd noises in the basement. They hoped it was the storm, the wind maybe. But the sounds were like furniture being dragged across the concrete floor. Suddenly, they heard someone walking up the stairway. They were shocked and terrified since no one was supposed to be in the house! Like thunder claps, they heard each step on the wooden planks. They ran out the door and pulled it shut, but something jerked the door back open from the inside. One of them grabbed the door again, and once more it was pulled from his hands. Believing someone was in the house, they ran to the car and quickly drove away.

A few weeks later, I was visiting the home of a man who lives near the Jones house. I told him that my friends and I were planning a small party to be held there over the weekend. He laughed and said that he wouldn’t want to go there at night. At first I thought he was teasing me about what had happened there the last few weeks. But then I realized that he probably didn’t know what had happened. I asked him why he said that, and he told me his story. By the way, his word is as good as gold.

He said that in the 1950s friends of his family lived in the Jones house. He and his family would visit them often and it was common knowledge that something very strange was happening in that house. The family living there told stories of objects missing for days and then reappearing in other locations throughout the house. He told about the old indoor cistern. In a small room of the house lies a deep, dark hole wherein its belly stands some thick, black water. The family told of how they could leave the cistern bucket handle turned a certain way and sometimes it would be turned in the opposite direction when they returned home. But when he began the story of the wooden stairway, my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

He stated that the family often heard footsteps coming up the stairway at night. He witnessed it himself one night while visiting. Knowing the number of steps on the stairway, family members planned to open the door once the sounds reached the top step. During this particular visit, the footsteps began climbing the stairway toward them. The sounds reached the top step and they grabbed for the door. But before they touched the door knob, it began slowly turning back and forth. They were all stunned and frozen in their tracks. Then one of them grabbed the knob to open the door and they heard something quickly run down the stairs. They all went down in the basement but found nothing. I could not believe my ears. It was so similar to what we had heard. This is evidence that the hauntings we were experiencing had been taking place for over forty years.

We planned our party and the story of the Jones house spread throughout the school. We didn’t expect to hear anything during the party, but we were wrong. The band had taken a break and five of my friends were standing outside on the porch enjoying the cool air. They heard someone walk from the front room to the doorway where they were standing. All five looked to see who was coming outside. The footsteps stopped, but no one was there.

Many from school wanted to go to the Jones house and hear the footsteps. My closest friends and I took over twenty people there to witness the sounds. Many times nothing happened, but when it did, I watched nonbelievers become believers. The chilling sounds echoing through the small house with each footstep was more than anyone expected. Those who heard the footsteps on the wooden stairway never imagined it would be so real or so overwhelming. It left each person speechless after they were spooked from the house by an entity which shouldn’t exist. Though many laughed at our stories of the footsteps, those who witnessed the sounds never questioned again the existence of the Jones house supernatural phenomenon.

One night during a small get-together, my friend had an Ouija board and began asking it questions about the Jones house. As we all gathered around, the Ouija board began spelling out that the Jones house planned to hurt John. Many of the girls were upset and asked John not to go there at night. John Bingham, who had been there on many occasions and heard the noises, agreed not to go there that week.

Later the same week, four boys went to the Jones house to see what would happen. They were there only a few minutes when something began walking up the old stairway. As the footsteps slowly climbed from the basement, they all ran toward the front door. The last boy out was undercut at the knees and fell hard onto the porch. The door was standing wide open and no one knew why he had fallen. No boards or furniture was in the front room. Three other boys had just run out the same door with nothing in their way. The fellow who fell was cut up on his face and hands from the fall. On his lower legs were marks as if a two-by-four board had hit him. This wasn’t John Bingham that was injured as the Ouija board had said; it was another John—John Snow.

Two months later, John Bingham and Eric Defew were at the Jones house when they heard the footsteps. They wanted so bad to see it; they wanted to know if it could be seen. They waited as long as possible, but the slow, deliberate footsteps were so loud, so real, fear took control and they ran. Just before they reached the car, John remembered that he had to lock the door. He grabbed the key from the rusty nail on the porch and pulled the door closed. Just before inserting the key, the door pulled from inside the house! John pulled back to close the door again, and this time the door was jerked from his hand and slammed open! He clutched the key in his hand and ran for the car. They drove away as fast as they could go. The next morning, John knew he had placed the key in the car seat but could not find it. He went back to the Jones house to search for the key. But when he arrived, cold chills shot down his spine. He could not believe his eyes. The door was shut. It was locked, and the key was hanging on the old rusty nail.

A couple of months later, some friends and I gathered at the Jones house. Just as was done forty years ago, we sat at the kitchen table with lit candles listening for sounds. We waited an hour, and without warning we heard the eerie sound of footsteps walking up the stairway. As the footsteps climbed toward the closed basement door, we all excitedly gathered around the door. We knew only the basement door was separating us from what had haunted us for months. John Bingham grabbed the knob and pushed the door open. We all jumped back while shining our flashlights down into the dark basement but saw nothing—nothing but the wooden stairway reaching out from another dimension. From that stairway entered something which had vanished without a trace or sound.

A week later, John Bingham was at his home when he heard sounds coming from his bedroom closet. It sounded like someone searching through the closet looking for something. He was obviously nervous as he was the only one home. Then the noise stopped and John heard footsteps from the bedroom enter into the hallway. He quickly ran from his room into the hall but no one was there. He went from room to room searching, but no one was to be found. He knew these were the same sounds he had heard at the Jones house.

One month later at John’s house, Clarice the cleaning lady heard someone walk down the hallway right to the door where she stood in horror. She knew no one was home or expected to be home. Just around the corner stood someone or something. She slowly looked carefully, but saw no one this time. When the Binghams arrived home later that day, they noticed most of the cleaning had not been done. It appeared Clarice had left in a hurry. She returned later to explain what had happened. Upon hearing the story, the Binghams told Clarice about John’s similar experience and about the Jones house. Clarice, an older religious woman, looked into John’s eyes with fear and said, “John, you have brought something home with you from that house. Please never go back to the Jones house, never, never go back.”

The whole story of the Jones house remains undiscovered. Does the stairway into the cool, damp basement serve as a portal for a victim of a terrible crime? Is this soul manifesting himself in hopes to let the world know of its tragic death at the hands of the unpunished? Is it a path for a soul reaching out to the world of which it is no longer a part? Although many tried, we could never discount what took place there as anything other than a haunting. To this day, down in the dark basement of the Jones house, it waits.

24. “Ghosts in Ditto House”

Hardin County

Back in 1985, Carol Goldsmith and her husband, Cookie, purchased the Ditto house. It’s an old Federal-style home, and they had it restored within four years. They had been told stories of the house being haunted, but didn’t pay much attention to what they heard. However, shortly after they started living in the front bedroom upstairs, they began hearing noises in the attic. Sounded like trunks or big boxes being moved around. They thought it might be squirrels or rats, but the noises kept getting louder and louder. The noises would occur in the middle of the night, around 2:00 A.M., and would often be replaced by noises that seemed to be coming from a wall down the hallway. This went on for a month or so.

One night, they heard voices down the hallway. Said it sounded like two women arguing with high-pitched voices. Carol and Cookie couldn’t make out what was being said, but they did hear what sounded like their names being spoken. They heard this arguing at the same time every night for about a month. One night, they heard the voices coming in their direction, then entering their bedroom. The voices continued arguing as they were heard circling the bed.

The Goldsmiths thought about selling the house, but didn’t because they loved the house and its history so much.

About a year later, actually the day after Christmas, Carol was lying in bed in one of the middle bedrooms. About midmorning, while still lying there, Carol felt the presence of someone looking at her. She turned her head to the left and saw a large red-headed woman looking around the door frame at her. Carol said the woman had deep-set eyes, a disturbed look, and was in clothing from perhaps around 1900.

The ghostly woman said nothing, and Carol was startled because she knew that she and her husband were alone in the house. Realizing that she wasn’t asleep, Carol yelled for Cookie and the woman disappeared in an instant.

Just about a month after that, Carol was again in the same bed one early morning. Her husband was at work at the police station. Carol said she opened her eyes and saw the same red-haired woman, this time standing at the foot of the bed, hands on her hips, staring down at her. Petrified, Carol bolted from the room, ran down the stairs and called her husband. He came home immediately, but the woman was already gone.

Carol said that during that same period, they often came home at night to find the lights turned on, all the dishes turned upside down in the cupboards, and mirrors turned backward toward the wall.

Up until that time, the Ditto house wasn’t a B and B, but they opened the house to overnight guests in 1993. One morning after the guests had departed, Carol and Cookie were downstairs in the back kitchen, while their young, part-time housekeeper was upstairs making the beds and straightening the rooms. As the housekeeper came down the stairs and turned to walk back to the kitchen, she passed by the main dining room. Glancing into the room, she was stunned to see an old gray-haired man with a long white beard sitting on the couch. She said he had on a gray Civil War uniform with its long gray coat, rows of buttons and high collar. When she saw him, the young girl ran out the back door, and never came back to work anymore.

The house was sold to Sherry and Milton “Mickey” Dale in September 1998. Mickey was upstairs watching TV in the back bedroom one night a few weeks later, and Sherry had fallen asleep on the daybed there in the room. About 1:30 A.M., just after Mickey had fallen asleep, he suddenly became startled when he heard what seemed to be a heavy boot hitting the bottom step of the wooden stair steps. As the footsteps continued slowly, methodically, toward their room, Mickey became frightened. The hair on his head stood straight out! As the footsteps grew closer, he grabbed a flashlight and shined it toward the spot where someone should be standing about eight feet away. But there was no one to be seen. In his mind, he thought it was the Civil War soldier he had heard about coming up the stairway in heavy boots.

Sherry rented two adjoining upstairs rooms to a young woman, her husband, and their two girls, ages five and three, for two months, beginning on September 27, 2000. But Sherry didn’t tell them of the previous hauntings in the Ditto house B and B, and doesn’t believe anyone else did either. Anyhow, one midmorning around October 8, this lady, whose name is Adrienne, said she had been outside with her children for a while.

As she came back into the Ditto house, she said she immediately smelled the scent of strong, heavy, pipe smoke. She knew of none of the other guests, all men, who smoked a pipe. Besides, all these men worked all day each day from 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 p.m. at Cosmosdale Cement Plant involving construction of new facilities.

As Adrienne made her way up the steps, she wondered where this strong smelling smoke was coming from. She reached the top of the stairs, children in tow, and looked toward the children’s room twenty feet away. She said that the door was open, but she had closed it earlier when she left the room to go outside. Looking into the bedroom from the hallway she was terrified to see someone lying on the children’s bed smoking a pipe! This person was lying there with his legs crossed at the ankles, head propped up against the headboard, wearing dark, rough-looking clothes that looked as though they were from an earlier time period. She said that man looked that way, too! Adrienne said she stared in amazement, stunned, wondering who he was and why he was lying on the children’s bed.

The pipe smoke circled upward and was clearly visible seen against the window and against the wall of the room. This person, or ghost, whatever it was, perhaps sensing someone staring at him, turned and looked straight into Adrienne’s eyes. For an instant, they stared at each other; then he just suddenly disappeared. He was gone from the room.

Later, Adrienne started to tell her husband about the incident. He butted in, asking, “What have you been drinking?” But neither of them drink, and they don’t smoke.

Adrienne told Sherry and me this story a few days after it happened. It was brought up during casual conversation. Adrienne’s family continued to rent both rooms in the house for a while, but moved out and away before Halloween.

25. “Mrs. Petrie’s Ghost”

Daviess Counry

My mother, Judy, who was thirteen at the time, was living in an old two-story house in Maceo, Kentucky. The old house consisted of four rooms downstairs and four rooms upstairs. There was also an outhouse behind the house.

My granddad, Jack McKinney, was working the four-to-twelve midnight shift at the steel mill, so he was always up late at night. One night my granddad was sitting up in his bedroom reading when he heard someone going up the stairs. My mother has twelve brothers and sisters, and so Granddad yelled out asking which one of them was up? After inquiring several times and not receiving an answer, Granddad got worried and got up to check on the children. None of the children were up, but Granddad saw a ghostly female figure walking up the stairs. She turned around and looked at my granddad, smiled and then continued up the stairs where she disappeared into the bathroom.

Granddad never told my mother or any of the other children about this until several years later when they moved from the old house. He also told Mom that the previous owners of the house had been an older couple by the name of Petrie. Mr. Petrie never allowed his wife to use the inside bathroom, but for some reason always made her use the outhouse behind the house.

Granddad just figured that what he saw going up the stairs was Mrs. Petrie’s ghost and that she was going to use the inside bathroom.

26. “Unfriendly Packing”

Nelson County

Our family moved to Bloomfield a year and a half ago. We bought a house that was built by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, Spence Minor, in 1813. The house is on the national historic register as the Minor Manor. My brother and I were afraid of the big, old house. I slept in the room that was once occupied by my cousin Nick. He died in the house a bachelor at the age of eighty-five from a heart attack. There have been no children living in the house in over a hundred years. When we bought the house we were told that the orchard never produces much fruit. But during our first summer here, we had more peaches, pears, and apples than we knew what to do with. Everyone said my mom had a green thumb, but she said that she didn’t do anything but provide a little love and care to the grounds. She said that the house just needed a family.

In December of our first year, we had to evacuate due to a boiler system malfunction that smoked the entire house and messed up everything we owned with oil and soot. We spent the next three months with friends while our house was being cleaned. The insurance company paid this fire restoration company to restore the house and property…. This was no small task, given that our home is over 5,000 square feet.

The first day of the job, Sonya the cleaning lady asked if the house was haunted. She said she felt a positive force coming from my bedroom. She said that everything plastic had to be thrown away because it was covered with toxic oil that would be hazardous if a child were to put it in its mouth. Sonya went on to tell me that she had put all the plastic toys in a box in my room and then had gone downstairs for lunch. When she returned to my room all the toys were scattered on the bedroom floor, and her watch that she left on the sink was resting in the bottom of the toilet bowl. No one else had been in the house except for the women who were helping her clean, and they all had lunch together that day. No one could explain what had happened.

One lady told my mother that she would clean any room in the house except my room. She said the spirit in that room was very protective of the children and did not want her in there. It was like somebody didn’t want them to throw away our toys. I think I know who it was. I believe it was cousin Nick. Unfortunately, the cleaning lady who was afraid of my room will never be able to tell her stories again because she died of an aneurysm one night after a hard day’s work at our house.

Several of the ladies told many stories of their experiences in the house, but none touched me like the one Sonya told about the toys. All I know is, I am no longer afraid of the noises I hear at night, and I don’t even jump when my door opens and closes by itself. I just smile and say that my cousin Nick must be checking up on me.

27. “The Disappearing Guide at an Old, Abandoned House”

Green County

One night these friends of mine and I were going out to an old abandoned house in the country. The road we had to take there was covered with trees, and it made the road seem like a tunnel because the trees were so thick. The reason we were going out to this old house was because it was supposed to be haunted. We were getting close to the house when this woman ran out in front of the truck and stopped. She just stood there looking at us. We stopped the truck and the headlights seemed to go right through her, like she didn’t have a shadow. She motioned for us to follow her so we got out of the truck and ran towards her. She ran away real fast, then turned to motion for us to follow again, so we did. She ran right up to the house where we were going and opened the front door and looked back at us. We were about fifty yards behind her. When we got to the door, it was nailed shut from the outside. We pulled the nails out and went in anyway. We looked all through that old house but nobody was there at all.

28. “A Man’s Ghost in an Upstairs Window”

Muhlenberg County

There was a married couple living in an old, two-story house. The woman was left alone during the day while her husband worked. Every day she would hear noises upstairs but when she went up to check, there was never anybody there. She complained to her husband and he also checked it out and found nothing. The wife was getting really scared to live there, and she couldn’t convince anybody that the noises weren’t her imagination. One day she went shopping and took a cab back home after she was done. She was telling the cab driver about the noises and how everybody thought she was crazy since they had not heard anything and couldn’t find anything. As they pulled in the driveway, the cabdriver got a funny expression on his face and said, “Lady, if there is nobody in that house, who’s that man staring out the window upstairs?”

29. “A Woman’s Ghost at Various Life Stages”

Daviess County

There’s an Owensboro man who purchased an antique love seat and two chairs many years ago. He also acquired a ghost—a beautiful female—with the furniture.

The ghost, who has been seen by at least ten members of the man’s family and friends, bears a striking resemblance to the carvings on the arms of the sofa and chair. The carvings are of the head and bust of a woman at different ages in life. One even appears to be a death mask.

The origin of the eighteenth-century-type furniture is not known, but the family feels that there is a love story associated with the carvings. Generally, the story goes like this: A beautiful courtship was broken years ago by the untimely death of the girl. Grief stricken, the suitor sought a remembrance of his former love. He took his problem to a woodworker-sculptor and had a suite of furniture made which portrayed his beloved as a very young girl, as she grew older, as a mature woman, and then as she was when she died.

In her ghostly form, she is described as a willowy young woman in a full-length dress, with long, black hair flowing over her shoulders and down her back.

To some, she appears to be simply wandering about the house, standing by the draperies, or looking out the upstairs window.

Two visitors were recently surprised to see her bending over their bed.

To others, she has not been visible, but has been heard walking through the house, rocking in the rocking chair, or felt as a presence when she sits on the edge of the bed.

One night about an hour and a half after the family had retired, the record player began to play by itself. The particular song that was played had an eerie but definite relationship to the family argument that had taken place earlier.

In an effort to establish the connection between the ghost and the furniture, there have been attempts to communicate with the spirit world, but they never seem to have any luck. However, each person contacted would have a different story but would always reinforce the story that the carving on the furniture was the culmination of a tragic love affair.

30. “Sisters See the Ghost of Suicide Victim”

Taylor County

In Taylor County, a man built a house especially for his wife. The first week they moved in, she fell down the stairway, broke her neck and died.

Later another man and his wife moved in, because the rent was so cheap. A year after they moved in, the man also came home one week and found his wife hanging from a rafter, her neck broken. The man moved away.

The next tenants were a widower and his two daughters. The townsfolk warned them of the notorious happenings at the house, but the man did not have much money, so he decided to overlook the warnings and move in.

The first afternoon he gathered his daughters together to tell them that under no condition whatever were they to open their door to their upstairs bedroom until he had personally examined it.

The darkness came, and they locked themselves in the upstairs room. Later on they heard a small noise at the bottom of the stairs. The girls huddled together on the twin bed. The noise increased and seemed to move up toward them, one step at a time. One girl, screaming in terror, ran to the door, threw it open and ran out. The second girl ran to the door, called her name and when she did not get an answer, closed and relocked the door.

Later that night when the father returned and walked up to the girls’ room, one sister, with hair turned white and bloodshot eyes, was eating the flesh off the back of the neck of her dead sister.

31. “The Face”

Lyon County

Sandra Lockhart, her husband, and their two children lived in a house known as the old McCormick house that was located by the Cumberland River here in Lyon County. Sandra spent many days there alone during the day with her small children. Once, during daylight hours on a bright sunshiny day, Sandra heard some footsteps out on the sidewalks, which were made of concrete and which circled all the way around the house. She assumed it must be her neighbor, thus called out to him, “Come on in, Junior.”

She received no reply, but when she again heard the walking footsteps she went outside and walked all the way around the house several times, but no one was ever seen. She realized that she had witnessed a ghost visitation there in the old McCormick house. On a particular night in 1963 company had arrived and were bedded down in Sandra and her husband’s bed. Sandra, her husband, and their new baby were sleeping on the couch bed. The older baby was sleeping beside Sandra in a bassinet. When the baby started fussing, as all babies do, Sandra got up to fix the baby his bottle.

After returning to bed and adjusting the baby, Sandra glanced out her living room window and saw a transparent red glowing ball. She kept staring at it, trying to figure out what in the world it could possibly be. No sooner had she finished her thoughts when the red ball came in through the window, but the window did not break.

Sandra propped the baby’s bottle up and the red ball started coming closer to her. She tried to get up, but the red ball had her pinned down and she couldn’t move! She tried to scream out, but to no avail. She kept screaming and finally her brother-in-law came in and asked her, “What is wrong?”

But just before he had come in, the red ball had made an appearance of a face. The red ball face just looked at Sandra, then was gone. It disappeared!

Sandra packed some things that she and the kids needed and, after a night of no more rest, Sandra and her children left the old McCormick house, never to return. Her husband packed the furniture, clothing, and all their other belongings and moved them out. Today the old house no longer stands. It was torn down and a mobile home was moved onto the property where the McCormick house once stood—the place where Sandra spent many days and long, dreadful, scary nights.

32. “The Tapping Ghost”

Breckinridge County

Breckinridge County was first settled in 1789 with a fort at its present county seat in Hardinsburg. Soon after the establishment of the fort, the Indian problem vanished and made way for the settlement of the entire county. Much of the county was settled by subsistence farmers, but several of those coming from the East were, while not well educated, fairly well off for the time and the area. One such family coming from an eastern section of Virginia were the Millers.

The Millers settled an area in northern Breckinridge County on top of what was once an Indian campground. Using the sweat of the brow and as little money as possible, this family built a quite nice home and became more and more prosperous. They acquired a few slaves and raised a sizable acreage of tobacco. On one section of the area, Millers slaves built their own shacks, the ruins of which are still there.

Miller was a fair man, but after the Civil War he could not handle the whole farm since his slaves were freed. He broke his land into tracts, selling all but about 110 acres. Even this proved to be too much for the man and his wife, so he sold the final area of the homestead and moved on.

The new owner had made quite a bit of money in raising sheep and already had built his home on an adjoining farm, so he did not move into the old house. It was simply boarded up and all but forgotten by all but those ex-slaves who still lived in the area. Rumors were started by these superstitious ex-slaves. They said that the house had become haunted by either the irate Indians who had been displaced for over a hundred years or more, but more likely by their Negro fathers who yearned for their freedom but were born and died slaves.

The boards began to loosen as weather began to take its toll on the old house.

Several nights, coon hunters went to the old house but left quickly as strange noises were heard from the second story of the split-log structure. It was an eerie sound, which reminded the hunters of slaves who had worked at a nearby rock quarry. A thumping, scratching sound was heard, but no one dared to investigate.

One night in late November, a group of hunters had wandered into a valley more than twenty miles from where they had started. The night started out cold and rainy, but the rain stopped and the men decided to trod on in search of their favorite hunting game. Then almost as suddenly as the rain stopped, it began again, but this time it was a mixture of freezing rain and snow. By this time the hunters had lost their way, and they were becoming very chilled to the bone.

As they popped over a hill, they spied the abandoned, dark house, and they ran for shelter. Once in the house, they took off their wet clothes and used some of the boards which had fallen off to build a fire in the old rock fireplace. As the blaze grew, the warmer the men began to feel. About this time, a knocking and scratching noise began. It seemed to come from everywhere. Several of the superstitious men had heard of the stories of this haunted house. They began to grab their wet clothes. Some of the younger men didn’t believe the stories, and they wanted to investigate.

After deciding the noise was coming from the room directly above them, three men lit their coal-oil lanterns and started toward the steps. With each step they took, they let their imagination run wild. They began hearing chains in their minds depicting the slave days. With the next step, they heard Negro spirituals being sung in that low, mourning monotone. Two of the men decided to go back and get their wet clothes and get as far away as possible.

One of the men decided to keep going to find out what was going on. As he neared the top step of the rounded staircase, one could almost hear his heart beat over the clambering sound. As his head peeked over the floor level, the room tension was unbearable. The other men called up to him, but no one answered.

Finally, the whole group rushed up the steps to save the man. When they reached the top, the man smiled and said, “Come on up, it’s warmer up here.” Sure enough it was, as the heat had risen. As the room had begun to get warmer, the sheep that were in the upstairs began to move around.

The mystery was solved. The sounds coming from the old house was only the sounds of the sheep.

33. “The Missing House”

Livingston County

One day while nine-year-old Kay Todd was playing alone outside her Livingston County home, she decided to be a little adventurous. Just beyond her family’s property was a lightly wooded area which she had never been allowed to explore. So on this particular day she decided to take a chance and grant herself permission.

After walking through the wooded area for about a mile, she came up on an abandoned two-story house. She was fascinated by the old house, but did not go in; just stared at it. She went back to the house for the next four days, but did not decide to actually go inside until the fifth day.

When she finally went in, she observed that the house was in relatively good shape, although it was a little dusty. There was no furniture. Just an empty house. After looking around on the inside for a little bit, she left.

Two days later, Kay decided to go back to the old house again. However, when she reached the site where she had previously seen it, the house was not there. There was no evidence that a house had ever stood there; no sign that it had burned or had been torn down. Kay retraced her steps to make sure that she had come the right way, but the house was not be found.

34. “Hell’s Half Acre”

Hopkins County

This area of pine and cedar, thickly grown together and hanging over the country dirt road and only wide enough for one vehicle to travel on, called Hells Half Acre, is located about twenty miles southwest of Madisonville, about twenty miles south of Providence, and five miles from Highway 109 west of Beulah.

This narrow road goes around a graveyard, which is about one hundred yards from the only building located within three miles, a log-dwelling house that also served as a pack-peddler hotel. I have heard my uncle and his older neighbors tell tales about this place, from ghost graveyard stories to murder tales. It was a common thing sixty years ago for people to ride horseback through this area and hear a horse following them, then look around to see a horse carrying a man with no head. Something like eighty years ago, two men were hanged near this old graveyard. For several years it was told that you could hear these two men screaming when you passed by there late at night.

The best story I remember was about the traveler. He had stopped at a hotel about half way between Providence and Dawson Springs. This hotel was a place of lodging for peddlers of all kind, and they were plentiful in Hopkins County between 1875 and 1900.

The story says that this particular peddler had a large sum of money in his suitcase when he stopped at this house for a night s lodging. Some of the neighbors were there chatting, drinking, and telling old tales until bedtime. After they all went to bed, the peddler was never seen again. No one thought much about it for several months, and the caretaker of the hotel moved away. The neighbors had begun to notice that he had a lot of spending money within recent times.

The next people who moved into this old hotel heard screams and saw peculiar things at night, such as lights and fire rolling across the road. Well, it wasn’t long until they moved out of that old place.

For a long time, nobody lived there, at least not very long, and the building was torn down. When they did this, bloodstains were found under the floor, causing all kinds of tales to be told. One was that this peddler had been killed and buried under the house. His ghost was seen or heard many times.

They said that if you were to go through by that place on a horse at night, you would be afraid that all of these hidden graves would open up and the spirits would rise up and trail you. People said they were afraid that a peddler’s ghost would be waiting for them just around the next curve in the road.

35. “The Haunted Distillery”

Daviess County

A tale that has amused the John Medley family for years is the one about the spirit that haunted the Daviess County Distillery. It was first recorded in a 1906 issue of the Inquirer.

This alleged ghost at this old distillery has given everybody a fright who resides in that area. Back in the spring, 1905, Dan Wood, an employee in the bonded warehouse, fell down the elevator shaft and was killed. Soon thereafter, strange noises began to be heard in the warehouse at night. The night watchman would always investigate, but could never find any cause. The noise often sounded like the knocking of the hoops off a barrel, while at other times it sounded like knocks in the head of a barrel. And at other times there was a bumping and pumping noise on the ceilings.

The ghost is not particular as to the hour that he starts his funny noises. It matters not whether the warehouse is stored full of whiskey, or it is empty; the noises occur just the same.

The night watchman, Will Burdette, and some of his friends organized a posse to go near the warehouse and wait until the noises began. They were to surround the warehouse and to capture the ghost. About nine o’clock the noises commenced. The posse demanded that whatever it was punching the roof to make itself known, come outside and surrender.

The ghost gave the roof a few more punches while they listened to the sounds, then the noise ceased. They never could figure out what it was that was making the noise.

Burdette later decided he had had enough of that ghost-chasing and resigned his job. He said as far as he was concerned “the ghost can do the night watching at the distillery unmolested.”

…. It wasn’t until several weeks later that the mystery was finally resolved. From the December 3,1907, issue of the Messenger came this story:

“On Monday afternoon about 5:30 o’clock, Curtis Gibbs shot and killed the cause of the excitement at the Daviess County Distillery. He killed a large wildcat in the warehouse. … The cat was a monster and it is supposed that its efforts to get out were the cause of the alarming noises…”

36. “An Elderly Woman s Ghost”

Hopkins County

On a typical gloomy afternoon, my friend Josh and his mom and dad were made believers in ghosts. Back about 1990 Josh had decided that he wanted to go with his mom and dad to see his grandmother. His grandmother lived alone, as her husband had died several years ago. Her very old, two-story house had now acquired a grayish tint. It seemed that permanent dust had collected on its tattered wooden sidings. The windows were cracked and layered with spider webs, one layer upon another. There was a front porch that added to the creepiness of the old house. All in all, the house looked as if it had been the scene for one of the old horror movies.

The inside of the house looked good. Josh’s grandmother had done a little remodeling, but only where it was necessary. The kitchen and den had been totally redone, but by no means were they modern.

It is natural for any old house to have had someone, or even quite a number of people, to die in it. Of course, there had been quite a number of deaths that had occurred in this one. So this house had created a perfect setting for ghosts, and for ghost stories that tell of eerie creatures. However, all these tales had been viewed as sheer nonsense by Josh and his parents.

They pulled into a parking space right in front of josh’s grandmother’s house. When they got out, they noticed that her car was not in the driveway, as it usually was. They all decided to wait inside a while for her to return home. They went up to the porch and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Josh’s dad reached for the skeleton key under the timeworn mat and opened the door. All three of them began taking off their coats once they stepped inside, unaware of the figure staring down at them from the top of the stairway.

All at once, they all looked up and saw this transparent lady who was wearing a huge, billowing dress, like the ones in the Old South. The ghostly lady appeared to be elderly. She walked down three steps, which gave them a better view of her. Then, she disappeared into thin air.

By this time, Josh and his mom and dad had blinked their eyes more than a million times and were scared out of their wits. Their first reaction was to get away from there, so they ran. They ran just as hard as they could, finally reaching their car. They jumped inside the vehicle and sat there, spellbound.

It wasn’t long until they began staring at one another in astonishment. They confirmed that they had seen the same thing. Josh’s dad began driving away just as the grandmother pulled into the driveway.

They told her what they had seen, and the four of them then checked the house for a sign of anyone. They found nothing. The only indication of anyone living in the house other than the grandmother was an occasional shadow passing through the upstairs halls, a shadow that resembled the same elderly woman that the three of them had seen.

37. “The Old Ferrell Place”

Metcalfe County

This story is about an old house here in Metcalfe County, the old Ferreli place right up here close to Randolph. It had a basement, ground floor, upstairs, and an attic. It had the most beautiful walnut woodwork that I’ve ever seen. It had built-in cabinets and walnut mantlepieces. Just a neat early American piece of architecture.

Well, back when I was a kid, fifteen or sixteen years old, we were working on that old house. I was there alone one day, when some kind of spook or ghost, or monster got after me downstairs. I thought, “Oh, my God, if I can just get to that attic on the third story, and stick my head out of that window, I’ll yell out for help and the whole country will hear me.”

So I started up these steps, and this thing was right after me. I’d keep feeling it right behind me. I kept thinking, “Oh, if I can just get to that attic window, I know I can make somebody hear me.”

Well, believe it or not, when I got to that attic window and threw it open, I could not make a sound! Not a sound would come out of my mouth. I stood there just gasping for breath, nearly choking to death.

The more I think about what happened, the more I think that I just imagined the whole thing. You know how kids were back then. Just about anything would scare them to death.

38. “An Ancestor’s Ghost Annually Reenacts His Death”

Jefferson County

This house on Carlton Terrace had been in the family for a number of years, and now my own immediate family was moving in. It was a beautiful three-story Victorian house, and I was very excited about the thought of moving in. Grandma and Grandpa had lived there previously, but now they were both dead, so the house was available for my parents and me. Just looking at the house always made me think it was haunted, and because of this I was truly scared of the thought of sleeping in my bedroom.

Well, after we moved in, one night when the autumn mist was rolling in I was awakened by a very loud, obnoxious sound coming from inside my closet. Then, slowly my closet door opened and a white figure appeared, then vanished out of my sight. I ran out of my room and went into my parents’ room and fell asleep with them.

The following night, I was awakened by the same sound, except this time it was coming from the bathroom. I got out of bed slowly and walked toward the bathroom door. When I got to the door, I reached for the doorknob and began turning it. The handle was turning but the door was being held in a closed position by some strong force. Again, I ran to my parents’ room and awoke my mother. She walked down to the bathroom, and the same thing happened to her. She looked at me and said that they would take care of it in the morning.

I had just faded off to sleep when I heard the sound again, followed by a loud crash. This time, Mom heard it, too. The two of us got up and started walking downstairs. Much to our surprise, silverware was flying around in the kitchen, and our two St. Bernard dogs were pacing the floor. We walked to the kitchen and looked in, and suddenly all the silverware fell to the floor. We picked it up and returned to bed.

The next morning we went into the bathroom and found all the stuff in the medicine cabinet lying in the sink and on the floor. Then we walked down to the kitchen and found all the silverware on the kitchen floor. We could not figure out just what was going on. It was a bizarre situation.

Our dogs, Bandit and Brandy, began barking to let us know that they wanted to go outside. I walked to the front door to let them out, but they would not pass the pantry there in the entrance hall. I walked over and began pulling on the dogs, but they still would not budge. I asked my dad what was wrong with them, but he didn’t have an answer.

The next afternoon my mother and I walked to my uncle Steve’s and learned a very disturbing fact about our old house. Back about 1912 a young man shot and killed my great-great-grandpa. That took place right beside the hall pantry. Uncle Steve said the scent of his death might still be there and that the dogs were smelling it. See, they have a sense of smell that human beings don’t have.

A few months went by and nothing else strange happened except that the dogs would never go past the pantry. Then, at midnight on January 21, 1977,1 was awakened by a loud cry for help followed by a gunshot. I ran to the bottom of the stairs and saw both dogs lying side by side in front of the pantry, and in front of the dogs was a pool of blood. I woke up both of my parents, but they could not figure out where the blood came from. That afternoon, Uncle Steve came over and we talked to him about what was happening, and this is what we found out.

Great-great-grandpa was killed on January 21, 1912, and every year he relives his death. He also lives in our house and does anything he wants when he wants to do it. Within a few months, my family sold the house and moved to Crestwood.

On January 21, 1987, at midnight, the house on Carlton Terrace burned to the ground within a matter of minutes.

That happened exactly seventy-five years after Great-great-grandpa was shot and killed. Maybe the person who lived in the house was the killer, and Great-great-grandpa was taking his revenge.

All members of our family who were living in the house at the time it burned were killed by the flames.

39. “The Haunted House on the Hill”

Harlan County

Believing in ghosts is not something that I adhere to. However, there are unexplained accounts that leave room for one’s imagination to pursue a variety of answers.

Several years ago I rented a beautiful house on a hill in Harlan County. My young son and I were delighted to have found such a beautiful place to rent. The house was large and the rooms very spacious. A huge family room with a fireplace, bathroom, laundry room, and furnace room made up the downstairs and opened into the garage. Upstairs were kitchen, dining room, bathroom, three bedrooms, and a living room with a cathedral ceiling and fireplace. The house was surrounded on three sides by a deck, and an in-ground swimming pool was in back of the house.

It didn’t take long for the first peculiar thing to be noticed. There would be the sound of a bouncing basketball on the driveway, even on weekends when my son was visiting his father out of town. I made many trips to the window to look out and see who was out there bouncing a ball. When I looked out, the bouncing would stop until I went away. If I only peeked out the side of the curtain, it would sometimes continue, but no one was ever there, at least not to be seen.

Often, we heard the faint sounds of whispering inside and outside the house, but never clearly enough to understand anything that was being said. Each night, after we were tucked in bed, and the lights turned out, the distinct sound of footsteps could be heard coming down the hall between my son’s bedroom and mine, and then sound as if they went straight down the hallway and into my closet. Once there, the sounds of someone walking overhead were clearly heard. Quite often, there would also be the sound of someone rummaging through the kitchen drawers, and opening and closing cabinet doors, as if searching for something.

The peculiar thing was that I was not afraid of these things. I dared not mention what was happening to anyone else because they might think that I was ridiculous by letting my imagination get the best of me.

On one occasion, my cousin and his wife were visiting from Chicago. I put them in the guest room, and their children slept on the foldout sofa. In the middle of the night, my cousin heard the rambling sounds in the kitchen and decided to get up and join someone in a middle-of-the-night snack. Of course, no one was there. He was truly frightened but did not wake anyone to recount what had happened. The next morning, he told us. He has not been back to visit me since.

A friend from my college years and her teenage daughter came to visit me from the Cincinnati area. I put them in the guest room. She told the next morning of having awakened during the night and that the fan and lights were on. But she had not been afraid. She thought that I had done it for one reason or another. She turned off the light and went to sleep, but the next morning the light was on again.

Still another friend and her infant daughter spent the night in that same guest room. The next morning, she said that it had been very hot during the night, and wished that she dare get up and turn the fan on, but wouldn’t as she was afraid of waking her baby. She woke up a little later with the fan on and the light on dim. She said that she had the feeling that a child was in the room with them, just looking at them for some unknown reason. I had another cousin who spent the night with me on a regular basis. But she refused to stay in the house one second by herself. When I got up to go to work, she hopped in her car and left before I did. If she were waiting for a ride, or waiting for me to get home, she would sit outside rather than be in the house alone.

Only on one occasion was I aware of an “evil” presence. I entered the bottom door, by way of the garage door, with a load of groceries. As soon as I entered the room, the air was so heavy that I could hardly breathe, and the hairs all over my body stood at attention. But instead of being frightened, I became angry. I began to pray with considerable authority to rebuke the presence. I recall saying that we would live peacefully in that house, and anyone or anything that had a notion to the contrary would get out. Immediately, the atmosphere changed, and a feeling of peace returned.

The whispering continued, as did the bouncing ball, the ghostly footsteps in the hallway and overhead, and the prowling noises in the kitchen, but I was never disturbed by fear or any sense of an unfriendly presence ever again after that. When I moved out of the house, everyone who had ever visited me there told me how glad they were that I had moved. They said that there was just something about that house that made them very uncomfortable, and they didn’t like to think of me being there alone.

I’m still not sure as to what was going on, but I feel pretty certain that I was not alone in that old house on the hill.

40. “The Shaking House”

Green County

When I was a preschooler, my parents, my brother, and I lived in the southwest quadrant of Green County, in a community called Thompson School House. The local roads were dirt, there were no automobiles in the area, and telephones were few in number. My dad and mom farmed, as did everyone else in this community.

This community was made up of a one-room school, a grocery store, a tabernacle that had only a dirt floor, and eight or nine residential houses. Our house was a large two-story, T-shaped, white frame structure that stood on a large hill overlooking the rest of the community. The upper level of our house was not used, and had not been for some time. And for some unknown reason, my eight-year-old brother was afraid of the upstairs area.

He was quite mischievous and needed to be punished occasionally. As punishment, Mom would put him on the stairway, button the door, and leave him there by himself for a few minutes.

One day while he was in confinement on the stairwell, the metal roof on the house began to vibrate rather violently. Mom quickly removed my brother and called Dad from the field. The weather was warm, totally clear, with no wind or atmospheric disturbances of any kind. We stood and watched as Dad and Mom discussed what the reason for the vibration might be. There was no movement of the house or its parts except the metal roof. Being in the year 1933, airplanes were the first thing to be ruled out. As I recall, this strange happening lasted about thirty minutes, then stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Being early in the afternoon, and still having work to do in the field, Dad went back to the field and left the rest of us there at the house.

When evening came and Dad returned from the field, he was so determined to find the cause for the roof shaking that he crawled into the attic space above the second level of the house with a kerosene lantern. He searched that area completely but found nothing to explain the noises. The house was destroyed several years later in order to make room for a new one, but that mystery has never been solved.

41. “The Chair That Rocks by Itself

Clinton County

This is a true story. When Grandma died, that left me, Beatrice, and Jewell to stay by ourselves and take care of stuff, while Mama and Daddy took the rest of the children and went to bury Grandma at Byrdstown.

I was about fifteen years old, and Beatrice was about seventeen, and she done the cooking and stuff. Jewell was smaller than me and Beatrice, and she was as scary as you could be.

We stayed up yonder at that old house on the Roy place. That night, Beatrice and Jewell got supper ready. We had fried chicken for supper. Well, along in the night, we heard a racket upstairs. Of course, we had rats back then, but we didn’t have rats much of the time.

Beatrice wasn’t scared, but me and Jewell was scared to death. Anyway, we all slept in the same room. I slept in one bed, and they in another. Beatrice went up to the top of the steps on the way to the bedroom, just climbed up the wall. See, we had steps that just went up the wall and then on up into the loft.

There was an old woman who died there in that house, and its always been kind of a haunted house ever since she died. Angels have been seen there, along with all kinds of other stuff. Well, her old rocking chair was setting upstairs on this long platform, but the chair didn’t have no back on it. Just had the rockers and seat, but no back.

I went up there on different nights, and that old rocking chair would just be setting there, rocking back and forwards. And they was some old catalogs laying there by that old chair, and the leaves in them old catalogs would just be turning as if you’d take your hands and turn them. Sometimes, the leaves would turn real slow-like, just like someone was setting there reading a page at a time, then turn to the next page.

That rocking chair would set there and just rock by itself, while them leaves was a-turning.

42. “The Ghost That Killed Two Dogs”

Russell County

There were these brothers and sisters who decided to get rid of their old uncle. Well, they plotted and plotted and plotted. Finally, they killed him by making him fall down the stairs and break his neck. Everyone was suspicious of them, but couldn’t prove that they did it.

There was a couple that later lived in this house, but they both went crazy and had to be placed in the insane asylum. Then other people tried to live in the house, but ever night at midnight, they’d hear something fall down the stairs. It got to the point that nobody would stay in the house.

Finally, someone locked two dogs up in the house. The next morning the two dogs were found lying at the foot of the stairs with their necks broke.

No one ever knew what really went on in that house.

43. “Ghostly Premonition”

Bath County

I was about twelve years old when I saw my first ghost. Actually I don’t know if she could really be called a ghost because she wasn’t dead yet.

My parents rented a house from this older, well-to-do couple in Salt Lick. Sometimes my father did odd jobs for them, and sometimes he just went for a visit. Most of the time, he would take me or my brothers along.

On this particular summer night, I had not gone with my dad to visit them. Sometimes he and the old man liked to sit and talk for a long time, and I would get bored and restless, unless the old lady would talk to me or take me upstairs and show me her “trinkets,” or collections of old medicine bottles and such, which she often did.

Usually, Dad would leave by the backdoor, so I went to the backdoor and knocked and knocked. I saw the old lady walking into a bright yellow room on the left side of the hallway. I kept knocking, and she kept walking. She never did turn around to look at me or seem to hear my knock. Finally, I went to the front door and knocked. The old man came to the door, and when I asked for my father, he said that he had already left.

I ran on home and told my mom and dad that I had gone there looking for him, about knocking on the backdoor, and about the old woman not answering. They looked at each other and then back at me. Daddy said, “Honey, Mrs. Perry is in the hospital. She has been there for several days. She isn’t even home.”

A few days later, Mrs. Perry died. I don’t know what I saw meant, but I will never forget it.

Also, there was not a room where I saw her going into this room, and no rooms in the house were painted bright yellow. As I got older and looked back at what I had seen, it seemed more like a light that she walked into rather than a room painted yellow. I keep wondering, was that a sign she was going to die, or was it really a ghost of some sort?

44. “Mother’s Ghost”

McCracken County

My father and his brothers and sisters all used to live in a big, old house in Paducah. They lived with their grandmother, as their own mother had died in the house. What it was, their grandmother moved in to take care of them when their mom died.

Three months later, they began hearing a strange noise in the house. At first, they didn’t think much about the noise, but later they decided that they needed to move away from the memory of their mother. So they all left the house, going their own ways.

Their grandmother decided to keep the house. Over a period of years, whenever any of the family would go out into the countryside to visit the house they would get an eerie feeling and hear strange noises.

My aunt decided to go to the house to get away from the city. She wanted to do her artistic paintings there. So she set up her easel in the living room and began painting. She then started getting funny feelings being alone inside the house. She decided to move her stuff outside into the front yard. She took off her shoes and laid them next to her, then began to paint.

Then she heard strange screams coming from the house. The longer she listened, the louder they got. She was so frightened that she left everything there, then took off in her car.

During the next week it rained and rained. The streets were flooded. The wind and rain caused people to stay at home all week. The first day that it stopped raining, although puddles and mud were everywhere, she decided to go back to the house and get her easel and shoes. She was still scared of the house, so she took her husband with her.

Once they got there, her easel had been blown down and all of her paints and canvas were ruined. When she reached down to pick up her shoes, she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her husband wanted to know what in the world was wrong. Looking down, he saw that the shoes were perfectly dry and looked as if they had never been wet, although there were puddles of water all around.

My aunt would never wear those shoes again, and she never went near that house. She believed that it was haunted by her own mother.

45. “A Woman’s Ghost at the Old Stagecoach Inn”

Metcalfe County

There was an old stagecoach stop up here at what’s now the Echo community. Back then it was Ninety-Six. The old inn was called the Richard Shirley Inn, and was located on the old Glasgow-Columbia Road. Richard was my great-great-great-grandfather. He and his wife had an old-maid daughter, Aunt Fannie, and her brother, Uncle George. Neither of them ever married. They were the last to live in the old house.

Miss Nicole McMillan told me that she used to hear Aunt Fannie and Uncle George tell about how they used to have these big stacks of half-moon pies—fried pies—and they would sell those to the travelers. I still have the bugle that they would blow when the stage was coming and leaving.

That old mansion was vacant for a long time, and I never even saw the house when it was standing. But they used to tell ghost stories about this old house that was once a stagecoach inn. They’d see these mysterious people go in and out of that old vacant house. And, you know, there’s nothing any scarier than a vacant house with gaping windows.

I think that it was Aunt Fannie that they used to see. She was considered to be a great beauty. My family used to tell stories that people told after they stayed at the Richard Shirley Inn. They would talk about this beautiful woman who, for some reason, never married during her early years. But after she grew older, she was to marry this man, but Uncle George asked her not to get married. And she didn’t marry. The two of them continued to live there in the old inn.

When my grandfather was about fifteen years old, they tore the building down after a big crack came in the wall. He helped cart the brick away. The Shirleys owned many black slaves. The slave graveyard has been plowed over, and the family graveyard has also been plowed over. I’ve heard it told that people used to see white, misty-like figures floating out there over these old graveyards. And people used to tell about seeing a ghost of Aunt Fannie standing in the door of the old house, peering out of an upstairs window, or walking across the area where the old stage-stop inn once stood. I guess she just loved that old historic place.

46. “A Haunted House in Breeding”

Adair County

Back in 1942, a family by the name of Poindexter moved into Breeding, a small community in southern Adair County. The house they moved into was a two-story farmhouse located high on a hill surrounded by large cedar trees on land owned by—I think his name was Steve Gilbert.

Crit Poindexter, the father, was a sharecropper who had entered into an agreement with Gilbert to till his land on a sharecrop basis. The other members of the Poindexter family were Crit’s wife, Maude, and their children Oleta and Howard.

The day that the Poindexters moved in, they arranged their furniture so that they could settle down for the night. By that time, it was late in the afternoon. Crit went to the barn to do the chores, while Maude and Howard were in the kitchen cooking supper. Oleta was in her room sitting on the bed.

Suddenly, Maude and Howard heard Oleta screaming for them to come to her room. When they got there, she was sitting on her bed crying. She told Maude and Howard that the stairway door, which opened up into her bedroom, had opened halfway by itself. When she screamed for her mother and brother, the door stopped abruptly. But after she yelled, the door proceeded to open the rest of the way by itself and bang against the wall. Needless to say, Maude and the two kids were scared to death when Crit arrived back at the house from the barn.

After hearing what had taken place while he was at the barn, Crit tried to assure them that there was no such things as ghosts or anything else that would have opened the door by itself. To reassure them that there was nothing in the house other than the family, he proceeded to walk through the house with the family following close behind. As there was no electricity in the house back then, Crit struck matches as they went from room to room. He was not the type of man to be scared easily. However, when he stepped into the hallway and struck the first match, there in the hall hanging in front of them was a large black raincoat. For some reason, just seeing that coat scared every one of them and sent chills down their spines.

Crit then proceeded to fasten the stairway door so that it couldnt be opened without quite an effort. Crit then told them that he was going to bed to get some sleep.

Maude and the two children couldn’t sleep, so they sat up and talked in whispers until about 4:30 A.M. At that time, Maude went to the kitchen to start preparing breakfast, and Crit got up and went to the barn to do his chores. Howard and Oleta continued to sit on Oleta’s bed and talked about what had happened earlier that night. Suddenly, the stair door opened about half way. Both kids heard it, but when they turned to look at it, the door stopped. Then it gradually opened up all the way, squeaking and bumping against the wall as if something had complete control of it. When Crit got back from the barn, it didn’t take long for the family to tell him about what had just taken place, nor to convince him that they needed to move away from the house.

After breakfast, Crit went to talk with Mr. Gilbert and explained to him what had taken place. He went on to tell him that the family would be moving as soon as they could find another place to live.

Gilbert, being a kind gentleman, told Mr. Poindexter that that was perfectly all right, that he fully understood the way they felt. Gilbert then went on to tell Poindexter that the previous family that lived there in the house was sitting in the living room one stormy night, and they heard a mumbling noise that sounded as if it were coming from outside. They went to the window to look outside, and as they looked, there was a loud clap of thunder and a bright flash of lightning. There in the yard, they saw what appeared to be several small children playing a game such as drop-the-handkerchief or ring-around-the-roses. The children there in the yard suddenly disappeared, and there were no voices to be heard any longer. It was as if they had never been there in the first place. Needless to say, that family moved out the very next morning.

The Poindexters stayed in the house for one week. They never had another chance to speak to Mr. Gilbert to find out if any other sorts of ghostly incidents had taken place in or around the house.

In 1977, thirty-five years later, Howard Poindexter, the youngest of the two children, took his family to visit the old house. It still had a ghostlike appearance, but nothing mysterious happened while they were there. However, they did notice that no one lived in the old house and probably never had for more than a few days at a time. You know, ghosts have their strange methods of scaring people to keep them away.

47. “The Ghost That Left No Tracks in the Snow”

Laurel County

A lady says she once stayed all night at the house of a woman who had lost her husband by death under suspicious circumstances shortly before. While they were all seated around the fire, someone was heard approaching the house and coming on the porch. At this time there was a terrific snow storm raging out of doors. As soon as the visitor came on the porch there was a great noise, as [if] someone [were] stamping snow from his feet. And then, whoever it was opened the front door, went through the hall and clumped loudly up the stairs.

From where the two ladies sat around the fire, they could not see who entered the house. Becoming alarmed when no one came back down the stairs, and not knowing who it was upstairs, [they] mustered up enough courage to take a lamp to go upstairs to see. A thorough search of both upstairs rooms failed to find the intruder, [and] no snow tracks on the stairs were to be seen. Finally, on trying to open the outside door, it was found to be locked, and had been all the while. Unlocking the door, the frightened women examined the snow in the yard for tracks.

None were found, so it must have been a ghost.

48. “Was It Really a Ghostly Coffin?”

Green County

The story I’m about to tell happened in June 1930, about a half-mile outside the Greensburg city limits. One morning during that year, my dad, J.W. Moore, who was sheriff of Green County, got to his office about 7:30 A.M. I was a deputy. When we got there, there was an entire family by the name of Rodgers waiting for him outside the courthouse. This family was in a state of agitation and excitement. Dad said that they literally were scared. Here is the story that they told that morning.

They’d gotten up about the usual time in the morning and were preparing breakfast. They lived in this rather large old frame house. All of a sudden, they heard a noise out in the hallway and presumed that some neighbors were just coming into the house. The Rodgers family sat and waited a few minutes for whoever it was to come to the door and knock.

The noise just continued on and on out in the hall, and then suddenly the kitchen door opened. This happened just a little after daybreak, so it still wasn’t very light outside. Anyway, the kitchen door opened, and coming through the kitchen door from out in the hallway were these four tall men dressed in black. They were carrying a coffin on their shoulders, and on top of the coffin was a white lamb.

The Rodgers family told Dad that they quit eating breakfast when they saw these men and the coffin, and left to come into town. That was actually an understatement on their part, for later evidence indicated that they ran all the way into town after seeing this thing. There was no evidence that they had tried to talk with these men that had the coffin. They simply left the house and ran to Greensburg.

When the family members were questioned, they all told the same story. There was no question but that this family had all seen something and probably saw exactly what they said they saw. What they wanted was for the sheriff and his deputies—Patterson, Adkins, and me—to go out to the house and investigate. Well, we drove out to this house. To get to it, you had to drive up a long lane through the farm with large trees on each side. The old house stood on top of a high hill and was surrounded by very large trees. It was an old house that had been there for many years. It was a two-story frame structure and wasn’t in too good of a condition. The porch, both upstairs and down, had lattice work, and vines had grown up around the house and just completely covered the lattice and had also obscured a lot of the doors and windows. Actually, that old house looked like the kind of house that you would find a ghost in. Of course, I don’t believe in ghosts even though there’s some things that have occurred that cant be explained easily at any rate.

The four of us went into this house and began a search of it, room by room. We were looking for evidence of anything that might have taken place in the old house. We went into the kitchen first and there found plates on the table with a half-eaten meal, a half cup of coffee, a skillet on the stove with some meat and eggs in it that were burned because the skillet had just been left where it was when the family members saw these men carrying the coffin.

Then, we began to look through each room in the house to satisfy our own curiosity and to reassure the people that there wasn’t anything there. I don’t know how many people have ever looked for a ghost, but even though you don’t believe in ghosts, there’s something that’s just a little bit exciting about going into an old house where just a few hours before somebody had seen what they claimed was a ghost.

I expected to find nothing, nor did the others, as we looked. But in one of the stairways that went into the upper part of the house, a closet had been built under the stairway, a closet in which various pieces of clothing had been hung. The closet had a spool on the outside for a door handle, and I used it in an effort to open this closet. The closet door would just move a little bit, but not a great deal. It would move out at the bottom about an inch, and I’d pull on it. When I’d do that, the door would pull back, so to speak.

Finally, I got kind of upset, then jerked on that spool. The door flew open and something white came out of that closet and fell right over the top of my head. Well, when that happened it literally scared me real bad. But as it turned out, the white thing was just a sheet that Mrs. Rodgers had hung in the closet. But boy it sure scared me. It didn’t take me long to get over that, but for a minute I thought the ghost had me sure as the world.

We continued going through the house. By the time we got through and were ready to leave, there was some fifteen or twenty people from Greensburg who had come out to see what was taking place. Greensburg is a small town, and you know how ghost stories or word of a ghost gets around in a hurry and everybody wants to see it before it gets away.

We went back to the sheriff’s office, and it wasn’t long until we got a call from the owner of the house stating that there were just a lot of people driving across his fields and going into the house, and that this was getting to be a nuisance. He asked us to go back out there and check things out again about the possibility of a ghost, and to tell people that there just wasn’t a ghost there.

So we made another trip out there, but the people kept coming out there all through the day and night. I guess that altogether close to a thousand people showed up. We kept getting calls from the owner, asking us to go out there and run the people off. Finally, deputies Patterson, Adkins, and myself got into a car to go back out to the house. But that trip still didn’t stop people from going out there.

This old house still stands on what is known as Marshall Ridge Road. What the Rodgers family saw, I don’t know. However, they were personally convinced that they saw the ghosts of these four men carrying this casket with a white lamb on top of it. This ghost had never been seen there before that, and it has never been seen since then. Whether or not it was an effort on somebody’s part to scare these people so that they would leave the old house, thus making the place available for sale at a much cheaper price, I don’t know. Maybe no one will ever know. But the Rodgers were convinced that they saw what they said they saw. I mean, man were they ever scared. They did move away, and the old house remained vacant for many years afterwards.

49. “This Old House”

Warren County

Let me tell you about our ghost whom we’ve fondly named Otis. It all started happening in the mid-1980s, when my brother and I were still youngsters. My parents had just remodeled and moved into this old house that belonged to my great-grandfather, near Woodburn, here in southern Warren County.

My brother and I each had lovely upstairs bedrooms. However, during my years of living in this house, I often went to bed at night feeling a strong presence in my room, just as if someone were looking at me. Many times I was awakened at night with that same eerie feeling of someone staring at me. But usually I just tossed aside my thoughts of anything scary.

Once my brother and I saw a white ball, maybe it was some sort of light, dash across the upstairs hallway and suddenly vanish. Both of us saw it, and we looked quite a while for an explanation, but nothing ever turned up.

Another strange event took place one morning when the car lights on my father’s automobile, a 1960 Studebaker, came on by themselves, and the car horn suddenly started blowing. He could never figure out what caused this, and he knows about cars.

I also remember some of the doors, both upstairs and down, opening and closing by themselves. And my brother and his best friend experienced some very unusual things, such as his collection of rocks being thrown from one side of the room to another. Also, our two chandeliers and a hanging plant were swaying back and forth for no apparent reason, and the door to our utility room, a door that is always propped open, somehow closed by itself.

Other things I have experienced in this old house include voices, one of which whispered my name on three different occasions—once when I was reading a book, once when I was walking out of my room into the hallway, and a third time when I was simply standing in my room. Things such as keys, blouses, shirts, and whatever, will turn up missing, then reappear two or three months later at the same spot where they were last seen.

Many other occurrences have taken place since we have lived here. We have heard footsteps going up and down the stair steps and walking in the hallway. I have personally seen two bubble-like things that had clear, human-like outlines.

The only physical thing that has taken place happened to my brother. He and his friend were both thumped on the back by what felt like a hand when no one was there.

I did some research into the history of this old house, both in early times and in later years. I was able to piece together the written and oral history of this interesting structure. This man [name withheld] purchased the sixty-five acres that the house is on back in 1922. He cleared the timber from the land and built this ten-room house, with an eight-foot deep front porch all across the front of the house.

When the Great Depression gripped the country in the 1930s, this man fell into deep mental anguish as his financial situation was near bankruptcy. It was at this point that he decided to end it all by taking his own life. He shot himself in an upstairs bedroom, and his blood stained the wooden floor ever after. My parents, after buying the property and moving into the house, remember seeing a large, dark spot on the wooden floor. My grandfather, who had seen it numerous times, told them that this was the mans bloodstain. Mom and Dad tried and tried to remove the stain, but finally resorted to covering it with carpet.

Does the ghost of the former owner of this old house still live here? I don’t know. All I know is, my brother and I, some of our best friends, and our father as well, have experienced numerous ghostlike happenings here. These old walls cannot talk, but stories about these personal episodes that we experienced will continue to be told to our children and others in the years ahead.

50. “The Old Lockkeeper’s House in Rochester”

Butler County

Randall and I live in this old house here in Rochester, and is it ever haunted! We’ve experienced many, many things across the years. This is a two-story house that was constructed back in 1839 as a residence for the lockmaster here on the Green River. They added some rooms to it about 1880, and in one of these rooms is where the ghost lives. The first ghost thing that we ever heard about here took place back in 1907.

Other people who have lived in this house from time to time have also told about “supernatural, unexplainable happenings” that they experienced. And I believe what they told.

Randy is lockmaster here, and we lived here for seventeen years. Then, we moved to Woodbury, where Randy was also lockmaster, stayed there several years, then moved back here to this old house when Randy was transferred back to Rochester.

We moved in here first in June 1956. My birthday was coming up in August. We didn’t have enough money to furnish the house at that point in time.

I got a new dress for my birthday in August, and we were planning to go to Randy’s parents to eat supper that night. I was upstairs trying to adjust my petticoat, but the mirror wasn’t long enough for me to see just how long it was when I got it on. So I used the living room door by opening it back so that I could see a reflection of myself in the glass panels in the door. I also saw the reflection of a wet puddle on the old pine floor.

My daughter Roxanne was just beginning to walk, so I thought nothing about the puddle. I just cleaned it up. When we came back home that night, we walked through the living room. When I walked over to close the door, again I saw this puddle.

Well, again I cleaned it up. The very next time I went into the living room, there was the puddle in the same place. Well, the floors were not original, but these had been put in back in 1937—twenty years ago. And they had been varnished many, many times.

Overhead, the ceiling was plaster, but no leak was coming through it, and no water was soaking up through the thick varnish on the floor. Well, it looked like clear grease. I tasted the stuff, and it was grease. Actually, it tasted like mineral oil. For about three weeks that puddle kept coming back, and I kept cleaning it up. Never could figure out why it was there, or where it was coming from. That was the first strange thing that ever happened to us in this house.

Later on that same year, maybe early fall, a woman who had once lived here wrote us asking if anything unusual had happened to us in this house. Well, in trying to forget what had just taken place, I told her that nothing strange had happened to us. When winter arrived that year, Jim Bob, who is Randy s brother, had just gotten his drivers license. He wrote to tell us that he was coming over to spend the weekend with us. We had only enough furniture for two rooms—our kitchen and bedroom. We did have a couch in the living room, but that room wasn’t furnished. However, the back room upstairs by the bathroom was the warmest room in the house. We didn’t have it furnished, but we put in a cot for Jim Bob to sleep in. Well, when Jim got ready for bed, he went up to that room and went to bed.

In a few minutes, we heard him yelling. I got up and ran to the foot of the stairs to see what was wrong. He told me that someone had pulled the covers off of him. So I said to him, “Jim Just hush and go back to bed.”

So I went on back to my bed and laid down again. Suddenly, Jim yelled out again. I heard him running down the steps. I got up and went into the hallway, and there Jim stood with only his underwear on. “Somebody got my bed covers again,” he said.

So I said, “Well, just bring your cot down here.”

He brought his cot and his blanket, and we set the cot up in the living room there in front of the fireplace. Jim laid down on the cot, and I went back to my room. It wasn’t long until he let out another scream. When I got to his room, he was still lying there on the cot, and the blanket was over in the corner of the room. Something had pulled or thrown it over there.

Well, I did nothing but take him to our room and put him at the foot of the bed and then put the cover on him. That was the only way that Jim could go to sleep.

The next thing to happen took place when Randall and Jims mother called to say that they were coming to spend the weekend with us. She said that they would leave as soon as Jim got home from school. Well, by that time, we had added some furniture to the house. We had a new bed and dresser in the room that Jim had tried to sleep in.

That morning, I had gone up there to clean and dust the room and put clean sheets on the bed. I had bought one of those Martha Washington bedspreads. While I was sitting there later on that day, rocking one of my sick kids, I heard somebody come in the basement door and walk up the steps. The doorknob to the basement door turned and the door opened, but nothing came through. Whoever it was shut that door and walked right through this room and went to the stairwell, and that door opened and shut, then I heard footsteps walking up the stairs. Then I heard the steps go into one of the two upstairs rooms, but I didn’t know which one.

I didn’t get up to follow whoever it was. I just sat there, petrified! If I hadn’t had my kids there in the house, and if it hadn’t been snowing outside, I guess I would have got up and run out of the house. So what I did was, when I got hold of my wits, get up and go to the door and open it. Randall and Daddy were out in the back yard, so I yelled at them, and they came in. I told them that I thought somebody strange was in the house. They went all through the house and looked, but naturally there was nobody there but me. And I really don’t know why, but we began to get used to whoever or whatever it was.

The ghost has one particular room that he seemed to like going to. It is the upper bedroom that was added in 1880. Many times it has been reported that he was heard walking around in there. Some of the families that had lived here had a double bed in that room. They said that it often felt as if someone was getting in bed with them. Said it often felt as if someone was falling into the bed, not just crawling onto it.

We felt this several times ourselves. We would move the bed around from one spot to another, but it didn’t seem to matter where we put the bed; the sensation of feeling someone fall into it was always the same. Sometimes, even, it would feel as if someone touched us. It either just touched us, or the bed seemed to sink down from weight; or maybe the covers were yanked off our bodies. Not only did the family feel these things, our company would, too. It seems like the more company we had, the more this strange creature showed up. We finally solved this particular problem by putting twin beds in that room. Our son Bo sleeps in the room. No one knows whose spirit this is that is still “living” in this old house.

Of course, there have been no records kept on this house, but as far as is known, there was never a violent death or anything like that. On the other hand, people did keep their parents when they were old, and we know of people who did die here in this house. Likely this ghost that we feel or hear is that of a man who was a lockmaster at night, who would come in and go to bed. Or maybe it is the ghost of a man who lived here and who would go down at night to watch the lock on the river, then he came back to the house and went to bed one night, then died.

Whoever it was, he seems to have weighed at least 200 pounds. You can tell that by the noise his feet makes when he walks through the house. Also, we once saw these huge footprints in some fire soot that had fallen out of a chimney and spread out across the floor. These big footprints were there one morning when our son got out of bed.

And it may be that we are dealing with two supernatural beings. See, one Halloween night our son went out to trick or treat. He came back with a bag full of candy. He went upstairs and sat down on his bed, up at the head of it. He began taking his candy from the bag that was located on the bed there in front of him. As he unwrapped each piece of candy to eat, he laid the paper in a pile there in front of him on the bed. He continued doing this as he ate the candy. Suddenly, he screamed out for us downstairs. We went up the steps hurriedly to see what the problem was. He yelled out, “Make him stop! He’s eating my candy!”

So help me, there was another pile of candy wrappers piled up there at the foot of the bed. We could see no one, but there was indeed a stack of candy wrapping paper at the foot of the bed. It was about the same size as the one that our son had made at the head of the bed.

Randy agrees with me that these experiences have not changed our lives, nor those of our children. We also know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we would not have believed that these things could have happened to someone else if and when they had told us what happened to them.

Let me say in conclusion that when we do share some of our experiences, we often speak of this “man” with respect. We want to leave him alone and do not want others harassing him.

51. “Haunted Houses at Leonard Oak and Woodbury”

Butler County

Woodbury is located near the point where the Green and Barren rivers run together. It’s a truly old, historic village that still has some of its pre-Civil War houses. And just across the river from Woodbury is the old Leonard Oak community. Both of these places are in Butler County.

The interesting thing is that one woman [name withheld] owned three houses in the area, and all three of them had ghosts that people heard or saw across the years. One of these ghosts was that of a little girl who, they said, had long hair. She was always dressed the same in a little flower dress, with a white pinafore, an apron-like thing, over it. People who saw her ghost said that this little girl would go up and down the stairs there in this old house in Woodbury. They’d catch a glimpse of her going up and down the stairs.

I was talking to a lady just this morning who used to live there. She told me that she saw the little girl one time. She said that she went to her mammy’s house there in Woodbury. That’s what she called her grandmother. Said, “I was in the kitchen and I just turned my head, and I just saw her as she glided up the stairs.”

The people who saw the little girls ghost never were able to figure out who she was, or who she had been in real life.

Of course, people around here are great believers in ghosts. A lot of people claimed that they saw the ghost of the little girl.

And, then, these same people lived in a house on the Leonard Oak side of Green River. The same family that owned the old house in Woodbury owned this one, and they lived here, too. Well, my husband also lived in this house there in Leonard Oak. His family also saw and heard those things. This one story that I’ve heard so many times is about this baby that cried all the time. They said that they could hear a baby crying, but knew that it was a ghost. They heard it crying so many, many times. It was said that somewhere a long ways back in the family line of this man who lived there, an ancestor and his wife had a baby. Then, later on she had another baby.

They said the father of these babies was the stingiest man in the whole world. He didn’t want to feed that new baby, so he let it starve to death. That was the story that was always told as to what happened, explaining why the ghost of the little baby could be heard crying.

Farther on down close to the river on the Leonard Oak side was another old house, the original home owned by these same people. You could go into that house and hear people talking upstairs, but there wasn’t a soul up there. At other times, ghosts were heard going up and down the stair steps. No one ever knew whose ghosts these were supposed to be. Even after the owners of this house had it redone from top to bottom, people would move in and stay no more than a couple of nights and would then move out. They wouldn’t live there! My nephew lived there for a while, and he said that he heard these ghostly noises. Said he really did. That old house burned. Actually, all three of these old houses that had a ghost in them burned. Two of them burned within one week of each other.

52. “Ghostlike Sounds in an Old Ancestral House”

Monroe County

When I married Frank, we were both just eighteen. Neither of us had ever been away from home very much. Course, we were both scared to death to be out by ourselves, so we stayed there with Franks parents for three months. They lived in this big, old, white house just north of Tompkinsville.

When we went out there, the first thing Frank’s dad said was, “Now, Elizabeth, I want to tell you something. I don’t know if it’s ghosts, or what it is, but this old house just pops and cracks all the time. But now, don’t be afraid of it, for I’ve been here for years and years, and I’ve never seen nothing. But I sure hear these ghostlike sounds.”

Well, I wasn’t there but a week, until there was something that just seemed it was walking everywhere in that house. I’d set down and listen and listen, then directly it would quit. It wasn’t but a few days until I’d hear it again. Frank heard it, too, and we talked about it. But I didn’t react to it, because I didn’t believe in ghosts.

But Frank’s dad, Mr. Hall, said it was a ghost. He didn’t know whose ghost it was, though. Our son Terry claims that when he was growing up spending much of his childhood there with his grandparents, he’d hear noises at night. See, they had pictures hanging up on the wall there at Terry’s great-grandparents’. He always said that the eyes of the people in the photographs would follow him when he walked from one part of the room to another.

53. “Ghosts in the Antique Shop”

Scott County

It was one of those rare spring days in the Kentucky Bluegrass Country, the first of its kind that season that promised that winter had passed. For miles, the crocus and daffodils had sprung up alongside the old stone fence that lined the winding, two-lane country road. With the windows down and the fresh warm breeze fanning through the car, my friend Pam and I were enjoying the mood of the season as we reached the popular Scott County town that is filled with antique shops.

The antique shop we had heard so much about was located in a handsome, two-story, turn-of-the-century stone building. Anxious to discover a one-of-a-kind collectible we just couldn’t live without, we busied ourselves from room to room examining the quaint details of every item.

After we finished looking in all the rooms downstairs, we climbed the narrow, squeaky staircase to discover several other rooms completely full of antiques. Strolling down the hallway, we smiled at portraits of old and young people who had posed for them many years ago. Interestingly, they stared back at us through their cracked gold picture frames.

Pam walked into one of the rooms just as an antique rug caught her eye. I continued down the hallway and suddenly found myself right in front of a large wooden door. I thought it rather unique that I could hear the neighbors next door through the thick stone walls. And at that very moment, the whining of a little boy caught my attention. Sounded like he wanted a cookie or something. I paused for a moment, feeling sorry for the little fellow, then continued my search upstairs.

After Pam and I finished looking through the upstairs rooms, I chose to go back downstairs and take a quick look in one of the rooms that was simply filled with old kitchen utensils. When I got back to the old wooden door, I paused briefly to see if I could still hear the little boy. This time, I didn’t hear him; instead I heard adult voices. Sounded like they were having a party! Their voices were faint, and I couldn’t understand a single word they said, only mumbling.

The stair steps squeaked again as we descended, and I quickly made my way to the back of the antique shop. While examining a charming tea cup and saucer, an unexplainable, cold feeling rushed through my body. Suddenly, goose bumps stood out all over me, and a brush of wind blew through my hair. Whew! Was I ever scared! I didn’t understand what had just happened, but I had to get out of there. I mean, get out in a hurry!

I ran to find Pam, who had paid for her purchase and was chatting with the owner. Pam later described the look on my face as I approached them. “Didn’t you know that this old house is haunted?” she asked me.

I froze in my tracks, and I’m sure that I turned white while listening to the owner tell the story about the voices that I had heard upstairs and how loud they were sometimes, especially at night.

She went on to tell about Charlie, the ghost that roamed around downstairs and removed pictures from one particular wall. She told us that Charlie would not allow anything to hang on “his wall,” as it was referred to. If someone hung something on Charlie’s wall, it was gone the next morning. She went on to tell us how things would be rearranged when she opened the door in the mornings and how she would sometimes tease Charlie after he had been naughty while a customer was in the store. Often she would hang a framed picture on Charlie’s wall and then find that he had moved it to another spot overnight. Once, she even found a picture in an upstairs room.

Charlie was a banker in that same building during the early 1900s. After getting caught swindling money from the bank, he went into a room and put a gun to his head and killed himself. The bullet is still in the wall. We were told that this building was a funeral home before it was a bank, which added to the mystery of that day.

I left the antique shop that day a totally different person. I had actually experienced something that most people only talk about. A ghost! Not just one ghost, but several.

Looking back, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, and I have even been back there once. Nothing happened during that visit, but I have not taken the owner up on her invitation to visit at night.

54, “The Mysteriously Opening Door”

Monroe County

My sister stayed at a home here in northern Monroe County, in an old house with doors that had only wooden drop latches. I don’t think that you could lock them from the outside, but on the inside all you had to do was lower this wood bar into the wood latch.

The people that lived there told my sister that the door to her bedroom would come open by itself. Well, she didn’t believe them. But I’ll have you know, each night when she went to bed that latch would raise and the door would come open. But there was nobody there. She said that happened many times.

When she’d go to bed, she knew that there was nobody in that room but her. Then, she’d hear that latch moving and that door would swing open.

She said that was true. That latch would raise of a night. She heard it many times, and the door would open, yet there was never anybody there.

She found out later that a man with no head had also been seen there.

55. “The House on Center Street”

Henderson County

A house on Center Street is the house that the people in Henderson identify as the town’s haunted house. All anyone needs to do is drive by to see how so many stories could evolve concerning one old house. It is an old three-story house that sets back slightly off the street. The architecture of the house, with its Gothic arches and ornate stonework, lends to the foreboding presence of the house. Actually, it seems strange why this house is not located off some country road out in the country. In fact, it is located just two or three blocks from the downtown area.

I can remember the first time I ever heard a story related to this house. Because I went to grade school outside of town near the subdivision that my family lived in, I was not familiar with the stories about this house in town. When I went to junior high in the city (fairly close to the house on Center Street I might add) it was then that I heard about this haunted house. A girl in one of my classes told the story of how the house became haunted.

It seems that when the house was relatively new, it was owned and operated by a fairly wealthy family. One of their kids was a girl, age fourteen. She was her parents’ pride and joy, and her father worshiped her with all his heart. Yet as with all stories of this nature, a problem arose to put clouds on the horizon. It so happened that this father s lovely young daughter was in love with some fellow and had her heart set on getting married.

The father became both enraged and heartbroken to learn that his daughter would want to get married and leave him. He insisted that she was much too young to get married, so he forbade her from ever seeing the young man again. They began to argue about this, and the father ended up locking the girl in her room. Her bedroom was on the third floor of the house. She sat by the window and gazed out, waiting for her lover to come and rescue her. At this point in the story various versions begin to appear. The version that I first heard depicted the young girl climbing out the window in order to elope with her boyfriend. She lost her grip and fell face down onto the paved sidewalk below.

Other versions claim that she jumped to her death as an act of suicide. One version even suggests that the father, in a fit of rage, pushed her out the window. Regardless of how and why she fell, the rest of the story is the same.

When she landed face down on the pavement, some supernatural power caused her face to leave a full imprint on the stone pavement. Feeling great remorse, the father lifted the section of the sidewalk and found that the imprint pushed through, leaving a life-size stone mask of the girls face. As a symbol of his guilt, the father mounted her mask on the front of the house.

I can attest to the fact that there is a stone mask of a young girl on the facade of the house. Who can tell whether this is the imprint of the girls face, or just a part of the ornate structure of the house? The house is now divided into several apartments. There are still rumors about the ghost of the young girl. I have heard of people leaving the apartment after living there only a short while. It is still said that on some nights one can actually see the image of the young girl looking out the window awaiting the arrival of her lover.

56. “I Am Still with You”

Jefferson County

In the old Jefferson Building on the downtown Jefferson Community College campus, a ghost is so active that the security chief keeps a file that documents all the happening his officers report. People hear footsteps when nobody is there. The elevator goes up and down on its own, carrying no visible passengers. Lights flicker and dim when storms and power surges can’t be blamed. Doorknobs are turned by unseen hands, and some employees have reported seeing a figure in the halls. Two cleaning ladies were so scared by the spooky presence that they quit their jobs. Mysterious letters, supposedly from the ghost, are left in various places. The last one was left in the chapel near Halloween in 1997. It was initialed “LSB” and announced, “I am still with you.”

The security chief, a self-proclaimed stickler for details, adds each incident to his file. In 1980, he added one of his own.

He was working the shift between midnight and dawn. He’d made his rounds, making sure the doors and windows were secure. With new batteries in his flashlight, he moved through the dark, silent halls following a routine inspection. Then it happened.

“I entered the Records and Admissions Office about 3:00 A.M.,” he says. “Suddenly my flashlight dimmed and I felt a cold draft on the back of my neck. I got this prickling sensation all up and down my spine. I had an overwhelming feeling that there was a presence in the room with me.”

He thinks the ghost could be Lucy Stites Barret, wife of James Rankin Barret, who built the structure. “There’s an inscription [carved in wood] in her memory over the fireplace in the area that used to be the library,” he points out, “and her initials were on the last letter. Whoever she is, I don’t believe she’s here to harm anyone.”

57. “Ghosts That Prefer Libraries”

Jefferson County

Two Louisville ghosts prefer libraries, namely the Shively-Newman branch on Dixie Highway and the old Jeffersontown Library on Watterson Trail. Charles Harris, who has worked at both libraries, had spooky experiences at each.

“I was at Newman from about 1989 to 1992,” he says. “I noticed the presence more in the evening when I was working late alone. I never felt threatened, but I couldn’t concentrate. One winter night in 1990,1 smelled the fragrance of fresh flowers coming from the browsing room, which connects the main library to the older auditorium. I couldn’t imagine who had brought fresh flowers in winter, so I checked. There were no flowers.”

The suspected ghost first attracted the staff’s attention in 1990 in the auditorium, a part of Shively City Hall to which the library was added. A mans voice came through the speakers in the ceiling, sounding as if he were in pain, but no source could be found. Then books and other objects began to disappear and mysteriously turn up elsewhere. Lights went off and on. Once a picture of Father Joseph Newman, for whom the library is named, fell from the wall, apparently without reason, and broke.

Recently, librarian Virginia Messer was summoned by a patron to watch her tap the keys on the electric Panasonic KX-E4000 typewriter kept in the library for public use.

“It was the strangest thing,” Messer says. “It was typing different letters from the keys she was striking. The backspace went forward and the space bar went backward. We turned it off and reset it, but it did it a couple of times.”

Shively mayor Jim Jenkins says he hasn’t heard about the odd happenings, but notes that the building was the center of community happenings when Father Newman was alive.

“They had police court there around 1970,” he says. “Father Newman had clubs and activities for teenagers. There was a lot of energy here.”

The atmosphere at the old Jeffersontown Library, on the other hand, was dreary, says Harris. “I suppose the fact that the library was on the site of the former county poor house could account for the dreary feeling,” he explains.

“Many patrons came into the library describing a woman wearing a frilly white or pink dress looking out the front window. Once a family from St. Louis drove by and stopped to tell us they’d seen the woman and realized she couldn’t be real.

“This ghost seemed unhappy and made me feel like it wanted privacy. I often heard footsteps there, and once I saw a whole row of books fall off the shelf. That many books do not fall off the shelf by themselves. Yet they did, and I was standing right there looking at them when it happened. I know there was no vibration or anything to cause it.”

Harris, now the manager of the Bon Air Library, says that when the Jeffersontown Library moved into a new building next door in 1996, he never felt the presence again.

58. “Urnenled Spirir”

Boone County

A widow used to live with her daughter in a house on Frogtown Road in Union, Kentucky. The daughter lived in the attic of the house. She went to her senior prom, and her mother asked her to be back home no later than 1:00 A.M. because she didn’t want to worry about her safety. Well, the girl got started home late from the prom and was killed in a horrible car accident about 12:45 P.M.

My friend and his family moved into the house after the widow moved out. My friend said that he and his family would always hear footsteps, and the attic door would open every night at about 12:30 or so. This went on for about six months until finally my friend’s mother asked around throughout the community to find out if anything strange had happened in the house. It was then that they learned about the girl getting killed in this car wreck.

The next night when my friend’s mother heard the footsteps and the door open, she spoke out and said, “Okay, honey, I know you are home. Go on to bed. Everything is all right.”

After that incident, the footsteps stopped and have never been heard again in that house.

59. “Ghostly Footsteps”

Caldwell County

One time on a stormy summer night, Mom and Dad went out, and I was left to watch after my little brother. I watched television for a while, and then went to bed downstairs in the basement.

I heard the front door open and then I heard footsteps coming down the stairway. I was so scared that I flipped on the light switch. When I did that, whatever it was ran back up the steps.

I just laid there in bed for a while. My little brother was still sound asleep. Finally, I got so scared just thinking about what I had heard that I got my little brother out of bed and took him upstairs. We slept up there on the couch the rest of the night.

I never did know what it was that I heard.

60. “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary”

Trimble County

This friend of mind told me many years ago that her house had a bloody ghost in it. Said the house was haunted by a weird-looking, bloody creature. It all started one day when Liz and her older sister decided to play Bloody Mary.

To play this horror-like game, they went into the bathroom, turned off the lights, and started chanting, slow, real slow, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”

After they had gone through this the fifth time, they heard this awful sounding, squealy voice that sounded like a hen cackling in a long, drawn-out voice. Suddenly, the image of an old woman appeared in the mirror there in the bathroom. The old biddy was sitting in a rocking chair, laughing, laughing, laughing. And, ugh, she was covered all over with blood that was just dripping down from her face and head.

Well, Liz and her sister were scared to death, afraid that she would reach out and grab them with her bloody hands. They tried to open the door, but could not get it open. They tugged and they pulled, but the door would not open. While they were still trying to get out the door, they noticed that the bloody woman put her hands against the mirror, then disappeared.

They said that the bloody fingerprints stayed on the mirror. They washed and scrubbed the mirror but the blood stayed on, even though it was more like a bloody image than real blood. Finally, they decided to take down the bloody mirror and replace it with another one. When they did this, the bloody creature was never again seen.

61. “The Disappearing Ghost of Little Girl”

Hopkins County

My mother told me this story about two years ago. And, whew, every time I think of it, it gives me the creeps. To start it off, she told me that Dad was gone away on a business trip and she had been up late working on a paper that she had to turn in at work the next day. She said that it was getting pretty late, and she had started to put up her things when she heard a noise coming from the living room. She said that she ignored it at first because she thought that it must have been the dogs. So she continued to gather up her things to take them to her room. Then she heard the noise again as she started getting ready for bed. She decided to go see what was going on.

When she walked close to the living room door, she saw the figure of a young girl just about my age. In fact, she thought that it was me. So when she started to walk closer, the girl began to cry.

Mom said that it was hard for her to see the girl, so she began walking toward the light switch. As Mom was walking along, she started calling out my name, “Ashlee, Ashlee, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

The girl did not answer. Mom made her way on over to the light switch and turned it on. She turned back around, and the girl had vanished.

She told me this story on Halloween, and I will never forget it, or what happened when she did. Maybe she told it just to scare me, but at least she didn’t look at me and yell, “Boo,” as she finished telling it. If she had, I would probably have fainted on the spot.

62. “A Haunted House in the South Hill Community”

Butler County

One day my father was visiting me a few years ago before he passed away. Our topic of conversation soon landed on ghost stories. Most of them were inexplicable, but people just loved to tell them and to hear them told. Well, my father said that he had a story that happened to him that would raise the hairs on my head.

At the time this story took place, my dad’s sisters were already married, and he lived alone with his mother. His father had died when he was a young boy. They lived in South Hill, a small rural community in western Butler County.

He told me that early one Saturday night in 1923, when he was only eighteen years old, it had just gotten dark outside. His mother had walked up the road just a short distance to visit some family members. He was sitting alone in the kitchen in their small two-story house, listening to an old battery-powered radio, when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs toward the kitchen. He knew that there wasn’t a soul other than himself in the house, so he began to get a little nervous. He got up from his chair and stood quietly as the footsteps proceeded across the kitchen floor and stopped at the rocking chair located there in the middle of the room.

The rocking chair then began slowly rocking back and forth. My dad told me, said, “I was as scared as all get out.”

Dad said that he ran out of the backdoor of the kitchen and halfway across the yard before stopping to look back at the house. He said that chills ran through him as he saw that the house was lit up with bright lights, as if there were electricity. The scary thing was, they didn’t have any electricity in the house back then.

I’ll never forget what my father said to me about the story. He said, “It’s hard to imagine a grown man like me being afraid, but I don’t know

“A Tiny Baby’s Skeleton”

Knox County

About fifty or sixty years ago, Aunt Becky Barton, together with two or three daughters, lived beside a narrow country road in Knox County, near Gray, Kentucky. I never knew them but have heard about them many times from my grandparents, who lived a short distance from them.

The house in which they lived was a gray, weather-beaten structure. One of the front rooms was built of logs with a stone chimney, and in later years a framed room had been added beside it, and a lean-to porch stuck on the rear….

Aunt Becky was considered odd by her neighbors and her reticence concerning her family made her seem even more odd to her inquisitive neighbors. I was told that she claimed to have Indian blood and when illness struck her, she took to the woods to gather herbs from which she brewed foul-tasting remedies, which more often than not proved to be effective.

Rumors circulated that Aunt Becky s daughters were wild, and some said that men were seen going and coming at late hours, but the country folk were too polite to mention these things to Aunt Becky. Other rumors were that Aunt Becky had large sums of money hidden or buried under the house.

Finally, the old lady passed away, and I don t know what became of her daughters. Anyway, the house was empty for several years, and that was when I first remember seeing it. Then, about thirty years ago, I believe, Jim Dizney and his wife, Laura, bought the old Barton place, intending to restore and remodel the old house and raise vegetables on the sixteen acres of land.

Jim was employed in Harlan County and could only manage to move his family and possessions there on weekends. They arrived on a Saturday afternoon … but Jim had to return to his work on Sunday. Laura was left with her four or five children for the entire week. That Sunday night they were all tired and went to bed early. Sometime during the night, Laura was awakened by a peculiar knocking sound on the wall beside her bed. There were three raps, then silence, three more raps, then silence again. She told herself that the wind was blowing and something was hanging on the outside wall causing the noise. But when the same sound disturbed her the following night she called her oldest boy who was about sixteen, and asked him to see if there was anything hanging on the wall outside. He checked and there was not. This happened the next night, and the next, and every night until it really began to upset her. Three raps, then silence for a few minutes, and so on all night long.

When Jim came home on the weekend, she told him about it and asked him to investigate. He scoffed at her story and explained that it could be rats in the wall. After all, the house was old and had been vacant for a long time. He was afraid that they had a long battle with the rats ahead.

That night, Jim didn’t sleep much. A strange rapping sound kept him awake. Every time heel doze off, he’d hear the noise. Next morning he wasted no time. He crawled through a trapdoor in the attic, where he found a floor that had been partially laid, but no walls had covering, just the outside weatherboarding surrounding the framework. Peering about with a flashlight for rats between the framing, he discovered a long willow pole that had been pushed down between the outside and the inside walls while it was green. This was evident because it was bent until somehow hooked under the edge of the floor. But now, it was dried, old, and brittle. It had been there for years but he managed to pull it up into the attic. On the dust covered floor and on the lower end of the stick, he found dark stains that appeared to be blood. Going downstairs, he ripped away two or three pieces of weatherboarding near the floor. Inside between the two walls was the skeleton of a tiny baby. A local doctor said the bones were those of a newborn infant.

The strange rapping was never heard again, and the Dizneys still live there.

64. “The Old Letter”

Simpson County

On this bright summer day, these two sisters, Heather and Jamie Graves, were going to their grandmother’s new house that she had just bought. These sisters were interested in what they might find up in the attic, so they went up to explore. They found an old letter and began to read it. All of a sudden, the lights went out! It was pitch dark up there, even though it was still daytime.

They went back downstairs and told their brother Ricky what had happened. He proceeded to tell them that he’d bet that they wouldn’t spend the night up there. But they did. They went back up there at bedtime, went to bed, and were soon asleep.

Not long after they were asleep, their grandmother went up to check on them. And do you know what they were doing? They were fighting and talking. Yelling, too. Believe it or not, they were still asleep. Their grandmother told what was taking place. When they woke up, they saw the ghost of a dead woman.

Their grandmother told them that before she had moved into this house, a woman had lived there, and that before the woman died she had written a letter. That was the letter that Heather and Jamie had found.

65. Cal Bingham’s Ghost”

Muhlenberg County

On a stormy day or night, there’s one place most people will avoid. That’s the house on Walnut Hill in Muhlenberg County, near Paradise—the eerie cabin where Cal Bingham died.

The story goes that about seventy-five years ago, Cal Bingham, an ornery cuss disliked by most everyone, was out cutting trees along with two hired hands when a storm blew up.

Folks say there hadn’t been one like it before or since. Lightning flew at the ground in jarring bolts while the wind raged viciously, tearing at all things standing.

Witnesses say that old Cal Bingham raised his fist and cursed the sky for causing him delay. Almost immediately, a white-hot bolt appeared from the clouds, and seconds later Cal lay pinned beneath a lightning-felled tree.

The two men drug him from under the tree and over to an abandoned cabin, where he lay on a cold stone hearth for hours. While his blood seeped into the rough plank floor, he cursed and ranted against the heavens until his dying breath.

Some people say the two men didn’t go for help—not many folks cared either way.

But ever since that day, whenever the clouds blacken and the thunder rumbles, any poor souls who have taken shelter there will testify that the old house shakes with an inner fury, and the angry curses of Cal Bingham can be heard over the moans of the wind.

Perhaps the most chilling and perplexing fact of all is how the gray plank floor once again appears to run wet and red.

Haunted door and stairway in the Smith/Richardson House. (Photo by Elbert Cundiff)

66. “Footsteps and a Rattling Door”

Breckinridge County

There was an experience there in that Harry Richardson house, and this happened a lot. As far as I know, it s still going on.

I heard it, Mom and Dad heard it, and Granddad heard it. Everybody that came to visit heard this. What it would be, you’d be sitting in the living room on the couch or whatever, and that door that went upstairs would rattle, just like wind was blowing against it. You’d hear what sounded like somebody wearing farm brogans—shoes—coming down the steps rattling the door and then going back up the steps. This happened a lot.

Well, Harry Richardson had some stuff upstairs, so he kept the upstairs door locked with a padlock. I got curious and even though I knew it was wrong at the time, I pried the padlock off the door and went upstairs. I looked around. There were two windows up there, but both of them were nailed shut. So there was no way for any wind to get up there and rattle the door. I came back downstairs and fixed the hasp on the door the best that I could so that Harry would not know that I had been up there.

But you’d still hear what sounded like feet walking up and down the steps, and you’d hear that door rattle. People who were visiting would ask, “How come that door is rattling like that?”

Dad would just pawn it off by saying it was the wind rattling the door. But I knew better. That must have been the ghost of Emmitt Smith reenacting the day he was murdered when he came down the steps and tried to get out the door to find his heart medicine, but couldn’t find it and went back upstairs and died.

I would say the rattling noise is still heard.

67. “Ghosts in the Kentucky Headhunters’ Rehearsal House”

Metcalfe County

We have a rehearsal house up above my grandparents’ house here in western Metcalfe County. It’s where my dad and the other Kentucky Head-hunters used to practice when I was little, and they still do. They also wrote many of their songs in this house. My grandmother Young let them have that house when Dad, who is Richard, and his brother Fred was just very young. They called it the practice house. This old practice house became a very famous institution when the Headhunters won all their Academy Awards.

Dad used to tell stuff about this woman who burned up in this house. The house didn’t burn. She was Ellen Broady, who just caught on fire at the kitchen stove and burned until she died right there in that house.

He also said that in this same house, a man hanged himself.

They say that you can still see their spirits up there in the house. Dad said that when the Headhunters were kids, they began their initial practice sessions right there in that house. They felt real creepy about the things they saw and heard. They said that they all could see things like black shadows and stuff like that.

I’ve got my own music band now. I’m fourteen years old. It’s a rock’n roll group. We go up there on weekends to practice. If we stay real late, like past midnight, you start seeing stuff. And you get this eerie feeling like you’re being watched. Just like passing a graveyard in the middle of the night. Man, do we have to get out of there!

That house up there, and that yard, man its a trip! Its the greatest house to ever be in, because there’s just so many creepy things happening up there.

68. “The Ghost of a Slain Robbery Victim”

Whitley County

Late in the afternoon, my grandmother told me a story about a haunted house. She said it was about 7:00 p.m. when she went to stay with her sister. When they sat down to eat, they heard a noise in the cellar. My grandmother sat still and asked, “What was that?”

Her sister told her that an old man had been living there a long time and some robbers took him down in the cellar and killed him. It had been said that the house was haunted. After they all went to bed, about midnight my grandmother heard footsteps coming up the stairs. It walked to the end of the hall, then turned around and walked back down.

Grandmother got out of bed and went to see what was there. She found nothing there, so she went back to bed. All was well again until about three o’clock when she heard something knocking against the wall. It knocked about six times and then stopped. Then Grandmother got up and went downstairs to wake up her sister.

Her sister got up to listen, but the knocking was gone. Grandmother’s sister said that she was moving from that house. So the very next day, the family moved from the house up to Mill Creek, Kentucky, where Grandmother died of old age.

69. “The Talking Spirit’s House”

Morgan County

Perlie Ferguson and her husband, William Ferguson, took their children to stay all night with William’s grandparents. During the late afternoon, Mary, the oldest child, went to sleep without any supper and was put to bed.

Along in the night, she woke up very hungry and wanted her mother to go get her something to eat. Mrs. Ferguson awakened her husband and wanted him to go with her, because in order to get to the kitchen an outside porch had to be crossed. Well, he just made fun of her and told her to take the lamp and go on, that nothing was going to hurt her.

She took the lamp in one hand and the little girl in the other and went on across the porch and into the dining room. She looked into the cupboard, but there was nothing there except an uncut apple stack cake. So she went on into the kitchen and looked in the stove and cupboard, but she found nothing to eat in there.

She took a butcher knife out of the drawer and went back to the dining room and took the apple stack cake from the cupboard and cut a piece from it. She then poured Mary a glass of milk and set the cake with it on the table for her.

While the child was eating her food, Mrs. Ferguson heard someone speak and say, “You will have grief.”

She looked around to see if someone was standing behind her, but there was no one there. At first she thought it was her husband there trying to scare her, but when she saw no one, she became very frightened. She hurriedly picked up the lamp, and also Mary, and went back to her bedroom. There was her husband, sound asleep. She asked him if he had been trying to scare her, but he vowed that he had been asleep ever since she had gone. Needless to say, Mrs. Ferguson did not sleep much the rest of the night.

About a month later, her second child, Clyde, took pneumonia fever and was very, very sick for a long time. The doctor thought he was going to die. Mrs. Ferguson believed, and still does, that the voice in the dining room earlier that month had tried to warn her of Clyde’s serious illness.

She told her husband’s grandmother all about this some time later. Grandmother Ison told her that that was no strange occurrence in that house, but was a very common one. She even told her that in the bedroom where Mrs. Ferguson had spent the night, many times the quilts could not be held on the bed. Something would keep tugging at them all night long.

70. “A Haunted House on Coon Branch”

Knox County

My granny, as I used to call my grandmother, used to live in a house up on Coon Branch that people said was haunted. You could hear things all through the night if you were awake. You could hear things sit by the fire in the front room with no light in the kitchen, and hear noises in the kitchen like someone cooking a meal. It sounded like the stove door opening and closing, dishes rattling, pots and pans falling, and a sound like a 150-pound person walking around. I never did like to stay there all night. It made me afraid.

The house had a square hole in those days. They put things up there in the loft. There was a ladder on the wall that you could go up and down on. When the light was blown out at bedtime, that walking began up in the loft. I would lay there in bed, afraid to move. You didn’t hear weird things in the daytime.

Once someone there was sick, and my mother and sister-in-law went over to sit up and help. Mother and the woman washed the dishes and took the light into the other room. They hadn’t been in there any time when they heard the dishpan fall and hit the floor; it rolled and made a terrible noise. They took the light and went to see. The dishpan was right where they left it. When they went back into the other room, the noises started again—walking, dishes rattling, punching the fire, and the stove doors shutting and opening.

Granny said that if she could see it, she would ask it, “What in the name of the Lord are you here for?”

She said that she had got up in the dark but couldn’t see a thing. She said what it was or what it meant, she never knew. Granny said that at first she was afraid, but she got used to it. She thought it was a witch or a “hant,” but she didn’t know which. She lived there for some time, and it went on as usual.

I still feel afraid when I pass the place where the house used to stand. We called it the haunted house.

71. “The Haunted House in the Woods”

Greenup County

Late one evening in November in the year 1850, a party of five men, driving ox teams, paused to rest on a mountain side. The teams had started before daylight that morning, and the day had been a hard one. The ox wagons were loaded with green staves that were used in making barrel kegs. The rough mountain trail was slick with frozen mud. It was cut into deep ruts which made it difficult for the oxen to draw the wagons. The men, being cold and hungry and realizing that they could not reach their destination, began to look for a place to spend the night. They finally saw a small house standing among the white oak trees back from the road on this little trail.

Deciding that they would try to find shelter in the house, they approached it and found that it was deserted. They unhitched their oxen from the wagons and tied them up. They went inside the house only to find it crudely furnished.

The men felt a little more cheerful when they had the fire burning and had eaten some food. They soon became drowsy and stretched out on the floor around the fire. After a while, they were awakened by a loud noise. Thinking that someone was at the door, they got up to investigate. They also went to see about their oxen. Finding everything all right, they went back to sleep.

They were later awakened by the cold wind blowing into the room. The fire had died down, and the door was standing wide open. This seemed strange indeed, because they remembered that they had barred the door.

After replenishing the fire and barring the door, they tried again to get some sleep. However, they soon heard a noise overhead that sounded like chains rattling. They got up and looked in the attic but found nothing that could have caused the noise. Most of them decided to spend the rest of the night sitting up and talking.

In the early morning, they prepared to leave the house, and as they were hitching their oxen to the wagon, a man on horseback approached. He told them that he had seen the lights and was passing there on his way to get a doctor for his wife. The men told him about the strange happenings; then the stranger told them the gruesome story of the family who had lived in the house a few years ago. They had been found murdered in their beds.

Do you suppose it was their ghosts that disturbed these men?

72. “Ghostly Noises in an Old House”

Pike County

At one time when I was a little girl, we lived in a big house in Big Shole. At the children slept in a big room downstairs. Papa slept in a bedroom upstairs.

One night Papa was going to be gone, so he asked Minnie to stay with us. Minnie was my half brothers wife. She had three little girls. We were told to sleep in Papa’s room instead of the big room downstairs. We went to bed, and there was a noise like a chair rocking. Minnie yelled and told us to get in the bed and quit rocking that chair so she could go to sleep. The children all told her that they were already in bed.

The noise kept up, and the children all got scared. We asked if we could come downstairs and sleep in our regular bedroom. Minnie said, “No, I’ll come up there.”

She came upstairs and brought a flashlight. She got in bed with all of us. When the noise started up again, she shined the flashlight on the chair. The chair was still, not moving at all. When she turned the flashlight off, the noise started up again.

The children were never able to sleep in that room. The chair rocked so hard it could be heard all over the house.

Papa was brave. He slept there all the time.

“The Knocking Spirit”

Clay County

Once there was this man who was going to see his girlfriend. The girl told him that there was a knocking spirit at her house. The man told her that he was not afraid of ghosts.

They were sitting around the fire, when they suddenly heard a noise far away from where they were. The man said, “Come a little closer.”

It continued to knock until it knocked at the door. Then he told it to come a little closer. He was scared to death, but he said, “Come a little closer.”

Then it knocked closer, this time on his hat brim. He said that after that he never told it to come any closer, because he took off and ran away from there.

He never went back to her house again, but she came to his. Later, they got married, but he would never go back to her house anymore.

“The Hainted Room”

Perry County

Henry Smith went to visit his aunt, Linda Legg, who lived over in Perry County. Now, Mr. Smith wasn’t grown when this happened. He went in at her house right after dark, and Aunt Linda was sitting in front of the fire, smoking. She told Henry to go to the table and get him something to eat, that the food was all kivvered up at the table. He went to the table and eat, then she told him to go upstairs and go to bed.

This house was a real old-timey house with one real large room downstairs. The old-timey stair steps come down into this big living room. There was this hainted room that sot right at the head of the steps. She told Henry that there was a table setting right by the door as he goes in, and that he would find a coal-oil lamp setting on the table with some matches laying there beside it.

He undressed and blowed the light out and went to bed. Just about the time he hit the bed, something slammed into the side of the wall and sounded just like a baby kicking the wall. Henry felt over on the back side of the bed and caught the baby by the legs. It kept kicking him, and Henry kept on inching toward the front of the bed. The closer Henry got to the edge of the bed, the closer the baby got to him and kept right on kicking.

When he reached the edge of the bed, he rolled right out in the floor and grabbed his britches as he took off running. Right down them steps he went, and into the big living room he went.

When Aunt Linda seen him coming, she asked, “Honey, did you get scared?”

Henry said, “Yes, Aunt Linda, I just couldn’t sleep up there for that little baby.”

She said, “Henry, I plumb forgot about that room being like that, or I wouldn’t have sent you up there.”

After they talked, he went to some other room and slept there that night.

One other time, he said that he slept in that house, in the room next to this hainted room, with some other men. He said they heard something that seemed to him to be something dragging a trunk across the floor. One of the men hollered in there and told the haint to quit that dragging whatever it was dragging. He talked real ugly to the haint, telling it that it was impossible for a man to sleep in that room.

75. “A Haunted House in Breathitt County”

Breathitt County

On Lick Branch in Breathitt County there lived a preacher by the name of Bob Herald, who lived in a house that was said to be haunted. At this house there were many strange things happening. People all around had heard of this and would come from miles around to try to see these strange things.

Greenberry and Charlie Turner went one night. It was said that the swing was supposed to start swinging and the chair was supposed to start rocking and the door was to come open of its own accord. Greenberry Turner sat in the rocking chair, and it didn’t rock, and Charlie sat in the swing, but it didn’t swing.

The next night two or more of the same family went to see what they could find out. They had to ride horseback to this man’s house. Along in the night, the doors flew open, the chair began to rock, and the swing began to swing. These two men that had gone there got scared and ran off and left their mules hitched to the fence, all night long. They went back the next morning and got them.

The very next day, Bob Herald moved away, and the house burned that night. Old people of this community said that one of his boys shot at the sun ball and cursed the Lord, then the devil gave him power to do these strange acts.

This is a true account, told by Greenberry Turner, who visited this house.

76. “Ghostly Noises in a Haunted House”

Lewis County

About ten years ago there was a big, old house near Maysville that was supposed to be haunted. The people who were living there had to stay there for a year. An old man lived there with them. This old man was crippled, so he leaned against the house when he walked, and you could hear him walking. He would go upstairs and get up all but one step, and then fall back down. He walked up the steps one time and got up all of them but the last one. When he got to this one, he fell and died. From then on, those people could hear him lean against the house and walk up the steps.

The woman kept her forks and knives on the table. One night, they heard them fall and scatter all across the floor. Their child said, “Mommy, there is a rat on the table.”

The mother thought it was a rat, so she went back to bed. Next morning, she thought, “Well, I’ll go down and clean up the mess.”

Believe it or not, when she got down there the forks and knives were in the vase on the table. There wasn’t a one of them on the floor.

77. “A Haunted House on Lacy Creek”

Morgan County

This story occurred over one hundred years ago. It was told to me by my cousin, and has been handed down from my great-grandmother. This all happened here in Morgan County around the mouth of Lacy Creek.

A friend in the neighborhood had died. Three of his men friends came to sit up with the corpse. They sat and talked until around midnight, telling ghost tales. There was a haunted house close by. No one lived in it on the account of it being haunted. So these three men decided that they would go over to this house and investigate to see if it really was haunted.

When they arrived, they barred the door and seated themselves on the floor to wait. And it was no more than five minutes when the door flew open and in came a casket. It rolled over against the wall, and the lid flew open.

It was not very light, only the light of the moon coming through the window. The men jumped to their feet, and in rolled another casket and placed itself beside the other large casket, then raised its lid. The men became excited and began to leave. They found the door was still barred as it was when they came in. While trying to get out, in came a little casket and placed itself beside the other two caskets. The men tore the door down and left in a big hurry. They never returned to see what was in the three caskets.

78. “The Falling Windows of a Haunted House”

Marion County

In Marion County, there stands an old house which is supposedly haunted. The house is in the middle of a briar patch with not another house in sight. The story about the ghosts of this place supposedly took place about fifty years ago.

It seems that a group of young people had accepted a dare to stay in the house overnight. Everything went perfect until sometime around midnight when a headless figure appeared riding a beautiful white horse. A large sword in its right hand flashed, and one of the horses fell over. No one could muster the courage to venture forth to see what had happened, so they tried to convince themselves that they had imagined it. All was well until they went out at daylight. The horse was on the ground with its head completely separated from its body.

This old house is supposed to still be haunted. It is impossible to keep windows in one piece. Every time new windows are placed in the house, they somehow get knocked out. The owner, being dumbfounded, hired a man to stay in the house at night. The first night, nothing happened. The second night, the man was asleep on the floor when he felt something pulling at his cover. His lamp was on, but he couldn’t see a thing. The pulling was getting harder, so he started pulling the blanket back. Then, suddenly, the blanket ripped into two pieces. Immediately, there was a crash and every window in the house fell out.

People still talk about that old house, wondering what this was all about.

79. “Ghostly Musical Instruments and Other Noises”

Martin County

Once upon a time a family of renters were coming along and saw this empty house, and wanted to rent it. The owner of the house told them that it was haunted and no one would live there more than one night. The father told the owner that he and his family wasn’t afraid of anything, and that they still wanted to live in the house. The owner told them to go ahead and live there and he wouldn’t charge them anything for it.

The father and his girls moved part of their furniture into the house. And while the father went back to his other home to get another load of furniture, he got a boy to stay with his girls to keep them from getting scared.

The girls and the boy went to bed after dark and hadn’t laid down but a few minutes when they heard a noise in the loft. It sounded like a big barrel full of cans rolling back and forth, and finally it came down the stairs and scared them. Then the boy jumped in bed with the girls, and then they heard this awful moaning, groaning sound coming from the loft. Then they heard it come down the stairs with its heavy feet dragging. It came down and lay before the fire the rest of the night. While it was resting, it groaned the whole night through.

The next morning, when the father returned with another load of furniture for the house, the girls told him that there wasn’t any use of unloading it because they weren’t going to stay in that house. They told him about the barrel rolling back and forth and down the stairs and about the groaning haint that stayed there all night.

The father began to make fun at them, but all at once he began to hear banjos, fiddles, and guitars making music around his head, and he got so scared that he and his whole family ran away, never to return to that haunted house again.

80. “The Ghost of burning Fork”

Johnson County

“The Ghost of Burning Fork” is a story that was told to me by C.H. Stambough. Mr. Stambough’s brother was to show a peddler through the community of Burning Fork. The first place they were to stop was a house which sat on a high cliff. This cliff had a crack in it and gas from deep in the earth came out, and it was always burning. This is why the name of Burning Fork became known.

John, who was Mr. Stambough’s brother, had told the peddler about the neighbors and how this girl that lived at the first house could have the knocking spirit to do what she commanded. The peddler wanted to see this and so spent the complete morning at this house with John.

When they arrived, John said that he showed him the burning gas, and the peddler wanted to go back. The peddler said that the devil was already there, as he could feel it in his bones.

They had dinner with this family, and the girl begin having the dishes float in the air. John said, “I grabbed my glass and set it down, but the peddler was so shocked that he couldn’t even eat.”

This was only the beginning of their ghost. As the peddler and I went from house to house that day, I told him that we would have to stay for the night at one of the houses. Well, we happened to stay at the house where the girl lived that was endowed with the spirit. If anyone ever possessed the supernatural power, it was she. She was so ugly that no boy in the community would come to that house.

That night I was put in the room with her brother, and the peddler was given the room in blue, the guest room. He had to go down a long hall and out on the porch before he reached the room. He had said that if she was what I had told him about her, he wanted to see just what she could do.

After everyone was in bed, a noise was heard in the peddler ‘s room. I went to see what it was, and he was so afraid that he could not move. He said that while he was getting ready for bed, the ghost walked into his room and would not leave. He told me that he was getting out of there while he was still in one piece.

81. “Strange Events at a Haunted House”

Bell County

About thirty-six years ago, I lived on Breast Works Hill. A lot of soldiers got killed in the Civil War on that hill, and they was buried there under where houses are now.

Well, Ben was laying in bed sick with leak of the heart, and he had just give himself up to die. He was so weak, and when I was in the kitchen he’d just peck on the wall right light for me to come there and wait on him.

Jim Henry, who was Bens brother, come over to set up with him. Now, Jim Henry would just set and doze, but the minute you called his name he would be ready to do anything to help you out. “Now, Francis,” says Jim Henry, “I’m aiming to kill your haint tonight.”

Well, I told him that I’d shore be glad if he would. So about midnight, he was setting there a-dozing, and a big noise that went like somebody hitting the side of the house with a board woke him up. Boy, he jumped up out of that chair like he was shot, and the young’uns come running out of that room where they was sleeping.

Then it sounded like somebody dragging chairs over the floor. Jim Henry said, “Well, I never believed in hants before, but I know this is the truth.”

And that middle door wouldn’t stay shut, I don’t care how many times that you locked it.

My mother come to see me one day and she said, “Give me that key; I aim to lock that door.”

I said, “Mother, I’ll catch you a bird if you will.”

I give her the key and she locked the door and put the key in her apron pocket, and that door just flew open. Mother said, “As old as I am, I’ve never seen the likes of that before.”

But that sure is the truth, honey.

82. “Was It a Ghost?”

McLean County

Some years ago when Livermore was smaller than it is now, a family consisting of husband, wife, and baby lived in what is now Harold Hughart’s house. The man was employed at a job that sometimes took him away from home at night. The family lived happily and without incident for several weeks. Then, the husband’s work caused him to be away from home for two or three days. While he was gone, his wife heard bells ringing. Sounded like they were in the room farthest away from her bedroom.

When her husband returned, she told him what she had heard. Nothing more of the bells was heard for some days, but strange footsteps were heard walking up and down the stairway. These things were heard for some time, and lights were sometimes seen in or near the house. The young wife and mother grew to be very uneasy when it was necessary for her husband to be away from home.

People began to discuss the haunted house and to advise the family to move out. Some people were afraid; others thought that they were hearing only natural sounds that could be explained.

One night while the husband was away, his wife heard a sound coming from her baby’s bed. Jumping up from her own bed, the mother rushed to the baby’s bed. When she got there, she saw this ghostly figure bending down over the baby.

She cried out and rushed to the baby. When she got hold of herself, the mother searched the house but found nothing. She took the baby and spent the rest of the night across the street with her own mother. When the husband returned, they decided to move out of that house.

Of course, that haunted house was a nine-day wonder to the people there in Livermore. There was one person, however, who took no stock in the haunting. He said, “One man is causing all that ghost stuff. He wants to buy that house for a little of nothing.”

People continued to talk, but when the man who was suspected of causing the lights and sounds died, the haunting stopped.

83. “The Old Civil War House”

Trigg County

Shortly after the turn of the century, peculiar occurrences began to be noticed in this old house in Trigg County. It had been built before the Civil War and was the main house on a good farm. But the place could not be rented because of strange noises that always terrified the residents.

After retiring for the night, the occupants of the house would be awakened by peculiar noises from the living room. In this large room there was a big fireplace which required logs of considerable size. There would come a sound from this large room after they had retired for the night, like a log of wood rolling from the fireplace out into the room. When they rushed to the room, nothing could be found.

This continued constantly during the winter. No one could stay in that house. They were too scared. The last tenants were a man and his wife. Both died of nervous diseases, one of them in the insane asylum.

The mystery was never solved, and after these people died the house was torn down.

84. “Ghosts, Ghosts, and More Ghosts!”

McLean County

Somewhere around 1780, a new family moved to the Beech Grove neighborhood, not far from what is now Calhoun. There were five members of this family, a husband, wife, two infant children, and his brother, who was mentally retarded and subject to wild fits.

This feeble-minded brother was kept chained loosely in the attic to keep him from running away. He did not have enough intelligence to free himself, but was able to watch the children to see that they did not wander off while their mother and father worked in a nearby field.

One afternoon, the mother came home from the field early in order to have her husbands meal ready for him when he came in. Upon arriving at the house, she found that her mindless brother-in-law, in a mad fit, had beaten the children to death with his chains. Going completely berserk, she attacked him with an ax and killed him. Then, grieving over her children and what she had done and being afraid of her husband, she hung herself in a huge oak tree in the front yard.

Upon returning home and finding his entire family slaughtered, her husband cast himself into a water well and drowned.

Their frontier house stood unoccupied for many years. During this time, the old oak tree became a favorite hanging place for horse thieves.

Before long, people were afraid to come near the place, as it seemed that something bad happened every time they did. A hunter was killed by a panther, and a child fell into quicksand nearby and was suffocated.

Back during prohibition times, six moonshiners decided that it would be a safe place to hide a still, because no one ever came near. They put the moonshine still in the barn behind the house. One night as they celebrated a big sale, they made fun of the ghosts who had been hiding there. As they joked, a fire mysteriously started at both ends of the barn and trapped them inside. One of the men, although badly burned, escaped the fire and lived long enough to tell what had happened.

Nowadays, their ghosts, the ghosts of the family, the hunter, and the ghosts of the horse thieves who were hanged here, still haunt the old house.

Not many years ago, an elderly lady moved into the yet sturdy old house and spent the night. The next day, her daughter came to visit her, and found the old lady out of her head talking about ghosts. She is in the insane asylum now.

A little later, a family of five moved into the house, but at midnight they moved their furniture out of the old house and walked eight miles to spend the night with their former neighbor. They have not been back to the old house since that night.

Today, the old house still stands alone in a huge forest. At night, the pioneer wife can be seen walking through the house carrying a candle that gives off a green light. As she walks, she calls out for her children, the mad brother-in-law still rattles his chains in the attic, and the children are crying.

This is believed by the people of this region and is told as the gospel truth.

85. “The House with a Lantern”

Lyon County

There was a log house located between the two rivers in Lyon County, a house that was torn down during the building of the Kentucky Dam. Although this old house had been deserted for years, at midnight one could see a lantern.

It is said that an old man who lived there had nine daughters, whom he supervised with a great deal of care. He required them to be in home by nine o’clock every night. Each night at midnight, he would go and check the girls’ rooms, carrying his lantern in his hand. This went on for years and years.

The girls never married, and the old man outlived each of them. When he died, he was found by some neighbors with his lantern at his side.

For years and years after that, passersby at midnight could hear the footsteps of the dead old man, and see his lantern as he went about his nightly duty.

86. “The Ghost in a White Nightgown”

McCreary County

One evening about six o’clock, when I was about ten or eleven years old, Mom was cooking supper. She always cooked big meals.

Altogether, there were about ten of us kids and grandkids, and she sent all of us up the hill to get a gallon of cow’s milk from my great aunt. We didn’t know that no one was at home. We called out my aunt’s name, because she had a dog that would bite. We called her name three or four times. Suddenly, we saw someone who looked like a woman in a white nightgown walking slowly back and forth across the porch. We never knew who it was or what it meant.

On certain nights now, I can see a woman holding a baby in her arms, looking out the window of that old house. That house is right above where my house is now.

87. “The Haunted Abbot House”

Elliott County

Kentucky Highway 32 crosses into Elliott County out of Rowan, and runs on into Lawrence County. Along this highway here in Elliott County, near Newfoundland, is Brown Ridge, named for the prominent Brown family that settled there in the mid-1800s.

Immediately east of the Wallace Brown place there is a deep valley that extends eastward to the stream known as Big Caney Creek. Today, the valley is completely overgrown with every form of vegetation from matted vines to huge oak and poplar trees. Today, no evidence can be found to indicate that a log structure, then known by older residents of the county as the Abbot house, once occupied a small plot of flatland near the head of the valley.

The date when the Abbot family established residence in the valley seems to be unknown, and, in fact, there is no proof that Mr. Abbot was the one who erected the log structure. It is assumed that he did.

Apparently, the Abbots lived there for only a short time before they moved from this old house, which would later become the home of various families, one of them being the Henry Jenkins family.

During that particular period in the history of eastern Kentucky, there were very limited means of entertainment. But one that was popular was the Saturday dance, day or night. This form of entertainment usually took place in one of the local homes and always called for the community fiddler. In most cases, the local purveyor of “white lightning” made his appearance. This was the situation, then, at the Jenkins home in the late 1870s, or early in 1880.

During the evening’s activities, Jenkins was said to have poked fun at Patrick Conn, a local man of limited mental capacity. Conn became angry at Jenkins’ jest and struck him on the head with a heavy object, which, according to old-timers, was a large rock. The blow killed Henry Jenkins. When the census was taken the following summer, Jenkins’ wife was listed as a widow with two small daughters, all three living in the home of her parents.

Lying east of Big Caney Creek were the communities of Stark and Mauk Ridge. Anyone traveling from those communities along the crude road that crossed Brown Ridge often related strange, even frightening, events at the old abandoned house.

Henry Porter, who grew up in the Stark area, married a young lady west of Brown Ridge. They made their home near there. When going to or returning from visits with kinfolk in the Stark community, he had to pass the Abbot house. In later years, he often related to a daughter-in-law some of the strange and unexplainable events he had witnessed at the “hainted house.”

Perhaps Porter’s first encounter with the unexplainable occurred very late one evening when he was returning home from a day’s visit with relatives in Stark. He stated that as he neared the abandoned house, he heard the sounds of music, laughter, and the slapping of dancing feet coming from the old house.

Thinking that a family had moved in, Porter tethered his horse to the paling fence that enclosed the yard and proceeded up to the front door. When he pushed the door open, to his amazement the music stopped instantly, and he was staring into an empty and silent room.

Porter was said to be a man not easily frightened, but according to his own words, he made a hasty retreat to his horse and resumed his journey on home. But again, he was totally dismayed to hear the music and other jovial sounds commence as he rode away.

Porter also related that on another occasion he was approaching the old house when he saw a small “snow white dog” come trotting down the road toward the house. Again, he assumed that another family had moved in but thought nothing of it until the small dog got to the gate in the paling fence. Porter swore that the animal just faded away like a vapor at the time it made contact with the gate. It did not reappear.

Neighbors always said that Henry Jenkins went to the kitchen window at the same time each summer day and called his cows down to the stable where he milked them. As might be expected, various travelers who later passed by at that specific time reported that they could hear Jenkins calling his cows.

Years went by, and a family with nowhere else to live moved into the Abbot house. In a short time, they told of frightening experiences they were suffering through. They swore to a local medical doctor that the old house was “hainted.”

The doctor tried to convince them that there was no such thing as a “haint,” and that whatever they had witnessed could be explained. To prove it, the doctor told the family that he would come by some evening and demonstrate to them that the strange happenings were nothing more than some natural occurrence.

Even though it was a bitterly cold, snowy night, the doctor tethered his horse to the hitching rail and joined the family in front of the large fireplace in the living room.

As they talked, the latch to the front door lifted of its own accord and the door swung open. But no one was at the door. The doctor, convinced that someone was outside pulling the drawstring, reclosed the door and pulled the drawstring to the inside. Again, the latch lifted and the door swung open. This time, a prop was placed against the door, and even a huge chair was also placed against it. But nothing, absolutely nothing, would keep the door closed. The prop flew from its position and the chair was sent flying across the room by some mysterious force. It seemed like an evil force was present and was taunting the doctor.

By that time, the doctor was thoroughly frightened by the occurrences and had to admit that he could not explain them. In fact, he was so frightened that he feared to return home that night. Despite the bitterly cold weather, he even refused to venture outside long enough to take his shivering horse to the stable.

When Jenkins was dying, his blood flowed across the floor and dripped to the ground underneath. For many years thereafter, local people claimed that a red moss grew on the blood-soaked ground. An elderly lady that had lived in the house when she was a child told me that she had seen the red substance on the ground beneath the house, but she could not explain what it was.

Many years went by. From time to time, families with nowhere else to live occupied the old house, and the ghost stories continued. One local man told me that when he was a young man, he was “talkin” with a young lady, a daughter of this man that lived in the old house. After leaving the house one dark night, a huge ball of fire seemed to rise from right under his feet and floated softly along until it faded from view.

Sometime during the 1930s or early 1940s, a local moonshiner decided that this haunted house would be an ideal place to set up his illegal operation. Everything went well until a jar of his “white lightning” shattered when it fell to the floor. The whiskey splashed onto the fire and instantly the entire place was engulfed in flames. The distiller escaped, but his distilling equipment was destroyed, and the “hainted house” was reduced to ashes.

The ghosts were never heard from again after that.

88. “A Haunted Cellar”

Allen County

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, there were a few families in Allen County that owned slaves. One of these families owned thirteen to fifteen slaves, and they were kept in small slave houses behind the main house. Although all the slaves lived in these quarters, there was a cellar in which the few slaves that were thought to need discipline were kept. There were shackles on the wall, and slaves might be kept chained up in the cellar for as long as three or four days in order to restore their usefulness to their owner.

Since the man who owned these slaves was possessed of a very violent nature, no one said anything to him about the cruel way in which he treated these black people. About the time that Lincoln’s war began and the news spread around the country, the slaves began to make plans to run away since they knew they would never be released voluntarily. One night they ran away and escaped, except the two that were in the cellar at the time. The others fled north and were eventually helped to complete safety by people with antislavery sentiments.

Their owner here in Allen County searched for them for about two days with no success, and he finally returned home. He was determined to carry out his vengeance against the two slaves that had remained chained to the cellar wall. His wife pleaded with him to let these slaves go, but he refused, and shot them both.

After his fit of anger had passed, he became frightened because of what he had done. He buried the two bodies of the slaves in the cellar. He then locked the door to the cellar, and even boarded up the door. Shortly afterward, he joined the Confederate Army, and in the course of war was killed.

His widow never reopened the cellar, and the few people who came to visit her reported that she went out of her way to avoid going near this particular door, although it was located in a very centralized position in the house.

After a while, she became sick and died after a lengthy illness. The house was sold by the nearest of kin to a family from neighboring Barren County, and it seems that this family was not well acquainted with the house s history. They cleaned up everything, brought in all their own furniture, and reopened the cellar door.

The cellar had a strange musty smell, which no amount of ventilation could get rid of. After a short time, the two children of the family told their parents that they heard strange noises at night which came from the vicinity of the cellar. The parents, of course, considered this only as a product of the children’s imagination.

One night that summer, their mother woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. She could not account for this weird feeling, and suddenly she noticed that her husband was also awake. Both of them agreed that they had heard a strange noise from the general direction of the cellar. The husband got up and headed toward the cellar to investigate, while the wife stayed behind in bed.

No one was ever certain exactly what happened, but the wife heard a cry, then a noise. She got up out of bed and went down to the cellar and there found her husband dead. He apparently had tripped on the top stair, fell into the cellar and broke his neck in the process.

After he was buried, his wife and children moved back to live with her own family in Barren County. She sold the house after quite a while, at a great loss, to a family that had moved up from Tennessee. And after a while, they, too, insisted that they kept hearing strange sounds in the house. Although nothing drastic happened to this family, they soon moved out.

Even though the house and farm were up for sale for a long time, they were never sold again. Nobody would buy that place. Now, only the foundation stones and a part of the cellar are all that are left of this old house. Until this day, people who are brave enough to venture out at night to this spot insist that they hear strange noises and smell an unusual musty smell in the area of the old cellar.

I guess that those poor slaves are still getting even.

89. “The Ghost of a Previous Owner”

Boyd County

We lived in this house on Bellefonte Road in Ashland. We had been living there a few months when I was awakened from a deep sleep dreaming that someone was looking at me. I quickly awakened, and to my surprise I saw a ghostly figure slowly rotating on the floor furnace in the middle of our hallway. As the ghost slowly rotated, our eyes finally met, and whatever it was disappeared at that very instant.

This same sequence of events occurred many times. After seeing the male ghostly figure so many times, I began to sleep with my bedroom door shut. Sleeping with the door shut was not because I was scared or upset about repeatedly seeing this male ghostly figure, but rather because I liked to sleep in privacy, not being watched by a ghost.

I remained very quiet about this ghostly being, not because I didn’t believe what I was seeing, but because I didn’t want to alarm or cause my children to lose any sleep over these occurrences. However, I did begin to ask questions to other adults in the neighborhood, when the children were not around, to see if I could figure out who this ghostly figure was when he was alive.

After many conversations with these adults, I concluded that the ghostly figure was that of the man who had owned the house. See, we were only renting the house. The woman who rented the house to me didnt say anything about her deceased husband dying there in the house. I guess I just thought that he died in a hospital, as he died from a bout with cancer, if my sources are correct.

Well, one evening we had some friends over, and we were all talking about ghosts and telling ghost stories, when my son began to describe the same male ghostly figure he had observed in our hallway. I was astounded to hear him say that he had seen this ghostly figure of a man on several occasions.

This man’s ghost continued to appear to us on occasion until we moved from that house in early December 1991, after I married my present husband.

We were never really scared or alarmed to see the ghost. He never caused us any problems or seemed to be seen anywhere else except on the floor furnace. I was told that he used to warm himself on the floor furnace when he was sick and very much alive. We just seemed to accept him being there, and he seemed to accept the fact that we were there in his house. We seemed to live in harmony together as long as we lived there in his house. We truly thank him for not harming anyone in our family.

90. “The Ghost of Representative Donald Farley”

Boyd County

A ghost story is attached to the house in Ashland in which State Representative Donald B. Farley died on March 23,1993. He bought the house in the spring of 1973 as part of an estate. We saw the house as we were looking at houses with a realtor. After our appointment with the realtor was finished, we drove back over to this house to take a closer look at this recently abandoned house.

We lined up in order of height to peer through the window there in the front door. Of course, I was the first in line, being that I have always been the least in height. We began to peer through the front door, when suddenly it popped open and I was standing in the front room. As a group, we began to go through the house looking from room to room. Very cautiously, we began opening doors to the rooms and closets. Spider webs hung in glorious array, and we expected to see a huge spider descend upon us at any moment.

We kept looking around and really liked what we saw. It took several months to track down the heirs and get them to agree to sell the house. After we purchased the place, the remodeling proceeded as quickly as possible. We added a second bath, hung drywall, painted, and scraped several layers of wallpaper off a hallway downstairs. We then installed new kitchen cabinets, had the ceilings repaired; then came the new linoleum and carpet.

We moved into our renovated house on Fathers Day in 1973. Mr. Farley lived there from June 1973 until his death in 1993. He had collected different types of what I will choose to call junk. He thought if he didnt pay much for something, it was indeed a bargain, no matter what the item was. Therefore his house was filled with many items from many yard sales, estate sales, auctions, and the like. Nothing he bought seemed to go with anything else in the house.

There was a several-year period that I found it very uncomfortable, if not impossible, to sleep in that house. I had a feeling that something was in the house that didn’t feel comfortable being there. What was it? Was it something from an auction or a yard sale? Perhaps we will never find out what I was feeling at that time.

When I finally received the keys to this house, almost everything had been removed. There seemed to be a real peaceful, calm feeling in the house—something that had not been there for a number of years. I began to feel much better knowing that what had caused my uneasiness had now been removed from the house, and hopefully destroyed.

We moved our furniture into the house that very evening. Then, we spent many long weekends there, either working or checking on the progress of the contractors. On many occasions, we would be sitting in the very room in which Mr. Farley died, watching television or a video, when we would hear what sounded like footsteps. We would just look at each other and say something about the noise, then continue to watch our show. We also continued to hear other sounds, such as doors opening and closing, or perhaps a creaking board, as though someone was tiptoeing around the house.

We, as a family unit, have never seen the actual ghost. However, many weird things have taken place that all of us have witnessed. For example, we had a security system installed. It would be on when we left the house, but it was turned off when we got home. Or once I purchased a singing Christmas tree for entertainment purposes. We would turn it on when someone came into the house so that they could see it, and we could see their reactions when it began to sing. However, on more than one occasion, when everyone was in the dining room enjoying a home-cooked meal, the Christmas tree began singing of its own accord. Who was there in the living room by the Christmas tree? No one! Absolutely no one. Too, the tree was sitting in a position approximately at a 90-degree angle from the dining room, making it impossible for any motion in the dining room to be affecting the tree.

To add to all this, a family moved in across the street from our house. We quickly became friends with them, and our children became real pals. They took turns spending nights with each other, as youngsters tend to do. Yet the little girl from across the street would wake up in our house extremely terrified.

On at least one occasion, she called her parents and left our house in the middle of the night, setting off our security system. This caused other neighbors and the police to come to our house. We couldn’t figure out what was scaring her, but she kept saying that it was a ghost scaring her. She says that he comes toward her with his mouth open, as if he is screaming real loud for someone to come and help him.

What makes this scene so very interesting is that she had no knowledge of what Mr. Farley looked like. But on a particular weekend, I asked her if she would look at a picture, which had several men in it, and tell me whether or not the ghost that she had seen was in that picture.

She looked at the photograph, turned totally white, and her eyes bugged out of her head. All of a sudden, she began screaming, “It’s him, it’s him. There is the ghost.”

She had indeed pointed Mr. Farley out in the picture. I quickly took the picture away from her sight, as it was causing her to be in distress. I tried to tell her that, to my knowledge, he wouldn’t hurt her. But that did little to calm her down.

As I said before, we have heard many disturbing noises that indicate that there is something in the house. And this young girl has not only seen the ghostly image, she has shown us who he is in a picture. We have no reason to dispute her or to think what she has seen is none other than the ghostly figure of the late Don Farley.

91. “Mell Ridge Ghosts”

Green County

When I was a kid, there was a hainted house on Mell Ridge close to where I lived. Lots of people saw this white thing there, but I never did. They said my daddy shot it at close range with his 12-gauge shotgun, but it just ran off unhurt.

One afternoon, I was walking behind some kids just as we got near the house, and we heard something screaming, “Woo-oooo-oooo.” My cousin in front of me began screaming, “It’s the white thang!”

I was seventeen years old at the time. I got my rifle and went back there. All I found was a jagged piece of white paper hanging in the house. That was all I saw, but it didn’t explain the weird noise that we heard.

On another occasion, my grandma who lived there on Mell Ridge in Green County told me about the time when she and her brother, Sammy, was at home by themselves when they were young. There was this pecking sound there on the floor. Sammy picked up a stick and pecked back. The sound got louder and louder, and Sammy kept pecking louder and louder.

All of a sudden a plank on the floor came loose and the head of an old gray-haired man came up out of the floor. The kids got scared and ran off. When the mama and daddy came back to the house, they checked the floor but didn’t find a loose plank. Well, that still scared the kids to death, and it scared me too when she told me about it when I was a little boy.

92. “A Haunted House near Princeton”

Caldwell County

There is a haunted house a few miles from Princeton, which has all the accessories pertaining to the most approved ghost story. There are only the stately ruins of a palatial home, the stone walls crumbling, the garden overrun with weeds, the vines growing in tangled masses.

There are the corpses of two children lying upstairs. There is a strange disappearance of the owners, who took with them a corpse and never returned. And as a fitting climax, there are those who solemnly aver that there is a ghostly form flitting through these untenanted rooms.

The house was built by one John Harpending, but where he or any of his kin is, is a mystery. He went away twenty years ago, he and his wife, leaving the house as though expecting to return in an hour.

Mr. Harpending went to California. He invested in diamonds and sold them to miners for big prices. The miners wanted to cut a dash with their sudden wealth. His was a surer way to wealth than prospecting for gold. He made a big pile, and when he had enough he went back East, disposed of his gems, and decided to settle in Kentucky.

He bought the magnificent farm which still bears his name and on it he built a house which cost him $100,000.

Well, John Harpending and his wife lived happily and dispensed hospitality in the Old Kentucky way. Children came to them, three in all. Two of them sickened and died.

The Harpendings had peculiar beliefs. Neighborhood gossip was aroused when they refused to let the bodies be buried in the usual way. The little corpses were embalmed and laid to rest in two heavy plateglass cases, expensively decorated. These were placed on oak supports and left in an upstairs room. The bodies were clothed in white—there to await the resurrection morning.

After this episode, the house was avoided by neighbors. There was something uncanny about it, and the Harpending hospitality went begging.

For years the family lived alone.

The remaining child, a daughter, grew to womanhood. She, too, sickened and died. After her death, her father and mother went away in a carriage. They took the body of the dead girl with them. Why they did this, when they went, whether alive or dead, is among the mysteries of the past.

After a time, when none of the family returned, a few of the venturesome neighbors investigated. They found the house just as it had been tenanted. All the rich furniture, the carpets, the costly lace curtains, were untouched. It was as though the occupants might have left it for an hour s absence.

In the sick girls room was the couch she had died on. The print of her head remained on the pillow. The sheet which had shrouded her body after death lay just as it had been laid aside when the body was removed.

In the next room lay the bodies of the two children just as they had lain since death.

It is now a score of years since the Harpendings went away.

In time the old house began to decay. Each year the havoc grew. Wildflowers mingled with the choice plants of the Harpending’s beautiful garden…

It was spoken of in whispers, and after nightfall the superstitious would rather cross a graveyard than pass near [the place].

Then came stories that the house was haunted. Men who passed there at night told of seeing the ghostly form of a young woman at the window of the room where the eldest daughter died.

There were unbelievers. Men of nerve who laughed at the old wives’ tales made up a party and stood watch. The form was seen at the window when the curtains were partially drawn.

It may have been a human figure, but the watchers decided it was the vague, shadowy form of a woman which did not look to be flesh and blood. Its face was ghastly pale. Some said a queer light flickered about it. None was brave enough to enter.

And so the people thereabouts firmly believe that the spirit of some member of the Harpending family comes from the spirit land to revisit the old homestead.

The last time I saw the Harpending place, it was a grove of trees and a few meaningless ruins.

The pattern of the vast place was obvious, though, in the ruins of a water system, carriage house and the mansion itself, which had fallen into its own basement.

I was there on a bright summer day; the sky was cloudless. Then in a moment the skies grew dark and the wind came up. The big trees around the hole where the mansion stood bent and trembled in the wind.

Thunder rumbled over the swaying treetops.

93. “Weird Door Openings”

Rockcastle County

The old Nunnely house, located in the Wabd community here in Rockcastle County, had a kitchen that was built onto the back of the house. My great-uncle Fred was a young boy at the time, but he remembers that the kitchen door leading to the outside of the house would not stay closed while the family was eating. It would just unexplainably burst open.

At other times, when no one had been in the kitchen recently, they would go in and find the door open. Even when great uncle Freds grandpa nailed the door shut with what he called “buttons”—wooden pieces nailed to the wall that slid over the edge of the door—the door would still fly open.

None of the family members ever claimed to have seen or heard a ghost in this house, but they always wondered just what it might be that was causing the door to open.

94. “The Ghostly House in Brandon Springs”

Calloway County

… Last spring, when I went with a group of children to the new Brandon Springs camp, I did a little research about the area, with the hope of coming up with something that would interest kids of that age. To my surprise, I came up with an apparently authentic ghost story.

It seems that on the spot where the Brandon Springs dormitories now stand, there once stood a large, two-story house, originally built about 1835 by Nathan Skinner. It sat high on the hill and overlooked the river, which was at that time the main form of transportation. It was also located on a well-used road; consequently, what with the lack of hotels in those days, many times weary travelers, whether from the riverboats, walking, or on horseback, would come to the house to ask for lodging for the night.

According to the stories, Mr. Skinner would make the travelers welcome, feed and tuck them in, and then in the dead of the night, rob them of their possessions—and, incidentally, their lives. Members of the family were reported to have heard the ghosts of these misrouted travelers, trying in vain to continue their journeys.

In later years, the house changed hands. Nathan Skinner died in 1846 and is buried nearby, probably quite near where he put his victims. Sometime around 1880, after the estate had been settled, the house was occupied by a family named Chilton. These people were not natives of the area and had probably come in when the iron furnaces were in operation. They were a close-knit, quiet family who stayed pretty much to themselves. This may have been because they were not natives, but it is more likely because of their son, who had been deformed quite severely at birth. In those days such a tragedy was looked upon with shame, and a person who was mentally retarded or crippled was kept at home but kept hidden from the public eye.

This child, whose name is not known, stayed mostly in his little room on the first floor, where he spent many hours peeking out the windows, trying to see the world that lay beyond the row of cedar trees in the yard, which had been planted there to block outsiders’ view of the house and its occupants. Before he got to be very old, the boy died, and so the legend goes, as long as the house stood, his halting steps and the sound of his crutches could be heard at night in the house.…

“I Was There”

Boyle County

I, for one, believe in ghosts. I once lived in a house that had a ghost or ghosts. The day we moved into that house here in Danville, at 1111 West Lexington Avenue, strange things happened. My dad finally sold the house and we moved out, but the thoughts of that old house have never left me.

This all took place back in the 1960s. I remember being too scared to stay alone in that place. I felt cold air in the entrance way as you go toward the stairs. It was like a wind or a strong draft. This meant that a door was open, yet I knew that no door was open at the time.

Sometimes I heard footsteps on the stairway, and then I heard them walking across the floor upstairs. It was just like someone’s boots that I heard. Even my dad heard the footsteps, and he went upstairs a few times to see what it was, but there was never anything to be seen.

Many, many times, a door to the attic would come open, even though my dad had locked it shut. He thought us kids were unlocking it, but we convinced him that we didn’t. Soon, he realized that it just unlocked by itself. I’ll never forget the time that my brother was asleep, and he awoke all of a sudden when the attic door opened. He glanced around, and in the light coming in through the window he saw the shadow of a man that looked just like Abraham Lincoln—a man with a beard.

On many occasions when I was in bed asleep, I would wake up when I felt something, maybe someone, sitting there on the side of my bed. Or I might feel cool air blowing across the bed and reach for my cover, but something would cover me up. Mom, in the other room, would ask what I wanted, or who I was talking to. As soon as I realized that it was not my mom on the bed there with me, it frightened me. However, I was never harmed. And one time I woke up to find myself standing in front of my mom and dad’s bed. I don’t know how I got there, but when my mom spoke, I woke up.

We had a parrot bird. Well, one morning we got up and found it dead. Looked like something had tried to drag it out of its cage, and the cage was locked. And I’ll never forget the time that we had some children at our house for company. One of the kids said she saw something, but she was so scared she couldn’t say what it was. We had a cat, and at times it would hiss at things that we could not see.

Till this day, I still think about that house. One time, after I had moved away for many years, I drove by the house just wondering if someone lived there. I spoke to one of the people who lived there at that time. She told me not to mention it to the children for they claim that things were already happening to them.

This family had to leave. Someone else then bought it. And all of a sudden the house is for rent here in 1999. Does this mean that they, too, now know that the house is haunted?

96. “The Moonshine House”

Logan County

This story is about my own father and mother in the first years of their marriage.

If you didn’t grow up in the sharecropper heritage, you cant begin to understand why some people are forced to live in some ramshackle houses, and why some landowners would ask and expect some people to live in shelter that livestock, if given the choice, would abandon.

Being anxious to strike out on his own, my father made a trade to raise crops of share with the local landlord. He looked at this house and was then assured that repairs would be made and that it would be liveable before time to move in.

Of course, a promise made is not a promise kept. Moving day came, and still the house was a dump. More promises followed that supplies would be brought in and that my father could do the repairs himself. Well, foolishly, Dad agreed and moved his family, consisting of himself, my mother, their firstborn son, and my grandmother, widowed and now living with her daughter.

While making some simple repairs to the house, Dad found evidence that a moonshine still had once occupied part of the house. Upstairs, upon the second-story floor was a large stain that really did look like a giant bloodstain.

Periodically, as my mother would say, you could hear anything in that house that you listened for. One time, my brother, upon hearing his little red wagon running across the living room floor, jumped down from the dining room table and ran to intercept the thief who had his toy. Well, believe it or not, his wagon was still under the bed where he always kept it stored.

One peculiar thing about that house was that the attic door would never stay shut. No matter how strong a latch they put upon it, the door would come open by itself.

My grandmother, her eyesight failing but with courage as strong as ever, said this when she saw the door come open, “Well, I’ll keep that door closed for a while.” She latched the door, then sat in a straight-back chair and leaned it back against the door itself. Just about the time that she leaned back against the door, it came open and pushed my grandmother, chair and all, into the middle of the floor.

That house was the only place that my grandfather ever left before the year’s contract was up. No repairs were ever made to the house. He could put up with the ghosts, but finding a dry place in the house to sit when the rain was falling was just too much trouble.

97. “Many Ghostly Experiences”

Boyle County

Some weird things have happened in some of the houses we have lived in.

In one place here in Boyle County, you could hear footsteps going up the stair steps. Then whatever it was would turn around and come back down, but you could never see what it was.

One time when my granddaughter spent the night with me, the next morning she told me that during the night she woke up and saw a little girl standing there beside her bed.

Another time, my daughter and granddaughter were playing upstairs, and a doll fell off the shelf. They both said that they saw big, round things in the air, and they saw the toy box moving around. The round things they saw were about three to four feet tall.

On still another occasion, the door opened and my little girl thought it was us family members. I mean, she came running down the steps just scared to death.

Another thing I remember is when we were on the outside of the house and all the lights were off. Well, all at once the bedroom light came on. That was in the room that had a bad odor in one of the corners. It was a dusty, smoke-like smell. A lot of people say that ghosts do leave an unpleasant odor in the room where they are.

98. “Woodford County Library Ghost”

Woodford County

Very pleasantly located in the heart of the Bluegrass is Woodford County. This area has an abundance of historical riches, one of which is the Logan Helm Woodford County Library, which is located in Versailles, and is one of the oldest libraries in this part of the state. It was established in 1812 as a subscription library by the Kentucky Legislature. In 1906, it became a free public library and was named the Logan Helm Library when money was donated in memory of Logan Helm.

The gracious two-story building standing on Main Street has always been a library. It was erected in 1915 after a lightning strike caused the old building to burn… The appearance and feel in this library is like no other.

It is not known how long the resident ghost has occupied the second floor of this library, but I became aware of his presence in the early 1980s. The upstairs had been completely renovated and I had accepted a new position as head of Children’s Services. My department was on the second floor. The library was not new to me at that time, as I had served as bookmobile librarian for six years. But never at any time did I hear mention of a ghost.

Children’s [materials] and young adult materials filled the shelves, but the young people shared the space for other purposes. The office and work area were there. A large multipurpose room called the gallery was used for exhibits, meetings, and to conduct all the children’s programs. A small cozy room with a fireplace and mantle had shelves and tables that kept Kentucky and local history materials. Over the mantle hung the portrait of a local dentist who years ago had given money for a previous renovation of the building. His name honored this historical area in the library. The joy of voices and laughter, along with the quiet, more serious tones of wisdom and learning, filled every inch of the second floor.

At this time, new library hours were introduced, including a Tuesday night story time. It was after one of these story times that I first became acquainted with our ghost.

I had finished the program and had returned to the first floor circulation desk to prepare to close for the night. I was the only full-time staff member present, but there with two assistants, called pages, who were present.

One of the pages was a young male high school student, who was always dedicated to his position and did his duties very well. He was asked to go upstairs to shelve a small amount of books and straighten up whatever was needed. I was aware that it was taking him longer than usual and was about to check on his whereabouts when he slowly came down the steps very pale and shaking from head to toe. “Never again will I work upstairs when it is dark,” he stated. In a voice that was quivering and weak, he told of a meeting with an older gentleman.

He was in the gallery checking on the outside door when he felt a sudden coldness, as if someone were close by. Then a chilling hold came over his body, and he felt eyes looking at him. When he turned around, just inches away was a man with gray, almost white hair, dressed in a light gray suit and a maroon tie. Oh, yes, it was definitely a maroon tie!

The ghostly figure seemed to control the young mans movement. Whenever he [the worker] would move, the figure would float in front of him, thus preventing him from leaving the second floor. A conversation was attempted. “Who are you?” “Why are you here?” “Where did you come from?” were some of the questions asked. It was then that the young page made his way down the stairs, wondering every step if the ghost was behind him.

After we closed the library, I went upstairs to lock up. I did not believe in ghosts and what the young page had experienced. I could not explain it, but one thing was for sure. It was not a ghost!

I found everything to be in order. All doors were secure and everything was in its place. As I turned to leave by way of the stairs, the office door behind me slammed with a loud bang, as if a strong gust of wind had blown it shut. This caused me to stop and stand still, as fear and coldness crept all through me. I thought to myself, I couldn’t have heard what I just heard, as I had personally just locked that door. Was it the ghost? Perhaps so.

The page’s description of the figure fits the gentleman whose portrait hung for many years over the mantle in the small room. Sometime later, the local and Kentucky history materials were moved to another area and a children’s reference area was incorporated. The ghost appeared once more when more than one student asked to be moved to another location while studying. They all said that the eyes of the gray-haired man in the picture watched them, no matter where they sat in the room. One young girl complained of someone watching over her shoulder.

My desk was positioned at the entrance to this room. On more than one occasion, a cold breeze has passed all around me and often was strong enough to move papers from my desk to the floor. When looking up to see who or what was passing by, I found no one. However, several times I did catch a glimpse of a figure leaving the room and entering the hallway.

As years passed, I found it took more time for me to descend the steps. Many times, I felt I was moving too slowly and needed to move to one side to allow someone to pass me. When I turned to speak or to apologize for taking up too much space, no one would be there, but I could feel their presence.

The library is nearly always cleaned after closing. This takes place around or after 9:00 p.m. Our “resident” has put much joy in playing tricks on a cleaning lady. His favorite game was to move her cleaning supplies from one floor to another, while she was actually using them. But the “lost keys” game is one she will never forget.

When finishing for the night and ready to go home, her keys were nowhere to be found. She always put them in the same spot after unlocking the door to let herself in. On this one particular night, they were missing. Knowing that she could not leave the building until the doors were all locked, the search began. Every possible hiding place was looked into more than one time. She spent much time searching. Finally, she considered an alternative, like calling an employee for help. But finally, there the keys lay, in a part of the library where keys were not needed, and far away from their usual place. Why would they be in a place not regularly cleaned?

Other employees have misplaced keys often, always after they enter the building. Some were never found, and on one occasion the locks had been changed.

I recently retired from my library position. I still question myself about believing in ghosts, but our “resident ghost” is most convincing. He is a source of pleasure. No one but our page has ever been frightened.

Do you know what I hope? I hope the ghost will stay forever.

99. “The Crying of a Little Girl’s Ghost”

Graves County

In the 1950s a vacant house was still standing on the corner of Eighth and College Streets over in Mayfield. Years ago, a little girl had died of burns received in that old house. Nobody lived there for many years because a child would often be heard crying in the house.

Some people who lived in the vicinity said that they sometimes heard the cries. They would walk blocks out of their way rather than pass the old house after dark. After the house was torn down, the sounds were never heard again.

100. “The House Haunted by a Murdered Woman”

Fulton County

Back in the 1940s we moved to a place over near Cayce in Fulton County. It was a rather nice house but odd in that the kitchen was at the front of the house. Mother and Daddy moved the kitchen to the back of the house and papered and painted its former site, which became my bedroom. Each morning I woke to the smell of coffee perking and bacon frying.

One day a man came by to buy a cow from Daddy, and asked if we had been bothered by ghosts. Daddy wondered why he would ask such a question.

The man said that the house was haunted. He went on to say that an early owner of the farm had shot and killed his wife one morning as she prepared breakfast. For many years after that, strange mournful sounds could be heard there in the house, as well as dishes rattling and pots and pans banging.

101. “A Lady in White in an Old House”

Christian County

Christian County was right on the border of the Confederate and Union lines during the Civil War. This old house on my father’s side of the family was built in 1846. The original owners were the Summers. There were several slave houses on the farm there back during slavery times. Eventually, a tornado came through and blew them all down. And since this farm and these houses were on the Union-Confederate boundary line, the Summers family had to build trapdoors in the floor so they could hide the slaves from the soldiers who would come through to check the house. If you go into the attic, you will see this old fireplace. And if you look close you can see the names of slaves carved into the mortar. It is so interesting to me to be able to see the names of those slaves carved there.

I know of at least three deaths in this old house. They were Mrs. Summers, a young baby, and Uncle Jack Green’s first wife. And by the way, there is also an old family cemetery behind the house where the Summers family members are buried, as well as a few of their slaves.

This past summer, I had some friends over to play cards. They all left around 2:00 A.M., but I had to take one of them home after I cleaned things up there in the house. I was walking into the kitchen when I heard my friend back in the den call my name.

I went to the den to see what he wanted, but he was standing in the doorway in the den that leads into the entrance hall. When I asked him what he was doing, he wanted to know if I was in the kitchen the whole time. When I told him that I was, his face turned as white as snow. I asked him what was wrong, but he told me not to worry about it.

Deep inside I knew what had happened. I finally got him to tell me what he saw. He told me that he saw a white figure dressed in a long white dress walk from the dining room to the living room. As soon as he told me this, I totally freaked out. So I set the alarm. I knew it would go off if someone were really in the house. I got ready to leave the old house. From there I went to Mena and Daddy Jewell’s house to spend the night.

The next morning I told Mena about our experience in the old house the night before. I had told her about other things I had encountered in the old house, but she never really had anything to say about my experiences. But this time she told me something shocking!

Mena had been real good friends with Uncle Jacks first wife—the woman who died in the house. Mena told me that Mrs. Green had told her about the times she had seen this lady’s figure that looked just like what my friend saw last night.

This let me know right then and there that what my friend had seen was very real. I had never heard any stories about this lady walking around the house until my friend saw her and Mena told me the things that Mrs. Green had always told her.

102. “Ghostly Lights, Sounds, and Touches”

Christian County

This happened to me about ten or eleven years ago. See, there was a baby that died in this old house we lived in here in Christian County. It died in what was to later become my sister’s bedroom.

One night I woke up right in the middle of the night. It was totally dark outside, but my room was lit up with a small ball of light that floated around the room. I thought my contact lenses were causing my eyes to be blurry, but when I rubbed my eyes, the light was still there in the room with me. I was terrified! I pulled the covers over my head and was finally able to go to sleep.

The next morning, my sister Serena mentioned seeing a ball of light just like what I saw that night. I didn’t know what to think about it, but I refused to sleep upstairs the next night.

My ex-stepmother also had an experience at the house. She was out in the garden working in her flowers when she said she felt someone push her face first into the ground. She said that she could actually feel the individual’s fingers on her shoulder. She turned around to see who it was, but nobody was there. That sort of freaked her out, so she didn’t speak very much about that encounter.

Another time when we experienced something was a little before Christmas twelve or fifteen years ago. We set the alarm before we left to go to Nashville to do our Christmas shopping. When we got back home, our Christmas tree was turned over. We immediately thought that the alarm should have gone off—the motion detector should have picked up on something, and if that didn’t catch it, the sound detector should have set off the alarm.

Anyway, as we walked around the house we noticed that all the pictures of my sister, dad, and myself were all turned over, face down. Nothing else in the house was disturbed.

To this day, Serena will not sleep upstairs unless she has someone with her. I, on the other hand, I feel at peace with the ghosts. I have come to the conclusion that the ghost or spirits are not dangerous because if they were going to hurt me, they would have done it by now. Admittedly, whenever I have an experience with a ghost in my house, I am somewhat scared, but I eventually calm down and go on as normal.

103. “The Covington Woman Who Died in Bitterness”

Kenton County

…. A young man, destined for the U.S. Senate, carried his bride over the threshold of the new home on Second Street. It was a beautiful house with its graceful, paneled staircase and pillared porch. The young woman took pride in her home, raised a son and a daughter, and created a reputation for the most lavish entertaining in all the Ohio Valley. It is said on good family authority that General Marquis de Lafayette was once entertained there.

The carved Italian table in the large entrance hall held many calling cards on “at home” days, deposited gently by white-gloved hands. In an era of gracious and leisurely living, the house on Second Street was famous for its hospitality and the slight woman who graced it.

The two children were grown and married when, inevitably, a funeral wreath appeared on the door and all Covington mourned the senator. But before the wreath could be removed questions and surmises ran through Covington like wildfire. The house that had been the focal point of social gatherings for years was to be sold by the son-in-law, and its chatelaine of so many years was to live with her son. The gracious hostess was now to become a guest… but the events leading to this remain the family’s concern.

The house was sold, yet the pillar-straight, grey-silked, grey-haired old lady would never quite admit its loss. She continued to regard it as her home, and if others lived there, her heart refused to accept the fact. Eventually the time came when the plot next to the Senator was filled, and as mourning attire was returned to tall closets in other Covington homes, the same discreet guesses were made as to why the funeral wreath had not been displayed on the door of the stately house on Second Street.

That might be the end of the story. Certainly, families have had disagreements before. Certainly countless woman have died in bitter disappointment. But if a determined woman is arbitrarily transplanted from a home that she loved, if she refused to accept during her lifetime the idea of anyone else living in her home, then after her lifetime …

It is said by those who lived in the house since, that through a panel on the staircase, there has appeared a woman dressed in grey silk, wearing a black bonnet. Hand on railing, she descends the stairs, stands at the bottom for an instant looking around the grand entrance hall, then up the stairs, fading away … leaving only the whisper of grey silk lingering in the air.

104. “The Woman Who Passed Away in Grief”

Kenton County

There is a street in Covington where the shaded curbs still are high enough to permit a gentleman to dismount from his horse with grace. On soft, summer afternoons one can almost expect to see lace-mitted belles with parasols, chattering down broad steps from the mellow brick homes.

It is a different street at night, when the Ohio River is as restless as the wind-driven clouds above. The old houses hold their secrets closely, and seem to wait.

Some say the sound is merely the great old trees dueling in the wind. But others, who have heard the old tales, look at each other and say, “He’s about again.” And the sound could also be hoofbeats, a hollow tattoo echoing over the fitfully lighted street.

The lady of this story was one of the loveliest belles of Covington. Her dance card at the balls was a “who’s who of the most eligible bachelors of the city.” She had her choice of beaux and escorts. But the field soon was narrowed, until only a black mare was seen tied to the iron-ringed hitching post in front of the red brick home with its gleaming fan lights and white, coffered doors.

The night before the wedding was rough and stormy, by what was rain and wind. But that was the last night they would be separated, even into eternity.

The bride-to-be heard the quick hoofbeats and ran to the door. The light flooded into the street, and the racing mare shied at the sudden brightness, reared up, throwing her rider to the ground. The wind tugged at his cape, but the man lay still.

Instead of a white wedding carriage—a sable hearse and dark-plumed horses. Instead of a bride, a wan girl who lay in a room where the shutters were never opened. And soon the bands that were to have carried roses, held lilies.

Everyone agrees that when the wind and the rain pounds in the night, the sound is the trees. But no one goes to the window to see.

105. “Young’s Bed and Breakfast”

Carroll County

During the 1800s, many homes were built in and around McCoul’s Creek, later Ghent, and most of them are still used as residences today.

In 1833 Theodore Fisher built a fine Federal-style two-story brick for his wife, Judith Tompkins. There were spacious rooms and a lovely garden on the north side. In the 160 years, several families have lived there.

Alfred and Leona Carlton stayed there a few years during the 1950s. They felt somehow they had another guest in the house most of the time. Every night they securely latched an inside door upstairs, and every morning the door was open. They also remember an incident in the dining room when a pitcher sitting there, suddenly shattered. No explanation for either happening.

In 1990 Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Young purchased this big house and began plans for a Bed and Breakfast. They hired a carpenter to renovate an upstairs bathroom, and one evening while work was in progress, the carpenter felt that someone was watching him. Looking around he saw two faces at the window.

He went downstairs, searched the area, saw no one, and returned to the bathroom to finish his work. In a few minutes the same two faces appeared again at the same window. Immediately, he gathered his tools and beat it out of the house. Talking with Mr. Young, he commented, “We have enjoyed living here for three years, and to my knowledge have not encountered any unusual specters.”

Mr. and Mrs. Carlton moved across the street after living at the Fisher residence, to a home formerly owned by Mr. and Mrs. Sam Brown. Doc Brown was a family physician to local citizens of the town for more than forty years until his death in the 1960s. His wife continued living there until her death.

Doc had used the two rooms west of the front hall for his waiting room and office. Even now there are still unusual noises in that section of the home when everything is quiet at night.

Must be that it is Doc straightening his implements and medicine bottles.

106. “Ghostly Sounds”

Taylor County

Several ghostly incidents have occurred at the house where I reside. The first that I recall took place during the first year that I lived there. That was in 1966, and I was in the basement with no one else there at home but me. My husband was at work, and the children had either gone to school, or had gone somewhere. I heard distinct footsteps walking across the living room floor and thought it was my husband coming in for something. I thought he would come down in a minute and tell me that he was there, but he didn’t.

I dismissed it from my mind at the time, but when he came in that evening, I asked him if he had been home that day. He said that he had been in another county all day.

There have been other times that I have heard these steps, along with the other family members, and we never knew for sure if someone was coming in or not. We would usually holler and ask who it was. We all got used to this happening and didn’t get excited when it did.

Another time, a different type incident happened one evening, again while I was by myself. My daughter had gone out and I heard someone at the door. I thought it was her trying to get the key in the door. I ran to the door, but no one was there. No one was in sight, and they certainly would not have had time to get away. Still, I wondered if she had been in a great big hurry and had driven away very fast. That night I asked her if she had been back home after she left, and she hadn’t.

I haven t heard anything unusual now for months. Whatever it was, evidently doesn’t stay around now, or at least I haven’t heard anything. I don’t believe in ghosts, that is, the departed persons spirit staying around. However, I do believe there are spirits here, as mentioned in the Bible.

107. “A Ghost’s Satisfaction with Her House’s New Owners”

Carroll County

[Here in Carrollton] out on Mason Street between Sixth and Seventh, stands the big Victorian home once owned by Geoffrey and Nellie G. Lee. Nellie continued to live there following her husbands death and was very particular that everything be just so.

In her later years, rather than climb the stairs, she put a daybed in the dining room, and there she drew her last breath, leaving no will. Eventually seventy-eight relatives were rounded up for settling her estate. Meanwhile the house stood idle.

In 1978 Louis and Sue Westrick bought the home and lot at auction. Sue says it looked ready for Halloween, inside and out. She and Louis began cleaning and painting before moving in.

One evening she was painting the bricks around the big fireplace in the dining room and realized that something or someone was breathing on the back of her neck. She broke out in goose pimples and left pronto.

When they first moved in, there were many strange noises, doors slamming, the TV would go off, then on, then off, then on. They checked the electric outlets and found nothing amiss. Her daughter was visiting one afternoon, and while they were chatting, the TV suddenly blared on, but no one had turned it on. More goose pimples!

As the months passed, these unusual occurrences all stopped. She believes that Mrs. Lee is happy with the way they are keeping her house, and has just very quietly gone to rest.

108. “Strange Sounds in the Johnny Graves House”

Rockcastle County

My great-uncle Fred heard many stories from other people saying that at night strange sounds could be heard in the old Johnny Graves house on Long Branch in Rockcastle County. The sounds of chains could be heard being drug down the steps and around the house. Others claimed to have heard the sound of a jar of money being busted open and coins rolling around on the floor.

Uncle Fred never heard anything like this, but he and some friends stayed there one night on their way to do some coon hunting. He said that the dogs they had with them kept barking and carrying on. Several times that night they did hear someone knock at the door, but when they opened the door, no one was there. And the dogs couldn’t find anyone lurking around.

According to Uncle Fred, this was a place where there had been a lot of violence, evil, and meanness in that area in times past. There was also a lot of bootlegging. People who used to live there claimed to have heard moaning and groaning sounds coming up from under the floor that sounded as if someone was under there and had been hurt really bad. However, when they looked, they could never find anyone or anything that would have caused the moaning.

109. “Cousin Rick’s Ghost”

Warren County

“Anne, are you coming to the party that we’re throwing?” Cindy asked. “It’s today at twelve o’clock.”

“Sure,” Anne responded, “and I told Rick I’d be there, too.”

“Great,” said Cindy, “can’t wait to see you. After all, you’re his favorite cousin.”

After hanging up the phone, Anne had a really strange feeling about this get-together.

At the party, everyone was cutting up, having a great time. Of course, Rick was drinking his favorite beer, like always.

“Don’t you think he’s had enough?” Anne asked a friend.

“Oh, he loves his beer,” the other responded. “I know that everyone thinks that he’s an ‘alchy.’” But he’s not hurting anyone. Yeah, I guess you re right, but Rick is really enjoying himself.”

Rick’s friends Billy and Ken decided to join him over in a lawn chair. “How’s your wife, Cindy?” Ken asked Rick.

“Oh, she’s fine; you know, doing wife stuff at home. But I wish she’d associate more with our friends.”

Suddenly, Rick’s son Trevor yelled out, “Daddy, Daddy, come play ball with me.”

Rick said, “Not now, son. I’m visiting with some friends. We’ll play tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay, I love you Dad.”

As Trevor hurried along to play with other kids, Billy and Ken pulled out some kind of small bag containing some pills. “Hey, man, you should really try some of these,” Ken said to Rick.

“What are they?” Rick asked.

“Just some little pick-me-uppers; nothing that will hurt you,” Billy told him. “We take them all the time.”

“Here, put them in your beer,” said Ken. He then slipped them into Rick’s drink, and Rick chugged his beer down. After talking for a while, Ken and Billy got up and moved around some. Anne came over and talked with Rick for a while. She looked at him sort of funny, and said, “Hey, Rick, are you okay? You don’t look so well?”

“Oh, it’s probably too much sun,” Rick responded. But it wasn’t long until Rick passed out while sitting there in his chair, his head slumped over. It had become dark, and everyone had left the party. While Cindy and Trevor were cleaning up, Cindy looked over at Rick and saw that he was passed out there in his chair. “Trevor, go wake your dad up and tell him to go inside and go to bed. I’m going to clean up inside.”

“Okay, Mom. Dad, wake up, it’s time for bed,” Trevor said to his father, Rick, as he shook his arm.

Rick didn’t budge. “Come on Dad, wake up. Wake up! Wake up!” Rick shook his dad, but there was still no budge, no movement. With tears streaming down his face, Trevor ran inside the house. “Mom, Mom, Dad won’t wake up,” he screamed. “He’s so cold and pale.”

Cindy then went outside and ran over to her husband and tried to wake him. Still no movement. “Oh, my gosh. Call the ambulance. Let’s take him to the hospital.”

At the hospital, the doctor came to them with the news, “I’m sorry Mrs. Lane, but your husband suffered from a heart attack. We found drugs in his system.”

She screamed back at the doctor, “What? That’s impossible. He doesn’t do drugs.”

“Well, ma’am, he must have today, and he had an allergic reaction to them.”

After being telephoned, Bill and Ken confessed to putting the pills in his drink. Cindy and Anne were furious that night. When Anne, Rick’s cousin, went to bed she was awakened by a red light and a sound so very terrifying. It like to have scared her to death. She raised up and looked down at the foot of her bed and there was Rick’s ghost calling out to her, “Anne, please help me, Anne; please help me.”

Anne froze and watched in horror while Rick was reaching out to her, pleading, “Help me, Anne; please help me.”

All she could do was cry. Finally he disappeared out of thin air. Anne wiped her eyes and could think of nothing but being terrified.

On the day of Rick’s funeral, Anne was so very upset. She also could see how upset and sad Cindy was, so she didn’t say a word to Cindy about seeing Rick’s ghost at the foot of her bed, and him begging for help.

That night after the funeral, Anne was so worn out and tired. She crawled into bed and was almost asleep when she heard Rick’s voice again. She raised up and again saw Rick, only this time he was in a coffin. He sat up in his coffin and screamed out again, “Anne, please help me, Anne,” as he reached out his hands toward her. She started crying and started to reach out toward him so as to help him, but he disappeared again.

After that happened, the ghost of her cousin Rick never bothered her again. But after all that happened, Anne never really felt like herself again for a long, long time. The first time he had appeared, Anne felt like it may have just been a bad dream. But she knew by the second time that it was really real, that Rick’s ghost had made an appearance. Even now, when Anne goes back to that house, she is fearful that Rick’s ghost will show up again.

110. “The Old McKinney House”

Casey County

In Casey County, seven miles north of Liberty, there was once a haunted plantation house. This old house burned to the ground in July 1988. Even though the house is no longer there, except for the two large stone chimneys, the grounds are. And they are haunted to this day. As for the house, it was the most haunted place I have ever known. It was a large two-story plantation house with two staircases, large Victorian windows with red shutters, and outside on the roof was a large bell tower with a red roof that matched the red shutters. A large yard surrounded the old house, and beyond that yard were some of the creepiest trees I ever saw. They were large, twisted and knotted, just as if they were in agony, and the limbs towered high into the heavens.

This house had two names. Its real name was the Mays house, but its nickname was the McKinney house. The original McKinney house was located in McKinney, Kentucky, and was an old slave house that burned during the 1960s. This slave house, located only six miles across country from the Mays house, was rumored to be extremely haunted. Probably when this slave house burned, its ghost came to the Mays house, thus giving the latter its new name—the McKinney house. The new ghost united with the ghosts that were already there in the old Mays house. Many interesting, unexplainable things have happened to me and others who have been there.

The first night I went to the McKinney house was when me, my brother, our girlfriends, and some of their brothers and sisters went there to spend the night. We barely did! Ghostly footsteps were heard on the spiral staircase that led upstairs to our room. We’d open the door to see who was there, only to discover that no one was there. The air was unusually stuffy, with an abnormal chill for a warm June night. These ghostly footsteps were often heard during the night and were accompanied by the sound of a ghostly hand sliding on the banister railing adjacent to the spiral staircase. We were actually too scared to leave our room to get to our car which was stashed some 250 feet away.

As morning came, the early morning summer sun began to peek over the eastern treetops, but we were still awake. Then we heard something that seemed unreal. It was the sound of a baby giggling in the room next to ours. No crying, just giggling and chuckling. Not long afterwards, we packed up and left the plantation house. As we exited the driveway, we looked back to say, “No way will we be back. This has been the scariest night of our lives.” However, the very next night, when the sun dropped over the western horizon and nightfall set in with its long eerie shadows, we’d be setting around with nothing exciting to do. “Well, what about it gang?” someone would say. “The house, right? Yeah, let’s go back in the house again.” And we did just that. In fact, we spent a total of nine nights in the McKinney house that summer…. But each night we stayed, we’d be too scared to leave. And each morning, we’d say, “This has gotta be the last time. It’s just too scary.” But each night we’d get our nerves up and go back.

During the remaining eight nights of our stay, incredible things happened. Ghostly whispering voices were heard, something called my name only several feet from my face. We watched as a door opened without the assistance of any kind of draft, a plank mysteriously flew across a downstairs hallway, ghostly coughs were heard periodically, violent knocks, just like someone kicking with a boot, were occasionally heard downstairs, and the house actually shook one night as if a mild earthquake had come. And on two separate occasions, we saw two ghostly apparitions. Both of these ghosts were seen outside of the plantation house out in the yard.

The first was seen early at night. It looked like a white pulsating smoky mist about the size of a small lady. It altered in shape as it floated out of sight behind the north corner of the house. Like scared fools, we ran to our car and hurriedly left. Afterwards, we regretted doing so, for if we had stayed, who knows what would or could have happened.

Several nights later, the misty form appeared again. This time it was much larger than the first and much closer to us. We watched as it drifted toward us at about the speed of someone walking at a fast pace. As we watched, we could see it symmetrically forming into the shape of a large-framed man, but it didn’t have a head.

I’m not sure who made the first move to my car that was parked close by. It all happened so fast. We dove into the car and tore out of there like a bat out of hell! As we left, the headless ghost was actually rushing toward us and was less than ten feet away when I floored the accelerator, thus speeding away. We did not return for a good while after seeing that thing.

I’ve done some research on the history of that old house. In its beginning the house was used during the Civil War for lodging high ranking soldiers, and the owners of the house also had slaves. In the years to follow, there were numerous deaths in and around the house. A child drowned in a nearby pond, there were at least three miscarriages in the house that could be related to frequent wife beatings that were said to occur there, and an old man died from food poisoning. In addition to all of that, there were two counts of cold-blooded murder. First, a black man accused of raping a white woman was lynched just beyond the houses front yard. Second, two men used a hammer to kill an old man and lady prior to robbing them. These men were caught soon afterwards. I feel sure that other things happened in the old house across the years. One thing for sure, even though the house is gone, the grounds are still there and haunted, and very mysterious things still take place. It may be that the ghost slaves are also still there. I recall one morning driving to the haunted grounds where the old house once stood. I got out of my car and walked along the creepy tree line that borders the yard. Suddenly, I smelled this odor, a very pleasant odor like that of a woman’s perfume. The scent was sweet and strong and remained in the air for several minutes. In my mind s eye, I could see an elderly, heavyset black lady who was a former slave that did household chores for the house’s mistress. Likely, the mistress was very fond of the slave lady and had given her a bottle of perfume.

I talked with a man who lived in the old McKinney house for most of his life, and who still lives just three miles from that old house. In addition to what happened to me, I got much information from him. This man is of sound mind, but he seemed disturbed about something. In fact, he had crucifixes all about his home, and on nearly every wall. It was as if he is protecting himself from some uncanny entities. At the time I interviewed him, the old McKinney house was still standing.

In my mind, that house will live on forever.

111. “A Woman’s Presence Felt”

Taylor County

My sister Charlotte bought a house in Campbellsville which was built back in the late 1700s. It was a big, old house, and she had it renovated. Really a neat old place. This house was once owned by a woman whose family lived there for many years. I guess you could say that she was sort of the grand lady in charge of the family and the house.

Since moving in, Charlotte has frequently felt the presence of this long-deceased woman. She often hears the creaking of the rocking chair and sees the rocker moving to and fro, but no one is in it. The old lady’s spirit rocks there quite often, and her presence is felt when she comes into any of the rooms.

112. “A Haunted Apartment”

Fayette County

Upon my arrival in Kentucky in March 1981, my husband and I stayed with my mother in her apartment on Alexandria Drive in Lexington, until Nick and I got our own apartment. While there, I slept on the couch and could hear a man come in the front door of the building, then go up the steps, knock on the door to the apartment directly above my mother’s. His voice would then call out, “Melody, Melody.” The door never opened, and then the man’s footsteps could be heard coming three-quarters of the way down the steps, then disappear. This went on time and time again. Both my husband and my mother heard this man, yet we never saw him.

Several months later I confronted the young woman who lived above my mother. I asked her about how much her boy friend really loved her. She said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have a boyfriend; don’t have time. My job takes up all my time at the office and at home.” I told her about the man we had been hearing. She told me that she doesn’t hear anything. But she did say that her two cats will often stand hunched, hair standing out, and growling toward the door.

My husband and I were able to get an apartment in the same building. The first night was the beginning of a nightmare for us both. We thought someone was in our apartment. We heard this noise like someone scraping the heater vent in the living room, slamming the kitchen cupboard doors, then making the noise on the vent again. The noise sounded like what a child makes while taking a stick down a picket fence. My husband got out of bed but found no one.

This went on night after night. We laid there and watched our bedroom door swing back and forth about five times, then slam shut with great force. I said, “I think we have a ghost and it wants us to leave.” After the third night of the door swinging and slamming shut, a white figure (not human shape) jumped over both of us there in bed.

The woman who lived above us couldn’t take the slamming of our bedroom door and cupboards anymore. She got up and began stomping on the floor, got her kids up to make noise all night, and dropped pots and pans. It got so bad that they plotted to kill us. I assured her that we weren’t the culprits, that it was a ghost. She wouldn’t believe me, so we all wound up in court. Due to her death threats, the judge in Lexington made her move out of the apartment.

One night, my husband, Nick, woke up sweating. He said he was going to turn on the air conditioner. Nick only got one foot out of bed when we both heard a “click.” The air conditioner came on by itself. On another occasion, having taken on a job at this apartment complex as maintenance worker, Nick went running out the door and down the back steps. He was scared out of his wits. I said, “What in the world is the matter with you?”

He told me that while he was painting the bedroom above ours, he heard little children laughing. I went to investigate, but heard nor seen nothing…About two months later, the man who moved in above us told his wife, said, “Janet must have her children this weekend. I heard them laughing.”

His wife replied, “No, Janet had her kids here last weekend.”

I wondered if these kids might have lived here on this land years ago before the apartments were built. Could they have been killed by the ghost that keeps trying to run us off?

Nick gave up his maintenance job, and took on a regular one. He came home for lunch one day, and while getting ready to return to work, I said to him, “I think I will take a nap.” Well, as soon as I had laid down, a car passed right by the bedroom window, and I felt a super strong invisible force on me. I couldn’t move nor breathe. Making grunting noises, I kept trying to call on the name of Jesus. Finally, it moved away from me; just got up and left.

113. “Nocturnal Escape from a Haunted House”

Simpson County

We moved into this house out in the country here in Simpson County. The house set back off the road, and it had trees all around it. On down the road was a barn that the farmers who lived on down the road used.

When we first moved into this house, it had a bloodstain on the wall, so we painted over it. The stain kept on coming back, so we left well enough alone.

One night, when all of our family members were asleep, we were awakened by a knock on the door. My mother got up and looked out the window to see who it was. It was the landlord. Mom opened the door and said, “Can I help you?”

The landlord said, “Yes, why is your husband beating you?”

My mother said, “What are you talking about? My husband, children, and I were all asleep.”

He said, “I heard someone yelling. Well, if it wasn’t you, I’ll see you later. Goodbye.”

Then, my mother told my brother and me what had happened. We then took a seat in the living room to watch TV as my mother fixed breakfast.

After we had eaten, we washed the dishes, then left to go see my grandmother and my aunt Lisa. That night, Lisa spent the night with us. She said she heard something, but we didn’t hear a thing. The next day Aunt Lisa went home.

The very next night, my mother and father heard the backdoor shut. Mother got up to see who had gotten out of bed to use the bathroom outside. She looked in the room at my brother and me to see which one had gone out the backdoor. From there she went back to my father and told him what had happened.

My father then went into our bedroom only to see my brother with his hands in the air saying, “Take me; take me,” over and over. My father woke my brother up and asked him where he was going.

My brother responded, “A man said that he was going to take me home with him.”

I started screaming under the cover at the top of my lungs, and my father reached over and uncovered my head. He said to my mother, “Get the children and get in the car. If I’m not out in five minutes, go to Moms and get Timmy. Okay?”

My mother said okay, and she took us kids to the car. We all got inside. Five minutes passed, then she started up the car. Just as she did, my father came running out the door.

We went to town where my grandmother lived. My grandmother let us in her house, and we told her everything. She then told us that we could stay the night with her. Then Uncle Timmy knocked on the window and scared my mother.

We all went to bed and went to sleep. The next morning we told the landlord that we were moving out of his house. We didn’t want to hear those noises any more.

Two or three years later, the old house caught on fire and burned down. We went back with a friend, but I was so scared that I lay on the floorboard of the car.

114. “Mysterious Happenings in an Old House”

Carroll County

Back in 1994, this woman who owns the Cornucopia Shop on Fifth and Main told me about some of the things that have happened there. The building that the shop is in used to be a restaurant. The owners both died, and it has changed hands several times in the past seventy years.

The current owner said that many times during the night garments are thrown here and there on the floor. Items on the shelves disappear, only to mysteriously reappear weeks later. This lady told me that on one occasion she taped a cabinet shut, but found it open the next day.

She’s still at this location. Wonder what’s been happening lately?

115. “The Abandoned Haunted House”

Hopkins County

When I was growing up, I lived by a so-called haunted house. It was on South Main Street here in Madisonville. There used to be a family with children that lived in this spooky place. And one of the girls that lived there was insane. It is said that she would always try to kill people, especially members of her own family. Then, her mother died. A year later, her father died. At that point in time, the other family members abandoned the house.

The house belonged to the insane daughter, but she was in a mental institution. The house was still completely furnished, so people would come by to vandalize the house. But many people said that they always heard and saw ghosts in the house. Actually, people began going there just to see ghosts. One day a couple of teenagers went into the house and saw the ghosts. The next day, the house burned down.

I heard this story all the time we lived by that house. My sister and her friends went into the house once and said they heard something, but I was always too scared to go inside to check it out.

116. “The Felt Presence”

Woodford County

In 1986, my husband, Nick, got a job as a night watchman on a horse farm on Pisgah Pike in Woodford County. I knew the old black man whose place Nick was taking. I asked Nick, “Why are you wearing a gun to night-watch?”

He said, “There’s something out there. This is the first night watchman job where I’ve ever had to wear a gun.”

He was right, there was something out there. We could feel it looking at us, but couldn’t see it. It felt evil and extremely dangerous. On several occasions, I went out at night to visit Nick and take him a snack. The horses would run at great speed in the pastures in total darkness. Some would even run into the fences. Their neighing was loud. It was a wonder they didn’t break their legs or necks….

The man who owned a farm up the road was a prominent public figure in Woodford County, and he let us move into an old house on one of his farms. My daughter Sheila and I took her bed, a night stand, candle, and kerosene lamp to this old house and planned to spend the night in our new home. A friend of ours asked if we would let his prized beagles stay there. “Why sure, no problem,” we told him. That night, the dogs started barking and then screaming. Someone or something was trying to break into the backdoor with great force. Then, the dogs fell silent. We heard whatever it was walk around to the front of the house. The noise was loud, like something dragging chains or someone wearing fishermen’s wading boots full of water. Every hair on my body stood straight out. I said, “Sheila, blow out the candle.” She said, Mom, I can’t. I can’t even move. You blow it out.

I said, “I can’t move either. My legs are as stiff as boards. I can feel something looking in through the downstairs window where the lamp was on the fireplace mantel.”

Sheila said, “I can, too.”

I said, “Sheila, please try and blow it out. I can feel him backing up and looking up here at us.”

“I know, Mom, I can feel it, too,” she said….

Finally, we heard him walking off towards a nearby radio station. Next morning, we learned why the dogs fell silent. One had broken his chain and ran in front of a car on Highway 60 and was killed. The other dog was strangled to death. His chain didn’t break. His throat was raw and bloody. That dog looked sad, yet had a look of fear on his face.

What was that thing that even a dog feared for its life? Was this the same evil creature I felt and that the horses had feared for their lives?

117. “Ghostly Footsteps in a House on Greasy Creek”

Leslie County

This happened right up on Greasy, right there at Chappell, and its every bit the truth ‘cause I was right there to see it. We were doing a logging up on Greasy Creek, there above old man Chappell s house. It was right across the creek from the Chappell post office. Me and my buddy were staying at old man Chappell s house while we were working up there. The house was a big, old log house that had two stories. Old man Chappell and his wife were there using their bedroom while me and my buddy slept in a big guest bed downstairs.

We were about to go to sleep one night when I heard what sounded like a big bushel sack of beans turn over way up there in the attic. Sounded like beans rolling down out of there, coming down the steps, and it got lighter and lighter until it sounded like the last bean come down and hit the last step to the floor. I turned to my buddy and said, “Won t you listen to that. Sounds like Mrs. Chappell’s sack of beans fell over.”

He roused up and then turned back over. Then while I was studying what I’d heard, I saw a light standing up at the foot of the bed. It looked about the size of one of them old bolster pillows that used to go plumb across the bed, and that light just stood there. I punched my buddy and said, “Won’t you look at this? There’s a beam of light. Look at that thing.”

But he wouldn’t turn over and look at it. He didn’t want to see it. Well, that light begun to get dim, then dimmer, and then it took to leaning over till it leaned right over in the floor and went out. Then I heard doors opening and shutting, one right after the other all through the house. I heard the latches click, then the door would shut real loud. It was “click,” “shut,” “click,” “shut,” all through that house, and after a while, it died down.

The next morning, we got up and ate breakfast, and I told the Chappells all about it. Old man Chappell made light of it, but after he left, Mrs. Chappell said, “There’s been many a time that I’ve heard the same thing. A long time ago they had a square dance in this house. People came from all up and down the creek. Well, there was this gang of men coming up the creek to the dance and they met this other feller that they knew coming down the creek. They said to him, ‘Hey, where you going? There’s a big dance up yonder. Why don’t you come and go with us?’

“The feller said, ‘No, I better not. I’ve had some trouble with a guy up there and I don’t want to cause any trouble at the dance.’

“Well, they kept after him to go with them and they finally said, ‘Come on, go with us. If there is any trouble, we’ll back you up.’

“So that feller finally agreed to go. Sure enough, there was trouble. That other guy pulled a gun on that boy and shot him dead. And those friends of that boy chased that other guy all through the house. He’d try to slam the door behind him so they couldn’t get a shot at him. Finally, they caught up with him and shot him dead as he ran around the corner of the house. Both of them shot dead that same night. So every now and then, I still hear them chasing each other through the house.”

Now, don’t forget, I was right there and seen what happened.

118. “The House on Black Hill Lane”

Barren County

In July 1961, when I married my first husband, we moved into an old two-story double log pen house, owned by his parents. That was near the Roseville community here in Barren County. That summer we slept in the front room of the old house. I always had a strange, uneasy feeling in that room, and never willingly was alone in it.

One night about eleven o’clock, I awoke with a terrified feeling of hands around my neck, chocking me. My first thought was that my husband was having a nightmare and choking me in my sleep, but he was sleeping peacefully beside me. I am not and never have been prone to nightmares, but I slept very little the rest of the night. I was quite relieved when the weather turned cold and we moved into a warmer bedroom in the back part of the house.

As I have always been interested in history, I set about learning all I could about the previous owners of the house. My main source of information was an eighty-year-old neighbor, who had lived in the vicinity all his life. He told me that three houses were built in the neighborhood about 1848, 1849, and 1850. All of them had huge stone chimneys, which were built by a mason who traveled around and did stone work. The stone was quarried at the intersection of what is now the Oil Well and B. Bertram Roads. At the time he told me this, two of the houses were still there, the other being the Dale Elmore home which was probably built by Josiah Bush. It has since been destroyed. All that was left of the third house was the enclosed hallway, or original dogtrot, which was left and weather-boarded, to be used, and still is, as a smokehouse.

The house we lived in set about a quarter mile off the Oil Well Road. A road once ran by it, connecting the Oil Well Road to the Roseville Road, and was known as the Black Hill Lane. At that time, I was able to ride horseback over the length of it, following the old road bed. It was evidently much used, as the banks were cut down as much as eight feet in some places. The house was built by Reuben Harrison, who bought the land in 1839, a part of Thomas S. Jesseup’s 2,200 acre military survey. Reuben Harrison would have been a cousin, several times removed, of both myself and my present husband. He sold it in 1871 to G.W. Young.

It seems that some time in its history, the house was used as a sort of inn, or tavern, and had overnight guests. A woman and man once stayed there and slept in the front room. The next morning, the woman was found dead in bed, and the bruises on her neck indicated she had been strangled. The man was gone. No one remembers their names. She was probably buried in the old cemetery behind the house.

Another interesting story was that there was a black woman in the neighborhood who disliked the wife of the man who lived there. She kept coming to the house and causing trouble. Finally, the man told her that if she came back, he would kill her. She came again, and he shot her, laying the barrel of his gun in the fork of a little peach tree in the front yard. She fell on some large rocks in front of where the tobacco barn now stands. Her body was not removed until the next day. I have been told that one could see her bloodstains on the rocks when it rained, but although I looked several times, I never saw them.

We lived there three years, and I was terrified to be alone at night (and not too comfortable in the daytime) and never again slept in the front room, although since then, Fm certain that many of the tenants did sleep there, and I have not heard of any more strange experiences.

My ex-father-in-law passed away a few years ago, and the place was sold to a young couple who had every intention of living there. However, they soon built a garage with an apartment over it. The young man knew nothing of my experience but said to my daughter, “When I go into that front room, I feel ghostly presences; the hair rises on my head, and Fm not about to live there.”

Evidently, he is true to his word, and is not living in the house. In fact, a few weeks ago I was out that way and noticed that nothing is now standing except the big stone chimneys.

119. “The MacDowell Ghost”

Simpson County

When my mother, Cathy Alford, was about twelve, her family lived in a two-story house on Blackjack Road in Simpson County. It was a big family that included her great-grandmother, Nancy Novack. Before my mother’s family moved into this old house, it was occupied by a Mr. MacDowell and family. Well, he died, and when his family moved out, they left some of his stuff in the attic.

One day, when my grandmother was cleaning out the attic, she found lots of flowers that were on MacDowell’s mother’s grave, and also some clothes that he had in boxes. She picked this stuff up and started to put them it a box marked “trash.” But as soon as she picked up that old mans coat, she heard someone mumbling. Then she felt that someone was watching her. She took a baby bed mattress and put it on the steps, then slid it all the way down the stairway.

When she got downstairs, she was so scared that she had to sit down. There was no one home at the time. When my great-grandmother returned home, my grandmother told her about the scary thing that had just happened.

About three weeks later, my grandmother was in her room. She had always slept with the light off. As usual, her light was off, and she was in bed watching television. Suddenly, she heard someone talking. She couldnt understand what they were saying, but she noticed her television set going off and on. After she turned on the light, the mumbling ceased. She decided that she couldn’t take any more of those weird, ghostlike happenings, so they moved out of that old house a week later.

The house is still said to be haunted by Mr. MacDowell.

120. “The Man in Black”

Hart County

We moved into a mobile home on June 11, 1991, not long after what I’m about to describe took place. It was summer time; my wash was on the clothesline. I went out and brought everything in and put them on a rocking chair in Pap’s room.

I was home alone and was standing by the chair facing the door out into the hallway. I was folding clothes, but all of a sudden I dropped a garment. I bent over to pick it up when I saw feet and legs standing in the hallway by the door, next to Pap’s dresser.

I raised up slowly, never taking my eyes off this man. He had on dark clothes and a hat, and just stood there and watched me. He looked so real. I said to him, “Who are you?”

No answer.

“What do you want?”

No answer.

“Who are you?”

No answer; not a word. All at once he just vanished; he wasn’t there anymore. I don’t know who he was or what he wanted, but he looked as real as any human I’ve ever seen.

I told Shirley Bush West about it, wondering if anything strange had happened while they lived there in this house which, by the way, is located here in Northtown, Hart County. Pap and I moved into the house in 1951, and Shirley’s family had lived there prior to that.

She told me that it wasn’t at all unusual to hear the pump organ playing at midnight, with no one in that room. She said that another time a man came and stood by Dorothy’s bed, just looked at her, then disappeared. He was dressed in dark clothes and wore a hat. And guess where the girls were sleeping? In Pap’s room!

121. “Uncle Frank’s Ghost Really Wasn’t”

Hart County

The old Uncle Frank Anderson house, located here in the Northtown community, Hart County, was torn down when Roger and Birdie Rountree built them a new house. Uncle Frank’s house was like a lot of other homes back then—two log rooms and a hall, steps in the hallway to an upstairs; dining room and kitchen were built later.

Bob and Mary Lewis Sanders stored potatoes upstairs when they lived there. Oris and Erma Stasel hadn’t been married long and were spending the night with the Sanders. They talked about Uncle Frank’s ghost (he died there) moving around upstairs and in different places up there.

That night, Oris and Erma slept in the room toward Northtown. Sometime during the night, Uncle Frank’s ghost started making those noises upstairs. Then they heard him coming down the steps, “thump, thump, thump.” Suddenly, they heard the footsteps coming into the room where they were in bed. Oris got up, closed the door to the hall, struck a match and lit a lamp. Then he grabbed a shoe and the battle with the ghost began.

Across the hall, Mary Lewis shook Bob awake. “Bob, get up quick! Oris and Erma are fighting, and sounds like they are having a good one.”

He gets up, lights a lamp, and across the hallway in his long johns he goes. In his very deep and almost gruff voice, Bob says, “Confound it all, what’s going on in here?”

“Well,” Oris replies, “I’ve killed your ghost! It was an enormous rat with a potato still in its mouth!”

So ended the saga of Uncle Frank’s ghost.

122. “The Church Registar”

Warren County

Our family moved to the small community of Rich Pond here in Warren County from Murray back in 1965. My parents, Mack and Barbara King, had just purchased our first home. The old house they bought had not been lived in for several years and needed a lot of work to make it livable. The place was spacious and very cold during the winter months. Vines of some type had even grown over the front steps and had to be cleared so we could walk onto the front porch.

After living there about eighteen months, strange things began occurring. From time to time, I could hear singing as if it were at a distance, or if someone had a radio turned down real low. At first I didn’t really pay much attention to it, but as time went on I started hearing the song again and again. I didn’t recognize the tune, but it appeared to be a hymn of some sort. One Sunday, I heard the song in church. When the radio began playing, I realized it was the same. A cold chill ran through me, and I was stunned. The hymn was “Faith of Our Fathers.” I said to myself, “That’s it!” But I still could not understand where the singing was coming from at home when I would hear it. It sounded like a small choir or group of people singing the same hymn over and over. But why I did, I couldn’t figure out. I even asked other members of my family if they could hear it, but none of them heard it. I thought that maybe I was losing my mind.

Believe it or not, this went on for several years. Then one night I was awakened by a strange feeling. I raised up in bed and saw the figure of a man dressed in a long black coat, bow tie, and high collar, standing at the foot of my bed. He was also holding an open book. He didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes because I was frightened. When I opened them, he was gone. This same occurrence went on for several years. I didn’t understand the whole affair. I thought that maybe I had been dreaming, so I didn’t mention it to anyone. I would also hear the hymn in my dreams and even associate the tune with the man.

His clothes seemed to be from the turn of the century, the high collar and all. They were not clothes of our day and time.

After talking to some neighbors, it was learned that there used to be a church standing on the site where our house was presently located. The house had been built from the lumber that came from the church after it was torn down. I also used to find old coins in the yard dating from the 1890s to the 1920s. I suppose that the money was lost by the people congregating at the church.

When I became an adult, I visited the courthouse in Bowling Green to trace the deeds of the old place, and learned that the property belonged to the Rich Pond Episcopal Church South from 1885 to 1934.

This could explain the events that took place. Through searching, I found the old church register with the names of all its members. Fm sure the man in the long black coat, holding the book, could be one of these people, a song leader or an elder. But what did he want with me, a boy of eleven? Was he trying to tell me something, or did he want me to do something for him? Maybe the book he was holding was the church register instead of a hymnal. Maybe I did what he wanted but didn’t know it when I saved the church register from being lost or destroyed.

I’m presently writing a history of this old lost church, and even visit my old home place from time to time. The house no longer belongs to my family because my parents are now gone. I still wonder about the man in the black coat. Why did he choose me to appear to, and no one else?

123. “Morgantown’s Woman in White”

Butler County

When I was around thirteen, I began seeing a woman in white in my bedroom almost every night there in Morgantown. The experience always started out in the same way. I would be in bed, and I would hear a gliding sound on the rug in the hallway. Then I would see a white, filmy-like glow, followed by a lady with long black hair, wearing a white flowing gown. She was incredibly beautiful, but there was a terrible look in her eyes, and her mouth had a cruel twist to it. She would glide up to the side of my bed and pull out a dagger from the folds of her gown; then she would raise it above her head, but before the dagger ever reached me, she would vanish. That happened each time I saw her.

During the entire episode, I would not be allowed to move. It was if my body was frozen solid. This happened at least once each month for approximately six months. Then the nocturnal visits stopped for the most part, although I did have one occasionally up until the age of eighteen, when I left for college.

After I moved out of the house, my sister Penny took over my room; she even used my furniture. One day she began telling me about the strange things that started happening to her since moving into my room. Of course, one of them was the visits of the lady in white. Penny described exactly the same experiences that I had when I was there, down to the last detail. My sister was fourteen years old at that time.

Two years ago, she rearranged the bedroom, moving the bed to the other side of the room at an angle. Immediately all visits by the lady in white ceased.

We thought maybe that someone had died on the spot where our bed had been situated there in the room. The house is approximately twenty years old; a three-bedroom brick house, just like all the others in that part of town. No one else has lived there. It may be that the house is built over an old family cemetery.

124. “The Ghost of a Teenage Girl”

Jefferson County

These two boys, who were friends of mine, bought a house way out in the eastern end of Jefferson County; past Middletown. They bought this house that used to be a stagecoach stop; a real old house that is painted yellow now. It’s got a fence around it. It’s on Flat Rock Road in Long Run Park, at the entrance on the left side of the road.

There was a family that lived there in the last century, and they had a daughter whose name was Eloise. She was about seventeen years old, and she was mentally retarded. They kept her in this little room upstairs, a room with a sloped-down ceiling, like an attic room. This girl died when she was real young, like when she was about seventeen, and everybody said that she was weird. They buried her in the family graveyard right beside the stagecoach house. That’s where her parents were also buried.

It is said that the girl’s ghost still lives in this house. So Fred and John and Bobby rented the house from this old man who owns it, and he’s the one who told them this story. But they didn’t believe it. Anyway, one night Fred got up about three o’clock one morning to go down to the kitchen to get something to eat. He was standing at the top of the stairway on the landing, and he could hear somebody walking up the stairs. He could hear the stairs creak, but there was no one on the stairs. He got scared but he kept on walking and then brushed up against something like a human form. He looked, but there was nothing there.

That was the first encounter they had with this girl’s ghost. So they started believing in her. Then, they decided to test it out to see if there really was a ghost there.

A couple of nights in a row, they’d go to bed but they locked all the doors and windows first. They’d even check them two or three times to make sure they were locked. Every time they did this, they’d wake up the next morning, and everything would be slam bang open—the doors, the windows, everything.

Well, Burks and me and Marilyn went over there one night to have a party. We stayed there until about three o’clock in the morning and were getting ready to leave. So me and Marilyn went outside and got in the car and were waiting for Burks to come out.

They had a Grecian-like lady statue in the back yard, and when a car is parked in the driveway, you’re looking at the statue, say about twenty yards away, next to some old trees.

Well, it was real foggy out that night. It looked like the fog was about two-feet deep and it was real spooky out there. And everything happened real quick at the same time, like in a dream. You know, all of a sudden we’d been just talking about the ghost story and everything. Well, Marilyn opened the vent window of the car. It was real windy out and it sounded exactly like a ghost. It went, “Wooo-ooo- .”

All of a sudden I heard a tap on the window and I turned real quick. Fred’s face was pressed right up against the window and I just screamed. Like to have scared me to death! I thought it was that girl. But Fred was just coming out to bum a cigarette before we went home. It’s just that it all happened so fast that it just about scared us all to death. And that’s the truth.

125. “Spirits, Spooks, and Ghostly Pool Players”

Allen County

Sheila Marr of Scottsville remembers one haunting night like it was yesterday, although it was more than thirty years ago.

She was about five years old, and Marr saw something she believes was a spirit in the family’s North Eighth Street home. It took the image of her grandmother and then her father.

“I’ve always known it took place, but now I cannot actually say it was a ghost or a human being, just something unexplainable—I’ve never been able to put it into words,” she says. “It’s something I’ll find out later when I’ve passed from this world, maybe.”

Marr had just said goodnight to her grandmother, who promised to be up shortly to tuck her in. The little girl had just put her hand on the banister when she looked up. Her grandmother stood at the top of the stairs. “I just froze for a few seconds,” she says.

She looked back in the living room, where her grandmother was still sitting, then back to the top of the stairs where her grandmother was standing, then back to the living room again and back again to the top of the stairs, where her grandmother seemed to be motioning for Marr to come to her.

Marr yelled for her grandmother, who came from the living room, and when they looked up, no one was at the top of the stairs. Marr’s grandmother told her that she was very sleepy and tired and must have just imagined it. “It’s very vivid,” Marr says, “and it will never leave me. I could not see all the way through it, but it would put you in mind of a mist, a very thick mist…The most predominate feature was the eyes, and they had an almost iridescent quality.”

Her grandmother tried to comfort her, and put her to bed with her Raggedy Ann she’d had since birth. Marr says that she lay there with her eyes wide open, not at all sleepy, with the street light coming through the window and a night light in her room.

Her father, David Calvert, was standing beside her bed, or so she thought. “I lifted my arms and said, ‘Daddy, take me,” Marr says.

He raised his arms to waist level with palms upward, looked down at her briefly, then faced forward. “He walked through me, the bed, and out through the wall,” Marr recalls.

She was again upset, so she went downstairs, leaving her Raggedy Ann sitting on about the fourth step from the bottom. She went into her parents’ bedroom, and her mother told her that it must have been a really bad dream. As they started back upstairs, Raggedy Ann was gone. Then about two weeks later, her mother found Raggedy Ann in an unfinished upstairs room in an old cabinet.

A month or so after that, a neighbor joined the family for dinner. Then came the sound of a rack of pool table balls being broken and scattering around the table upstairs, followed by the sound of a ball falling into the ball return and hitting another ball. They all heard the sounds….

David Calvert got his pistol, and he and a neighbor went carefully up the stairs and into the room. Nothing was out of place. Calvert went on to say that he heard the pool playing a couple of times after that….

Calvert says that one previous owner, O.B. Towe Jr., told him that something came down the steps and he swung at it with a baseball bat, but the bat went right through the figure, which proceeded into the downstairs bedroom and out the back of the house.

According to Calvert, previous owner Fount Hunt said his wife Lucille woke him up one night because it sounded like someone was beating on the house. He got his gun and went outside but couldn’t find anyone, yet he could still hear the beating noises….

Twelve years ago, not too long after Phillip Calvert and his wife Elaine moved into the house that was built in 1810 by Theopolus Read, they had David Calvert and his wife over and the foursome decided to use a Ouija board and see what happened. The board spelled, “Get me out.”

They were on the back patio but could see straight through the windows and door to the front porch. David and Elaine saw a figure that had on an overcoat and hat go across the front porch.

David Calvert says another time he thought he saw a woman wearing a high-necked garment from the 1800s in an upstairs window over front door, and when he asked his brother who it was, the brother said that no one else was around.

Phillip Calvert still sees [from his house], at least twice a month, a white misty figure that looks sort of like a person wearing a long white gown go from the cemetery that is on the farm to the nearby creek about 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., and you can still hear someone walking up and down the stairs, two of which creak, he says. Phillip says that even if there are spirits around, as long as they don’t bother him he doesn’t mind.

126. “Ghostly Occurrences in Maple Hill Manor”

Washington County

“We’ve owned Maple Hill Manor in Springfield for approximately twelve years. The house is now our B and B, and was built in 1851 by slaves. It took them three years to build it. They made the bricks on the ground, and hand cut the wood, as there was no power tools in those days. The house was built for Thomas McElroy, who was forty-one years of age at the time. He soon married Sarah Maxwell, who came from Lebanon, Kentucky. When they married, she was twenty years of age.

They had seven children, four of whom died in their early years—one- or two-year age bracket. And another perished as a teenager. Sarah herself died at the house at age forty-eight. Her husband was approximately sixty-nine when he passed away in the home.

On October 8, 1862, there was a battle fought in Perryville, with approximately 75,000 troops involved. After the battle, the Confederates brought their wounded and dying along Perryville Road into Springfield and into the courthouse at Springfield. The courthouse there is documented as having had Confederate troops in it. The records also state that the plantation homes that were between Perryville and Springfield were all obviously Confederate supporters, because they were slave plantations. The wounded and dying Confederate soldiers were brought into these plantation homes, including the house that we now own. So it just may be that all the heartaches and pains that were felt at that time are what causes the spirit world to exist. Maybe it’s people trying to get back to where they came from.

A lot of things have happened in this old house, even within the past twelve years after we moved here from Chicago. One of the stories that I tell guests goes like this. We’ve got a gravel drive leading up to the house. And today we have a motion detector that will ring a buzzer if a car comes onto our driveway. During the first years that we were here, we had one of our sons stay with us during the summer months while he was going to college and help us do work at the home.

During this particular summer, all the windows in the house were open. My wife was there, our son was there, and I was there. And we had a dog.

We had two couples coming to stay with us this particular evening. They came separately, as they did not know each other. Both couples stayed in rooms on the second floor of the house. At approximately six o’clock in the evening, both couples decided to go out to dinner, separately, in their two automobiles. At that point, the three of us family members sat down in our kitchen to have dinner.

Part way through dinner, we heard heavy footsteps on the second floor of the home. These steps were moving back and forth in the room that we call the rose room. Sounded like the steps were going from one side of the room to the other, back and forth in search of something.

I said to the family, “Must be that one of the cars came back but we didn’t hear it.” So I said, “I’ll go to the front door to see which couple it is, and to see how I can help them.”

I went to the front door and looked, but neither car was back. My first reaction was that somebody saw those cars pull out of our driveway, then entered the house and went upstairs seeking valuables. Those footsteps took place for as much as two, maybe three minutes. So I stood at the bottom of the stairs, and yelled, “Can I help you?” “How can I help you?”

There was no answer. I hollered again; there was no answer. I called to our son, “Go get the guns, we’re going to go upstairs.” I said, “And bring the dog.”

We took the dog and the guns upstairs, and searched all over up there. There was nothing disturbed. There was nothing up there that the dog reacted to, nothing.

To this day, we still hear what we believe are footsteps up on the second floor. I will not even go up there to look to see what it is.

People tell me that we heard something on the roof. But that’s not true, as we’ve had the house reroofed twice, and you absolutely cannot hear people walking on that roof.

It sounds like these steps are moving from one room to another. Now that’s the truth. And, who knows, maybe some of those Confederate soldiers are still here with us.

Back in July 1999, we had guests in our Maple Hill Manor B and B. I was fixing some of our lamps to be turned on, and I was standing almost by the front door. All of a sudden, I heard a knock on the door. On the outside of our doors we have old-fashioned knockers. And I thought that one of our guests must have gotten up to the house without our motion detector going off. Sometimes that does happen.

I went and opened the door but nobody was there. Well, as I opened the door, I felt this real cool breeze go by me. Oh, it gave me goose bumps! That was the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. The night when this happened, I called my husband from the hallway and told him what had happened. He looked at my arms, and sure enough, my arms had goose bumps all over them. As a matter of fact, I was in that house by myself for eight years, as Bob was working up north, and I never experienced anything like that while he was gone.

But in more recent times, we’ve heard things fall. We’ve gone into rooms and could smell something like flowers or perfume in certain rooms. After you smelled it, you could go back out to do something else, then go back into that room and the smell was gone. This happened in different rooms at different times.

Our guests have also experienced some of these things. We’ve had some letters written to us by guests who spent the night on our B and B. And we have some photos that have unusual lights in them. One is in the hallway like it is going into the bedroom and it is a very arching streak that looks like it is going through the door. That’s the most unusual photograph we’ve got. We have another picture of a wedding that took place in the dining room. This picture has an unusual light in it, too. The people who took the picture truly believe that it was a ghost or spirit.

Our ceilings in the house are thirteen and a half feet tall downstairs. So when you get up to the top of the balcony on the second floor, you’re about fifteen feet off the floor. Periodically, at night when were asleep there’ll be a loud “bang” in the house; so loud that it will startle us and wake us up. This can happen in the summer when the furnace doesn’t run, or it can happen in the winter when the furnace is on. It’s like a loud bang in the hallway, and it can happen in summer or winter.

We’ve both heard it, even recently. Sounds like it comes from the hallway. What it sounds like is that someone has jumped, or falls, from upstairs over the railing and lands on the first floor. When you go up onto the second floor, our railing is real curved around at the top of the steps. The railing at that point drops to about table height. Instead of being 36 to 40 inches, it drops for some unknown reason. Maybe it’s an architectural defect there in the railing, as it drops to about 30 inches. So if you leaned over, you could fall over the railing without trying too hard. So I always feel like that noise is that of somebody who jumped or fell over that railing.

We’ve heard that noise, and we’ve had guests as recent as two months ago who claimed that they heard it one night. But neither of us heard it that night.

Speaking of guests that have experienced things in the house, two different couples have written us letters about what happened to them here at Maple Hill Manor. One of these couples got married here back in 1992, and all the photos taken at the wedding had weird, eerie-like lights reflecting across the pictures. The bride sent us copies of a couple of the photos, along with a question that she asked. Her question was, “Could there be some sort of ghostly presence at Maple Hill?”

The other couple was here in November 1997. They, too, sent a letter, along with a photograph of a light that appeared to be just floating through one of the doors. The letter contained the words, “Remember, I told you of my dream of the bride at the top of the stairs? Well, when I reached out to touch the arm of the mannequin, it was real and I was amazed at how well the bride was preserved…. Maybe I caught a glimpse of her wedding dress in the enclosed photo. Anyway, I think you must have very nice ghosts.”

127. “Ghosts at the Green Mansion”

Grayson County

This place is called the Green mansion, or the big house. The first two rooms of the house were built by, we believe, the Sullivans in the late 1700s. The remainder of the downstairs structure and the front two bedrooms, bathroom and main hall upstairs were built in the 1830s. The back four bedrooms upstairs were built in the 1860s. All total, there are twenty-four rooms in the house, counting the solarium (or glassed-in porch).

This all started when Willis and Ann Allen Green settled here in the mid-1830s. That was after Willis had bought the house and brought it up to code in order to suit his wife. They reportedly had two daughters. In that day and age, women didn’t inherit. So when Willis’ brother Morgan and his wife, Caroline, were killed in a carriage accident, Willis brought his two nephews, Lafayette and Napoleon, and his two nieces, Melvina and Elizabeth, here to be raised by Ann and Willis.

Napoleon died when he was thirty, in 1862. Lafayette was already in law school when his uncle died in the 1860s. He was in Corpus Christi, Texas, at the time. He had relocated. Willis had to go through the war before he could get his uncle there in Texas. They exhumed the body and brought it back to Kentucky. He is interred in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville.

Ann basically got a life estate. It was hers to enjoy for a lifetime, but it was to go to Lafayette upon her death. Lafayette married Eleanor Rebecca Scott, daughter of Elizabeth Brown Scott and Robert Wilmoth Scott from up around Lexington.

Eleanor and Lafayette begat Elizabeth, Willis, Preston, Jennie, and Robert. Elizabeth died at one year of age, which left the other four to survive to adulthood.

Eleanor Scott s brother, John Orlando Scott, was my great-greatgrandfather. He was a physician who wanted to help settle the frontier, so he went to Texas.

There are some things said about ghostly appearances in times past, but the only things I can tell about are the things that have happened within my generation. We do know that Miss Jennie firmly believed in Ouija boards and unconscious handwriting. She firmly believed that she could communicate with her brother who had already passed away. She even had letters where she did the unconscious writing by letting him take control of her hand. She would ask him a question and he would respond to it by holding to her hand as she wrote. Carolyn Ridenour has one of those letters.

By the time we [my parents and kids] got here, Jennie was very reticent about the other world. At that time, she was approaching the end of her life and was getting a lot of local ridicule for believing in anything other that what was normally believed. She died in 1965. She was a psychic, especially back in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, when it was so active in this country. Psychics were in huge demand. She was very socially active during that period. She spent her winters in Florida, her summers in Michigan, and her spring and fall here in Kentucky.

My mother, Mary Eleanor Perry [McGee] O’Neill, inherited the Green Mansion in 1961 from Miss Jennie when I was a very small child. She knew that she was to inherit it just before I was born…. But we didn’t move here until Miss Jennie died in 1965.

It was thought by some people that Miss Jennie’s ghost may have stayed on here after her death. We had a California psychic who saw a picture of this house and told us that there was a very tortured soul still connected to it and that nothing here could “bear fruit and grow” until it was released. But none of us thought it was really her ghost.

The most particular and alarming incident here happened when I was three years old in 1965, or maybe in early 1966. My father, Russ McGee, had been in Louisville working. He purchased Chinese food and brought it home to the family. The bulk of the family, except for me and my newborn sister, were in the kitchen eating. The eldest daughter, my sister, came upstairs to check to see if we were all right. On her way up, she encountered a red, sticky substance—something like blood—there on the third step from the top of the stairway. The blood then went on down the hall, paused at the entry door into the restroom from the hallway. You could tell it had stopped, for there was a pool of blood at that point. That door was locked, so the blood went on into the master bedroom, paused again, then turned right into the nursery where my younger sister and I were sleeping. Then it proceeded into the bathroom through the master bedroom entrance into the restroom. The sink and tub were covered with this blood. It was as if it had taken towels and tried to soak up the blood. The reason I say “it” is because all the windows and all the doors were locked.

The blood was still wet, still tacky sticky. All the doors and all the windows were again checked, as were all the furniture and closets. My parents and siblings thoroughly canvassed the house. No one was found.

The amount of blood that was lost was probably close to a half gallon—nothing that anyone could have walked away from. It had to be a spirit of some kind. After they figured that it wasn’t put there by a human being, Daddy just wiped up the blood with rugs.

Some of the other things that would happen from time to time was that curtains would rise up on the wall on a perfectly still night. Chandeliers would just swing with no one there to touch them; no wind, no storm, no obvious reasons for them to move.

Whenever these things happened, not every one saw them at the same time, but all of us would see things from time to time. And it’s not just here in the house. For example, there’s a lady that walks the old bridge out here. She’s dressed in a gray-like dress.

Here in Green Mansion, my mother and one of my sisters were downstairs, and they heard the door upstairs slam. It was one of the bathroom doors that’s always kept locked. When they heard this, that meant that one of the kids was in trouble because they were upstairs slamming the door. It was an angry, loud slam. But none of the other kids were in the house, and when they went upstairs, the door was completely locked.

I don’t remember that occurrence. But I do remember the séance they had here in the parlor. A lot of us kids were sitting around watching them focus a lot of energy on things we didn’t know anything about. The writing desk that had never been unlocked since we moved in was being used. They were calling back Lafayette Green. It was his writing desk. In the midst of the séance, the doors on the cabinet there in the room just flew open. They went back into the room and the doors were all closed. Everybody made a major exodus! We small children got trampled. That was scary. I was probably seven or eight years old.

So, it seems to me that a lot of these scary happenings that still take place could be traced back to Miss Jennie, who was heavily involved in these things. If somebody stirred stuff up around here, it was probably her. And we had to live with it. And the time we saw that blood all took place within six months of her passing from this life. Then the chandeliers, curtains, and all that stuff started happening within eighteen months or so after her passing. Then it settled down, perhaps also due to the fact that there was a lot of tension in the family while Daddy was still here. When he went away, things stopped happening.

But now back to the blood. Aunt Jennie had an aunt who committed suicide here in this house. Willis and Ann had two daughters. One of them ran away and married a drunkard that was very abusive, if the story is true. She came home, begged sanctuary. Her father denied it. We don’t know if she is the one that died in the insane asylum, or if she’s the other daughter who, after Willis died, came home and later committed suicide. So I’ve always felt that the blood was that of the lady that committed suicide.

On occasion, I’ll wake up in the middle of the night when I hear human voices talking. The next morning, I’ll ask myself whether I really heard the voices, or if I were just dreaming. But only once did I hear the actual words that were spoken, and I was sleeping in Mom’s bedroom then. I’d been sleeping back there for only five or six weeks, so I was relatively new in that room. I was just exhausted one night when I lay down on the bed in that room to go to sleep. In the middle of the night, I woke up to the noise of the slamming of the front door—just like someone was coming in from the fields.

I heard their footsteps, then I heard a male voice. I can’t recall the exact words, but I very clearly heard words at the time. This male voice basically told someone here in the house that he was in from the field to get a bite of food, then he was going back out to work. I can’t recite the actual words, but I very definitely heard a conversation. It was a man’s voice talking to two or three other people. One of them was a woman, and she is the one that was responding to him.

My son probably heard more of the footsteps and stuff than I did. He’d tell me that he heard these noises that sounded like footsteps here in the house.

And my mom was here when things were really active, like when the curtains were flying up, chandeliers were swinging, and all that stuff was going on. And I can recall when I was much younger, and during times when I was distraught, I would sometimes see this light in Miss Jennie’s bedroom hovering up near the ceiling. It looked something like a person. That light would give me a soothing feeling.

The last thing that I’ve experienced in this house was back in June of this year [1999] when I was lying on the couch watching televison, and my feet got real cold, like someone’s cold foot was touching it. So I yelled out, “Move! You’re cold!”

Believe it or not, that coldness went away right then. It’s like whatever it was, was watching the movie with me, and it had its icy foot touching mine.

I’ve had a half dozen people to walk in, and some of them didn’t even know me very well. This one couple in particular was there when we were packing to move out of the house. They just got real nervous, jittery, scared. They said that they could feel something ominous almost.

I was really ready to leave Green Mansion by that time, so I moved on out.

128. “The Shattering Glass Ghost”

Graves County

The old ones of the community used to tell of a tenant house near Waggoner Bottom in Graves County where a man called Jim lived with his wife, Mae. Jim’s brother came to stay with them for a while. He and Mae took up together, and Jim ran away from home.

Several nights later, Jim returned with a shotgun. He shot through the bedroom window, killing both Tom and Mae as they slept. Jim then fled the country. The owner of the house, hoping to find a new tenant, repaired the shattered windowpane. But each time he returned, he found the glass broken. He finally resorted to boarding up the window.

My grandma would tell this story about the old house that she lived in at

A new farmhand was found who moved into the house, but he didn’t stay long. He, too, fled the country. He told that each night, shortly after he fell asleep, he was awakened by the sound of a shot followed by the sound of shattering glass. Unable to persuade anyone else to live in the house, the farm owner used it to store hay until the night a loud explosion was heard, and the house burned. Years later, Jim returned old and sick. He said that he had “hid out” over in Arkansas but had come home to die. He was harbored in the home of Joe Taylor, a prominent farmer in the community, until he died about a week later.

129. “Ghostly Screams”

McCracken County

My grandma would tell this story about the old house that she lived in at one time. She said that an old lady died in that house in 1899, but her body was not found until 1900. Soon after she [grandmother] moved into the house, she started hearing screams of an old lady, but she never heard them until around two o’clock in the morning. Finally, the screams got so annoying that she had to move out due to lack of sleep.

130. “The Little Girl in the Window”

Bracken County

I grew up in Milford in southern Bracken County. The house next door was said to be haunted. I never really believed that stuff, so never thought much about it. The story about the ghost says that about fifty years ago a man that lived there with his wife and daughter came in one afternoon and shot them to death and then killed himself. Their little girl wasn’t quite right, and we have always been told that he couldn’t handle it.

Milford had a small automotive garage on the north end of town and the man had been visiting there that afternoon. He made the comment as he left for home that he was going to “end it all.”

Neighbors have often said that they could see the little girl’s image in the window. Some said that they heard moaning and crying. I never really believed all that until the night I saw her with my own eyes.

After the murders and suicide, an older couple bought the house and lived there for many years. They had both passed away by the time I saw the little girl. At that time, a younger couple with four small children were living there. When it all happened, I was standing at the kitchen sink doing the supper dishes. I remember all this because it was so rare my doing dishes. Anyway, I was looking out the window above the sink, which faced the side of the house where one of the neighbor’s daughters bedroom is located, upstairs. It was about seven o’clock or so and it had already gotten dark, but there was a full moon that night. I was just looking out the window, and I saw a little girl in the upstairs window next door. I just assumed it was my neighbor, so I waved to her. She didn’t wave back, but just stared for a minute or two, then she was gone.

The next day, I was working in the yard and the neighbor kids were outside playing. I asked the little girl why she didn’t wave at me the night before. She told me that they weren’t home—that she had been visiting her grandparents and didn’t get back home until around midnight. Well, I didn’t want to scare her, so I told her that I must have been mistaken, that it must have been a reflection or something. That seemed to satisfy her, and she went on playing. However, it upset me a little. That’s when I realized I had really seen the ghost. If the family wasn’t home, it must have been a ghost. I really saw a little girl in that window!

131. “Screams of Victims Dying in Flames”

Campbell County

Up near where I live in Ft. Thomas, there was a huge old mansion that burned down. When it burned down, this old fellow went out to save a horse that was in the coach house. The old fellow and the horse were both burned to death.

On a cloudy, windy night, like when its getting ready to storm, you can go up there and still hear them screaming.

132. “The Ghost of a Murdered Man”

Shelby County

There’s an old house out there in Shelby County, and for three or four nights in a row a couple of my friends went out there. It’s a big, big, big house, and they opened a window so they could get inside. When they got inside, their flashlights went out.

I wouldn’t go out there, wouldn’t dare go. They’d go out there and walk around. They said they heard noises the first night they were there. After they heard the noises, they ran to the window to get out of the house, but the window was closed. It was old and hard to open, but it had closed by itself, or something else had closed it.

They went back again, and similar things happened. I never would go there with them.

Later on, someone told them that somebody was shot and killed in that old house, that the place was haunted.

133. “A Ghostly Fiddler”

Nelson County

The tale of a ghostly fiddler has been passed down for generations in Bardstown. The story claims a man with a fiddle came to Bardstown in the early 1780s. He had no money and played his fiddle for food and shelter. The fiddler became well known throughout the community and provided entertainment for local gatherings and dances. When he was not able to rest at someone’s home, he would sleep in a cave under the town.

One such night the man retreated into the cave for shelter. As the temperature dropped he moved deeper into the cave. He eventually found a comfortable spot and built a fire. He played his fiddle while the fire warmed the cave. As the fire burned, the cave ceiling cracked from the heat. It collapsed and trapped the fiddler.

When local residents noticed the fiddler was missing they went into the caves to find him. They found the crumbled mess of the cave, but were unable to locate the fiddler.

A little over a hundred years later, the first Nelson County Courthouse was removed and a new one built. The story claims workers in the basement of the new courthouse heard sounds coming from the cave below. At first they thought the sound was running water, but as they listened they realized it was music from a fiddle.

The music is believed to be the music of the fiddler whose ghostly tunes fill the caves where he died. For the brave souls who work at the courthouse at night, it is rumored the fiddle can still be heard in the basement.

Rita Herrmann of the Bardstown Civil War Museum provided the Standard with a copy of the ghostly fiddler story. The story was used several years ago as part of the tour of Old Bardstown Village.

“I dont know whether or not the story is real,” Herrmann said, “but the ghost story has been told for generations.”

134. “The Knocking Ghost of a Murdered Man”

Clay County

Late one afternoon about seven o’clock here in Clay County, a woman went to spend the night with her sister. When the sat down to eat, they heard a noise in the cellar. One of the women stood real still and said,” Wh-what was that?”

Her sister told her that an old man had been living there for a long time when some robbers took him down in the cellar and killed him. It had been said that the house was haunted after that happened.

They went on to bed, and about midnight one of the sisters heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Whatever it was walked to the end of the hall, then turned around and walked back down again. The woman who lived there got up out of bed and went to see what was there. Finding nothing, she went back to bed.

All was well until about 3:00 A.M., when they heard something knocking against the wall. It knocked about six times, then stopped. Then the woman got up and went downstairs to wake her sister. Her sister got up to listen but the knocking was gone. The sister that lived there said, “I’m moving out of this house!”

The very next day, the family moved from that house, never to return to live there anymore.

135. “The Overpowering Smell of Roses”

Metcalfe County

The old house we lived in at one time was located on the banks of the South Fork of Little Barren River in northern Metcalfe County. It was known by locals as the Cassady place. As far as we could ascertain, the house was built around 1850. And it was haunted!

We moved there in 1974, and everything was normal until the mid-1980s. We never saw a person, but my sister and I both saw an apparition on the stairs more than once. Also, our mother was awakened once in the middle of the night by a crying baby. Thinking it was her great-granddaughter, she went upstairs to check on her only to find her sleeping soundly.

Some remodeling was done during this period and a new bathroom was built over an old cellar, and many times I have gone in that bathroom and distinctly heard a baby crying.

One year during the 1980s an overpowering smell of roses came to the house. It started in the dining room and at times would also be in other rooms. However, it was never in all the rooms at the same time. The fragrance of roses was apparent to several family members, and one visitor we had said she was almost suffocated by the smell of roses. Believe it or not, she had not been told that we had smelled roses for several weeks.

The farm was sold in 1994, but the house was periodically occupied until 1999.1 don’t know if the occupants at that time had similar ghostlike experiences or not.

136. “Afraid to Go Home”

Campbell County

Back in 1935 my mother and father wanted to move into a house of their own. They had been living upstairs in my grandma’s house in two rooms on the second floor with their one-year-old baby daughter, Shirley (that’s me). They didn’t have much money, and houses were hard to find.

They found a small house on Fourth Street in Dayton, Kentucky, and the rent wasn’t very much. Folks living there in the neighborhood told them that the landlord had a problem keeping tenants because of strange happenings in the house. Since the rent was cheap, and they wanted to be on their own, they didn’t want to believe the stories they were hearing. So they went ahead and moved in. My grandparents and several uncles and aunts were there to help.

During the first night in the house, they were awakened by strange noises that seemed to be coming from the cellar, something like chains rattling. When they got up the next morning, they found that furniture had been moved around. A very large kitchen cabinet that was filled with dishes was in the center of the room. Needless to say they were scared but thought that maybe someone was just playing a joke on them.

The next night the same thing happened—rattling chains in the cellar, and in the morning the kitchen cabinet was back in the middle of the floor, and a chair had been moved in the living room. About this time they began paying more attention to what neighbors were saying but still didn’t believe in haunted houses.

My mother’s sister Florence and her husband said that they would spend the night with them. In the middle of the night when they heard the chains rattling, they went down to the cellar but found nothing. Next morning the large kitchen cabinet was again in the middle of the floor. While they were standing in the kitchen, my aunt Florence noticed that her wedding ring was not on her finger, but she had never taken it off since the day they were married. They searched the bed, the rooms, the entire house, but her wedding ring was never found.

All of them were extremely frightened and didn’t want to spend another night in that house. Grandpa, Grandma, aunts, and uncles came to help them move out of the house that very day. They never discovered what or who it was, but they were too scared to ever go back to that house. They were afraid that the ghost, or “whatever,” would be waiting there and possibly harm them.

In 1937, the Ohio River flooded its banks and most of lower Dayton was covered with water and mud. Seems like no one heard any more about strange things happening in that house. Maybe the flood chased the ghosts away.

137. “A Historic West Point House”

Hardin County

We bought the old Ditto-Lansdale house here on Elm Street in West Point in 1987 after my father-in-law passed away. It was a Civil War hospital that was built by a Mr. Ditto about 1810. My husband’s family got this house in 1964. When my husband was covering up the cistern back then, he looked down in there and saw a few headstones in it. Behind our house we have found some graves. And we have found many Indian arrowheads here in the back yard.

Numerous weird things have taken place in this house, and still do. The first ghostly thing that I ever experienced took place one day when I was upstairs cleaning. Several people here in town used to live here when it was rental property, and they’d talk about the things that happened when they used to be upstairs. One lady was pregnant, and they had a rocking chair in the house. She’d get up in the middle of the night, and the rocking chair would just be rocking of its own accord. And sometimes her husband would put his own house slippers down on the floor, and the next morning they’d be moved to another room.

I kept saying, “Yeah; right. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Upstairs, there is a great big room and a great big door. One night I was up there sweeping when the corner of my eye caught something in white floating behind me. I said to myself, “No, I don’t think so.”

Well, I kept sweeping. But there was a mirror there, too, in the other room. So I sort of looked into the mirror, and just about that time this white-like, fluffy figure floated back across the room again. This was in the middle of the day, but I got goose bumps. And whatever it was floated out the window.

A couple of years later during a July day, I was upstairs cleaning. The windows were open and the curtains were blowing. And I had a brand new refrigerator. The refrigerator was against one wall, and behind me were two windows. When I looked into the refrigerator, I could see the reflections of the curtains and the couch, and what have you.

When I got down on my hands and knees cleaning out the refrigerator, I heard the floor squeaking like someone was coming up the steps. All of a sudden the noise stopped, and I could see somebody standing behind me through this reflection in the refrigerator. I thought it was my son who had stooped down and was going to scare me. I said, “Okay, Josh, I see you, I know you are there.”

Well, he didn’t say anything. Again I said, “Okay, Josh, I know you are there, so break it up.”

I turned around to look at him, but no one was there. He was gone. The next thing I knew, the door started slamming shut. I ran down the stair steps screaming as I ran. When I got outside, my mom and my son were sitting outside in the backyard, giving my dog a bath.

So, there was nobody in the house, at least no family members.

Another thing that has happened took place back one fall. We had this big concrete porch that’s gone now. It was built during World War 1.1 had a grill out on the end of this porch. It was in October, and it was getting dark. I had been cooking, and my husband was in the house doing dishes, quite a distance from me.

I’m out there getting stuff together, and I heard some men talking. I yell out, “What?”

They yelled back, “Yahoo, yoohoo,” or something like that. I kept asking, “What? What do you want?” Then I said, “Who is it? Yahoo, yoohoo.”

About that time my husband, Danny, came out of the house and said, “What? What do you want? Who are you yelling at?”

I said, “Weren’t you just yelling at me?”

He goes, “No. What were they saying?”

I told him the word they were saying, and that I kept yelling it back to them. He told me, said, “I’ve heard it said that that’s what these Civil War soldiers yelled when they went into a battle. I guess you heard them yelling it.”

I don’t wear perfume, but several times I’ve smelled stinky perfume in the house. I don’t wear perfume. This is just an old, musty smell that I smell when it seems that someone walks past me.

My husband has also smelled it. One time he was working on the steps, stripping the paint off. He said that he felt somebody walk past him, behind him, and touch him. Said it smelled like a woman that had old perfume on her, real bad, old stinky perfume.

See, our house was built about 1810, then was used as a hotel back in the 1840s. It was then called the Reed house. We always said that what we smelled must have been one of the old prostitutes that went down the steps.

I was downstairs one time, and my husband was upstairs coming down the landing. He said that he looked up and thought that he saw me crossing the landing. He said that whatever it was, was of my stature and was wearing bluish clothes. He said that he yelled up there at me and kept yelling at me. He come on down the steps, and said, “Were you just upstairs?”

I said, “No.”

He told me that he had seen a slight, young figure that he thought was me.

We always keep everything locked up in the hallway when we’re not home. Well, me and Mom was gone one day. When we come home, I looked in this big hallway, and I said, “Mom, what have you been cooking this morning?”

She said, “I haven’t cooked anything.”

I said, “Man, it smells so delicious, like fresh bread.” I could smell yeast and apple pies, and all that stuff. We’ve smelled that several times over the years.

And I can wake up at two or three o’clock in the morning, and I smell coffee. And my brother lived upstairs for a while. He said that he would wake up about that same time, and smell fresh coffee in the room.

Two years ago, my aunt Joyce and uncle Bill were down here from Cleveland. My uncle Bill stayed upstairs, and Aunt Joyce stayed downstairs. That morning after they got up and were getting ready to leave, Uncle Bill came down and said, “Something is wrong with my watch.” He said, “It has stopped, and it never has stopped before.”

About a half hour later, Aunt Joyce looked at her watch and exclaimed, “My watch has stopped, too, but it never has done this before. I don’t understand this.”

Most of the time that we hear or see things is in the fall of the year. I can be sitting in my living room reading, with the TV and radio off. My husband is at work. There is no family noise going on.

I can see shadows walking behind me there in the living room. And I can hear people talking much of the time. I’ll jump up and run outside to see who it is, but there’s not a soul around the place.

Last summer I was out in the yard reading. I’ve got two dogs, and I had them tied up to a picnic table. My mother had already left the house. She’d been gone about a half hour or so. So I’m laying there, and the dogs started barking. And there’s a big pillar that was sort of blocking my view of the porch. But I can see the dogs under the picnic table. Well, they’re looking right at the porch, barking and howling and carrying on.

I said to myself, “What’s going on?” I sort of leaned over and looked but didn’t see anybody on the porch. The next thing I heard was a loud, walking noise, like somebody with heavy boots walking across the porch. I jumped up and looked toward the porch. The dogs were still looking that way, too, barking and carrying on. I could see what looked like just a piece of plaid shirt go by. I got big goose bumps!

Three or four minutes later, Mom comes up the street. I said to her, “You won’t believe what just happened. Somebody walked across this porch with big, old heavy boots on: clump, clump, clump.’” The footsteps quieted down, and then the dogs quieted down. That happened in the summer of 1998.

138. “My Ghost Girl”

Jefferson County

I live on historical ground. My house is located about fifty yards from a very old house and barn. The house was built before the Civil War, and was a stopover for the Underground Railroad. That old house and property was the Union Army Cavalry Station. It was the overseer’s house. Today, it is much in need of repair, and the owner is undecided whether to keep it or tear it down.

During the several years that I’ve lived here next to the old house, I’ve been visited by “my ghost girl,” as I call her. One night I woke up with a start and saw a young girl, I’d say in her late teens, standing by my bed looking at me. I don’t know why, but she looked English to me. She is about five feet tall, weighs about ninety pounds, has fair skin, large dark eyes, and a very pleasant face. She had on a night cap, the kind with a ruffled edge. Her night dress looked like worn white material with faded brown tulips. She disappeared, but not for long. I wasn’t frightened or disturbed. So I just turned back over and went back to sleep.

When I told family members about what I had seen, the men in the family laughed. They said, “Leave it to a woman. She sees a ghost for only a minute, but can tell you exactly what the ghost wore.”

I woke up again one night with a start! She was leaning over me, almost touching my face. Nothing else happened that night, but a few months later, I saw her standing in my doorway. This time, she didn’t have on her night cap. Her curly black hair was parted in the middle and just reached to the bottom of her ears.

Another night I awoke, raised up in bed and saw this figure coming from the hallway into my bedroom, then head on into the bathroom. For a moment, I thought to myself, “That’s one of my kids going to my bathroom.” Then I realized that there was no one in the house but me.

At other times, my bed would begin to rock very slowly. When that happened, I’d think to myself, “Oh, here she is again,” and then she would gently punch my side. That happened about six times. And once she jumped up onto my bed and walked about three steps toward me, then flipped my fingers.

I tolerated all this, but she went too far when she began to scratch the mattress. The sound seemed to come from beneath the mattress and springs. That went on for about ten minutes. “Okay, this is enough,” I thought to myself. So I grabbed my pillow and went to sleep in another bedroom; didn’t go back to that room for two weeks. We turned the mattress to see if scratch marks were there, thinking it might have been a mouse. We put mouse traps in the room, but nothing came of it.

My daughter told her minister about this and told him that I was tired of it all. He suggested that I talk with my priest. Of course, my priest didnt believe in ghosts, but said that he would come and bless my house.

Shortly after that, one night I awoke with a start, and this time I was frightened. I jumped out of bed and turned on the light, then glanced at the clock. It was exactly twelve o’clock midnight. This girl’s ghost was floating in the air near the foot of the bed, going in the direction of the window. I said aloud, “In the name of Jesus Christ, go to the other side.” She disappeared, and I haven’t seen her since that night.

Who is she? It just may be that she is a former resident of the old historic house located next to mine.

139. “A Ghost Woman’s Flowers”

Pike County

This tale is from the lower Johns Creek area, down past Lowe’s Branch, over in Pike County. I got it some twenty-two years ago from a friend of mine in Boy Scouts, who in turn heard it from his mother who told it as a personal experience. I’ll not use her real name since she still lives in that area. I can tell you, however, that she is a white woman, born in Pike County circa 1940. She is well educated, and for years was a science teacher in the Pike County schools. We’ll call her Shelly, and here’s her story.

Not far below the hollow where Shelly grew up there was an old house down near the creek bottom. It was a two-story frame house with plank siding weathered in gray, and it had been abandoned for as long as she knew. She hadn’t heard any stories about it, but folks in that area always warned their kids to stay away from that old house, because tumbledown buildings aren’t safe places for children to be playing. But to the children, this only made the place all the more inviting. Still, Shelly was a mindful girl, so she stayed away from the old house like her parents told her.

One early summer day when she was about ten years old, Shelly and one of her girl friends went for a walk along the creek bank. They walked along down the creek for a bit until they came up behind the abandoned house, and what should they see but the most beautiful flowers growing wild in the old back yard. Shelly s friend said to her, “Aren’t those the prettiest flowers you ever saw! Let’s pick some to take home with us.”

“Well, no,” says Shelly. “My mamma said we shouldn’t go around that old place, so I couldn’t tell her where I got the flowers, and I can’t lie to her. Let’s just leave them here.”

“But Shelly, we wont go in the house,” she said. “Your mamma wont mind if we just pick some from the yard; why nobody has lived here for years, so who’s to miss them?”

So both girls went up and began to pick the flowers. They picked two handsome bundles of the prettiest blossoms, and when they had all they could carry, they decided to go home. They picked up their bouquets and were heading toward the creek on their way home when Shelly s friend glanced back and gasped, and that made Shelly turn around also. Coming out of the house was an old woman in an old-timey black dress, with big sleeves and a high collar. Her silver hair was pulled back tightly on her head, and she looked angry as she walked toward the girls. “What are you doing?” she said sharply. “Those are my flowers! You can’t have them, so put them down now and get off my property this instant.”

That was all the girls needed to send them flying home as fast as they could run, dropping their flowers behind them as they ran. They never looked back to see if the old woman gathered up the flowers, or if she went back to the house, or if she just stood there watching them run. When Shelly had stopped running and her heart had stopped pounding, she realized that while she had heard the old woman’s voice, she did not ever hear a door close, or footsteps, or skirts swinging as the woman walked toward them. And, of course, she knew that there was no one living in that old house, nor had there been for years. Not a living soul.

Shelly grew up, went to school and became a teacher. She taught for many years right up the road here, and she still lives on the creek, not far from where she grew up. The old house is still there, too, and she tells her own children not to go play around it, because it’s not safe. She’s never seen the old woman again, but she never picks flowers without asking.

You probably shouldn’t either.

140. “The Ghost of a Murdered Hired Hand”

Simpson County

Many years ago, there lived in the house in which my family now lives a woman, her son, and a colored hired hand. The son came in late from a ball game one night and cut the hired hand’s throat with a hatchet. No one knows for sure the exact motive. However, the most popular one is that the son found the hired hand in bed with his mother.

This being a rural community, everyone was aroused, and several people gathered around the house within a short time. They said that immediately upon killing the hired hand, the son took his shotgun and headed for Robey Swamp. He returned to his barn to sleep the next night and was apprehended.

His plea of insanity got him sent to an asylum instead of a prison. The boy is still living with his mother in the northern section of Simpson County.

Some of the people in the community were a bit superstitious and believed that the man’s ghost would haunt the house. Subsequently, in a short time all kinds of stories were floating around about the house being haunted. We heard these stories from neighbors within a short time after we moved in.

In the room in which the man was killed, blood is said to come up on the floor every time that it rains. There is a swinging door between the dining room and kitchen which swings sometimes when the wind blows just right. Some think that this is the ghost. There are big mirrors over the mantles in some rooms, and car lights can be seen flashing in them sometimes as there are roads all around the house. This is said to be another of the ghosts pranks. Other things, such as the brushing of limbs against the house give grounds for their ghost stories. One girl told me right after we moved there in 1946 that she wouldn’t spend a night in that house for one hundred dollars.

141. “The Haunted Mansion of Ransom Avenue”

Jefferson County

A long time ago, where Goodwin’s Garage is now, stood a very old mansion known as the Ransom property from which Ransom Avenue in Louisville takes its name. They offered anybody free rent to go there and live. So I thought that this was a good chance for me. So with a good .44 pistol at my belt I seemed to have no fear, though to everyone around there it was known as the haunted house.

I went upstairs and selected a room, and before retiring for the night, I took a two-by-four piece of timber and some spike nails and nailed this piece of timber against the door, put my .44 under my head, undressed, and crawled into bed.

About midnight, this noise woke me up. I set up real quick like in my bed and turned my flashlight on, but didn’t see a thing that would have made the noise. But I kept looking and finally the noise started up again. Suddenly, I could see that the timber was coming up a little at a time. I forgot that I had a .44. Anyway, I reached for my clothes, put them on in a big hurry, then raised the window and jumped out. And, man, I almost broke my neck when I hit the ground.

But I got up real quick and started to run away from that old house, and I didn’t stop running until I got back home on West Main Street. Believe you me, after that I was well satisfied to stay there on West Main.

142. “The West Point Lady in White”

Hardin County

Last year, there was a woman and a man who came to West Point from Illinois. She walked down to the river, then walked back to the house. There were a lot of people in the yard at the time. She acted real funny. Well, I was going out that night. She said to me, “Can I talk to you?”

I said, “Yeah, honey, what do you want?”

She said, “I lived here in this house in the 1970s, and my husband was in the army at Ft. Knox. I lived in Apartment One. Can I come in and talk to you?” I said, “You sure can.”

I took her in the house. Then she told me, said that she was in the kitchen doing some ironing when this happened. That was after a flood in the 70s. She rented an apartment. She said the ceiling in the kitchen fell, and her husband was in bed, and the bed broke. And she said that they moved upstairs temporarily.

The people that owned the house back then had a little boy, three to four years old. She said, “I was sleeping when this little boy got out on the back porch upstairs and knocked on the door. When I went to the door, he told me, said, “The lady in white kept me from falling off the porch.”

Now, this woman from Illinois told me all this. She knew nothing about the strange things that had happened here in this house.

143. “The Ghost That Sews at Night”

Metcalfe County

I’ve heard my mother tell about going to Aunt Rachel Kelly’s. I don’t know, but I think she was Uncle Jimmy Kelly’s wife. Tim Lee Carter would know; he’d know just exactly. There’s a place called the red house, up here in the edge of Metcalfe County.

And Mother stayed all night there that night. She said that it sounded like pistols would fire in the fireplace. She said there was something strange that would just whisper, whip across the floor, just like somebody a-walking all night. She said along about one o’clock that night the sewing machine went to sewing. Said she thinks to herself, “Well, what in the world is Aunt Rachel sewing for this time of night? Why it’s nearly daylight!” And said she could hear the cloth, hear it ripping and hear the scissors a-snap-ping. Said the next morning, said Aunt Rachel come and set down on the side of Mothers bed. Said, “Sara Bell, did you sleep good last night?”

“No,” she says, “there is some kind of racket here. I want to know what you was a-doing sewing on the sewing machine?”

“Why,” Rachel says, “Child, I didn’t use the sewing machine last night.”

“Well,” Mother says, “I thought, why would you be sewing at twelve o’clock in the night?”

Rachel says, “I’m going to tell you, none of my boys won’t sleep in this room.” She says, “They say that this room is hainted. I don’t know. Now, in the basement here under this room, there’s some people that were killed in the time of the Civil War. The blood stains are still on the side of the walls down there now.”

144. “Ghostly Noises and Other Things”

Allen County

David Calvert told this about the house he moved out of about thirty years ago in Allen County. It didn’t have as many odd things happening as his brother Phillip Calvert’s house off Kentucky 101. Former residents of this house have told numerous stories of pots and pans rattling in a built-in cupboard that had doors that flew open by themselves, a sugar bowl scooting across the table by itself, and a chair moving across the room by itself.

Phillip Calvert says some people who were building a closet found their tools dumped out and scattered on the floor when they returned from lunch, and a man who was painting and wallpapering heard a cabinet door open and pans fall out and dishes break, but found no evidence that it happened.

145. “Children’s Ghost Tale”

Hardin County

Once there was this great big, old, colonial-style mansion that was located out in the country. It was made of stone. And this family that had lived there, all of them died or had moved away. Finally, a family by the name of Tucker moved in.

They had a little boy. Everyday he would go to the kitchen, and he would cry when he saw that the cellar door was open. He screamed and cried until they shut it. So every time they went to the kitchen, they had to make sure that the cellar door was closed so that Danny wouldn’t start screaming and crying. See, back in them days, the cellar was located under the house right next to the kitchen.

Well, soon the little boy was old enough to go to school. So they took him to a psychiatrist. They told him that ever since the little boy was almost a baby, he was afraid to walk around by himself, that he was afraid the cellar door would be open. They had told him many, many times that they had put things in the cellar and that they had never found anything wrong with it.

So the psychiatrist said, “Let me talk to Danny alone.” Well, he was talking to Danny alone, and he asked Danny what he thought was in the cellar.

Danny said to him, “I don’t know, but I think it is something bad.”

He said, “All right Danny, that’s all I wanted to ask you.”

So the doctor fellow called the boy’s parents back in and told them to leave the boy in the cellar for at least an hour, with the light on and the cellar door open. They agreed to do that, and so a week or so went by before they did it.

In the meantime, the doctor told another doctor about it. The other doctor told him, said, “You better not do that because it may destroy the child. It may kill him because of his fright.”

So the doctor rushed over, but they had already put Danny in the thing. They didn’t hear a thing out of the boy. They didn’t know it, but the boy had been screaming and crying for a little while, then he stopped. When the doctor and the boy’s parents got into the cellar, they found him on the floor. He had fallen off from where he was sitting.

When his mother looked at him, she started screaming. The doctor looked at him, and he also yelled out a little. And the father started to cry. What they seen was Danny laying there on the floor all chopped up and everything. He was dead. And the cellar door was wide open. They could see the blood tracks on the cellar steps where something had walked.

Well, the doctor says, “I had no part in this. I didn’t say that you had to do it.” The mother and father just kept on crying. The mother kept on hollering, “Danny, Danny.”

The parents never went down in the cellar after that. Soon they sold the old house and moved away, but before they left they closed the cellar up for good. They didn’t want anybody to be hurt like Danny was.

Now, that’s a scary tale, whether it was a ghost or not.

146. “The School Teacher’s Ghostly Return”

Carter County

This is a story about a school teacher out here at West Carter Middle School. He was a real active school teacher, a young guy. He died real suddenly; just dropped over dead. They have a banquet out here at this school, have it every year. Well, this little boy was walking through the hallway out there, and he heard a noise at the trash can. He turned around and looked and he seen this teacher that had died.

When he went to his room and sat down in his chair, he thought to himself, “He’s dead.” So he got up and told his teacher about it. He said to her, “You’re going to think that I’m crazy but I just saw the teacher that died here.” She said, “No, you’re not crazy, because you’re not the only one who has reported that they saw him. Other people have reported seeing him, too.”

The thing about that trash can is that one year when they had a banquet out there, someone put a cigarette into the trash can and it caught on fire. This teacher took care of that fire. He put it out, and ever since that time that’s where they still see him. That fire had nothing to do with his death, but that is still where he is seen. He was a wonderful man; real active in school, and helped young kids all the time. He died about four years ago, but it was just back in May 2000 when the little boy saw his ghost.

147. “Weird Happenings in an Owingsville House”

Bath County

There’s numerous things that go on in this house in which we live there in Owingsville. From what we’ve heard, the house used to be used as some sort of convalescent home. It had about six bedrooms—four upstairs and two downstairs. There’s a full basement under the old house that’s kindly creepy. This old house is about one hundred years old.

We sleep upstairs, and the stairs always creak at night. Sounds like somebody walking on the stair steps. I keep thinking that it’s my brother coming in late at night. But when I get up to look see what’s making the noise, there won’t be anybody there. Sometimes when I go into the house, I’ll swear that somebody’s talking to me. But when I go into another room to answer them, there’s nobody there. And you can get lots of weird feelings, like somebody is looking at you. It’s just real creepy. And doors can be heard closing by themselves. One day a lady was there in one room, and we were in another. We heard a peculiar noise as this door opened by itself. Neither of us would go near that door and this other woman wouldn’t either. Suddenly, the door just slammed to. But nobody was there by it.

The strangest thing that happened has to do with my mother. She had liver cancer last year, and she passed away on January 12,1999. In the living room, there’s a screen door that doesn’t have a screen in it during the summer. Last summer I was standing there in the living room, and the air conditioner was on. A car pulled up on the outside, and there was a camper trailer setting on the other side of the street. I was standing there by the fireplace, looking out the window. I thought I saw reflections in the glass behind me. I looked around behind me, but whatever I saw wasn’t there. It was outside and it was my mom, who was almost translucent, walking across the carport in front of the camper trailer. She had been a nurse’s aide in a nursing home, and she always wore white scrub pants to work and a green button-up, short-sleeve blouse. She had red hair pulled back into a pony tail.

Well, I saw her walking. I didn’t realize at first what it was because it looked like a reflection in the glass. But when I turned, I watched her walk from one end of the camper trailer to the other end of this sixteen-foot camper trailer. I watched her for five or six seconds, and she made the whole journey across the carport there in front of me.

In that room that I was standing in is where she spent the last six months of her life. But things had been felt and heard there before our family moved into this house. From all indication, these sounds and other things are the result of the people who used to live here while it was a convalescent home.

148. “The Ghost of a Doctor Who Hanged Himself”

Bath County

There’s a haunted house in Salt Lick here in Bath County in which someone supposedly hung themself about fifty or sixty years ago. And this house wasn’t lived in for a long time, at least not all the time when I was growing up. I believe that it was a doctor that used to live there who hung himself on the stairway. Someone moved into the house about five years ago and remodeled it. So the house is still standing. It doesn’t fit the typical image of a haunted house, but it is big—a big brick house that’s close to a hundred years old.

I haven’t heard anything about ghosts there in recent times, but back when I was in high school ghostly things reportedly did take place. When I was in high school I ran around with some pretty mischievous kids, but they wouldn’t go near that house. They were afraid to go there. They had grown up there, but I hadn’t. I grew up someplace else, but none of them would go near that house.

149. “The Haunted Ambulance Service House”

Rowan County

What used to be the ambulance service house here in Morehead is haunted. This lady died there in this house. After she died, they moved the ambulance service into her house. Then they moved the ambulance service to their present location. When they were moving out of the lady’s house, one of the guys said, “We’re forgetting something. Open the back door to the ambulance and let the ghost in.” I think they were just goofing off, but they opened the back door to the ambulance and told her to come on and go with them.

So they invited her, and they swear that she came with them down to their new place and that she is still there. She moves chairs; she moves everything. I forget what they call her, but you can go down to talk with the ones who work there, the medical technicians and paramedics, and they will swear that she is there at their new place. They said that she was there at the old place and that she always haunted them, so they just invited her to come with them to the new place. And things that were happening at the first location are now happening at the new place.

150. “The Old McCrady House Ghost”

Edmonson County

This is a story of things that took place in the old McCrady house, which was located on a farm on the banks of the Green River at the end of Mt. Zion Road here in Edmonson County. Just who owned the property during the Civil War we don’t know. We do know that this ghost story has to do with the bloodstains of a Civil War soldier, who had been killed on the steps of the old house. His bloodstains would never wash up regardless of how many times the people who lived there tried to remove them. Family after family moved in there, but they never stayed long after seeing the old bloodstains and experiencing some weird, eerie things. Not only did the stains remain, the door would come unlocked even after they had double-bolted it and chained the locks. Early one morning not very long after midnight, Grandpa McCrady, who had spent the night with Aunt Joyce [pseudonym], was awakened by the door locks as they came unlocked with nobody there to touch them. That was back in the 1930s or 1940s. Aunt Joyce heard the noises, too, and she raised up and looked. What do you think she saw? She doesn’t want to talk about it, but she swears that as she stood there with the bed sheets wrapped around her, she saw the image of this person who was dripping with blood as he reached out and touched her with both bloody hands. Grandpa said that they moved out of that old house at 3:00 A.M.! Aunt Joyce still has those white sheets with the blood spots on them. The blood will not wash out.

That same aunt and her husband decided to try it again, and one night they had a couple of nephews to stay with them. When the ghostly soldier with the bloody hands showed up, they all took off. Too scared to stay. That also happened around three o’clock in the morning.

Before they all moved away for good, other things had happened at different times. On several occasions, something that sounded like a man on a crutch or walking stick walked from the fireplace in one room, then across the dogtrot breezeway to the fireplace in the other front room. That noise was heard every morning around ten o’clock. The family member who heard it would walk to a door to listen, but would see nothing.

On other occasions, a groaning noise could be heard coming from within the walls of the house near the fireplace, but the walls were actually of log construction, thus nothing could be hiding within. Another gruesome event took place about ten o’clock one night, when something seemingly jumped out of the upstairs loft and landed on the kitchen table. Dishes rattled just like they were all being knocked to the floor. The next morning when the family got enough courage to check it out, nothing had been disturbed. The dishes were still on the table.

Any time during the day, if and when family members left the old house, they always closed the door and buttoned it with a wooden button. That’s what they called the latches back then. One day when Ruth Lindsey and her sister went down to the branch below the house to wash clothes, Ruth closed the door and placed a trunk against it. When they came back to the house, the door was standing wide open. Now figure that out!

One night, while Ruth’s husband was at work, she heard noises at midnight. She took a flashlight and even walked out to the barn, then back to the house, but saw absolutely nothing. The noises continued, so Ruth finally gave up the search and went to her sister s to spend the night.

Ruth also told of the time when she was cooking supper and heard sounds just like someone throwing pieces of stovewood against the doors. Each door shook when they were hit. She went to the doors to see if she could see what was causing the noise, but saw no one there. Believe it or not, however, the broom that she had left on the dogtrot floor in the breeze-way was standing upright of its own accord.

The old McCrady house is gone now, but memories of the ghostly manifestations that occurred there will not die away soon.

151. “Angels on Earth Today?”

Edmonson County

A few years ago, I was in the air conditioning and appliance sales and service business. On numerous occasions I would receive service calls from individuals who wanted service done on an appliance for their mothers and fathers. One morning just before Christmas, I got a call from a Mrs. Bailey, who wanted me to check her mother and father’s refrigerator in a little community south of Chalybeate Springs. She gave me driving instructions and asked me to repair the refrigerator, or call her back if it needed to be replaced.

As she was providing me with instructions how to get there, I was drawing a mental map in my head. I thought to myself, “That house has been vacant for years and years.”

I decided to give it a try, and upon arriving at the house, I found that it was “very occupied” by an elderly woman and man. As I opened the screen door, I carefully checked the hinges because my mental picture was of the door hanging by one hinge, and at a very odd angle.

Everything seemed okay, and as I opened the door I saw that the man was lying in a small bed there in the living room. Unable to sit up, he looked very sick. As the lady led me to the kitchen, I had a distinct feeling and a smell of death.

The refrigerator was old and in terrible shape, not even running when I got there. I remember the thought came to me, as I labored to get the compressor going, that I could not charge these people, no matter what I have to do to get it going.

At some point during the hour that I was there, a girl about sixteen or seventeen came into the kitchen. I glanced at her and noticed that she seemed to be mentally retarded. I did not speak to her, but continued to work. Again this voice came to me, “You cant charge these people.” This was very distinct in my mind. I got the unit running after an hour and a half. I gathered up my tools and started to leave. As I was explaining what I had done, the lady was getting her small purse. I told her that she didnt owe me anything. The man spoke up for the first time and insisted that I let them pay because I had been there so long. I finally said to them, “Just accept this as my Christmas present to you and I’ll be happy.”

They reluctantly agreed, so I left. I was still not able to convince myself that this was the same house I had passed so many times and thought that it hadn’t been lived in for such a long time.

After returning home, I decided to call Mrs. Bailey and let her know that I had the refrigerator going. However, when I dialed the number, I get a message that this number was no longer in service. I called the phone company and was informed that the number had not been used for many months; also they had no record of a customer by that name. I couldnt stand it any longer, so I got in my truck and drove back to the house. When it came in sight, I was not really surprised to see a screen door hanging by one hinge, and some old junk laying there in the front yard. Its for sure, that old house was deserted and had been for many years. It was utterly dilapidated. The only thing I could think of was that the people I worked for in that old house were either products of my imagination or angels who had some mission to perform here on earth.

152. “The Swinging Ghost”

Marshall County

We owned a house on Highway 80 here in Marshall County near Aurora. There was a basement playroom which had swinging doors (barroom type doors). Every night when the family was all asleep, the doors would start swinging and wake us up. I would get up and start down the basement steps, and they would just stop. This went on night after night after night, until we tried not to pay any attention to it.

One night, a son woke up and saw a woman in a long dress and with long blond hair standing at the foot of his bed. He ran to my room, but when we hurried back to his room there was nobody there.

The ghostlike figure materialized on several other occasions, but this son was the only person who ever saw her. At that point, we realized that something out of the ordinary was definitely going on, something which could only be explained as supernatural. I took the swinging doors down and life in the house returned to normal.

153. “Inmates May Still Haunt Old County Jail”

Nelson County

When guests check into the Jailer’s Inn they are looking for an unusual overnight stay. The former Nelson County Jail from 1819 to 1987, now a bed and breakfast, provides guests with a look at the past. On more than one occasion those inside the inn have had the opportunity to look beyond the past and into the supernatural realm.

According to Paul McCoy, part owner of the bed and breakfast with his parents, Challen and Fran McCoy, it is not uncommon to hear people talking when he is alone in the building.

The McCoys purchased the jail in 1988 at a public auction. “It was in bad shape then,” McCoy said. The McCoys began renovation on the building and opened it as a bed and breakfast in 1989.

Since then, guests and employees have heard amiable spirits walk up and down the stairs and occasionally stroke a few keys on the piano.

“There used to be another jail in front of this building in 1797,” McCoy said. “That is why this building is back off the road.”

The oldest addition of the current building was built in 1819. It was used as the jail until the back part of the building was built in 1874. When the newest addition was created, the front part of the building became the jailer’s residence.

McCoy’s office is located in the old part of the building. “I keep the office door locked when I leave at night,” he said.

One morning McCoy unlocked the office door and found paper from his adding machine rolled off and in the center of the floor. “There is no way the paper could have come off without someone pressing the button on the machine,” McCoy said.

Since the door had been locked, McCoy thinks there may be a supernatural explanation to what happened.

McCoy is not the only person to have felt the spirits inside the building. “One day a tour guide was in the Dungeon Room and saw someone in the mirror behind her,” he said. “When she turned around, no one was there, but when she looked again she could still see them in the mirror.”

The Dungeon Room has often been the location of ghostly occurrences. It gets its name because it is where some of the jails worst criminals were shackled to the floor. One of the original shackles is on display in the gift shop.

“I had a tour guide cleaning that room a week or so ago,” he said. “She heard a woman screaming.”

When the tour guide investigated, she found she was alone in the building.

The sound may have come from one of the many inmates that died at the jail.

“There used to be a hanging tree in the courtyard before there were gallows,” McCoy said. “I have heard stories that a man hung out there haunts the Dungeon Room. Stories say he has a high-pitched scream. That could be what she heard.”

A guest reported an encounter with a man he believes had been hung at the jail. According to McCoy, the guest said he talked to a man dressed in period clothing for about fifteen minutes in the courtyard. The guest has been back twice since then, but the apparition has not been seen again.

Ghostly occurrences at the jail have been historically documented. A 1909 newspaper clipping that hangs on the wall states, “The Haunted Jail—Spirits Said to Hover about the Nelson County Bastille.”

The story of Martin Hill is documented in the article. Hill shot his wife at a neighbor’s house in 1885. Hill, who had been characterized as “unsavory and wicked,” was sentenced to hang at the Nelson County Jail.

Hill was never executed because before his hanging date he became terribly ill. According to the article, “Citizens who attended him in his last illness avow that his sufferings were the most terrible ever witnessed, and that during his moments of delirium his ravings and blasphemies were awful to hear.”

Inmates at the jail reported hearing Hills agonizing woes after his death.

A red globe light in the Colonial Room comes on by itself. McCoy says there may be a short in the light, but that doesn’t explain why the light repeatedly comes on between 3:00 and 4:00 A.M.

A guest woke up in the middle of the night. He needed to go to the bathroom,” McCoy said. “He was laying there thinking about how dark it was and the light turned on by itself.

Other guests have reported a baby crying throughout the night only to find the next morning there were no babies in the inn.

The inn has also hosted psychics. Nationally renowned psychic George Anderson was in Bards town a couple of years ago and spent the night at the jail.

According to McCoy, Anderson said there were definitely spirits in the building, but they seemed to be peaceful ones.

“There’s a lot of instances of things moving in the rooms,” McCoy said. “I try to rationalize things that happen here, but some things don’t have an explanation.”

154. “The Old Talbott Tavern”

Nelson County

Patti Acord has a new title to add to her business card—certified ghost hunter.

Acord, former manager of the Old Talbott Tavern, has a lifelong fascination with the paranormal. “All my life things have just happened to me,” Acord said. “When I was a kid I would see things, like kids standing around my bed asking me questions.”

“I would get in trouble with my mom because I would keep everyone in the house awake talking to those kids. My mom used to tell me they were dreams and sometimes dreams seemed real.”

As she grew older, Acord said she kept her experiences to herself. “I stopped talking about it because I didn’t want people to think I was weird,” she said.

Her fascination began to peak while she was working at the tavern. “One night I was working and someone told me a man wanted to see the manager,” Acord said. “At first I thought he wanted to make a complaint, but instead he had a question for me.”

The man asked Acord if the tavern was haunted. Acord said she was taken back by his question, but the man went on to describe a strange occurrence that had taken place in his room.

The guest went on to tell Acord he was awakened in the middle of the night to find balls of light floating over him. While they floated above him, the man could not move. When they disappeared, he was able to get out of the bed. “To my surprise the man wanted to stay in the room another night,” Acord said.

Acord watched in horror the morning the Talbott Tavern burned, and in an effort to document the devastation, she took pictures of the scene. When the pictures were developed she was shocked to see balls of light floating around the tavern site. “The lights are orbs [life forces],” Acord said.

… Protocol is important when studying paranormal activity, Acord said, especially when it pertains to taking photographs. “I always ask the spirits if I can take their pictures,” she said. “I let them know that I am not there to make fun of them.

Acord also makes sure false images aren’t created in her photos by dust, light or other circumstances….

Acord s most prized paranormal experience occurred one evening when she and some friends spent the night in the tavern after the fire.

“We decided to do an experiment,” she said. “We set up equipment like video cameras and tape recorders. When I played back a tape from that night I thought I heard a woman’s voice. I took the tape to the radio station where they have equipment to slow it down. When they slowed it down you could distinctly hear what the voice was saying. The recording began, ‘Welcome to the Talbott.’”

Acord said what fascinated her the most by the ghostly voice was she knows people today refer to the restaurant as the tavern, not the Talbott.

Acord speculates the voice may have been Annie Talbott, the wife of George Talbott who once owned the building. When George Talbott owned the building, it was referred to as the Neiman house. However, when George Talbott died in 1912, Annie took over the building and changed the name to the Talbott Hotel. “How proud she would have been to welcome guests to the Talbott Hotel,” Acord said.

One of the taverns current owners, Betty Kelley, said of the taverns paranormal activity, “A lot of people think ghost hunting or believing in ghosts is nonsense. I’m not totally convinced yet about the ghosts, but I will say that I am a whole lot closer to believing now than before the fire.” …

155. “Bloodstains on the Floor”

Jessamine County

Once we moved into a house in Keene owned by Mr. Parks. That evening the moon was very bright, and my husband was outside. Suddenly he came running in with his eyes as big as saucers. He told me that he had cast two shadows and that something was mighty wrong around here.

I went out with him to see, and when I was there he cast only one shadow. Well, I went back inside and began to scrub up blood in the kitchen. Before we had moved in, someone had been murdered in the kitchen. The blood had run across the kitchen floor and had stained it. I scrubbed and scrubbed, but the more I scrubbed, the redder the blood got. I used lye on it and everything else, but it just wouldn’t come up. So I gave up.

We went to bed that night, and all of a sudden the whole house began to vibrate. It sounded like all the dishes, pots, and tableware and the whole cabinet fell over on the floor….

We got up and lit the lamp and began to search the house, and lo and behold, everything was in its place, and there was nobody in the house. We went back to bed and tried to get some sleep. The next day we moved out of there.

156. “Miss Lucy’s Ghost”

Woodford County

My husband, Leonard Nave, and I purchased a house at 131 Blackburn Court here in Versailles from the estate of Dr. Alford Blackburn in 1961. Shortly thereafter, we began renovation of the foundation and downstairs. Some of the workmen said that they had always heard that the house was haunted. Since I’d never heard that, I paid no attention.

Later when we finished the renovating, my husband and I with our young son and daughter moved into three of the upstairs bedrooms. One particular evening around nine o’clock, my daughter who was about six years of age at this time, came to my bed and said that she couldn’t sleep. When I asked her why, she said, “There’s a woman in there.”

Thinking this was a child’s way of stalling bedtime, I asked her to describe the woman she saw. She told me that the woman had a big hat and a long dress with black roses on it. (Children usually don’t describe colors in black.) Chills ran up and down my spine, but I tried to make light of it and let her sleep in our room.

The next episode occurred when we remodeled another bedroom. I was expecting our third child. The whole upstairs was a mess so we decided to put the mattresses on the floor in the downstairs library. My husband was away on business. I laid down with the children to help them go to sleep. My daughter and I were facing the bookcases and my son was facing the other side. All at once he said, “Mama, there’s a woman over there.”

I said, “Oh, sure.”

He said, “But Mama, don’t you see her?’

I turned to look but closed my eyes. I was afraid that if I saw anything, I would never stay in the house. All I could say was, “Go back to sleep. I don’t see anything.”

A couple of years later, we had guests who were staying with us during a golf tournament. The children were staying with their grandparents. Our visitors stayed in our daughter’s bedroom. Since the room had four large windows, two at the front and two on the side, it was fairly light during the daytime. At night there was a streetlight nearby, so even if all the inside lights were off, it was never totally dark.

After the first night s stay, the wife of the couple came downstairs for breakfast. I asked her if she had a good night’s sleep. She replied, “Not very well. I got up during the night to go to the bathroom. When I put my feet on the floor, I looked down and saw another pair of feet. Then to my amazement, I saw them fade away. It really frightened me. I tried to awaken my husband. He said I must have been dreaming.”

Later in the day, my guest and I left the house to go our separate ways. When we returned, she thanked me for hanging up her clothes. I told her that I hadn’t done that, and that there had been no other person in the house. Or was there?

After doing a little research, I discovered that the original owner of the house was Judge William E. Ashmore, a second cousin to Chief Justice John Marshall. Through Judge Ashmore s second marriage to Lettie Lafon, he had two daughters, Mary and Lucy. They were spinsters who lived in the house, which was built around 1820. “Miss Lucy” was the one that supposedly was the lost soul wandering around the house on Blackburn Court. While I personally never saw any apparitions, I certainly felt “cold spots” and felt uneasy in certain areas of the house.

157. “An Encounter with the Supernatural”

Allen County

One night when I was in bed, it was around midnight, and I wasn’t sleeping that easily. Then I heard a sudden clash in the upstairs room, and I want to tell you that it scared the heck out of me! I was mainly scared because I was half asleep in the middle of the night. I did what any person would probably do: I went upstairs to see what it was. But before I took one step, I could see the door to the upper room was shut and the lights were off.

I went to see my grandmother and she was fast asleep, so I knew it couldn’t have been her. Well, I tried to forget about it and went back to bed. Little did I know what would happen next would change the way I believe in ghosts. As I tucked myself in bed I started hearing noises like someone hammering a nail into the wall. I really didn’t know what to think about it, but it was really there and I heard it. First, it was upstairs; then I could hear its footsteps coming down the stairs. The stair steps are very old, so I could hear it easily. Then I heard it in the dining room, then the living room. Suddenly, whatever it was, was now in my room. It was as if it were pounding on the walls, but the unusual thing was that my door was locked! How on earth could it have got into my room with the door locked?

One time it was in my face making all sorts of strange noises like hammering, clapping, stomping, and other noises I couldn’t recognize. At one point, I could feel the vibrations on the bed when whatever it was hit the wall. I hardly got any sleep that night and to top it all off a giant thunderstorm came through with terrifying lightning and thunder. When I got up the next morning, I asked my grandmother if she had heard anything like I did last night, and she said, “No.” When I told her what I had heard, she thought I was crazy.

Since then, many supernatural things have been happening, like somebody or something will be talking to me but there’s no one there. One night, I asked the ghost for me to dream about it, and that I did. In my dream, this thing had on a black coat and it looked like a woman. Just recently, I saw the same thing sitting in a chair in my room one night.

As I was sitting on the front porch one day, a large heavy flowerpot was lifted into the air by something, and then it was dropped. The wind most certainly couldn’t have done that. Then, one day my grandmother and I were walking in front of the church cemetery, which is right in front of the house, and she pointed to a grave and said, “That’s the man who built the house.”

I looked at the grave of this man who built the house. Whether he has anything to do with it or not, I don’t know, but to this day supernatural and unknown things happen. I have come to truly believe that the house is infested or haunted.

158. “Ghostly Tinkling of Bells”

Crittenden County

My great-great-great-grandmother, Rachel Blakely Travis, died in 1880 at the age of ninety-two. She is buried in the Piney Fork Cemetery here in Crittenden County.

She often entertained the children and older folks as well, by telling them accounts of her pioneer experiences. Here is a hair-raising footnote to the ghostly annals of west Kentucky.

On her fifteenth birthday, September 5, 1803, Rachel Blakely, with her parents and family, passed through Cumberland Gap. They settled just south of Pigeon Roost Creek in what is now Crittenden County. Not many months after they arrived, a herb doctor, an old man, died where he had lived alone in his cabin on Pigeon Roost Creek. Among his effects was a quantity of wool which came into the hands of the Blakelys. Clothing material was scarce in those days and had to be preserved carefully.

It became the duty of Rachel and a neighbor girl to card and spin the wool into yarn, preparatory to weaving it into cloth. As there was a spinning wheel and other equipment at the herb doctor’s cabin, the two girls took up abode there until they finished the job. It was not then unusual for two teenage girls to stay for days alone in a cabin deep in the woods, reached only by a trail.

Before going to bed their first night, as was the custom, they covered the fire with ashes so as to preserve live coals for rekindling next morning. After they’d settled quietly in bed, they began to hear a tinkling sound, like that of a very small bell. They got up, uncovered some coals, kindled a fire for light, and the tinkling sound ceased. They searched but found no cause for it. They re-covered the fire, went to bed again, and the tinkling sound resumed. Again it stopped when they kindled a fire. Time and again they got up, kindled a fire and always the tinkling stopped. Obviously, it was coming from something that could tell light from dark.

In those days, the belief in ghosts was universal. The girls had no doubt but that the spirit of the deceased herb doctor had returned to manifest his presence by simulating the sound of a bell. Whether they were scared, as most people are when they think spirits are present, family tradition does not say. At least, they did not swerve from their duty. They kept plying cords and sheel [binding cords into bundles of cloth], taking time off for only necessary household chores.

A bundle of small vials, tied with a string, hung from a rafter. They were doubtless intended as containers for some of the doctor’s medicinal concoctions. In sweeping the floor one day, one of the girls knocked the vials with her broom handle. They sounded like the bell the girls had been hearing at night. Examination revealed roaches in the bottles. These insects, being nocturnal in habit, lay inert in the light but scurried around when it got dark, thus swinging the vials against each other to make the tinkling sound.

159. “The Cries of a Starving Baby”

Allen County

Many people who worked at the now vacant Allen County War Memorial Hospital reported strange noises or unnatural occurrences while they were there. The only one that I personally experienced while working as a nurse there was hearing the crying of an infant when there were none in the hospital. Everyone talked about it, but as the new 11:00 to 7:00 supervisor, I thought they were just pulling my leg.

One night as I walked up to the nurses’ station in the old part of the hospital, all of the staff was standing around looking spooked. I asked them what was wrong. “Don’t you hear it?” one whispered.

I listened, and sure enough, there were the unmistakable sounds of an infant, complete with wails, gurgles, and sucking. I walked toward the hall where the sounds were coming from. “What are you doing?” someone hissed.

“It sounds funny,” I said. “If I find a baby, I’m going to feed it.”

As soon as I passed a room on the left the crying stopped. The room was empty except for two vacant beds. As hard as I searched, I couldn’t find an explanation, although I and others heard it often on different nights. An older nurse that I spoke to later said that the crying had been there ever since the child of an alcoholic mother died in that room after having been starved too long at home.

160. “The Old House near Temple Hill”

Barren County

When the kids were younger, my girls were sleeping upstairs and they hollered for me. They thought I was upstairs with them. They looked down at the bed covers and there was a lady in white, and they thought I had come upstairs. Well, I flipped the light on downstairs and come up, and they was scared to death. They said that they had seen a lady standing at the foot of their bed.

Well, one night my son was in the other room and he said that somebody touched him on the leg. Said he just laid there and hollered, “Help.” He could not move! He said something was touching him on the leg.

When he was a baby, my husband was at work. We were sitting on the love seat and I happened to look out to the kitchen and there was this lady in a black, checkered dress with an apron on, and why she had a hat on, I dont know. Well, she went from the kitchen into the other room. I got up to go in there to see about her, but there wasn’t nobody there. It didn’t bother me any. I just wanted to know why there was a lady in my kitchen going through the other room.

We’ve also had nights when something will walk across our bed, or sit down on the bed with us. It was there, but it hasn’t scared us any. There’s never been a time that we’ve been scared.

161. “The Temple Hill Ghost House, Continued”

Barren County

When Matthew (grandson) was a little boy, we were in the living room, and he was in one of the bedrooms just jabbering away. So I went in there and asked him who he was talking to.

He pointed his finger toward a corner, and said, “That woman.”

I didn’t see anything, so I started back to the living room. Then he pointed toward my mother’s picture and said, “That woman, that woman.”

So he was talking to my [dead] mother in the bedroom.

This old house we live in was built prior to the Civil War, at least part of it. And on occasion, we’ll hear music coming from upstairs. We’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and a radio will be playing music upstairs. But there isn’t anybody up there.

We don’t have any heat upstairs. We’ve got vents in the floor that the heat radiates through. On occasion, I can walk to our living room door and say, “Hey, turn it down; you are bothering me.” And the music turns off. We’ve laid there many a night and listened to the music, and we know there is nobody up there. And there’s no radio upstairs at all! There’s a child’s piano upstairs, and every now and then it will start playing. A person has to bang those keys to make them play.

There’s also one of these old wind-up Tin Lizzie Ford cars that plays music when you wind it up. We haven’t wound it up in years, but every so often you can hear it playing music.

One night, Dianna and I were lying there in our water bed talking. It was dark. Well, all of a sudden, somebody sat down on the side of the bed with us. It didn’t scare me or anything. All I said was, “There’s not room in this bed for three people. There’s a bed upstairs.”

It got up, and you could hear it climbing the steps on its way upstairs.

162. “The Guardian”

Woodford County

This family moved into a beautiful old home on a quaint little street in historic Versailles. It was a time of great excitement and joy for family members as each box was brought into the house. However, with each box came a delivery or a sense of anxiety and overprotection. The wife called out to her husband, “Why are you pacing there in the den while I am unpacking? The children are fine.” Even as she said that, she thought that it was so unlike him to be overprotective of the children like this, in fact to the point of pacing back and forth in the den.

Then his voice called out, “I am not pacing in the den. I am unpacking in the kitchen.”

The wife then wondered what she had seen and heard moving in the den if it had not been her husband, and why she had felt a weird uneasiness in the air. That same feeling soon became evident each time a new person entered the house.

Many visitors to this old home have described similar experiences. Early in their residence in this old house, they had a close friend from New York to come visit them. He just loved their children and spent each night rocking them and reading them books. As he reminisced with the couple later one evening, he gently confronted them with their apparent distrust of him with their children. He described an intense feeling of anxiety and said he felt as if he were being watched by a worried parent. He had not seen or heard anything, but described it as a feeling you would get from an overprotective mother. He said that the feeling he had was an uncomfortable, even a weird, eerie experience for him.

Over the years it became apparent that the ghostly presence stayed with the children. And still to this day, it watches carefully over the kids even though they are not aware of the ghost. However, in the past few years their older daughter has described catching the glimpse of a woman in her bedroom mirror at different times. But she has never been afraid of whatever or whoever it is.

The anxiety their ghost exuberated when they first moved into the house has now shifted to a more comfortable feeling. They imagine that the friendly woman’s spirit has learned to trust them as parents. Her ghostly presence has come to be integrated into the charm of their home, as well as appreciated for her continued devotion to protect and watch over their children.

“Airy Mount Bloodstain”

Woodford County

The house at Airy Mount on McCown’s Ferry Road was built in 1794-95 by William H.S. Field on land granted to him after the Revolutionary War. He brought his wife Sarah and two young daughters from Virginia to live there. One night in 1799 Sarah was found strangled to death with her own stocking at the bottom of the main staircase. Her husband, who was asleep upstairs at the time, was accused of her murder. He testified at his trial that he had come home from an evening at the pub in town, somewhat in his cups, and had gone to bed without rousing his wife. Nevertheless, he was found guilty of her murder and was subsequently the first white man hanged in Woodford County.

Many years later, a slave woman who had been close to Mr. Field, confessed on her deathbed that she had strangled the young wife in a fit of jealousy. To this day, there are bloodstains on the bottom stair at Airy Mount, and some folks refuse to sleep in the house.

Many times during the past few years, the Kelleys, as well as some professionals, have tried but failed to remove the ghostly bloodstains from the bottom staircase.

164. “Whew! A Scary Story”

Pendleton County

My grandfather was never one to consult my grandmother about many things. After all, being of the rational type, my grandfather looked at situations logically and made decisions based on what he thought. But my grandmother, being the irrational type, worried about everything about which she did not immediately jump to illogical conclusions. That being said, I think you might understand why my grandfather, for better or worse, always went out and bought new homes for his family without even mentioning the fact that he was intending to do so. If he had told Grandma, she would have fretted. If he did not, she would just complain, which seemed to suit my grandpa much better, for he could complain in return. They loved to argue.

One farmhouse that Grandfather bought in this fashion carried its own secret that Grandpa was very careful to keep from my grandmother. A man had shot and killed himself in the second story of this house. In order to explain the large stain that rested on the ceiling of their bedroom, Grandpa told her that something (other than a man’s blood) had been spilled on the floor above. For once, Grandma did not jump to conclusions, but instead she accepted that explanation and enjoyed their new home as much as she would let herself.

The facade worked well until one of my grandfathers friends came in for a visit not terribly long after they had moved into the house. During the course of the conversation, the man mentioned the stain and the horrid circumstances that led to it.

Grandmother was understandably spooked by this revelation, so she immediately wanted to move out of the house. However, Grandpa met this argument with one of his own. They were to remain there, and that was final. Whatever had happened in that house before had no bearing on them whatsoever. They’d already been there for a while and liked it, so why did knowledge of the man’s death change anything? Remember, Grandpa was the logical one.

Grandma calmed herself after a few days and fell back into her usual routine—until one night.

Around one o’clock in the morning on this night, Grandmother awoke to strange noises upstairs. She knew what—or should I say, who—it was. Quaking in her bed, with some difficulty she awoke my grandfather. She told him that she had heard the ghost of the dead man upstairs, to which my grandfather responded with a string of curse words.

After a few minutes of this exchange, my grandfather, seeing he was going to have to make a point, got out of bed and was heading toward the stairway. Grandma stopped him and made him take his shotgun, for all the good that would do. Grandpa, to appease her for once, did so. I cannot be sure that Grandpa was as brave as he said he was as he headed up the stairs. According to Grandma, I believe he might have been doing some shaking and quaking of his own; nevertheless, he headed up the stairs, gun in tow.

As he crept up the stairs, he heard noises—not noises of chains being pulled across the floor, or moaning, or any other weird, eerie noises that a ghost is supposed to emit—but scurrying. Confused, and a little frightened, he peered over the edge of the floor, not knowing what to expect. Would he see a bloody specter? Would it be a headless form? A white sheet? No, it wasn’t to be any of those ghostlike specters. Another frightening sight was to meet his gaze that night. He stood there in total amazement. The upper story of that house had been invaded by a large family of rats! They’re the ones making all that noise.

I personally would have preferred the ghost.

165. “Ghostly Footsteps on the Walk”

Pike County

This is an account of a Pike County haunting involving my mother and me. It happened back when I was just beginning to get up and toddle around. My parents moved our family into an old farmhouse on Johns Creek just below Meta. The house had once belonged to a fairly prominent local family who were cousins with my father’s side of the family, but it had been abandoned for several years following the death of the last son of the family.

The house was a big two-story clapboard affair with an “L” addition behind the main building, and after years of neglect, it was little wonder that it was locally regarded as haunted. My folks fixed it up nicely and moved into it about 1968, when I was two years old.

I never personally experienced anything of an uncanny nature while we lived there, but my mother told me about a singular experience she had the year after we moved in. I had been playing outside and was worn out, so Mom had laid me down for a nap on the front living room couch while she began preparing supper in the kitchen, which was on the far side of the dining room at the back of the “L.” She was washing vegetables in the sink when she heard running footsteps on the stone walk that ran from the front of the house around to the backdoor. The steps were light and quick, and she could hear hard leather shoes slapping against the broad paving stones. As a young mother, she immediately recognized the sounds of an energetic toddler on the loose, and she called out, thinking I had slipped back outside, “What are you into, Tykie?”

At that moment, the sounds stopped abruptly, and the kitchen door to the dining room closed with a bang—not simply closed, but slammed shut. Well, that got her attention in a hurry. She dropped her veggies, tore open the door, and ran through the dining room to the front of the house where she had left me.

And that was where she found me, still sound asleep on the couch. I had slept through the whole thing. She never heard those ghostlike footsteps on that stone walk again.

166. “The Golden Ring”

Nicholas County

This is a story my mother told me to be the truth. When she was a young girl still at home in the 1920s they lived back in an area called Hudnall Lane here in Nicholas County, just off Sugar Creek. She and her mother and an unmarried brother were at home. This was at a time when people used mostly fireplaces as light and heat. Earlier in the week, a lady was going to the hospital to have an operation, but she didn’t have a suitcase. My mother’s brother did have one. This lady told him that if she could borrow his suitcase, she would lend him a ring that she had as collateral in case something happened to the suitcase.

Well, he didn’t get it back, so he took the ring and put it on his little finger. Well, one night through the week they were sitting at the fireplace just minding their own business and just doing regular chatting. It was dark. Well, a light came out of the corner of the window and lit on the ring. Of course, they were very amazed at what the light was all about. They had no inkling of what it could mean, but the next day they got word that the lady had died.

Some people say that her ghost can be seen moving around through the house.

167. “Whistling Sounds”

Nicholas County

My mother told that back around 1920 she had older brothers, and one brother was married and had three small children. They had just moved from Fayette County back to the home farm in Nicholas County…. They hadn’t put everything away. They just sort of moved some things onto the back porch behind a door.

Well, one Sunday they heard a whistling sound coming from behind this door that went out onto the porch. They moved things and closed the door. Later, they opened the door and rearranged things to try to stop this whistling. There was no wind blowing, nothing. But there was this constant whistling sound.

Later in the day, one of the little nephews got very ill and they found out by questioning this child that he had gotten into some rat poisoning that had been stored in these things that hadn’t been put away. Mother told me that back at that time, some rat poison came in containers like a toothpaste tube. He had eaten some of this rat poisoning, and eventually the child died. When he died, the whistling went away. They never heard it again.

168. “A Ghost Looking for Treasure”

Robertson County

My mother had some experiences when we were growing up on a farm here in Robertson County on Central Ridge Road. We lived in an old house that is approximately 200 years old. It’s a frame house built around a couple of large log pens. I can remember my mother telling me that when she was alone in the old house, she would hear footsteps going up or down the stairway and then walking across the floor upstairs above the downstairs area where she was at the time. Of course, all old houses had creaks and noises.

There was a family named McDowell that lived there about a hundred years ago. The husband supposedly died in the house there. There is a story that he had stashed some treasure somewhere on the property. So I guess his ghost was back guarding the treasure. [Laughter]

169. “A Felt Presence in a Bedroom”

Robertson County

My mother, Mary Christine Duncan, had this experience that was extraordinary at the old house here in Robertson County. When no one was home but her, she was in an upstairs bedroom one time sitting on the edge of the bed. She was either getting up, or was going to bed. She felt the bed give like somebody else had sat down on it. She looked around, and nobody was there. But it sure did scare her!

170. “Ghostly Music in a Church”

Robertson County

This happened here in the Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, a church that was erected in the early 1900s. I’ve had two experiences! Nobody believes me but my dad, but I truly believe it. This past Christmas, I was decorating up there about 10:30 at night. Everybody else had left who were helping me decorate. I was the only one there.

There’s a door that goes between the baptistry and one of the little rooms there that’s kindly like a closet. The doors slide; don’t have hinges. It was very quiet in the church, but I know that that door opened and then it shut. Sounded just like it opened and shut. It got me a little scared.

Well, this past Sunday morning, I was opening up the church—turning on the lights, unlocking the doors. It was a little nippy, so I turned up the furnace in the hallway between the Sunday school rooms. Just as I did that, the organ played one note. It was like “beep, bee, bee, beep.” Well, just that one note was played, so I thought that someone is here just messing around with the organ. Well, I looked out there between the doors, and the organ cover was down, but the organ itself was turned off.

Well, I thought that was really weird. And everybody just kept telling me that it was probably a car that passed by and its horn beeped. But I thought, “No, it didn’t sound like that.”

171. “The County Line Haunted House”

Mason County

This is a very old house where Mason, Fleming, and Robertson counties meet. It s in Mason County, but I don’t know when it was built. Well, out in the yard there was an oak tree that had a horse bit on it. That’s where they tied up the horses back then.

I haven’t had any ghostly experiences, but my family members have. One day during the winter, my dad was sitting in his chair. Well, the lamp shade beside him there on the end table moved up a few inches and then it moved upward the other way. Then it just come back down.

Another time, the water turned on in the kitchen while he was in the living room. He had to go in there and turn it off.

My brother’s bedroom was upstairs. There was a door between my parents’ room and the hallway. He had to go through there. One night when he opened the door there was this blue light—a light that was something like three feet tall that he saw at the bottom of the stairs. It stayed there for a while, then all of a sudden it just disappeared. Needless to say, he didn’t go upstairs that night. Didn’t want to pass by where that weird light was located. He slept downstairs!

One night when he was upstairs in his room, he had this old alarm clock that set in the middle of his end table. He happened to just look over at the clock, and all of a sudden it just slid off the table and hit the floor.

There were always two rooms in that house that were really cold. They were located right above each other. One of them we called the blue room. It was always blue, so we used it as a storage room. Well, one time we had a cat that would go in every room except for that one. The cat could sense things.

Charles Fowler died there in this house years ago. After we moved out and other people moved in and completely remodeled the house, they’ve not had things like that to happen to them.

172. “Ghostly Footsteps on the Stairs”

Mason County

I’ve heard my brothers talk about this for years. I was too young to remember. They said that one night they were all awakened by these footsteps coming up the stairway in this really old house, located in the Tangletown community of Mason County. They said they could hear these steps cracking, coming up the stairway. They all looked toward the noise, but none of them said anything to each other. They could see this glowing figure of a head coming up the steps. It came up, but they were all just dead silent looking at it. Whatever it was looked around at each one of them, then walked back down the steps real slow like.

They whispered to each other, “Did you see what I saw?”

I’ve heard them talk about that many times, and they were dead serious.

173. “The Sulphur Wells Country Store”

Metcalfe County

“The Sulphur Wells Store has been in operation since 1898, when it was opened as the Brown Store. But that building burned in 1924 and the current structure was built at the same spot. That one was run by Ross Lambrith and his wife, Mary. Many years later, she married Gobel Hurt. Actually, Mary ran the store there in Sulphur Wells from 1907 to 1958. Six years ago, my wife and I bought the store and the house next door and moved into the house. Now, I don’t believe in ghosts, but some strange occurrences have taken place there in the store.

One day my wife was in the store, and she sat her coffee cup on the counter. Then it disappeared. She and Weldon Edwards, a regular customer at the store, were trying to find the cup when I walked into the store. They were searching everywhere. I said to them, “Is this the cup that you’re looking for?”

The cup was sitting right where she had first left it on the front counter. She and Weldon could not believe that it was there, as they had looked there and everywhere for that cup.

One morning, a jar of Sanka Coffee fell off the shelf to the floor and the lid broke. The seal did not break, though, so I set it under the counter. About four or five months later, a customer came to the store and wanted to buy a jar of Sanka, and all I had left was the one under the counter. I told him that it had a broken lid but an unbroken seal, so he bought it. Nothing happened during those four or five months, but the next day after the coffee had been taken from the store, Mary Hurt’s ghost did one of her favorite things. Now, I say Mary Hurt’s ghost because this ghost seems to have a good sense of humor and is not scary. Anyway, she turned the light off on me in the back room. I think that Mary felt bad because she had broken something. She didn’t bother us for a while, but just as soon as the coffee was sold, she was back to her regular tricks.

I guess my first experience with Mary Hurt’s ghost was when my wife and a customer whose name is JoAnn were sitting at the back table and I came walking down the aisle from the front of the store. I was talking to my wife when an ashtray on the table between us jumped up past the silver napkin holder, did a flip in the air, landed on the table, and rolled around a bit. The sound distracted me. My wife and JoAnn saw what happened and they still talk about it.

On another occasion, I was making biscuits when I got a feeling that I wasn’t alone. I looked up and around, then caught the glimpse of someone in the store. It was a man walking up and down the back aisle stopping and looking at stuff on the bottom shelf. The man had on a cap that snapped down in front, and a coat with leather elbows on the sleeves. When I asked him if I could help him, he didn’t answer. I looked at my biscuits, then back toward him, but he was gone. I went to the door but it was still locked. I was telling what happened to a lifetime resident of Sulphur Wells, and he told me that I was describing one of Mary Hurt’s relatives that used to come down from Louisville to visit. He was deaf and dumb, and all he did while he was here was walk up and down the aisle.

I was at the sink one evening after I had closed and locked the doors. The sink is kinda low, so I was leaning over the sink washing pans. I felt someone was there, so I looked under my arm and saw a woman’s dress, a black or blue print dress, with a slip hanging out pretty long beneath the dress. She had on soft, dark shoes like a nurse’s shoes, and her stockings were bagging down. I turned and looked over my shoulder then, but I didn’t see anyone there.”

The store owner mentioned what he had seen to one of the customers, Weldon Edwards, and Edwards told him that he had described how Mary Hurt always looked. The store owner had never seen a photo of her, or heard how she was dressed.

Donna Chasteen, an employee at the store, provided the following account of her encounter with Mary Jane’s ghost: “I had worked at the store for about a year, and one day I was making a milkshake. I had taken the container of ice from the refrigerator, sat it on the counter, and made the milkshake. When I turned around from mixing the milkshake, I reached to put the ice cream up, but it was gone from the counter top. I looked in the refrigerator but didn’t see it anywhere. When the owner’s wife came into the store, I asked her if she had seen the ice cream. She told me that she hadn’t. We looked again in all the freezers and still didn’t find it. Four days later, the owner was making breakfast, and when he reached into the freezer for the sausage, there was the ice cream there on top of the sausage. He asked me when I got to work that morning why I had put the ice cream on the sausage. I told him that I hadn’t. I told him of how his wife and I had looked for it and never found it. Then he said that he guessed it must have been Mary Hurt’s ghost. Now, that sure was strange.”

174. “Electricity or What?”

Metcalfe County

About eight years ago, a neighbor who lived across from my aunt Pearl’s house called me late one night. Aunt Pearl had been dead for four to five years at that time. The neighbor that called said, “There’s a ghost in Pearl’s house.”

She said she could see a light going off and on. I checked the house for the meter, but there was no meter. No one had lived in the house for several years and there was no meter. I then checked for an extension cord to make sure someone wasn’t pulling a prank, but there was nothing leading to the house to indicate the possibility of electricity. By this time there were about twenty people gathered outside the old house.

I went back home and got a ladder and climbed to the outside bedroom window of Aunt Pearl’s bedroom. I was pretty scared about what I might see when I got to the last rung of the ladder. The light in the bedroom was bright but did not appear to come from the bulb. I yelled down and said I didn’t see anything but the light. Someone said, “Check the closets.”

But, now, I didn’t want to go into that house, so I just called the electric company, and a man came out. After looking, he said that he couldn’t find any way that electricity was hooked up to the house. But he said that they had seen where new houses under construction would sometimes do this, and found it to be where lightning struck the wiring and the lightning would run back and forth between two wires with a switch at both ends. Eventually, the light would die out. That’s the only thing he thought it could be.

The light eventually quit. I don’t know what caused that light in Aunt Pearls house but I do know it was a mystery and nearly everyone in Sulphur Wells saw it.

175. “The Lady in White and Other Ghosts”

Washington County

The house stands, dilapidated and unassuming, atop a hill on Long Run Road. It looks like any other abandoned house. But it’s more than that.

It has been a link for six generations of the Cocanougher family. It has also served as a link to something else, something more mysterious than a family bond.

Over its existence, which spans nearly two centuries, the two-story house has also been home to several ghosts. A lady in white, thought to be a family ancestor, a Civil War soldier, and various other ghosts and odd phenomena have made their presence known at the house.

Built in 1838 on land acquired by Jacob Cocanougher in 1797, the house has been abandoned for around half a century. The last family to live there, Bill and Ruby Cocanougher and their four children, have seen and heard the ghosts. Bill Cocanougher, now deceased, never tired of telling stories of the ghostly lady in white, according to relative Mike Crain. “Bill says, being alone in the house, he would hear a noise, go check and find a woman dressed in white … standing at the top of the stairs or on the stairs,” Crain said.

Bill’s son Bruce also saw the ghost, according to sister Connie Johnson. “My brother had just come home from school, and he heard a noise. He opened the door and saw a female going up the steps in a solid white dress,” Johnson said.

All the sightings confirm that the ghost was a young woman who wore a white dress. That much is clear. However, what is not clear is who the ghost is. “They have all commented on how pale she looked and that her white dress looked like a funeral shroud,” said Bruce Cocanougher. “Her vision only lasts a few moments and then she disappears.”

Many believe that the ghost is Mattie “Matt” Cocanougher. Matt was Bill’s aunt. Her family lived in the home in the late 1800s. Her grandfather had built it.

The haunted Cocanougher House. (Photo by James Roberts)

Matt grew ill with fever, and doctors could do nothing for her. She died nearly a year later at the age of seventeen. The year was 1878. Presumably, she died in the house. But it doesn’t end there.

According to Johnson, there was no shortage of odd occurrences in the house. “There were all kinds of things that went on,” she said. “All these years, that house was supposed to be haunted.”

The haunting may have begun when Jacob Cocanougher, the original landowner, began to sow his garden. “From the moment his plow point lay the first furrow in that chosen field, he realized he had disturbed the site of an ancient Indian settlement and most likely their sacred burial ground,” Cocanougher said. There have been hundreds of Indian artifacts found on the land. Some also claim to have heard sounds like the beat of war drums off in the distance. Others have heard the sounds of heavy footsteps and dragging chains on the stairway. Cocanougher says this could be sounds of the ghosts of slaves. “It is said that slaves who disobeyed or misbehaved were severely punished in the north upstairs room.”

On October 7, 1862 a regiment of Confederate soldiers came to the Cocanougher house looking for water in the midst of a drought. They were directed to a limestone spring where they drank the water and filled their canteens. One soldier left a cup as a token of appreciation. The next day 7,500 soldiers died in the Battle of Perryville. Since then, the ghost of a Confederate soldier has been seen in the house. “A Confederate soldier has been seen in the old house as recently as June 1954 when one of my sisters awoke and saw him at the foot of her bed,” Cocanougher said.

But not all of the supernatural goings-on at the house can be explained. In the late 1920s, Bill Cocanougher and his brother Herman were working on the highway crew. They had to get up early enough to walk the four and a half mile trek to the work site. Awaking one morning to daylight and noting that the clock had apparently stopped at 3:00 A.M., the two men rushed to get ready.

As they began walking down the road, they noticed a bright glow like a fire below the house. As they grew nearer, the glow began to fade until it was gone. It was now totally dark outside. The two stumbled back to the house, realizing that the clock was indeed right and that the glow had fooled them into thinking it was morning. The next day they investigated the area where the light was and found everything was completely burned and scorched black. Bill, Ruby, and their children moved out of the house in 1958 and into one just below it. No one has lived there since.

Shortly after the move, daughter Scotty Cocanougher Clenney and a sibling returned to the old house to get some things left behind. They had left the front door open. The floor beneath it was swollen and the door could only close if it were forced.

While the two were upstairs, they heard the door closing, scraping the floor along the way. Because of the force required to close the door, Clenney knew that the wind could not have done it. Thinking it was the ghost, the two ran out of the house quickly. Their father returned and found nothing.

Johnson remembers a similar incident. “We were eating one evening and we had the door open,” she said. “The door just slammed shut. That just couldn’t happen.”

The doorway, incidentally, stands adjacent to the stairway on which the lady in white was often seen.

The house has fallen into disrepair now. It is empty save for a few family relics and, appropriately enough, a small black cat.

The house is probably unsafe to enter, Johnson said. Therefore it is likely that as the house slowly erodes, so will the legend of the lady in white and the other ghosts in the Cocanougher home.

“We intend to keep the farm in our family throughout our lifetimes and will probably put it in a family trust and at our deaths, allow it to return to the wilderness it was when Jacob Cocanougher first saw it in the late 1700s,” Cocanougher said.

176. “The Haunted Trailer”

Carter County

Back about 1976, my husband and I, along with our six children, lived in a mobile home in a Carter County hollow called Greasy Creek. We had heard about another mobile home that we could buy cheap, and in a better condition than the one we lived in. My husband went and bought it. We parked it up in the hollow above us just a short distance from a hog pen where we kept a couple of hogs.

The first unusual incident would always occur when my husband went to feed the hogs. He would hear the sound of a large object falling in the trailer, but when he would go to look, everything was in its place.

We took an iron bed out of the new home and put it in the old trailer in which we were still living at the time. Three of our girls slept in this bed. One of the girls said she didn’t want to sleep in the bed anymore because it woke her up every morning around 5:00 A.M. by shaking, and the covers would come off of her body. We thought it was just her imagination, so we continued the same sleeping arrangements.

During the day when the kids were all in school, except for our youngest, I would notice that the bed was working its way from one side of the room to the other. Several times during the day, I had to go shove the bed back in place. I told my husband about this and suggested we have our home checked to make sure it was level. He and a neighbor friend of ours put a level on it but it was level.

Our daughter who was not in school yet loved to watch a certain television show. While she did, I decided to lie down on the bed to get a few moments of rest. I had barely closed my eyes when I felt the bed sink down real easy. I smiled to myself, thinking she was trying not to wake me. So, smilingly I reached out my hand to touch her, but no one was there. I immediately rose up in bed to look around, and I saw a fog in the hallway, something like a white mist. Well, I got up to look for Missy, and there she sat right where I had left her there in front of the TV.

A few days later I told the kids that we were going to the laundry mat and to go ahead and get into the car. On the way out, I stopped in the bathroom to make a finishing touch on my hair. I then heard what I thought was all six kids jumping on the bed. I was angry, so I threw down the hairbrush and stormed around the corner, saying, Til whip everyone of you kids for jumping on the bed. You know better than to do that.”

When I looked into the room, no one was on the bed. I raised the bottom of the spread to see if they were under the bed, and no one was under there either. I ran hysterically out of there and threw myself into my husband’s arms. The kids were there in the car and had been all along. Well, we took that bed down.

My mother didn’t believe in ghosts or anything, so she said, “Bring the bed down to my house and I’ll use it.”

I went down to her house about a week later and saw that the bed was gone. I said, “Mom, where s the bed we gave you?”

It had been in my brother’s room. He spoke up and said, “We took it down because it wouldn’t let me sleep past 5:00 A.M.” He knew nothing of what had happened in our home. He went on to say that the bed would shake until he woke up. We found out later that the trailer had been owned by a man who had been murdered in it. Mom put the bed out in the smokehouse, and that building burned down.

We always thought that the smokehouse was robbed before it was burned. I’ll always wonder if somebody took that old bed, and what happened to them if they did.

We sold the trailer before we ever lived in it because Mom was hard to convince. She wasn’t afraid of anything, so she stayed all night and camped out in the haunted trailer with the kids. The next morning, she came down and said to my husband, “Thanks for knocking on the door all night and keeping us awake.”

My husband told her that he had not been out of our home all night. That’s a true story.

177. “Ghosts in the Pretty House”

Monroe County

My uncle Heck and his wife Blanche lived in this fairly large, old, white, part-log house that was located in Monroe County just across the state line from Clementsville, Tennessee. They always called their home the Pretty House. My uncle was one of the early Church of Christ ministers in that area.

Wonder if a ghost still lives in the Pretty House? (Photo by the author)

Back when they lived in the Pretty House, it was a commonly accepted belief that it was “hainted,” to use the word they always used. My uncle always said that a man died in that house after he had been “bled with leeches” all over his body for medicinal purposes.

My daddy had not married at that point in time when my uncle and aunt lived there. Because of the tales they always told about haints, Daddy said that he slept with his head completely under the cover every night. When they told these old scary tales, he didn’t know what to think or what to do. Even in later years when I personally heard my uncle tell these scary tales about the Pretty House, I was also scared. Everyone that lived around there back then believed that the house was really haunted, probably by the man who lay a corpse in the house after he died from the bloodsucking worms.

One of the happenings my uncle and aunt always talked about was the time when they were sound asleep that a big ball of dough fell from the ceiling onto their bed. When they lit the lamp to see what it was, there was nothing there to be seen.

They’d also hear chains being dragged along the upstairs floor and throughout the entire house. Their innocent dog Queen always got the blame, when in reality, she was not in the house and nowhere in sight.

They claimed that after dark, they would often hear “every dish in the house breaking,” but when they’d strike a match to get some light, they didn’t see anything strange. They say that they used up all their matches that night trying to investigate the noises and other strange happenings. They ran out of matches, though, as times were financially rough and matches were hard to come by.

Once a family member was near the clothesline in the back yard, and something “fought him hard.” And numerous other times, chairs could be heard or seen rocking there in the house, but no one was near them.

On another occasion, Aunt Blanche put a button on a door, due to her inability to keep it closed. The “haint” situation caused her to use two nails instead of just one as typical. I suppose she thought the extra nail would take care of the problems caused by the ghost.

I guess the worst thing to ever scare them was the time a big, hairy monster-like thing was looking into the house through a window. Then it disappeared, but not until they both had seen it. But that’s not much worse than the floating hands that all family members claimed they saw several times after dark. The ghostly hands would suddenly disappear if and when someone tried to reach out and touch them.

After hearing these stories about dark one night, my sister, who was two and one-half years older than I and full of mischief, hid behind the backdoor where we lived. She was scared, but she knew that I was really frightened after the ghost story session. At that point in time, Mama sent me into the old, dark house to get a bucket of water. I had it full and could hardly carry it. My sister jumped out on me, and I threw the bucket of water into the air. It came down on both of us. She was wet but I was soaked! So in an effort to avoid getting into trouble and being filled with panic, she had me to take off all my clothes. She turned on the oven and tried to dry my clothes. Well, she scorched my clothes while drying them. Naturally, Mama didn’t think that was funny, nor did I!

My daddy and Uncle Heck had two other brothers, Jim and Joe, who were going to be “tough fellers” and stay in that house all night to check it out. Well, I guess they took all they could take from the ghostly things that night, for they got up and left there at midnight!

Uncle Heck and Blanche lived in the Pretty House for about a year, 1924-25. That was about the longest anyone lived in that house after that man had died because of the bloodsucking worms. Their son James lived there with them, but he died as a child soon after they moved. Their first daughter, Ora, was born in that old house. Another daughter, Mary Addie, remembers hearing a lot of talk about things, and especially that is was referred to as the Pretty House. And Ernest, the youngest child, recalls hearing his daddy tell about a white hand that appeared one night on the bed, lying there between their heads. They both saw the hand. Ernest also recalls hearing sounds on the stairway, as if someone is shackled, going, “thump, thump, thump,” down the steps.

After they moved out, the old house was finally torn down because nobody wanted to live with the “haints.” I’ll never forget all those scary things that Uncle Heck and Aunt Blanche always told as realistic happenings there in the old Pretty House.

Corky, who was another son of Heck and Blanche, still wonders if his father became a preacher because of the weird things that happened in that house. He claimed that his daddy probably did a lot of praying because of all those spooky things that happened while they still lived there.

When Uncle Heck and Aunt Blanche moved from the haunted Pretty House, they thought they were leaving the ghosts behind forever, even though they didn’t move very far from there. It wasn’t long until strange, unexplained events began to take place in their next house, too. Lots of noises and lights were heard and seen there, and always without reason.

They soon left that house, too. After they moved away from there, a woman who was a midwife moved into that same house. One day as she was leaving to go deliver a baby, something fell from a big sugar tree there in the front yard, making a mournful, moaning sound as it fell to the ground.

The author and I interviewed the current owners of that second house, Mr. and Mrs. T.D. Wilson, who permitted us to take pictures and visit the old deserted house and yard. The Wilsons feel that there is an explanation for the strange things that took place on this property. They said that a Ms. Mabery was the last person to live in that house, and that she died inside. That happened before they purchased the property.

One of the Wilsons’ family members tried to spend the night upstairs in that old house a few years ago, soon after they had bought the place. Unexplained lights and noises were so scary that he was too frightened to spend the night there, so he got up and left in the middle of the night. Even though the Wilsons claim that they don’t believe in ghosts, they offer no answers; just questions.

In conclusion, let me say that Uncle Heck and Aunt Blanche moved from this second house to a third house, all within the same neck of the woods. Their third house was located astraddle the state line, so believe it or not, they ate their meals in Kentucky and slept in Tennessee.

I know of no ghost tales associated with this last house. Perhaps the “haints” weren’t comfortable with the constant changes from state to state. Could it be that they were only Kentucky ghosts?

178. “Please Go Away”

Fleming County

My friend Alma and her husband, Buck, moved into a large house in Fleming County. The house at one time had been part of a large agricultural estate tended by slave labor. It was a spacious home with large rooms and numerous windows and doors. The dirt basement had once been a holding place for disobedient slaves. The posts still stood where the owners long ago had chained the slaves to whip them for their transgressions. No one could explain why these posts were located inside the house. Perhaps some thought the punishment was so severe that the landowners didn’t want their neighbors to know. Others thought slaves were kept there unknown to the law after they been legally declared free. The house had been rented many times over the years and even changed owners numerous times.

On the day Alma and Buck moved in, Alma stood in front of the hall and told her husband that she felt a strange feeling that she could not explain. From that day onward, she heard strange sounds. There was distinct moaning and groaning coming from the dingy basement. She felt rushes of wind around her feet sometimes as if someone were moving quickly past her. At night, she continued to hear doors closing like someone was wandering through the house opening and slamming the doors. After a night of listening to all of this, she would come downstairs to find all her pictures turned face down on the tables. She questioned the landlord about these things, but he assured her no other renter had ever mentioned such happenings.

One day while Alma was hanging out clothes, she heard the shuffle of feet behind her and a voice that whispered, “Hello.” Turning around to greet her visitor, she found no one there but did feel a distinct presence. She became angry, as she was tired of these daily confrontations with the ghosts of this house and intended to put an end to it. She rushed into the house where Buck sat drinking some coffee. She yelled out, “We are moving away from here!”

He protested, saying he liked it here, but she was firm. She started packing small articles right away…. She remembered a couple of large boxes in the attic that she had put up there when they moved in. Deciding that she needed them now for her packing, she carried these large boxes toward the stair door. Suddenly, she bumped one of the boxes against an old stand sending it reeling on its legs. A large antique picture frame fell smashing to the floor. She picked up the frame and found it had a picture in it, but it had been turned backward, facing the back of the frame. Only the white cardboard showed. As she plucked the picture from the bed of broken glass, she saw it was a young woman. Her light-colored hair was pulled back away from her face, similar to the way Alma wore hers. In fact, the facial features resembled Almas. This caused Alma to leave there in a hurry, but not before she felt that sudden rush of wind again.

Alma and Buck moved the very next day to a house in the same small community, thus enabling Buck to keep his job on the nearby farm. Alma was still curious about the old house and why the ghost had chosen her to pick on. She began questioning everybody with whom she came into contact about the history of the house.

Over a period of many months, she pieced together the story. It was said that the landowner and his wife had gone there to live after the death of his father. The father had willed the large estate and all the slaves to his son. An old slave woman called Mamie was in charge of the slave workers in the house. She lived in a small room behind the kitchen. Mamie took a liking to a young slave boy names Jessie. She gave Jessie the job of carrying wood into the house for the night s supply. After he had finished his chore, she would slip him into her small room and carry him food from the master’s kitchen.

The other slaves were jealous of him and the extra food he got. They began talking about his relationship with Mamie. “You cant be going there to see old Mamie. It must be the mistress of the house.” Eventually, the talk got back to the young husband. He called Jessie and his wife into the parlor and confronted them with what he had been told. Jessie denied everything, and of course the wife knew nothing. Furious, the husband forced his frightened wife and slave into the cellar where he tied Jessie to the post and made his wife watch as he proceeded to whip him until he hung limp from the post. He then forced his wife into the freezing temperature without even the benefit of a coat. She was lucky enough to be rescued by a passing neighbor, but not before she suffered frost bite and near fatal pneumonia.

Mamie, in order to save Jessie from more punishment, confessed what she had done. The husband, sorry now for his deed, begged his wife to return, but she was outraged and refused to do so. The young landowner had lost his wife and scarred a good slave for life. He found it too much of a burden to carry, so he locked himself in the parlor and committed suicide.

So he is likely the one whom Alma heard making noises, moving furniture, or felt so many times, after moving into the old house.

179. “Ghostly Knocking Noises”

Magoffin County

About seven miles from Salyersville, out on Elk Creek, is this house where I used to live. It was a three-story house, and my parents and us five kids lived there about sixteen years ago. We lived there for about a year. Never had any problems until the second winter that we lived there. There was a knocking at one particular door. This old house had five doors to go in and out of that house. One of the neighbors, a Ward, owned the house. Well, there was a big knocking at one of the doors after we went to bed. That door was right next to my brother’s bedroom.

My dad and brothers went outside with a shotgun. There was snow on the ground, and you could see their tracks in the snow. But there was never any tracks of anything else around the house. My brother even went under the porch, underneath his bedroom where that door was, and lit the lantern. Didn’t see anything. He checked it all out the next day, but nothing there.

That noise went on every night for about a week, and they would go outside but nothing was there. Well, Dad and Mom started asking personal stuff. They found out that an old man—a preacher—lived there at one time. He was the first person to live there….

Dad kept asking all these questions of the neighbors…. He found out that the preacher had died, and they had his funeral there in the house. And later on, there was a child that died, and its funeral was held there in the house, too.

Well, after we kept hearing that knocking, we didn’t stay there any longer. We left! We stayed gone after that; would not go back in that house. And nobody else ever moved into that house after we moved out. Eventually, they tore it down.

The neighbors knew nothing about those knocks, but the old house had been deserted for many years before we moved in. My parents never knew who or what the ghostly knocks were, whether they were those of the preacher or not. My dads mother died later on, and Dad thought that maybe the sounds were premonition signs of her impending death.

180. “Woman’s Ghost Seen on Porch”

Ballard County

My mother told me this when I was a little girl back around 1915. Said there was a little country lane or road here in Ballard County that had only two houses on it. An elderly lady lived alone about a half mile down the lane, while a young couple with several children lived at the far end of the lane, or about a mile from the main road.

The old woman died, and the family of neighbors came and sat up with the corpse all night, just the way people used to always do this. They buried her the very next day. The day after the funeral, one of the little ten-year-old neighbor boys went walking by her house and saw her standing there on her front porch. She was dressed all in white, and a gold light shone all around her. That like to have scared the little boy to death, so he ran back home and never went back down that road again.

181. “The House on Frame Springs Road”

Powell County

This house I’m talking about is located on Frame Springs Road here in Powell County. It’s got to be at least a hundred years old. The story goes that there was a young lady that died in the house while giving childbirth. When she passed away, she came back to protect her daughter. She was very protective of girls. The house that she passed away in burned down, and she came to the very next house that was right next to hers. She still lives there today; still haunts that house.

When my boyfriend’s sister was a little girl, she got really upset because she got punished. Her brother came in and was teasing her, and he was slapped. Said it felt like it was the ghost that actually slapped him. He came out of the house and actually had a print on his face where she had slapped him. His sister swore that she never touched him.

His sister could communicate with this ghost, and says that she’s beautiful. And if a house gets burned down or torn down, she will meet you in the next house. She is really friendly and takes up with women. They say that you can feel her presence. It is said that she is very protective of a woman or a girl child. I’ve never seen her, but they say she is just beautiful. I’ve felt her but have never seen her. You can tell she’s there.

My boyfriend’s father got real suspicious. They have an upstairs attic, and they said that overnight it seemed that the attic door was constantly getting opened every night. The nails would always be pulled out of the hinges. So they took the rubber bottom off some old tennis shoes and nailed them up on the door to try to keep the door shut. Said he come back the next day and the soles of the shoes were there on the attic floor, and the nails were there beside them.

They really don’t know who the girl was or is, but some people think they know who she was in this life. I don’t know.

We live right next door, and my daughter has experienced some of the things that have happened there.

182. “Ghostly Activities in an Old House”

Jessamine County

When I attended the University of Kentucky in the early 1970s I dated a fellow who enjoyed driving the back roads of Fayette and surrounding counties. On one such occasion, he and his roommate were driving around Jessamine County when they came across what appeared to be an abandoned house. It was a story-and-a-half stone house that sat upon a slight incline. The lot was completely overgrown, and from a distance the house appeared to have been vacant many years. They decided to stop and look around and were soon amazed by what they found.

The house itself appeared very old. There was no electricity running to it. Since they spotted a well in the backyard, they suspected there was no indoor plumbing. They circled the house and looked in through the windows. Were it not for a thick layer of dust that covered everything, one might think there were people still living in the house. Dishes were placed on the kitchen table as though a meal were to be served.

The house was completely furnished in a somewhat Victorian-style with several marble top tables. A couple of oil lamps were still sitting about, as were several books and pieces of clothing. The bed was still covered with sheets and quilts. It didn’t make sense that anyone would move away and leave all of their belongings, but that was certainly how it looked.

The boys left the house and continued riding around, but they couldn’t stop wondering about what they had seen. Late that afternoon, they went back to the house. What they found was just as confusing. The dishes had been removed from the kitchen table and neatly stacked on a shelf. The sheets and quilt had been removed from the bed, carefully folded, and placed at its foot. Yet there was no indication anyone but the two boys had been anywhere near the old house. They could find no footprints but their own outside the house, and from what they could see, the dust inside had not been disturbed. Neither of the boys indicated they believed in ghosts, but they could not explain what they had seen.

The boys made a few more trips to the house later on. By that time, most of the contents of the house had been moved or stolen. I went along on one of the visits. The kitchen table and chairs were still there. The fellow I was dating described the furniture and showed me where it had been. However, with most of the contents gone, the boys had difficulty establishing their credibility. Hoping to find someone who might have had a similar experience at the house, one of them decided to make some inquiries. He claims he interviewed both a local official and the heir to the property, who was a retired school teacher. According to them, the house had indeed held all the possessions of its former owners, and it was not uncommon for things to mysteriously move around.

The owners had included a doctor, his wife, and their two children. The entire family, he was told, had disappeared sometime during the first part of the twentieth century. No one ever knew what happened to them.

183. “The Basement Ghost”

Rockcastle County

I used to play in the basement there at our house in Level Green, Rockcastle County, when I was a young girl. Even after I grew out of the playing stage, I still spent most of my time in the basement. But the “atmosphere” changed when I was about thirteen years old. I awoke one night to find a floating ball of blue light on the other side of the room. I would have passed it off as a dream, but I pinched myself to make sure I was awake.

I watched the light as it floated around the room for several minutes, then it vanished into thin air, leaving a trail of blue light along the path it had floated. The light lingered for several moments. I didn’t sleep the rest of that night, and after that I only went downstairs when I just had to. I felt as if something was there watching everything I did, and it seemed to follow me around the basement. My parents never noticed anything when they went downstairs, but I was still convinced that the basement was haunted.

In late 1996,1 found I wasn’t the only person to feel that way. My best friend, Vicki, was spending the weekend with me. She loved to play pool (billiards) and the table was in the basement. As soon as we got downstairs, I felt I was being watched. I didnt say anything to Vicki, because I wanted to see if she felt it, too. We played for several hours before Vicki said anything. I noticed she was losing her concentration because her playing kept getting worse. She finally put her pool stick down and told me she felt something staring at her. I didn’t say anything about what I’d seen or had felt in that same way. I didn’t want to scare her more than she already was.

I left Vicki in the basement alone for a few minutes while I raided the kitchen for snacks. She didn’t tell me what happened while I was gone, but she didn’t let me leave her alone for the rest of the night. When I awoke that night, two more things happened that made me believe without a doubt my basement was haunted.

First of all, I felt cold despite the fact that Vicki and I were only about ten feet from the wood burning stove. Vicki’s blanket appeared to have been dragged off of her, and she was shivering. Being used to the ghost or whatever it was by now, I didn’t let it bother me. I pulled the blanket back over Vicki and was about to lay back down when the curtains over the sliding glass door opened by themselves. That really scared me. I was too scared to go back to sleep. The curtains closed a few minutes later, and I was praying that I wouldn’t see that blue light again, because if I did I was pretty sure that I’d have a heart attack. I was still awake when Vicki woke up the next morning. I was huddled up against the wall clutching my blanket. I told her what happened with the curtains and the way her cover had been pulled off her during the night. We spent most of that day upstairs with my mom and dad.

We were scared, but we finally did go back downstairs. It still felt as if we were being watched, but we weren’t going to let it bother us. I think that made it mad, because the next time Vicki came to see me, we spent a couple of hours in the basement before we were too scared to stay any longer. What happened is, we were both in a choir at the same time and we were practicing with a small electronic keyboard. As I played our pitches, the settings on the keyboard’s sound bank began to change all by themselves. … I know the keyboard wasn’t malfunctioning because it still works fine to this day and the batteries in it at that time were brand new.

Mom thought we were crazy when we went running upstairs to get away from there. After a few hours, we found the courage to go back down. I felt foolish doing it, but I told whatever ghost or spirit that was there that Vicki and I just wanted to have some fun. We didn’t want to make it mad, but that was my parents’ house that they’d built with their own hands. After that, we didn’t feel scared anymore. I felt like the ghost just wanted some recognition or something.

To this day, when I go downstairs I can still feel a presence there, but I’m no longer scared like I used to be.

184. “Three Little Girls”

Lyon County

The Campbell family has lived in the same house here in Lyon County on Highway 1943 for fifty-some-odd years. They had three boys and a daughter. One day, the youngest boy, John, was sick with a high fever and was very ill. Later that evening, his fever broke. He called for me to come to his bedroom. I went and asked him what he needed. He asked me, “Who is in the living room?”

I said, “Nobody but me and David.”

He looked at me and said, “Mama, there were three little girls that came in here and stood at the end of my bed. They were like stair steps, with old-timey bonnets on, dark clothing, long sleeves, and the older one said to me, ‘You will be okay/ But her lips never moved. Then they all three turned like little soldiers and then walked through your room.” Before they left, John asked them, “Who are you girls?”

The oldest one again spoke not moving her lips and said, “Glenn.”

A few months later, my oldest son, Danny, was hired by some relatives to help work in tobacco. Aunt Bessie had fixed lunch for the hired hands, then began talking to my oldest son, Danny, about his house and began telling him about a log cabin that used to be there years ago. Danny said he sure didn’t know that. Aunt Bessie said they had three small little girls who died there with smallpox. Danny asked, “Well, Aunt Bessie, what was their names?”

Aunt Bessie said, “The Glenns.”

Danny was so startled because he had heard me tell the story many times, he almost fell out of his chair. Aunt Bessie went on to tell that later on in years the old log cabin had burned down. None of the Campbell family knew of or had heard anyone speak of any log cabin being located right on the same site where their home is now located. There have been many other happenings at the Campbell house that would be of interest to anyone. As the old saying goes, “Good things come to those who wait.”

185. “The Confederate Soldier”

Lyon County

The year was 1963, when Sandra Lockhart, her husband, and their two children lived in this old house located near the Cumberland River. It was also near a place called the old McCormick house. Sandra had put her children down for the evening, while her husband was still working. She then sat down to write her twin sister, Rita, a letter. While writing and waiting for her husband, Sandra heard a horse galloping right in front of the house. She got up from her couch to see who it could be. She opened the door, and what she saw was beyond anything she had ever seen in her life!

Sitting straight and tall, with one arm folded on his chest and the other arm holding the reins of his white horse s bridle, there sat a man dressed in Confederate clothing. He had on a gray uniform, black boots, and his hat was one that appeared as neat as a state trooper s hat of today. The soldier gave no hint of movement as Sandra turned on her porch light in order to see better. The soldier and his white horse began to trod up and down her driveway with very precise formation. The horse pranced as if trained his whole life to do it. The soldier never missed a beat along the ride. Together, they rode back and forth in the driveway without the soldier ever looking anywhere but forward.

Sandra then looked and saw her husband coming down the far end of the driveway in their car. She was sure he would not see the soldier on the horse, and would thus hit him because the banks of either side of the drive were much too high to climb, even on a horse, and the road was too narrow for both of them to pass by each other safely.

When Sandra’s husband arrived, she asked him excitedly, “Did you see the soldier on that white horse?”

“What horse and soldier?” he asked.

Sandra never saw the soldier again, or anything like that. However, other people reported numerous sightings of him along about that same time. Hearsay tells of a Confederate soldier being buried by that old McCormick house with his wife and children. Some people turned the soldier’s marker over on purpose during a period of mischief about the same time that Sandra saw him. After his stone marker was set back up, he has never been seen again.

186. “The Ghost Man”

Woodford County

On October 3, 1987, in this house we had moved into on Scott’s Ferry West, near the Kentucky River here in Woodford County, at exactly midnight I was awakened by a voice going “Ohhh, rhaaa, oooh, rhaaa, raah.” The noise was coming from the living room where my invalid mother lay in her hospital bed. I thought to myself whether my mom had died, or whether this was the devil. Then I felt a presence coming down the hallway. I continued to lay on my stomach, but I put my right hand on my pistol under my pillow. This thing came into my room and stood at my bed staring down at me. All I could think of was to pray, “Lord, let him think I’m asleep; dont let him touch me, and please don’t let him go into my sons room. As he walked away, I saw a man walk into my son s room. But he left and walked back towards the living room.

He was stocky built, and his boots and hat made him look a good six feet tall. His face was gruff, his hair shoulder length and in a page-boy fashion. The hat he had on had a very wide brim, and was flat. The head part extended a little higher in the back than front. He wore a riding cape that had flat shoulder pads with tassel hanging all around the edges of the pads. His pants looked like that of riding britches. His boots came up over his knees and were folded down at the top. He had a weapon on his left side, like a long, black powder pistol or a saber—probably both.

That morning, my son, who was then twelve years old, said “Mom, I seen a ghost.”

When I asked him what it looked like, he gave the same descriptions as to what I saw. He then said that he couldn’t move his body, only his eyes.

Neither my mother nor my daughter Sheila, then with child, were awakened. I wondered if this ghost had been looking for someone buried in the little cemetery that my kids had discovered in a patch of weeds in the yard. Or could he have been the fiancée of the young school teacher, Ann, who hanged herself in a shed that once stood behind the old house just a little over a hundred years ago? Could he have been associated with the old Indian trading post down near the river? Or was he a military man looking for his regiment?

I mentioned this ghost to the farm’s caretaker, who then told me that he sometimes sees a white horse running across a field and into the woods….

When I mentioned this ghost to a neighbor lady, she told me that she had seen this ghost in Lexington while she was doing private duty and getting ready to exchange shifts with a black lady who also saw him. She told me that while standing in front of a mirror combing her hair, she saw him standing there right behind her, and just about froze.

She described him exactly as my son Eddie and I had seen him, but one better. As she looked into his gruff face, she saw his eyes were flames of fire. None of us ever figured out just what the ghost of that man was all about, but we did see him.

187. “Anne’s Curse”

Montgomery County

According to the story that has been passed down from generation to generation, the results of a stifled love affair carried into the lives of many persons for several generations. A beautiful young woman named Anne Mitchell fell in love with her tall, broad-shouldered neighbor, John Bell Hood. He was the son of Dr. John W. Hood, who lived near the Mitchell place at Mt. Sterling. John Bell eventually went away to West Point in 1849, and while home on furlough, he and Anne fell in love. They often met in the garden by the Hood home.

Shortly thereafter, a Mr. Anderson began visiting Anne’s brothers, became interested in Anne, and wanted to marry her. Her parents wanted her to marry him, since he was a man of wealth. After being pressured, Anne agreed to marry him provided she could first write a letter to John Hood. In her letter, Anne told Hood that she would love him forever, whether in this world or the next one.

John wrote her secretly and asked her to meet him a few nights later near her home. He would have an extra horse saddled for her, and they could ride away together. On that night, a slave girl noticed that Anne was not in her bed, so she told the Mitchells. They caught up with John and Anne just as John was helping Anne mount her horse. They took Anne back home, locked her in her room, and did not let her out until the day of her wedding to Anderson.

Anne and Anderson exchanged vows, but her bitterness over the forced marriage did not lessen. She continually refused to leave her room in the Mitchell house. Even when she learned she was to have a child, she turned her face to the wall and refused to talk with her husband or her parents. She even banished her husband from the room.

When she finally did talk after the birth of her son, Anne uttered a curse on all who had played a part in forcing her to marry Anderson. She vowed that her heart would always belong to John Hood. It is said that a few hours later, a violent, local thunderstorm struck the Mitchell house. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the corner of the house where Anne was lying. Three people in the house were killed by a bolt of lightning, including Anne, one of her brothers who had supported Anderson’s suit, and the slave girl who had warned Anne’s parents of her intended elopement with Hood.

Known as “Anne’s Curse,” it continued for years. Numerous relatives died as the result of brutal homicidal and suicidal activities across the years.

Many persons have told of seeing Anne’s restless ghost roaming through the garden of the Hood home. She never tries to frighten anyone, appearing for only a moment and then disappearing. A servant woman reported having seen her on many occasions, walking along the garden path. The ghost would stare at the servant woman, then suddenly disappear.

Later, a tenant at the Hood home said that one night after he had gone to bed, he was awakened suddenly by what felt like a presence there in the room. He looked up to see a woman dressed in gray, standing at the foot of his bed. At first he thought she was real, but she suddenly vanished into thin air.

It is wondered if Anne’s ghost was restless because her curse had perhaps spread out to also include John Hood, the man she so loved. His career seemed doomed for tragedy and failure. He went on to become a lieutenant colonel under General Robert E. Lee and became commander of the Texas Brigade. He lost the use of an arm in the Battle of Gettysburg and had a leg amputated after the Battle of Chickamauga. He was minus half his limbs, when at the age of thirty-three, he became full general. His demise came soon thereafter. He was driven out of Atlanta by Sherman’s army, and in 1864 his army was virtually destroyed at the Battle of Nashville—the worst defeat suffered by a Confederate general. Until the end of the war, Hood was in disgrace—a general without a command.

After the war, Hood moved to New Orleans, became a cotton broker, married, and fathered ten children, including three sets of twins. His business went bankrupt, and he and his wife both died in 1879 due to the yellow-fever epidemic. His orphans were scattered about in foster homes.

It is not known what happened to Mr. Anderson. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered into a Texas regiment that, a few months later, was under the command of General Hood. How Anderson fared with General Hood remains a mystery. As far as formal records go, he seems to have just vanished from the earth.

188. “The Shaker Museum Ghost”

Logan County

What I’m about to describe happened to me and my son in the mid-1980s, when my son was about six years old. My wife and I, along with our son, were on a short vacation and ended up at the Shaker Museum, just west of Bowling Green. We were having a good time exploring the old buildings and reading the many stories about that old place. My son and I were on the top floor in a large open room when I noticed an opening in one end of the room. It resembled a window, but I could see it was not on an outside wall. As we peered into the darkness, our eyes began to adjust and we could see that there had been a fire in this part of the building. All the exposed wood showed signs of burn damage.

Quite suddenly, something seemed to reach out from the opening and touch us. We could both feel a presence all around us. We stepped back and looked around. There was no one else in the room. I put on my best “I’m not afraid of nothing” face, and again looked into the other room. Again, I could feel something touching me all over my body. Needless to say, that ended our visit to the museum, and I am not sure that I will ever go back.

189. “The Clock That Kept Ticking”

Hickman County

This happened in a part of Hickman County that is called Haunted Hill by the locals. It was somewhere around 1910-15 that a young married couple decided to move from the eastern section of the county to the little community of Oakton, located several miles west of Clinton. There was no house available in town, so the couple arranged for one by Scott’s School, a one-room school a short distance away.

They had been told that the previous owner of the house had been murdered and his body found in a cistern in the yard. Also, his prize racehorse Lightning was missing. Racing horses had been a longtime sport in this part of Kentucky.

In spite of the cloud which hung over the house the couple had been renting, they set out for the house with a wagon and team and their few household possessions. Moving for them was an all-day journey and they were very weary on arrival. Not long after they got there, they blew out the coal-oil lamp and fell into a deep slumber on their treasured feather bed mattress, which was a wedding present.

The moon had set and the night was dark. Only an occasional plaintive hoot of an owl broke the silence, which was as intense as the darkness. Just after midnight, the young woman stirred and realized she could hear the steady ticking of a clock. But they had no clock! She waited and listened.

The ticks grew louder and louder, so she woke her husband up. He patiently listened and they agreed the sound was coming from within the walls. When they searched for the source of the ticking, the sound abruptly stopped. They eventually went back to bed. But the ticking started again. They roused themselves from the warm bed and again went in quest of the clock. Once again, the ticking stopped. The process repeated itself without explanation.

When daylight came, the terrified couple hastily gathered their belongings into their mule-drawn wagon and could be seen rattling toward Oakton, confident that the husband s relative would take them in.

For many years afterward, it is said that no one would travel at night on the narrow road that went past that place.

190. “Where is This?”

Fayette County

The Lexington correspondent of the Commercial-Gazette has a penchant for ghost stories, and his productions in that line have established the reputation of this city as a ghost center. The following blood curdling narrative from his pen appears in the Sunday Commercial-Gazette, and whether true or untrue it is readable enough to bear reprinting in The Leader. Following is the story:

Lexington, Ky., March 7—One of the most costly and at the same time most noted residences in Lexington, is declared to be haunted, by the people who have lived in it for fifteen months. They moved out three months ago. The house contains twenty-two rooms and belongs to a wealthy lady now living in another city. She formerly lived here, her first husband belonging to one of Kentucky’s most noted families. Several years after his death the owner of the house married a prominent gentleman, but he only lived a few years, when he died very suddenly. His remains were buried close to the house. Nearly two years ago his widow left the city, with her interesting family.

Four months later a Catholic family, consisting of man, wife and two children, took charge of the house at the owner’s solicitation, rent free. They were to keep the house from going to rack and to take good care of the premises. All went well for two weeks after they moved in, when uncanny doings are said to have commenced. But let the recent occupants tell their own story:

The man—Yes we moved away about three months ago. I would not stay there if the place was deeded to me. We had been there but two weeks when my wife began to grow alarmed over peculiar noises she heard, but I paid no attention to them at first. Finally the rackets became of almost nightly occurrence, and it was with difficulty we slept. Lock and bar the doors ever so tight, we could hear the walking through the great rooms every night. We slept in an up-stairs room, the door of which opened to a back porch, and the noises the nocturnal visitor would make on the porch was frightful. My wife is a courageous woman or she never would have staid as long as she did, for whatever it was it seldom missed a night without annoying her. One day I went to the orchard, and, putting a ladder against an apple tree, started to climb up after some apples. Just as I got about half way up I distinctly felt the ladder lifted out from the bottom and I fell and broke my leg. My brother came to see me, but after hearing the noises in the house for two nights he refused to stay any longer with me and went home. While my leg was healing, one night I felt something take hold of my me by the foot of my sound leg and it pulled me out of bed. After this, however, the ghost never came into our room, for my wife sprinkled holy water all around it and the spirits were afraid to cross the line. My wife can tell you more about the doings of the ghost than I can, so you had better see her.”

Accordingly, I called on the woman whose husband appeared to have been so thoroughly frightened. I found her in a little cottage. She is over forty-five years old, has black hair, with a few gray hairs around the temples; rather small of stature, and features somewhat pinched, but her great black eyes, sunk deep in a rather small head danced and sparkled as she told her weird story as follows:

“The first time I heard the walking I thought it was my husband fixing something. It was a little after 7 o’clock at night. The front door which I had carefully locked opened, and I heard some one walk in. Whoever it was went from room to room, opened and slammed the doors, seeming to make all the noise possible. Finally, I heard the footsteps ascending the stairs and the thing come to the door and stopped. I took the lamp, and, going to the door, opened it to let in, as I thought, my husband. What was my astonishment to see nobody there, and I although I looked in every room and pantry on the place, not a thing could I see. A few nights after this I heard the footsteps again ascending the stairs, and suddenly my door was opened a few inches, and the thing made a noise similar to that made by a goose braying when mad. Not long after this my youngest boy saw a man on the stairs wearing a Derby hat, but while looking at him vanished. Some six weeks after this occurrence a neighbor woman called to spend the evening with me. I let her out through the back gate, and while we were going toward it she and I both saw something that looked like a small black heifer. It came close to me, and having a lantern in my hand I got a good look at the mysterious something. It had the face and hand of a human being, although it walked on all fours like a big dog. It scampered off and quickly disappeared. I was wildly frightened, and my visitor received such a shock that she came near fainting. Three weeks later my husband and myself prepared a lunch for our landlady, who was here attending the Chautauqua. We set the table in the large dining-room and had it nicely arranged with china and silverware. We expected her next morning. When we retired to our room we heard a tremendous noise in the dining-room as if the dishes were being broken into a thousand pieces. My husband was afraid to go into the dining-room, and so was I. We didn’t sleep much that night, I can tell you. The next morning, when we summed up enough courage to enter the dining-room, we found everything on the table just as we had placed the twelve hours before. What bothers me is to account for the noise as if the dishes were breaking. One night during the time my husband was suffering with his broken leg I had to sleep in a room adjoining mine. About 12 o’clock I awoke with a start, and a cold, clammy hand had hold of my neck and partially dragged me from the bed. I kept the evil spirits out of my room by sprinkling holy water around it. I feel sure that had it not been for the holy water the spirits would have annoyed us much more.

Both the man and wife are much in earnest, and they are careful to say that the noises and other strange doings were not caused by human agencies. They think it was the ghost of their landlady’s second husband, who, when dying, said he would haunt the place.

191. “A Ghost Story”

Fayette County

An old substantial brick residence, located on one of the principal thoroughfares of Lexington, has been considered a haunted house ever since the war. Old citizens claim that during the war a wounded Union soldier, who had met his fate in the battle at Richmond, Ky., and who was being taken care of by the family that then lived in the house was brutally murdered by a Southern sympathizer in the cellar of the residence. Ever since then, the story goes, there have been unhuman doings and mysterious noises seen and heard in this old mansion at regular intervals of six months apart. At these times, when the families occupying the house would be at supper, lights left in the living room and other parts of the house would be extinguished and sounds very much like the groans of a person in agony could be distinctly heard.

No one ever saw anything other than this until a few evenings ago. The family that has been occupying the house for the past three months, and who did not know of the supposed existence of this peculiar ghostship, were sitting at their table eating supper about a quarter to 7 o’clock. The parlor had been lighted up, as there was some young company visiting the house and the lamp was brightly buring in the sitting-room. The servant girl had occasion to go into the parlor and living room during the process of the meal, and when she returned, she exclaimed, “Miss Sallie, who done blode out dem lights in yor room and in de parler?” Miss Sallie did not know of course, and before the astonished household could recover from their surprise, deep groans were heard as if coming from the living room, which was separated from the dining-room by folding doors. The groans grew louder and more agonizing in their tones, until suddenly the folding doors opened backward and in the center of the threshhold the now thoroughly frightened family and friends beheld a sight which is usually supposed to freeze the blood with terror. There stood the form of a man with his hands uplifted, and he seemed enveloped in a white gauze, through which could be seen a bloody and apparently bleeding breast. The apparition only remained in sight of the terror-stricken people but a few seconds, and slowly disappeared into the gloom of the darkened room behind it. The supper was left unfinished and there was no sleep in that house that night. The next morning the head of the household notified his business partners that he would not be at the office that day, and before night he had secured another house, into which he moved his family the next day. This story was told to the Commercial Gazette correspondent by a neighbor and a friend to the family, who is a thoroughly reliable man, and says that every word of the above story is true.

192. “Spirit Land”

Fayette County

… Certain old houses in Lexington in which murders have been committed are known to have been re-visited by the spirits of the murdered men, and during the small hours of the night many strange sights have ben seen and hundreds of strange noises heard. In one of these houses, which is located on East Third Street, just beyond the city limits, the unearthly visitors play curious pranks. About once a month, and a few minutes after the town clock tolls out the hour of midnight, his ghostship removes the bed clothing from off all the persons that may be sleeping in the haunted building. In each cited instance the sleepers have been awakened with a start and a sudden feeling of chilliness as if a cold wind were blowing. The present occupant of the house, who, it should be stated, does not believe in ghosts, has used every means in his power to discover the agency by which the bed clothing is so systematically removed, but although he has lived there more than ten years, he has so far been utterly unable to find any trace of the disturbing element.

Perhaps, however, the most pleasing ghost that has ever seen fit to visit a Lexington home, is that of a former prominent merchant who departed this life about six months ago, and who lived on one of the principal business streets of the city. He left quite an interesting family that occupies the old residence, and among its members is one small child who has for months been holding convers in an upper room of the residence with the departed father. The deceased was a first-class performer on the piano, and now nearly every night the keys which he formerly touched with so much precision are played on by invisible hands, the airs produced being the selfsame ones the departed was wont to play when he was one of nature’s visible forms.

This spirit music has been heard by persons who do not belong to the family while passing along the street, but of course such listeners did not know the form of the sweet player was unseen by mortal eyes. The members of the family, not caring to court notoriety, having refrained from allowing these strange facts to come to light and it is in deference to this desire that The Leader omits names and location.

Here is a question for those learned in mediumistic lore: Does the spirit of the dead merchant really return to its former home and play favorite numbers on the piano for its own edification, or does it play to let the family know it is still watching over them and has a warm interest in the welfare of those dear ones left behind? Who can answer?

193. “Little Girl’s Ghost in the Window”

Butler County

There’s an old, old house in Woodbury that is located close to the Green River, a river that’s got a lot of history associated with it, especially back when steamboating was a big thing around here. The Woodbury village itself is involved in a lot of history, and some houses that were built back in the early to mid-1800s are still standing. One of these old houses was built in 1821; at least some parts of it were. This is the one that is haunted by a little two-year-old girl that was killed in the house.

We don’t know who she was, and don’t know the full story of what happened to her. Anyway, the people that lived in the house across the years said they’d seen her in the windows and on the staircase. Said this little girl would usually walk toward them, and sometimes she would make a hissing sound as she looked at them. They said because of the way she acted, they always felt that she was just playing with them, because she would grin after she did the hissing. She would travel throughout the house. Said that many times when they would leave the house and go outside, they would look back at the house and would see her in the window looking out at them.

A little girl’s spirit haunts this old house in Woodbury. (Photos by Bridget Childers)

They never did find out who she was.

194. “A Hunt–Mornan House Ghost Story”

Fayette County

Our ghost story concerns an African-American slave named Bouviette James (also known in the family as Aunt Betty or Mam Bet) who was the nursemaid, or mammy, to the Morgan children. It is said, in fact, that when-ever she heard that Southern troops were coming into Lexington, Aunt Betty would fill a silver pitcher with ice water or lemonade and stand on Main Street hoping to hand a drink to one of “her” boys. In Basil Duke’s book, Reminiscences, he speaks of Aunt Betty and of her great love for the Morgan children. He describes, too, how Mrs. Morgan treated her far more like a friend than a servant. When Aunt Betty died after the Civil War (the date is uncertain), her casket was placed in the parlor of the Hunt-Morgan House and four of the surviving Morgan sons (Charlton, Calvin, Richard, and Key) and brother-in-law Basil Duke were her pall-bearers. She is buried in the Hunt family plot at the Lexington Cemetery where her head-stone reads, Bouviette, Ever Faithful.

The traditional story relates that, in later years, one of the children of the family was ill and being looked after by a nurse who began to doze as she sat up with the child late at night. The nurse suddenly opened her eyes when she heard someone softly humming a nursery tune. It was not, how-ever, the boy who was humming. Sitting beside the boy’s bed was a black woman dressed very plainly except for a brightly colored turban over her hair and a pair of bright red leather shoes. The woman continued to hum a tune and gently stroked the boy’s forehead. As the nurse stood up and crossed the room, the figure quickly vanished.

The next day the child took a turn for the worse and died. In the ensuing weeks, the nurse never mentioned what she had seen to anyone. Then, several months later, she mentioned the incident to the boy’s mother, who was enormously cheered by the news. The mother declared that the black woman was Aunt Betty, who would always appear when one of her children needed her. She said that this was obviously Aunt Betty s way of letting the family know that she would look after the children in heaven as she had on earth. [This presumption certainly indicates the mother s assumptions concerning ones divinely ordained place in society] When asked about the red shoes, the mother replied that Aunt Betty had been very fond of bright colors, especially red, and that she had often talked about how she would love to have a pair of red leather shoes. So, during one of John Hunt Morgan’s visits during the war, he brought everyone in the family a special gift—including a pair of bright red shoes for his beloved Aunt Betty.

Family Ghosts

1. “A Dead Mother’s Return”

Jefferson County

My aunt Ann worked at St. Mary’s Hospital for some thirty-three years. During her last year there, my great-uncle Burl had to be hospitalized, and he nearly died before the doctors were able to determine what was ailing him.

One night after Ann s shift was finished, she popped by his room to say good night, and at the end of his bed stood a frail little, Indian woman dressed in a black dress. She had the snowiest white head of hair that you ever saw. My aunt said, “Excuse me, ma’am, but I believe visiting hours are over.”

The little woman just looked up at my aunt and smiled warmly. She then walked around behind the draw curtain that hung around the bed and vanished. My aunt was totally convinced that she had personally been working for too many hours and needed a rest.

The next day before her shift began, she went back to the room to say good morning. My uncle was feeling so much better that the doctor had said that he could go home in probably a day or so. They still had not discovered the reason for his sickness at that point, nor his rapid recovery from a terribly high fever. He told my aunt, said, “I had the nicest dream last night. Mama came by to see me and told me that I would get well now, and she told me that she loved me.”

Aunt Ann just stood there for a second, then asked, “What did Grandma Long look like? She died while I was very young. I don’t remember her all that well.”

He responded to her, “She was a tiny little woman, part Indian, with the whitest head of hair that you ever saw.”

Uncle Burl quickly recovered from his sickness and was allowed to go home.

2. “The Spirit of a Deceased Aunt”

Simpson County

My aunt Lisa Weissinger died a year ago. Things got weird when that happened. One night about three weeks after her death, when I was going to bed I began to cry. Oh, I missed her so very much. I then began praying that I would see her again. Almost immediately, I sensed a cool wind with a sweet fragrance. I went on to bed about ten o’clock, sensing a presence there in the room with me. I opened my eyes as a white figure was approaching me. I then saw the kind and gentle face of my aunt smiling at me.

Then, the next thing I knew, my aunt was standing there looking down at me. She bent down over me, and I began to shiver with fear, but I didnt chicken out. I just closed my eyes. The next thing I remember is a gentle kiss on my right cheek. I opened my eyes in time to see her walking out of my room on her way to my brother Travis’ room. I went back to sleep hearing a sweet humming sound downstairs in the living room, as the rocking chair rocked.

I was no longer afraid, for I knew that it was the spirit of my aunt. She loved us as much as we loved her.

3. “Mom”

Caldwell County

Three years ago I experienced the most terrifying dream that I will hopefully ever have. I woke up with a taste of salty tears in my mouth, and with sweat running down my face and neck. I was walking through a field of flowers, flowers of all varieties. I bent down to pick a yellow rose, which was my mom’s favorite flower. As I did so, I heard this creaking sound. I turned to look, and would you believe it, I saw this casket over in the middle of the field of flowers. I walked over and opened the top, and there lay Mom inside of it. She looked as if she were in a very peaceful sleep.

I picked a yellow rose and tried to awaken her. When I touched Mom, she was as cold as ice. I began screaming for her to wake up, but she would not open her eyes. Then, the casket lid started closing of its own accord. I was terrified at the thought that I would never see Mom again. Upon awakening, I went to check on Mom and found her in a deep, peaceful sleep.

I never told anyone about my dream. I was afraid that I was somehow the cause of my mom’s death. This dream occurred only once, but two years later we found out that Mom was terminally ill from a brain tumor. One year ago, Mom died.

I have seen Mom several times during the past year. I cant decide whether I have been seeing her due to being upset emotionally or whether I have truly been seeing her. The first time I saw her like this, I was walking along outside the house and saw her image standing under her favorite tree. She had on a white, flowing dress that moved with the leaves on the dogwood tree. Her hair was pulled back at the top, but it was loose and flowing around her face. She made no attempt to approach me, but did hold out her hand to me. I was frightened, thus made no move toward her. She then spoke to me, “Liz, I love you.” Upon hearing those words, all my fears vanished. I started toward her, but she vanished right there before my eyes.

At another time, one night I was alone in my house when I heard a noise behind me. I turned in the direction where the noise came from, and there stood Mom. She looked beautiful, just the way she always did. This time, I was not frightened. She was just standing there near the corner of the room, beside the fireplace. She was moving, almost gliding, very gracefully, but her feet were on the floor. She held out her hand toward me and said, “Liz, I love you; everything is all right.”

I jumped to my feet to go to her, but again she was gone.

Another time, I was alone when I heard Mom laugh. I felt a very strong presence there in the room with me. The hair on the back of my neck and the hair on my arms stood straight up or out. I felt very warm and secure. I was not in the least afraid, but rather delighted to feel this close to Mom again. A cool breeze blew through the room, but no door or window was open. I knew that Mom had been there, but I also knew that now she was gone.

I feel as if Mom is still very much with me. A lot of times when I feel especially warm and loved, I know that Mom is there with me.

4. “Grandfather’s Ghost”

Simpson County

It was December 11, 1990, when my grandfather died. We Spent the night there at his house the night he died. Later on, my sister and I spent the night there with Grandmother. My sister was asleep in my aunts room, and I was sleeping in the room where my grandfather had died. I went to bed about 8:30 P.M.

I was fast asleep when I heard my name being called out, “Amy-y-y, Am-m-y-y, Aa-mm-yy.” Then the voice said, “Wake up, Amy; wake up.”

I woke up and I saw him. It was my grandfather, dressed in the suit that he died in. I began crying and thinking, “It cant be me; this cant be happening to me.”

I sat up in bed, and he came over to me. I was so very afraid and frightened. I tried to scream but could not talk at all. He said to me, “I love you.” Then he gave me a hug and a kiss and told me to tell the family that he loved them very much, then left the room.

After he left, I could talk again. The next morning I told my family what had happened, and they did not believe me at all, all but my grandmother, that is. She said to me, “I believe you. He came to my room last night before he came to yours.”

5. “Poor Susan”

Hopkins County

When my mother was a child, she lived on a farm in White Plains. When she was about five or six years old, her aunt Susan was about forty. Susan knew that she didn’t have long to live because she had a brain tumor. She told the family that she wanted to die at home, so they let her stay at home; hired a private nurse to come take care of her. My mothers two other aunts, Betty and Joyce, also took turns staying up and taking care of Susan.

One night when it was the nurse’s turn to watch Susan, Betty and Joyce were awakened by loud noises. They both walked to Susan’s room and found the nurse and Susan’s husband, Ken, giving her a shot to help her sleep. The next morning, Susan was dead. The family was almost certain that Ken and the nurse had purposely killed Susan, because they got married a few weeks later.

My mother would overhear the family talking about the situation, and she said that she hated Ken and she hoped that Aunt Susan would come back to haunt him.

At that time, my Mom was only six, and Susan was the first person she had known that died. But Susan had always said that she wanted Ken to remarry, and she didn’t want anyone to talk bad about him for doing so.

Like I said earlier, Mom lived in a farmhouse. Her and her sister’s room was next to the dining room, which allowed a lot of cold air to come through the windows. In order to keep the kids’ room warm, there was a doorway between my mom’s room and the dining room.

The night after Susan’s death, my mom awoke, and an inner voice told her to look toward the door. When she did, the door was opening, and there stood Susan wearing the dress that she was buried in. She walked toward my mom, holding a knife in the air. As she walked, she said to my mom, “I told you not to say bad things about dear Ken.”

Mom cried out to the world with all her might, then pulled the covers over her head and cried herself to sleep. No one in the house heard her scream, including her two sisters there in the room with her.

When Mom awoke the next morning, Grandma asked the girls which one of them had left the door open. They all said that none of them had gotten up during the night to open the door.

To this day, Mom swears this is a true story.

6. “Grandmother’s Return”

Location unknown

This really happened to me some thirty-four years ago, and it remains in my memory almost as fresh as the night it appeared.

I was very close to my grandmother. She raised me from infancy, and I remained with her until I married and moved out. She was a truly saintly person, never a mean word or negative thought.

After my husband and I bought our first house, my grandmother stayed with us a great deal of the time, moving between our home and hers. Early in 1963, after spending some time with us, Grandma went back home to spend a few days. She was eighty-three years of age at the time, and as far as anyone knew she was feeling well and had no health problems. That very night, she passed away in her sleep. I was just devastated and missed her something awful.

For several weeks after her passing, every night I had recurring dreams during which my grandma was always in trouble and I was struggling to help her but never could. I did not wake up during those dreams, but in the mornings I would be exhausted, and the dreams always remained with me throughout the day. Truthfully, I was near the end of my rope with sorrow and could barely go to bed at night because I knew what was coming.

One night, something woke me out of a deep sleep. I don’t know what it was, but it couldn’t have been Jim because he did not rouse up during the night. I had been lying on my side, and as I turned to raise up, I saw my grandmother standing in the doorway looking at me. It was as if she were standing in front of a bright light that made a halo around her. She did not appear to have legs or feet, and she did not speak a word to me.

She was wearing nightclothes, flannel pajamas with a small pink flower design, and her blue hair net which she usually wore to bed. I could not see that she had glasses on. I was simply awestruck. I trembled; my heart was pounding. I intended to get up out of bed, so I turned away to put my feet on the floor. When I turned back, Grandma was no longer there.

After that night, I never saw her again. But I simply know that she came back to take care of me, as she always had across the years.

7. “Bloodstains on a Burial Dress”

Barren County

There was this couple that lived together in Barren County for approximately seven years, beginning in 1946. The wife/mother died, but the man remarried a few years later.

This man and his first wife had a daughter whom the mother loved very much and treated her very nice. Never did do anything that would hurt the little girl. But the man’s second wife treated the little girl something awful; would do everything mean and bad to the girl. One day the stepmother was cooking supper, when the child came in and asked the stepmother if she could have a slice of potato to eat.

The woman slapped the little girl across the mouth with the back of her hand. Blood drooled out of her mouth as the child began crying. The stepmother then went into the living room to finish her housecleaning chores. The child was still crying, but suddenly she was no longer crying.

The stepmother wondered why she wasn’t crying, so she looked into the kitchen, and there the little girl was sitting in the lap of another woman. This woman was hugging the little girl, consoling and comforting her. The woman, who was also wiping the blood from the little girl’s bloody mouth, had on a white dress. When the woman in white noticed that the stepmother was there, she disappeared.

The second wife told her husband what had happened, and the husband then told her that his first wife had told him that if anything bad ever happened to their little daughter, she would come back from the grave.

Well, the husband and his second wife went to the graveyard where the first wife was buried. They opened up the coffin of the little girl’s mother and found fresh blood on the white dress that she had been buried in. It was the blood that was wiped from the little girl’s mouth.

After that, the stepmother never again did anything wrong to the child again.

8. “Return of Great-Grandmother”

Jefferson County

Once when I was sleeping in my room, it suddenly became very cold, like a blanket of snow had fallen on the room. Then I felt as if something were coming down the hallway, and I saw a misty form standing in the doorway. I knew, for some unexplainable reason, that it was my great-grandmother. She seemed to communicate without talking, but I couldn’t quite understand why she was there.

Suddenly, the form started toward the middle of the room, then stopped and backed up. Then it disappeared through the open door.

Right after this all happened, my sister woke up and asked me why it was so cold in the room.

A few years later, I told my grandmother about what had happened, and she told me that her mother, the misty figure that I had seen, had said on her deathbed that she would come back to visit with family members if there were any way possible. I’m sure that what I had seen was the spirit of my great-grandmother, but I never knew why she had come back, especially as a cold-bearing entity.

9. “The Living Mother and Son Who Saw Each Other’s Ghost”

Johnson County

This happened to my son just before he went into the military service. He had a 1950 Ford, and it didn’t run too well. I was always worried about him when he was out in his car.

One night he had gone to see his future wife there in East Point. Well, since I’d always tell him what hour he was to be home, before he left to go see her, he said, “Now, Mom, tonight can I stay out a little later?”

I told him, “Yes.

I’d always stay up and wait for him, but I’d have the lights in my room turned out. He never knew that I was up waiting for him. When I’d hear that old Ford pull into the driveway, I’d sneak up to bed and he wouldn’t know that I was waiting for him.

So this night I lay down. It was in October and kind of cold. We had gas heaters at that time, so I lit one up. And like all gas heaters, it reflected light out into the room.

I laid down on the couch but soon fell asleep. He waked me up as he passed by, then went on upstairs. Well, the rocking chair was rocking by itself, just moving to and fro. Someone had just gotten up out of it. I just thought that my son had sat down and looked at me in the glow of this gas flame, and knowing that I’d been waiting up for him, I thought that he’d bawl me out in the morning. He wouldn’t like for his mama to be herding him so.

Well, I thought to myself, I’ll just go up and take my medicine. So I went up and looked in his room, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what to do. I went back downstairs and sat there and thought and thought. I walked over to the window, standing there looking up the road, but I was still trying to figure out what I had just seen that made me think that it was my son.

I saw the car coming, then hurriedly got in bed, not intending to let him know that I had been up waiting for him. I heard him come inside the house, then try to walk up the stairway real quiet. He went to bed.

I couldn’t go to sleep because I had this other thing on my mind of what I had seen earlier that night. I just sat there thinking about everything. In about thirty minutes he let out the awfullest yell you ever heard. He yelled, “Mother, what are you doing in my room?”

I went to his room then and said, “What’s the matter son?”

He said, “Mother, you were standing right here over me, just moaning so pitiful like. You scared me to death.”

I said to him, “Well, honey, I wasn’t even in here.”

He said, “Yes, you were, Mother.”

So the same thing happened to us both. I came to him and he came to me. That’s strange. I don’t understand it.

10. “Ghosts of Mother and Father”

Wayne County

The first school I ever taught was the Tuttle School, located in Morgan Hollow. I boarded in a house not too far from the school. I had to pass by the Carrender Cemetery going to and from school. Miss Neethy Tuttle, who lived near this old graveyard, claimed that it was haunted, as was this big, nearby cave where she and her friends all got their water for the house. Her friends also claimed that there were ghosts around there.

Well, I always stayed a little later in the afternoon to clean the school building before I went to my boarding house. Miss Tuttle always told me that something would happen to me because I would get back to the house a little late. She told me many times that, at twilight, she could go out to the graveyard and see her mother and father’s ghosts sitting there on their tombstones, combing their hair. I never did see them, but other people told me the same thing. Just as soon as I started teaching there, they told me all those old stories about ghosts. I reckon they wanted me to believe.

The cemetery was right at the back of the old Bohon Store, an old store that was now deserted. One afternoon when I started home from school, I never heard such wailing and mourning sounds in all my life. The sounds were coming from the old store building. I went in and I heard something upstairs. I went on up the steps, and it was two teenage boys. One of them was a small half-Indian boy, and the other was one of the neighborhood’s rough-tough boys. When I got to the top of the steps, it scared them to death that I hadn’t run, and they wondered why I hadn’t run.

I was laughing when I saw them. I never did hear of the Bohon store being haunted anymore.

At another time, I had to come around by the cave. After I left the cemetery, I came around by the cave before I got to the branch road that went up the hollow. The cave entrance is about half way up the cliff; it’s a big thing. At the foot of this cave is a big spring. This is the head of Little Sinking Creek. Well, Miss Tuttle said that many an afternoon she saw a man and a woman in white robes and long gray hair there at the cave. She’d seen them come out of the cave and go down to the spring to get some water in pitchers. They would then carry the water on their shoulders and go back inside that cave. But, now, I never did see them.

She always thought that they were her mother and father. Their house was located there near the cave. Many men, men who came into that area before the turn of the century to work as loggers, boarded there in that old house. But sooner or later, they all left. They claimed that it was so badly haunted that they couldn’t stay there. And they didn’t!

Miss Neethy Tuttle always begged me to stay there, spend the night in the house with her. This is one thing that I never did do, but I wish now that I had. I wasn’t afraid of what I’d see or what I’d hear, but I just knew that if I stayed, some of the teenage boys around there would try to scare me because I hadn’t demonstrated any fear up to that point.

Now that its too late to spend a night there, I sure wish that I had done so.

11. “The Young Woman in the Window”

Logan County

Back around 1890, a young lady in Russellville, who lived in the sextons house with her parents there by the old cemetery, was all dressed up in an evening gown, ready to go to a fancy ball. This good-looking guy had a date with her, and he was to come by and pick her up in a horse-drawn surrey.

For whatever reason, the girl had been confined to her room by her parents during the afternoon. While she was waiting for the fellow to come pick her up, a terrible storm blew in, bringing lightning, thunder, wind, and heavy rain. The young woman became despondent, then angry, knowing that the fellow would not be able to come by to take her to the ball. Not long afterwards, she walked to the window and looked out at the terrible rainstorm. Then, she clinched her fists and began shouting angry curses at God.

Her words were no more than uttered when a streak of lightning flashed and struck her dead on the spot. She tumbled against the window pane, then fell to the floor. For then and ever after, her image was imprinted on the glass in the window.

Wondering how their daughter was doing, her parents went up to the room in which they had placed her and found her body lying there on the floor. When they went running over to her, they saw the image of their daughter imprinted there in the window.

The image stayed right there even after they had scrubbed it with soap and water several times. Finally, they decided to paint over it so that they would no longer be able to see their daughter there in the window. But when they got through painting over the image and the paint had dried, the image was right there again. Painting over it didn’t hide it.

Two or three days later, the parents painted over the image again, but that still didn’t remove the image. After they had done this for the third time, and the image was still present, they decided to replace the window panes, but that still didn’t take away the image of their daughter. Eventually, they placed wooden boards over the window, boards that were left there for decades.

According to a 1973 article in the Green River Sprite, “The strange image in the window of the cupola of the home puzzled, amused, and frightened generations of Logan countians and their visitors, finally turning the home into a tourist attraction where persons came, parked, and stared at it.” The Sprite article goes on to quote Margaret Barnes Stratton, who described seeing the mysterious image, as follows: “I was one of those who parked, and stared, and distinctly saw the shadow. It was a plain, life-size shape of a woman, arms straight down, the lower part of the body ending at the window sill.”

The sexton’s house in Russellville is home to one of the most famous ghosts in the entire United States. (Photo by the author)

12. “Grandmother’s Ghost”

McCreary County

About a week after my grandmother died, we started seeing things happen at her house. Late at night, about ten o’clock, we would hear my grandmother s wheelchair rattling toward the back door. Then, we noticed the curtains would pull open, as if to see if we were home. And every morning her living room curtains were pulled open. Later on, my cousin cut down some of Grandmas flowers. Mom said she see Grandma standing looking where her flowers had been cut down.

These things really happened.

13. “The Swimming Ghost That Foretold Danger”

Hart County

My dad told me a story about a friend of his, Arnold Jones. This fellow, Jones, lived with his gramma and grampa. When he was about eleven or twelve years old, his grampa took sick and died. He had very close to his grampa, but like most kids who lose a grandparent, he was still able to function.

The kids in the area used to go swimming in the Green River all the time. But one day, Arnold Jones decided to go swimming alone. He was in the river, and he said that it suddenly came up a horrible storm with thunder, rain, and lightning. At that point, he saw his grampa swimming down the river on his back. His grandfather warned him to get out of the water because it was very dangerous to stay in it during the storm.

Soon after he got out of the water, lightning struck the river at the very spot where he had been swimming. He knew that he would have been killed if his grampa hadn’t come back to warn him of impending death.

14. “Julie’s Promise”

Russell County

I was barely five years old when I had my first ghostly experience. At that age I was too young to know that it was a ghost I had seen on a bright spring morning.

It happened when I lived with my parents on a farm just outside of Russell Springs, where the towns hospital stands today. We had just moved back from Cincinnati, where my dad had been working, and I was glad to be home. I hadn’t wanted to move to Cincinnati back in the fall because it meant leaving my favorite cousin, Julie, who played with me almost every day.

“Don’t worry,” Julie told me. “We’ll see each other again soon. I promise.”

During the months when I was away with my family, Julie was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Back then, the disease was usually fatal. As she struggled against the inevitable, Julie asked to join the local church. Since baptisms were held outside in the creek, Julie’s mom and dad decided it might kill her to be exposed to the wet and cold. Thus, her baptism was postponed until spring, but by spring Julie had died.

At the time of Julie’s death, I had the whooping cough, so Mom and Dad didn’t take me to the funeral. They told me that Julie was dead, but they didn’t discuss the details of the funeral. When we moved back to the farm, all I knew was that Julie was gone forever and I missed her.

So on a bright spring morning while Dad was working on the farm and Mom was ironing, I was in the front yard alone, lying on the ground. As I looked at the blue sky, three little fluffy white clouds came drifting across it. Suddenly, one changed its shape. It looked like a long, flat box to my childish eyes, though later I realized it was in the shape of a coffin. The top half of the lid lifted and a woman sat up. I saw at once that it was Julie.

She leaned over and looked down, smiling and waving at me. Her blue eyes looked happy, and her naturally curly red hair blew gently around her radiant face. She didn’t speak aloud, yet I heard her in my mind.

“Come play with me,” I called.

She shook her head a bit sadly and explained that she didn’t have time. She had something important to do, but she was happy to see me again—like she promised.

All the time she was communicating with me, she was holding a gold locket in her fingers. Then one last wave, Julie lay back down, the lid closed, and the long box changed back to the little white cloud. I watched, feeling both happy and sad, as the three little clouds floated on out of sight. Then I raced into the house and told Mom what I had seen.

“Julie’s dead,” Mom reminded me. “You couldn’t have seen her. Don’t upset your Aunt Zola by telling her about this when you see her.”

I felt like I had to tell Aunt Zola, so when I saw her I told her all that I had seen. She listened intently as I described Julie’s burial clothes and the locket she was wearing. My aunt smiled when I was finished.

“I feel better now,” she told me. “I know that Julie exists somewhere and is happy.”

Years later when I was old enough to understand, Aunt Zola told me how much my ghostly experience had meant to her. She had been depressed and grieving over Julie’s death because a local preacher had told her that nobody could go to heaven without being baptized.

“This got me so worried that I nearly lost my mind,” she said. “But when you told me what you saw, my burden lifted. I knew she was with the angels.”

In our community in those days, the dead were kept at home until time for the funeral. Just before they took Julie away, my aunt placed Julie’s favorite locket around her neck and tucked it inside her dress out of sight. Nobody but my aunt knew that it was buried with Julie, until Julie came to see me one last time like she promised. To me, that says that I really saw the ghost of little Julie.

15. “Grandmother Nevils’ Ghost”

McCreary County

When I was about twelve years old, my family and I were getting ready to move from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, to Texas. Mom and Dad brought me to McCreary County to stay with Grandmother Nevils while they helped the movers pack up.

Being there was great. She would get up early and fix me the biggest and best breakfast you could ever imagine. Then, I would fix her lunch and supper. Once a day, we would clean the house and wash dishes after every meal.

Well, two weeks later, Mom and Dad come back. We stayed another week there with my grandma, then headed toward Texas. Mom Nevils wanted me to stay with her, but Mommy said I had to go. Mom Nevils became upset with Mommy and told her that she would never see Mom Nevils alive again.

We were in Texas about four to six months, if that long. The family called us and said that Mom Nevils had passed on. The funeral was held just one day before my mother s birthday. Our friends from Ft. Campbell came to the funeral with us. That night at the opening, about five people, including myself, heard Mom Nevils yell out Mommy’s name. We all heard it at the same time.

Two or three years later, we moved back to McCreary County into our old house that we let Mom Nevils stay in while we were away. For a while, everything seemed a little strange like it always did when we moved to another place.

We moved here in November ‘86. Around December, I started seeing Mom Nevils. She’d go to that bedroom and look out at the field where horses and cattle were sometimes kept. After she looked out the window, she would walk over to my bedside and stand there a while just staring at me, with her hands together. She would look at me sadly….

I was terrified at first when I saw her spirit standing beside my bed. For many months this went on. Then one day I decided to speak to her. I told her how much I missed her and how I loved her more than anybody. Her smile showed me her happiness. I felt like all that time that she was coming back to check on me and to let me know that she was no longer in misery.

16. “The Gold Tooth”

Russell County

This true story from my mother’s side of the family inspired my fictional story “Ghostland,” published in The Walking Trees. In other words, its the story behind the story.

During his lifetime, my great-grandfather Christopher Columbus Gentry had two wives named Elizabeth. Both went by the name Lizzie, but neither seemed to be the type to be a main character in a ghost story.

When my great-grandfather was married to First Lizzie (my great-grandmother), he was not very generous with his money. When First Lizzie had trouble with her front teeth, Great-grandfather Christopher did not feel it was necessary to spend the money required to have the tooth fixed. Women didn’t work outside the home then, and they didn’t have money of their own. Perhaps that’s why First Lizzie didn’t stand up to him and eventually lost her tooth.

First Lizzie didn’t smile much because of the missing tooth, and she usually held her hand over her mouth after that when she talked.

During an outbreak of flu, Great-grandmother Lizzie became ill and died. It would seem that the need for a gold tooth she’d always wanted would have died with her, but that was not the case.

A while after Great-grandmother’s death, Christopher married the second Lizzie. Before long, she, too, developed tooth trouble and complained to Great-grandfather.

Maybe he felt guilty about the way he neglected First Lizzie, or maybe he had more money to spend during his second marriage. In any case, Second Lizzie got a gold tooth.

The gold tooth was a source of great pride to Second Lizzie. She smiled often to show it off at first. Then she suddenly stopped smiling. She kept her mouth closed and her lips set in a prim, straight line.

“What’s the matter with you?” Great-grandfather wanted to know.

She didn’t tell him at first, but things finally got so bad she finally had to.

“Every night,” she said, “a shadowy form comes down the stairs to my bed, floats over me, and starts plucking at my gold tooth. It’s about to drive me crazy!”

Great-grandfather was about convinced she was crazy until he watched her carefully and saw it, too. It frightened him enough to cause him to build a new house for Second Lizzie.

After Great-grandfather and Second Lizzie moved to the new house, they never saw the shadowy form again. Maybe First Lizzie forgave them and went on to rest, or maybe she didn’t follow them because she was still too embarrassed to be seen outside her old home without her missing tooth.

17. “A Dead Grandson’s Return”

Taylor County

When my brother Paul died, my grandmother was very concerned and uneasy over the loss of her grandson. One night while she was lying there in bed, she spoke to him. “Paul,” she said, “if you can hear me, give me some kind of sign that you are all right.”

Well, when Paul was living, he always walked a certain way. He kind of dragged one foot, and he always wore cowboy boots. After she had spoken to Paul, asking him to give her a sign, she and her husband heard Paul walk up to their front door. When they heard his steps, the house shook and they heard him walk away. Grandma just knew that it was Paul who had walked up to the door so, after that, she handled Paul s death much better.

18. “The Ghost That Visited the Scene of His Wife’s Death”

Jefferson County

Patti McConnell moved into an upstairs apartment on the Bardstown Road there in Louisville, with her eight-year-old daughter. The day they moved in, Patti instantly felt as if there were a presence living there in the apartment with her. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened, yet Patti said that she could always feel something or somebody there with her.

One night, Patti had been out, and when she arrived at her apartment the front door was wide open, yet she knew that she had locked it when she left earlier that evening. She walked on into the apartment, and she immediately noticed that there was no longer a presence there. Whoever it was had left.

Two weeks later, Patti decided to move back to Bowling Green. Her daughter and most of their belongings were already in Bowling Green, so Patti was all alone. Later on that same night, Patti woke up and saw a misty-like figure standing at the end of her bed. It appeared to be an old man all dressed in white, and he looked at Patti and said, “I’m coming back,” then just disappeared.

Patti immediately gathered up the rest of her things that night and drove to Bowling Green. She never returned to that apartment.

Patti also told me that she learned that an elderly woman had previously lived in the Louisville apartment, and that she had died in Patti s bedroom. Likely, that apparition she saw was that of the elderly woman’s husband.

19. “Was It Really Marcie?”

Union County

Right before my mothers best friend, Marcie, died, Marcie told people in her family that she wanted to go see my mother on the forthcoming Saturday. Unfortunately for Marcie, she didn’t hold out that long. She had suffered from some sort of illness that changed her whole personality in later years. Up until that point in time, Marcie had been a pretty happy-go-lucky sort of individual. She always had a gruff tone in her voice, but she never meant anything by that tone of voice at all until the sickness got hold of her.

She and my father had grown up together. For some stupid reason, a year or two before she died the two of them got into an argument and refused to speak to each other after that. My father was so angry with Marcie that he forbade my mother to ever speak to her again.

Sometimes when my mother is in the house all alone, she hears Marcie call out her name. She never has seen her, however. The only thing that Marcie does is to call out my mother’s name. Mother believes it is Marcie because she has something she wants to tell her.

“A Dead Mother’s Return”

Caldwell County

Mom died when I was just fifteen years old. Well, once when I was alone in my house here in Princeton, I felt something smoothing my hair down just like my mother always did when she’d rub it with her hands. I turned around, and there Mom was, her spirit, standing there right in front of me.

She said to me, “Liz, I love you.”

I was so glad to see her again, but I almost fell out of my chair when I saw her and she spoke to me.

When I looked back up toward her, she was gone.

21. “A Dead Father’s Return”

Grayson County

I woke up from a bad dream about two weeks after my father’s death. In the corner of the room sat the recliner that my father had used in the nursing home where he died. I looked over at the chair and saw my father sitting in it. He had on his pajamas.

It was really cold in the room, and I felt a sudden chill. He then looked at me and said, “Gail, everything is going to be okay.” Then, suddenly he was gone.

I felt like he had come back to tell me that it was okay that I wasn’t with him during his last day here on earth. See, I was supposed to be there with him, because I was usually with him for a little while every day there in the nursing home. My conscience felt at rest. Then I just fell back asleep. Everything was all right now.

22. “Grandmother’s Return”

Larue County

These friends of mine, the Potters, told me that they had a wonderful grandmother, who had been dead for ten years. I never met her, but they told me a lot about her, such as the very long hair that she had. She used these long hair pins to keep her hair up and in place.

It had been ten years since the grandmother had been in the house. Well, Mrs. Potter had a dream about her one night. The grandmother was sitting at Mrs. Potter’s bedside telling her that she was all right, that everything would be okay.

The next morning they found one of the grandmother s big, old hair pins right outside the bedroom door in the hallway. They truly believed that that was a sure sign that the grandmother had come back to see them.

23. “Assurance of Love from a Grandmother’s Ghost”

Ohio County

Donna Ford, my senior year psychology teacher over in Ohio County, told me that she and her sister shared a room that had two closets. One closet was theirs; one was that of their grandma, who lived with them.

When Donna was seventeen and her sister was nineteen, their granny died. The night after the funeral, they were in bed, and Donna woke up and saw their grandma walk across the room to her closet and proceeded to get her blue sweater, the one she always wore.

Donna woke her sister up and they both saw their grandmother leaving. As she left, the grandmother looked at them and said, “I love you both and would never hurt you.”

Donna thought that she had dreamed all this, but after talking with her sister the next morning, she realized that it had indeed happened. And, believe it or not, when they went to their grandmothers closet, her blue sweater was gone.

Their mother told them not to be scared because of what they saw. She told them that their granny did love them very much and that she would never hurt them.

24. “A Dead Uncle’s Return”

Cumberland County

During this summer just past, I really got depressed over the death of my uncle, who died a year ago last November. I was truly so depressed that I didn’t want to socialize with anybody. All I wanted to do was sit in my upstairs room, alone.

One day, my parents were downstairs watching television, and I was there in my room thinking. Suddenly, I felt that someone was there in the room with me. I turned around to look, but saw no one. But suddenly, I heard my dead uncle say, “Alica, don’t worry about me. I’m happy where I am.”

And at that very moment, my mother yelled out, “Alica, come on down for lunch.”

I ran on downstairs to eat, and my uncle never spoke to me again. But I truly feel that he came back and spoke to me, just to make me feel better, to help me accept the fact that he was gone.

25. “A Dead Mother’s Ghost Returns”

Russell County

When my mother was fifteen years old, she lost her mother by death. The night after her mother died, my mother told me that as she lay in her bed, she looked up and saw her mama standing there beside the bed.

My mother called out to her mother, but she didn’t answer. She just stood there for a few seconds and then walked out of the room.

Mama never saw her mother’s ghost again after that one time, and nothing unusual has happened since then.

26. “Ghost Whispers”

Warren County

One night I was lying awake in my dorm room, and my sister was asleep there in my room. I heard someone whisper my name. I just laid there, scared; afraid to look to see who it was. I felt as though someone were getting ready to strangle me or something. I was scared, truly scared. Then it whispered my name again.

That time, I jumped up and turned around real fast but no one was there that could be seen. I distinctly felt someone standing there in the room, looking down on me. I have never been able to figure out whose ghost that might have been, but something was there. I was not asleep and did not dream it.

27. “One Stormy Night”

Pike County

It was on a dark, stormy night, and there was a knock on the door of this country doctor’s house. He was very sleepy, but he came downstairs and answered the call. It was a small girl who was very scared. She said that she had to come and find a doctor because her mother was very ill and might die.

The little girl had on a wool coat and a furry hat and mittens. She also had on little black boots. It was storming very bad, and the doctor was amazed at how brave she was. He said that he would be right down. He ran up and got dressed, then grabbed his medical bag. Off they went into the night.

They walked and stumbled through the storm and finally they came to a little cottage. They went inside, and the doctor went into the bedroom. The woman was almost dead from pneumonia. He bathed her in alcohol to get her fever down, and he gave her some medicine. He stayed with her for a long time until finally she began to get some better. The crisis was almost over.

He was wondering where the little girl had gone, so he remarked to her mother, “That little girl of yours sure is brave. Not many little girls would come out in such a storm as this.”

Then he noticed that the woman acted very strangely. She said to him, “Doctor, I have no little girl. She died three months ago from pneumonia.”

The doctor couldn’t believe his ears. He said, “But she came after me in a wool coat and boots, with a furry hat and mittens! She led me here.”

The lady looked very sad, and she said, “When she died three months ago, we put her things in the closet.”

[He looked in the closet.] Sure enough, there were the very clothes the little girl had on. Suddenly, though, as he looked closer, he could see that the clothes were very misty and wet from the storm.

28. “Uncle Lish’s Buried Treasure”

Henry County

When Mrs. Sanders was about twelve years old, her Uncle Lish Williams died. He had been living with his niece Mrs. Ollie Teague, Mrs. Sanders, and her family. Some two weeks after Uncle Lish died, the family was preparing to move. Great-grandmother was in an upstairs room finishing a carpet she had been weaving so the loom could be moved. Uncle Lish’s sister, a Mrs. Johnson, was in another room. Mrs. Sanders, who was then Cleo Teague, was taking up a piece of linoleum that was tacked in front of the hall door. It was just outside the living room door where Uncle Lish died, and on the other side of the hallway was the parlor where he had been “laid out.”

My grandmother looked up, and there floating through the air toward her was Uncle Lish. His snow-white hair was combed just the way the undertaker had combed it, but only the upper part of his body was visible. She was so frightened that she ran up the steps to the weaving room. Her white and frightened little face told her mother that something was wrong.

Grandmother[, who was then just a little girl,] couldn’t speak at all. When she recovered enough to tell her mother and aunt what she had seen, Aunt Johnson was very perplexed. “He wanted to tell you something, child.”

You see, Uncle Lish was believed to have buried his money, and the story goes that those who do this will return, and if you ask them they will tell you [where it is]. My grandmother says that she had no thought of Uncle Lish that day, and so far as she could remember she did not know of the dead returning for their buried treasure.

My grandmother swears this is the truth, and says if she were meeting God right today, she could tell Him so, truthfully.

29. “Gnatt Hudson and a Spirit”

Knott County

My brother Gnatt was always a rowdy boy. He always carried a pistol, which he called his “Sweetheart.” He was always looking for fights or anything that would cause trouble. He was better known as Bad Gnatt Hudson. One reason for this was because every time you saw him, he had this little pistol by his side.

Gnatt also had a horse named Maggie. She would do anything that he asked her to do. He had her so well trained that he never had to get off her to open the gate. When he was drunk, he would say, “Come on Maggie, I’m drunk and too drunk to open the gate. You know how to get me on the other side.”

Maggie would take one leap, and over she would go. Seems as you could hear her say, “Stick on partner, here we go.”

We always knew when we saw them coming if Gnatt was drunk or not by the way the mare would act. She would come to the gate and just sail over it, and never wait for it to be opened.

In 1920, I had an older sister, Emmezell, who way lying on her deathbed. To her, there was not any of us who was as dear as Gnatt. While lying there dying, Emmezell called Gnatt to her bedside and asked him to give up his rowdy ways and to be a good boy; quit his drinking, and lay down his Sweetheart.

He saw that she was going fast, so he said, “Sis, I promise, I promise.”

Not long after her talk with Gnatt, she died. He laid down his pistol and quit drinking for about two months, then he started drinking again, and picked his Sweetheart back up. The first day, he started hunting for trouble, he got drunk and started back home riding Maggie. He had his gun and a box of shells along. When he got about three miles from home, he heard someone singing.

At first, he thought the singing was far off, but it began to get closer and closer. At last, it sounded as if it was under Maggie’s belly. He began to sing to himself to try to drown out the voice, but it didn’t work. The louder he sang, the louder it sang. Then he listened to the words of the song, and he said, “Sis, oh Sis, this is you, for I have heard you sing this song so many times.”

She was singing “The Drunkard’s Hell.”

The horse even acted like it heard her singing, and tried to get Gnatt to get off. Gnatt gave Maggie the spur and the faster she got, the louder the voice sounded. So Gnatt took out his pistol and shot all his shells trying to drown out the singing, but the voice got louder and louder.

When he got to the house, he was saying, “Mom, Mom, Emmezell is out there right now under Maggie’s feet.”

Mom said, “Son, what on earth are you talking about?”

Then he told her what happened to him. However, that didn’t stop him until about four years ago.

Gnatt still talks about Sister’s ghost behind him. This really happened to my brother, Gnatt Hudson. I was only six years old at the time, but I remember it quite well.

30. “The Touch of My Mother”

McCreary County

One night I was resting on my bed. It was January 14, 1991, the day that my mom passed away, but one year later. I felt real bad. Something touched my arm two times. I jumped up, but I saw nothing. So, I laid back down. Then, whatever it was touched my feet. Then, I thought, well, maybe it’s Mom.

At that point, I started feeling so much better.

31. “The Ghost of a Wife Seeking Vengeance”

Cumberland County

Now, this is a ghost story. It was told many years ago. They said that this mans wife told him that if she died before he did, that she would come back and haunt him. So she died before he did.

Well, he said that every night when he fell asleep, something with icy, cold hands would hit him. Well, he got tired of this, and was scared as well, so one night he took his pocket knife to bed with him. That night, when this thing, whatever it was, took hold of his hand, he struck it with his knife.

They always told that the next morning he found a finger that he had cut off, there in bed with him. The finger that he found had his wife’s gold ring on it. He’d cut it off with his knife. After that, the ghost never did come back again to bother him.

32. “A Visit from My Uncle”

Jessamine County

When my cousin visits us, she always asks my mom to tell us a ghost story that happened to her when she was about fourteen years old. This is how Mom tells it:

“It was late one chilly December night in 1974, here in Nicholasville. My sister was awake studying in what used to be my grandmother’s room before she had a stroke and went to the nursing home. I was asleep in my own room, which was next to my grandmother’s room. I was awakened by this noise that was coming from her room—a noise that sounded like paper crumpling. At the same time that I woke up, my sister came into my room to see what I was doing. She’d heard the same noise and thought it was coming from my room.

“We listened closely to see if we could tell what the crumbling noise was. It sounded like it was coming from in between the walls. As the noise continued, I asked my sister to come to my room and spend the night. That noise just would not go away. We both lay there awake in my bed, silently listening, unable to move or discuss what was happening. I mean we were scared but whatever we heard did not seem evil-intended.

“During the night we also heard other noises, like furniture moving across the floor, glass dishes being taken from the cabinet and placed on the table and counter top, and finally, footsteps walking down the hallway.

“We got out of bed the next morning but were still unable to discuss or determine what we had heard. Mom was already up and straightening up the living room. So we asked her if she had heard anything that night, but she wouldn’t say anything. I felt like she knew something that she wasn’t telling us.

“The Christmas tree was still in the living room, and most of the presents that we had opened were still under the tree. However, I did notice that some of the presents had been moved across the room. As I looked around I also noticed that some pictures on top of the TV were turned over, face down. …

“When New Year’s day came, we all had plans for the night. As for me, I was going to a party and spending the night with a friend. My sister was baby-sitting, and Mom went to our neighbors. The next day when I got home, Mom told me that we would be spending the night with our neighbors.

“She did tell me that when she got home the night before that the furniture in the living room had been moved around. We were all somewhat scared, so our neighbor came over to our house to stay with us the next night.

“That was a quiet night. The cold, damp feeling was gone, and everything seemed back to normal again.

“After that, it was years before we could talk about that December night. My sister and I finally got the nerve to ask our mom what she knew about the things that happened back then. She told us that she also heard the crumbling noises and furniture scraping across the floor, and glass dishes being moved around. She said that she thought it was an intruder in our house, so she came out of her room with a shoe in her hand ready to defend us. She walked down the hall and turned into the living room. There by the front door was a mist that sunk immediately to the floor. But just as she saw this mist, she thought she heard the name “Josie” in a low whisper. That made her think that it was her uncle, who had passed away when she was a young child. She also said that there were dishes on the counter and table, and the furniture was moved around from where it was.

“Looking back at that strange time, we finally understand what had happened. Grandmother s older brother, who also had been in a nursing home because of a stroke and had died there, had come to visit us to let us know how much my grandmother still needed us. And it may be that he was also putting things back the way he thought Grandmother had them when she left the house to go to the nursing home.

Whatever the reason, he gave us strength we needed to visit her and to make her final living years here on earth as happy as we could.

33. “A Mother’s Ghost at a Window”

Graves County

My mother was born in 1913 in Graves County, Kentucky. She told me this story of what happened when she was a child. She often passed by this haunted house that was located along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. She would visit her Uncle Charlie and Aunt Lora Smith. Often she would ride with Uncle Charlie in his horse-drawn buggy when he would go into town. They would pass by this house, and he told her the following story about that house.

This married couple that once lived there did not have children for a long time. After several years of marriage, they became the proud parents of a new baby. They just doted on this child. Well, when the child was about six months old, the mother and the father and the little one were all found dead. Nobody knew then, nor do they know now, at whose hand they all died.

The mother and father had evidently been murdered first, and the child had died of starvation because nobody had found their bodies for some time.

There was this portico, or the same thing as a carport as we call it today. It was like a little roof or shed supported by columns, built onto the side of this huge, old, white two-story house that had gingerbread trim. There, in this portico, sat a surrey—a fancy horse-drawn buggy—for many years.

My mother, when she was a little girl, traveled with Uncle Charlie in what would have been considered a buckboard, not a fancy means of conveyance like a surrey. He told her that people passing along the road by this old house often heard a baby crying, and the sounds seemed to be coming from the surrey. When people would go up to the surrey and pat it with their hands, the baby would stop crying. Then, as they walked away the baby would begin to cry again. But Mother never did do that herself. Her uncle could never get her to go up into the yard.

The house itself was also haunted on the inside, as Uncle Charlie, my mother, and others who passed along by the old house often thought they glimpsed the baby’s mother looking out of an upstairs window trying to see where her baby was. Oh, that must have been a very sad mother longing to comfort her crying baby.

The deaths of the three family members occurred long before my mother’s time, but she did hear the baby crying several times when she would travel along the road there in front of that old house. It always gave her the creeps. That old house was still there when I was a little girl. I never heard or saw anything when I went by there, but I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if I did! When I was a little girl just about everybody in that community talked about the ghosts of that family, and some still do.

34. “A Great-grandmother’s Return”

Jefferson County

Its been told by my mother and grandmother that my great-grandmother, when she was dying, stated that she would come back to visit her children and grandchildren. As for me, I didn’t know anything about what she had said.

We have three floors in the house in which we live. Well, one night I was in the basement. From the basement you can look up toward the kitchen and the library. These rooms are close together. That night, apparently my great-grandmother came back to see her children, for when I looked up toward the library I could see this misty figure floating along the top of the steps. I didn’t see any feet, but I could tell that it was a black lady with silver hair and a long, white gown. As I said, I didn’t see any feet; she was just levitating there. As I was lying on the couch when I saw that, I thought maybe that I was just dreaming. Sol closed my eyes in hopes that she would go away. But she didn’t; she just stayed there in this floating-like position.

I closed my eyes again and opened them, but she was still there. I closed my eyes a third time, but she was still there. I didn’t know what to do. I think I was half asleep and half stupid because I got up and went to the stairway to get a closer look. When I got almost to the stairway, she disappeared. But I was close enough to see that it was indeed a black woman with silver hair. However, she was not real, but floating.

Later, when I told my mother about it, she told me that she, too, has had several experiences like this one. She truly believed that it was my great-grandmother who just comes back to see how the family is doing.

35. “Was It the Ghost of Mom?”

Jefferson County

My mother died a year ago, and at that time I was living in an apartment with some friends. My dad and sisters wanted me to move back in the house, so about a week after Mom was buried I moved back home. It was really eerie, for without her there it was creepy, creepy. At first I said, “I am not going to let this get to me.” But it did. Every little noise in the house made me jump. I was walking around, all paranoid.

My friend, Charity, moved in with me…. My dad thought I might like having a friend live with me, since Mom was gone. I used to tell her about these noises and how I was paranoid all the time. She believed me, too. I guess she could see how much it bothered me.

Anyway, here comes the scary part. One night, me and Charity were sleeping. We were sharing my double bed. We kept hearing noises and feeling like someone was in the room with us. I thought Charity was asleep, but she sat up and said, “Laura, I think someone is in here.”

I said, “Me, too.”

Well, we turned on the light and sat there for a while. Then we looked around and everything was okay, so we turned the light off and went back to bed. Just as I began dozing off, I felt a chill at the foot of the bed. Then my feet started getting really cold because the whole foot of my bed was getting colder and colder.

Charity began to cry, and whispered, “Laura, there is something cold on my feet.”

I screamed out, “Me, too!”

So we jumped out of bed and threw on some shoes. That was like three o’clock in the morning, but we left that room, went and got in the car and drove over to Charity’s house and slept there. I think we stayed there for about a week, then moved into an apartment.

I know that house my family lives in is haunted, but I don’t know if it’s Mom or not.

36. “A Telephone Call from a Dead Father”

Pulaski County

My dad died on April 4, 1984, from a cerebral hemorrhage. Needless to say, I was in complete shock and had a hard time dealing with it. So for a week after his death, I stayed with a friend of mine, Laura. Her parents were out of town on spring break.

One night, Laura and I were watching movies until late. The phone rang, and something in my mind told me that I needed to answer the phone. For some odd reason I chose to answer it upstairs instead of downstairs where we were. I ran up the steps and picked up the phone. The voice on the other end sounded very distant, but it was a voice that gave me cold chills. It was Dad’s voice! He had a distinct, coarse voice, so I knew it was he. I could feel my heart pounding because I was so excited.

He basically just said, “Hello,” and made small talk, but it soothed me just to hear it. I woke up from my state of shock when I heard myself scream, “Wait!”

After that incident took place, I felt a peace I hadn’t felt since his death.

37. “Granny Hayden and the Ghost Star”

Lyon County

When Mom loaded my brother and sister and me into the car, and went to the store and bought lemon drops, I knew that we were going to see Granny Hayden. She was an old woman who always wore dresses she made herself with a bibbed apron pinned on the front. She had a fondness for lemon drops, which she never bought for herself. She always found something in the house to give the children—a flowerpot, or a penny, or a bar of soap shaped like a shoe. She played the piano and the harmonica and guitar—sometimes two at the same time! She knew more songs than I knew numbers, and she laughed and hugged us and we loved her.

Her name was Emma Kuhn Hayden, and she was my great-grandmother. She was known for her hands …; they could make almost anything—quilts, paper stars, a crocheted tablecloth with the Lords Prayer worked into it—which all her children would fight for when she died.

She was known for her independence. Her husband had been dead for a while when I knew her, but she lived by herself on their farm … and kept animals and would one day drop dead in the chicken house with no fuss at all. She was known for her lack of selfishness … and for her perfect grace in never seeing herself as anyone beyond ordinary. And the thing I would like most to ask her about if I had known her beyond early childhood is another thing altogether. She saw her sister leave this world, and told this story as if it were not the least bit out of the everyday rhythm of her life.

Granny Hayden’s ancestral people, the Kuhns, were an unusual family to appear in the Land between the Rivers. Her father, Emil Maximillian Kuhn, was born in Baden in 1841 and was a scholar at Heidelberg University. For a reason somehow involving religious vows he did not care to take, he fled Germany and came to the United States at the time of the Civil War. He and his wife, Frieda Beichoff Kuhn, became professors at the University of Cincinnati…. They came Between the Rivers when he took a position as an agent of the DeGraffenrieds in 1884….

The place where the Kuhns lived was made up of hills and hollows, and it was a long way from Germany. It was a long way from anywhere, as we would see it today…. For a mother, the greater hardships were physical and natural. People, especially children, got sick. Many of the people Between the Rivers during those years were too far from a doctor to even consider him or her a necessity. A doctor might be brought in, literally, for a birth or a very grave injury or illness, but even then the physical and financial difficulties of reaching one in time must be weighed against the patient s potential to be healed by God, time, and home remedies. Families had their own, sometimes peculiar, ways of treating sickness. Many remedies contained ingredients we would consider harmful today, such as kerosene and turpentine. My own grandmother treated almost every minor affliction with one or two colors of Watkins salve, pink or green, until she couldn’t buy it anymore…. A lot of people still get sick, and everybody still dies. There were children [back then] who became ill one day and died the same night, before the necessity for getting the doctor was much more than obvious. That s what happened to Elsa.

Elsa woke one morning with a fever—no one knew how much fever, because there was no thermometer—and was told to stay in bed It was a bitterly cold day, which would have been weighed into the balance of whether or not to go for the doctor. The doctor, in this case, was more than miles away. He was miles through the woods and over the ridge, and down to the ferry, which might not be running on such a cold day. He was up from the ferry landing in the little town of Kattawa…. There was no one to ride for him except Emma, the oldest sister….

Emma made the decision to go for the doctor herself. She dressed up warm—socks inside and outside of her boots—and she saddled the horse herself. Emma rode as fast as she dared to, on the horse she trusted, on the road she knew. There was only a little light on the ridges, and almost none in the hollows…. Emma was praying that she could make it to the doctor on time. She did not have a watch, and the time she was thinking of had nothing to do with hands on a dial, anyway….

Emma knew from countless trips before that she could look back from that point and see the light, far away, in the upstairs window of her house, the window of the bedroom that she shared with Elsa. Tonight, in the middle of the haste and the worry, she stopped and turned the horse and looked back through the darkness for that light. As she spotted it, she felt a great sense of calm and peace that grew more steady as the light, contracted itself from window size to a small radiating globe that danced inside the house like a lantern in the hand of a merry child, and then not like that at all as it gathered itself and concentrated all of its energy and flew out the window and into heaven like a backwards shooting star.

Emma calmly headed back toward the house, walking the horse now across the frozen trail and singing to herself. She cherished the calm vision that she would carry with her to her own grave. Other people might have ghost stories with rattling chains and howling winds. Other people might be riding in airplanes, and before she died, men would walk on the moon. All of these things, for her, would somehow connect with a knowledge of how close we can come to God, and still come home again. On a cold winter night Between the Rivers, she, Emma, watched her sister’s spirit leave this world as a ghostlike star.

38. “A Host of Unknown, Humorous Family Ghosts”

Henderson County

I was adopted and was raised in Louisville, later brought into Henderson County. Whenever I was on my grandfather’s farm, there was always creaking and rocking, strange things that happened. They always said it was ghosts from the cemetery. I was under three years old at the time.

Then, when I was three, my parents bought a house in Henderson on Main Street. There was a man there who was shot on the corner of the street. He passed away in the house we bought.

When I grew up, the house was always mainly dominated by young men talking and carrying on and moving things around the house, and pulling down the drapes that my Mom had put up. They would just do pranks and tricks and different things. My dad would always tell me to get off the phone and go to sleep. Well, I was never on the phone.

Well, things would get so far out of hand, such as my school books disappearing or flying across the room, or somebody sitting down on the bed, tickling my ears, and other things that would keep me from going to sleep. “All right,” I’d say, “You all just come on out and get me. Come on.”

Later on, I got married and moved into a couple of other houses, and these ghostlike things didn’t seem to follow me. But when I bought this older house that was built in 1865, they were always around. They’d run into me. Sometimes, if Fm upset about something, they’ll come in and calm me down a little bit.

They also have locked me out of the house. I’ve had this key from day one, and there’s nothing wrong with the key, but they think it’s funny. And sometimes I’ll walk into them, or you can see a little puff go down on the bed. You can just feel them. And sometimes you can put things up, and they’ll move them.

I have no idea who they are. But I do feel that they like me. They follow me. They are always with me. They were always with me on the farm, also there on Main Street where I grew up. Then I didn’t see them for a couple of years. But when I moved onto Clay Street, they wound up there on Clay Street.

And they’re the same. They don’t let anything hurt me, even though I’ve had washing machines to turn over on me. I’ve fallen off the roof, they caught me. Many other things like that have happened, and they take care of me. But they think it is hilarious when they move things on me, and it drives me crazy. You can hear them laughing.

Maybe they’re members of my family from way back then. I even see them occasionally. They’re young men—five of them.

39. “Noises in the Kitchen”

Barren County

My mother’s sister, who died of a breast cancer, was never able to let go of the spirit of her mother. She was only eight years old when her mother, well her mother and her father, were shot and killed, but she was never able to let go of her mother all those years. And I had never known of this until after her death and my uncle told me that she would never let go of her mother’s spirit.

He said that they could hear her mother—he used the words “her mother”—in the kitchen working and doing little jobs, just puttering and cluttering around. Said cabinet doors would shut and open, but there was no wind coming in through open windows or doors that would cause that to happen. He claimed that they would go in and turn on a light to see what was causing the noises, but there was never anything there. Said they heard these noises for years and years.

40. “The Annual Appearance of Grandma’s Ghost”

Simpson County

On Chestnut Street here in Franklin, March 8,1984, it was a really creepy day for my family and me. This was also my grandparents’ wedding anniversary day. Their names were Golde and Bill. Grandmother Golde died on March 9, 1983.

Well, I was sitting on my stool coloring, when all of a sudden I felt a tug on my shirt. I looked around but did not see anything that could have caused it. Then, all of a sudden, I felt another tug, and then something started pulling me backwards. When I looked around this time, it was a lady. She had short brown hair and blue eyes. Then she seemingly got scared and pushed me off the stool. When I yelled out, my mother asked me what was wrong. I told her my story. Then she told me what my grandma looked like. And it was amazing that she looked like the person I had seen.

Nowadays, I see my grandma every year on the eighth of March.

41. “Dead Grandfather’s Image in Photo”

Jefferson County

My grandfather died when I was about thirteen, about three days after Easter. You won’t believe this, but the next year after his death, we were spending Easter with my grandma because she didn’t want to be alone. It was the first time that all the grandkids had been together all at once in a long time, so my grandma wanted a picture of all of us standing on the outside of her house.

When we got the photo back, it had my grandfather standing inside the house looking out the window. She said that you could see him peeking out from behind the curtain. His image was faint, like you could see through him all the way into the kitchen and into the hallway behind.

I never saw the picture because my grandmother was so freaked out she got rid of it. But some other people saw it, and they said that it sure was creepy.

42. “Father’s Ghost in an Old Two-Story House”

Logan County

My grandfather—I called him Pa—said that when he grew up and married and had kids of his own, he and my grandma lived in an old two-story white house in the Schochoh area of southeastern Logan County. The house was surrounded by a big, huge yard and lots of trees, and it sat on several acres of land.

The hauntings started when their daughter Rita was only seven years old. She went into the backroom and came out screaming that she had seen my daddy whose name was John Green Pearson. In that same house, you could also hear the prettiest music playing when you were on the front porch. You could also hear chains going up and down the steps, and you could hear the doors slamming shut when there was no one in the house.

Pa and Ma moved out after a while. Said they couldn’t take anymore.

43. “Pranks of a Mother’s Ghost”

Shelby County

We were sitting in our house one day there in Shelby County, and our garage door opened by itself. It hadn’t worked for a long time, actually ever since my mom’s been dead. A lot of times, I’d notice lights on and doors open in the house, when you’d know these things shouldn’t be that way.

Well, we were sitting there one day and Dad came up and asked why the garage door was down. See, it hadn’t been working, and there was nobody else in the house.

I told him that there was no one else in the house. Well, he put the door up and told me that it was working again. So he went on, but in a little while he came back and told me that the garage door was down again, and wondered why I was pulling these pranks on him.

I wasn’t doing it, so I just figured it was Mom doing it, maybe pranking us. Since then, it’s been doing it a lot.

44. “Noises of a Family Ghost”

Hart County

Old Man McCreery had a place in Bonnieville near Bacon Creek. From the way Dad described the place, it was a double-pen cabin. There were lofts at each end of the house that you could get into only by climbing a ladder. The owners of this old house proclaimed that you could always hear sounds with no origins. Dad said that he remembers hearing some of these strange, eerie sounds. When he would be downstairs, he could hear someone dragging a logging chain across the upstairs loft.

One night, while they were all sitting outside visiting with my grandmother, the sound of someone throwing plates against the wall could he heard. When Granny asked them what in the world that noise was all about, the owners told her, said, “It’s just our ghosts.”

She went back into the kitchen to see what the noises were all about, but said nothing had been disturbed. No broken dishes or anything.

45. “A Ghost’s Return to Engage in Normal Pursuits”

Warren County

When I was a small girl, about nine years old, I went with my mother to visit a friend whose sister had passed away. I was not aware of the death at the time. I was playing outside with the friend’s small daughter, when I had to come in to use the bathroom. The bathroom was situated between two bedrooms, and it could only be reached by passing through one of the rooms. I entered through one side and for some reason decided to leave by the other bedroom. A lady was sitting on the bed in the bedroom, and she beckoned for me to come see what she was doing. I don’t remember exactly what it was other than it was some sort of hand work and that it was very pretty. I told her how pretty it was, and she smiled at me. I then left the room and came downstairs. My mother and her friend were sitting in the kitchen talking. I asked them who was the nice lady upstairs. They told me there was no one in the house but them. We went upstairs to investigate. The lady was gone, but there was still an impression on the bed of someone having sat there. I described the lady. Her description fit exactly the friend’s deceased sister. The room had been her bedroom. The mystery was never explained, but I can still remember the lady’s smile.

Incidentally, I never knew the deceased sister.

46. “Ghost in a Rocking Chair”

Simpson County

It was a hot summer night, and I was at my grandmother’s house on Cherry Street here in Franklin. Her name is Nadia Brindley. It was July 17, 1991, and time for me to go to bed to go to sleep. I had to sleep in the living room all by myself. I fell asleep about 10:30 that night. I woke up about 1:30 and looked in the corner beside the table and saw the red recliner moving. I was scared; felt weightless. I even had goose bumps! Then it stopped moving for about five seconds, but then moved again.

Believe it or not, I got under a blanket and fell asleep. The next morning I didn’t wake up until 10:30 A.M., and I was still scared. I thought to myself, this is the day that I have a ball game. But I couldn’t concentrate on the game because of the red recliner that kept coming back into my mind. “Grandma, why did I see the chair moving last night?” I asked her.

“It was your grandfather Brindley, and that was his favorite chair,” she told me.

47. “A Ghostly Image’s Foretelling of Death”

Hart County

What I’m about to tell happened back around 1930 when my papaw was just a boy about twelve or thirteen years old. Back then, the most popular form of entertainment where they lived was visiting with neighbors. On this one particular night, there was a fellow there who lived a few miles away. He left fairly late, and when he got home and lit his lamp, he saw a woman’s figure wrapped in a shroud floating across the bedroom.

It moved toward him, and when he saw its face, he realized that it was that of his sister-in-law. That man and this particular sister-in-law did not get along. Just as soon as he recognized who it was, the apparition disappeared. It scared this fellow literally witless, and he ran all the way back to Papaw’s house.

They were getting ready for bed, and the man nearly beat the door down trying to get into the house. They let him spend the night there, as he was too frightened to go home and sleep alone.

The next day, he received word that his sister-in-law had died.

48. “Return of Dead Husband”

Warren County

A woman whose husband had died a few months back was outside working on her home in Warren County. She lived in a rural area and had a few acres of farmland. While she was working, she noticed a blue glow coming from one of the fields, so she decided to get a closer look to see just what it was. She was astonished to see her husband standing in the middle of the field with an electrical blue aura surrounding him.

He looked exactly as he had always looked, and he spoke to her. He asked her how she was doing and then called for their dog that was by the woman’s side. When the dog walked over to the man, he got a shock and ran back to the house. The man and woman talked a while longer and then he disappeared. She hasn’t seen him since that happened.

49. “A Brother’s Return As a Ghost”

Oldham County

One night, probably in June, I had gone to bed. Well, my brother had died in a motorcycle accident a couple of months earlier. I kinda woke up, and I was sitting on my bed, and my sister was laying next to me in a different bed. So, I wasn’t sure whether I was sleeping or not. Its not like I saw my brother with certainty, it’s like I kinda saw him. It was my brother, and he was telling me everything—that he was okay, that he was in no pain, and that he loved everyone very much and that we should quit crying over him. He said that he was happy now. Well, he sort of sat there for a minute, and then he told me to tell his girlfriend that he loved her very much. And that was the end of it. I was just sitting there after that, but he was no longer there.

50. “A Husband’s Return in Human Form”

Lawrence County

I knew this lady that was part Indian. When her husband died, she was at a loss as how to run her farm and store business. One day while she was walking to her son’s house about a mile away, she met her husband in human form. He told her how to conduct the business. He also told her not to touch him, but she couldn’t resist so she reached out for him but he vanished.

This happened about sixty or so years ago at Georges Creek here in Lawrence County.

51. “The Ghost of a Murdered Woman”

Barren County

Beth left her apartment in Glasgow one morning with her two-year-old son. On her way to work she was to drop him off at her in-laws’ home, as was the arrangement of the court. His father was to pick him up there for his time with his son. Beth and the child’s father had been separated for a year, and the divorce was not final at this point.

Beth was running. She hurried into the living room and dropped off the diaper bag and the child’s toys into a chair, then rushed into the kitchen to put the milk into the refrigerator. She had gone only a few feet into the kitchen when her estranged husband walked up behind her and shot her in the back of the head. She died instantly. It is believed that Beth and the child were unaware that he was waiting for them.

The husband took the child to his brother’s house and left it there. He was later found in a wooded area. Apparently he had shot and killed himself when he realized what he had done.

Before her death, Beth lived in an apartment above her grandmother’s house. Beth’s mother left when Beth was a small child, thus Beth was reared by her aunt and grandmother. They were very proud of her. She had just completed her nursing program and had passed her boards. She had also received the highest awards for her efforts. Beth’s apartment had two entrances. One to the downstairs home of her grandmother, and one to the outside.

After the funeral, Beth’s grandmother kept the inside entrance door closed due to hot weather. And they had cleaned out her apartment, thus no longer needed to leave the door open.

Approximately one week after Beth’s murder, footsteps were heard in the upstairs apartment. They were heard so plainly that it was thought someone had broken in during the night. In checking the apartment, they found that the door to the outside entrance was still securely bolted from the inside. There was no sign of anyone.

The door to the inside entrance of the apartment then began to open slowly. The grandmother had been sleeping on a day bed at the foot of the steps. When Beth and her husband began to have trouble and Beth moved to the apartment, Beth’s grandmother feared for her. Sleeping closer to the door made her feel closer to Beth. She continued to sleep there after Beth’s death. Every night the grandmother could still see the door slowly open, but no one would be there. She began to leave the door open at night, but it would slam loudly.

One night as the grandmother was sleeping, she awoke when she heard the door open. She then saw a shimmering outline of a person walking slowly down the steps toward her. Terrified, the grandmother screamed. The figure turned slowly and went back up the stairs and into the apartment. Then the door shut.

The next day, the grandmother called a friend of the family, a person well known in solving murder mysteries. He visited with the family there at the house. He told them that Beth did not want them to be frightened, that she only wanted them to take her son out of the house of the in-laws and let him move in with her sister-in-law out of town. He went on to say that the house where Beth died was evil and the boy needed to leave. He also told them that Beth only wanted them to know how much she loved them.

At the time of writing this account, the footsteps and sightings have subsided; Beth appears to be satisfied.

52. “A Little Girl’s Vision of Her Grandmother’s Ghost”

Boyd County

When this happened I was five years old, the age when children don’t want to think about ghosts. One day, I was going from the house where my family lived over to my aunt’s house, which was just a little ways across the hill. My grandfather’s house was between our house and my aunt’s house. I was going through this field. I was just walking along and looked over and saw a woman on the porch of this log cabin. Of course, I thought it was strange. I looked at her and she was motioning for me to come over to her.

Well, for some reason I was afraid, but I kinda started to go over while she was still motioning. Then I kinda turned. When I looked back, she wasn’t there. She was gone. I went on to my aunt’s house, then come back home. I said to my mom, “Mom, there was a woman on the porch over there at Granddads cabin.”

She said, “Aw, surely not.”

I said, “Yes, she was standing there.” Then I went on to describe the woman I had seen.

Then she said to me, “Oh, 111 bet that was Aunt Martha.” That’s whose house I was going to.

I said, “No, Aunt Martha was home when I got there.”

Well, Mama just kinda shut up about it.

My grandmother Toothman died the day before I was born. A couple of years after I had seen what I thought was her standing on the porch, I was looking through some family photographs and saw my grandmother’s picture. The woman in that picture was the one I had seen standing on the porch. That was at the cabin she died in.

53. “Current Ghosts”

Casey County

My family currently has a couple of ghosts living in the house with us. My aunt heard one, and she absolutely will not stay upstairs in that room anymore. When I was twelve years old, I personally saw a little girl beside my bed several times when I would wake up. This was in Casey County. I finally got my own room, being the eldest of nine children. Occasionally, one of my brothers or sisters would get in the bed with me. One night I heard the door to the room open, and I heard footsteps walking over toward my bed. Then suddenly I felt the covers being lifted off me and felt the bed sink down beside me. Something or somebody had sat down on the bed. Thinking that it was one of the younger kids, I turned over real fast and pulled the covers back. Imagine my surprise when I looked and saw no one there. But the bed was still sunk in like someone was lying there. Well, that scared me into letting the spirit have my bed for the night. I mean I got away from there!

Later I found out that my great-aunt Effie died in her bed in that very room.

54. “The Death Shadow”

Hardin County

A dear friend of mine, who was just like a beloved family member, had been diagnosed with cancer. I had gotten to know her in later years through our church. I spent every possible moment at her bedside. Outside of sleeping and working, I was there all the time. I sing in a gospel group called the Masters Trio. She loved to hear us sing, and when we were alone I would sing for her. I kept telling her that when she got well, I was going to take her dancing.

A few months later, when the doctor called the family to her bedside for the end of her life, her husband, children, family, friends, and other loved ones gathered at her bedside. We were there for forty-eight hours nonstop.

The second night, I had a very important council meeting for which I left the hospital to attend. On the way I stopped at a local church to pray. I asked God to either heal her, as she had suffered enough, or to go ahead and take her so as to end her suffering. I cried for a long time, then straightened myself up and went on to the council meeting.

When I returned to the hospital, everyone was in need of a break, so they left for some food and fresh air. I was alone with her. Although she was unresponsive, I sat beside her and held her hand. I told her I loved her and was letting her go. I then laid over and cried for what seemed like hours….

As the P.M. turned into A.M., I was still holding her frail hand and lying over close to her. At this time, a special friend, Chester, along with a friend of his, came into the room. I had already cried until I was weak. Chester and his friend helped me into a chair at the foot of her bed. At that exact moment, the nursing staff told us that the monitors were fading out and that her life would soon be over. I was numb at that point.

Then I looked out into the hallway where I saw a dark shadow that soon took the form of a small-framed human being. It walked over to me and held out its hands as if to say, “I’m sorry.” Then it floated over to her bed and sat down beside her, laid gently down into her form and disappeared. My dear friend sat up, opened her eyes and looked at me. I said to her in the lowest whisper I’ve ever heard myself use, “It’s okay; go on home. I love you.” She laid back, closed her eyes, took two very labored breaths, then died.

Even now, a few years later, I feel a spiritual connection to her. And if you ever want to know what death looks like, I can tell you, for I have seen it.

55. “The Ghost of a Beauchamp”

Hancock County

Here’s a ghost story that s been handed down to me, and it relates to the Robert Costin Beauchamp house on U.S. 60, between Hawesville and Lewisport, here in Hancock County…. Now, I never heard this but Cudin [Cousin] Kate said she had. Cudin Kate Beauchamp Humphries was living there then. And she said occasionally a woman would come down the steps with a silk petticoat and high heels. And Cudin Kate loved to scare people and she scared Margit and all them [Margaret Beauchamp Crutcher and her sisters]; they wouldn’t go back after they’d hear this story.

So, I was sittin’ there one night. She said, “Well, I hear that woman comin’ down the steps.”

I said, “Well, open the door and let her in.” I said, “I’ve never seen a Beauchamp yet that wadn’t good company.” (Laughs.) Yeah, that’s what I said. And Cudin Kate laughed. But Aunt Pug, Kate Humphries’ mother, has told me that she’s heard her. At least two or three people have told me that they heard her. And she [the ghost] was supposed to be a Beauchamp—the ghost of a Beauchamp, and she had on a silk petticoat and high heels.

She never went up the steps. Always came down. How she got back, I don’t know. This house was built about 1842 and is still standing. It’s of double brick construction. You can blow a horn out front and you can’t hear it in the house. Thick walls.

Julia Mason and her brother Robb [who lived in the house after Kate Beauchamp Humphries’ death in the 1960s] were livin’ there. John Henderson, my husband, would pick up Robb anytime we were goin’ by there. And John was up there blowin’ the horn for Robb. I said, “John, you’ll blow for the rest of your life. You’re goin’ to have to knock on the door ‘cause he cain’t hear yah.”

Well, now the schoolchil’ren over there [across the highway from the Beauchamp house] had been makin’ up stories about it. And they said, “There’s a casket up there in the attic of the Beauchamp house.” And somebody said, “Well, Waitman Taylor, who owns the old house and rents it out, ought to go ahead and tell that story about the ghost since it’s so little [minor] compared to what the children are tellin’ [about the casket].” (Laughter.) But Waitman said that some people wouldn’t move there [if they knew the tales associated with the house. He doesn’t want the stories told for fear of not being able to rent the house to tenants.] …

Nobody has heard the woman come down the steps since Cudin Kate lived there, and she died in the 1960s. I don’t know how she got up the stairs. She just came down. If you’re a ghost, you don’t have to be logical (laughs), but I never heard her. …

56. “A Dead Mother’s Return to Her Child”

Floyd County

Mrs. M.E. Sturgill of Dewey, Kentucky, says that when she was a little girl about nine or ten, her oldest brother and his wife died, leaving a little daughter, Cynthia, about six. The grandmother took little Cynthia to raise. One night, Mrs. Sturgill, her sister Rosa, and little Cynthia were sleeping in the same bed when Mrs. Sturgill was awakened by a bright light.

Looking up, she beheld the little girl’s [dead] mother standing by the bedside. Her face shone with an unnatural brightness. The whole room was lighted bright as day. Even the garment of the dead mother shone brightly. The apparition was almost against Mrs. Sturgill (as she slept on that side of the bed). She covered her head with the covers, her heart beating like a hammer. When she ventured to peep out, the light had disappeared. The room was in darkness. Good spirits sometimes return.

57. “Confederate Soldier’s Ghost”

Trigg County

Mary Ross tells of an experience which happened in Trigg County back during the 1920s in the Land between the Rivers (now the Land between the Lakes Recreational Area). Mary and a little cousin were at their grandmother’s home playing with their dolls. They were sitting in the grass in the backyard near an old cistern. Suddenly, Mary glanced up to see a strange looking young man walking toward them from the direction of the old cistern. He stopped and watched the frightened little girls as they ran to the house calling for their grandmother.

Their grandmother quickly came out onto the back porch. The children turned and pointed toward the stranger, but there was no one there, and nowhere could he have concealed himself so quickly. They described the man and the strange-looking gray suit and cap he wore. Their grandmother told them that they had seen a ghost, and they were not the first to do so.

She went on to tell them the story about a young man, their distant relative, who lived on the property in the early 1860s. He left for the war, leaving his sweetheart’s promise to marry him when he returned. At the war s end, the young Confederate soldier returned home. Waiting for him was a letter from the girl he hoped to marry, saying she had married someone else. The soldier, despondent, committed suicide by drowning himself in the cistern. The grandmother said the little girls’ sighting was not unusual, that they should not be frightened. She went on to say that he had been seen about the family farm since 1865.

58. “Grandpa’s Ghost at the Window”

Bullitt County

One particular night, my sister Sharon was sleeping in the house that our grandfather Young was born and raised in here in Bullitt County. Grandpa Young had died not long before the night I’m talking about. Sharon was in the backroom there in the house. She woke up and saw looking in through the window at the foot of the bed a white, shadowy figure that was in the form of a person’s upper body.

She got up out of bed and went over to the window to get a closer look and saw that the figure was motioning for her to follow it. By the time all of that happened, she got really scared and ran out of the room. After she thought it over, she believes it was the ghost of Grandpa Young.

59. “Mother’s Frequent Returns”

Barren County

My mother was in another home with us, but she moved with us when we moved here. My wife, Dianna, and I can smell her. Dianna says that she smells “like a pretty woman.” She has on this old-timey powder perfume. That’s what she smells like, say back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Both of us can tell when she’s in the room with us. The perfume-smell will float right by you, and then just disappear. We know she’s there. You don’t have to have any windows or anything open.

We have seen her several times. My wife’s grandson Matthew has seen her, and I saw her one night lying there in bed. Something happened, and I woke up. She was standing by the side of my bed, and she patted me on the shoulder and said, “Everything will be all right.” Then she was gone.

I have woke up in the middle of the night with my back and shoulders hurting, and she’ll come to me and massage my shoulders and back. She’s done this quite often. I’ve seen her many times, but she doesn’t linger.

The clothes she has on is usually a dress like the ones in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Back then, the ladies wore a double-like dress. The top part of it you could see through, but it was two-piece material. It was like a flower—a daisy. I could see her dress, and I’ve seen every bit of her except her feet.

60. “Grandfather’s Protective Spirit”

Butler County

I believe that my granddad passes by here occasionally. I have seen him once. He lived and died in Butler County. He died in 1974. I’m a firm believer in ghosts. I’m a firm believer that my mother looks out for me. I’ve seen her several times and talked to her.

And back to my granddad. He had been dead for eight or nine years when he saved my life. It was just as plain, just as clear, just as simple as you and I sitting here right now. What happened is, he turned my head around with a slap. I was driving a truck on Route 59 down in Georgia in 1983.1 fell asleep at the wheel. I could hear him hollering for me from away off, “Harold, wake up. Harold, wake up.” There wasn’t a third time; instead there was a slap. And when he slapped, I woke up and turned my head around. I was in the median of the road running about seventy miles an hour headed for the concrete abutment. I pulled the truck back onto the road, slowed down, and pulled over in the emergency lane, then turned my overhead light on and looked at my face. I had a handprint on my face. There was nobody in the truck but me.

I was born and raised in an old house in the Lee community over in Butler County. My granddad and I were very close. To me, he wasn’t Granddaddy; I called him Dad. I’ve had dreams about him. What I’m about to tell happened in 1981 or ‘82. Dianna and I lived on White’s Chapel Road here in Barren County. In my dreams, when I’d walk into this house, Dad would be in front of me. The way the old house was set up, we’d go into the living room, then turn and go into the kitchen. I would follow him through the living room, but when I’d step through the kitchen door, I’d wake up. That happened every time I dreamed about him. It happened over and over and over. Finally, one night after I dreamed and woke up, I said to me wife, “Honey, I’m going to the old cemetery at Christian Home Church in Butler County. I’ve got to go. Dad wants to tell me something.”

I got up and put my clothes on. It was as dark as it could be. I leave home and drive over to the cemetery. I was by myself. I get out of the car and walk up to Dads tombstone. I rubbed his tombstone and said to him, “Dad, what is it that you want to tell me? Whatever it is, tell me. For god’s sake, here I am.”

I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him and feel him immediately beside me. He said, “Let’s go to the old house.”

I said, “Come on.” I turn around and get in my van, and he crawled in the seat beside me. I couldn’t see him, but could feel his presence there. And me and him talked on the way to the old house. I drove up to the old house, and it was as dark as a black cat. Nobody lived there and the old house was about to fall down. I pulled up and parked where I always did. I get out of the van, and Dad leads the way, no flashlight, no nothing. I followed him up the old walkway and into the door of the house. This was all identical to my dreams. When he walked into the kitchen, he turns around and faces me. At that time, I could see him just as clear as anything. He said, “If there is ever any doubt in your mind that you are unloved and unwanted, 111 meet you right here, and you’ll know that you’re loved and we’ll be watching.”

At that time, I was having a lot of doubts in my mind because of the way my real dad did me. But I won’t go into that. Anyway, my mama and my granddad are the ones that really look out for me. They’re both dead now, but I still see or hear from both of them from time to time.

61. “Grandpa’s Visit?”

Pendleton County

My grandfather always managed to “call the roll,” as we say, when he was mentioning family members. Even when what he said was questioned, he didn’t try to correct himself. Usually, even after naming several sons, daughters, grandsons, or granddaughters, he still might not have it right. So he would just leave us as named and continue with his naming process.

Grandpa died just two weeks before our second son was born. He was eighty-five years old and died a tragic death by accidentally setting himself on fire while lighting his beloved pipe. He just loved to smoke his pipe. Several nights after his funeral, I was asleep when I heard his familiar voice calling out my aunt’s name. Either I was at that stage of sleep where things that are dreamed seem very real, or I really experienced this. I still don’t know which way it was, but I do distinctly remember sitting up in bed to say, “I’m Carolyn.”

When I sat up, I saw his form, but when I called out my name, he left.

62. “A Final Goodbye?”

Pendleton County

My grandmother’s death was still very vivid for us, as it had been only a few months since we lost her. My mother had tried to make it to the hospital in time to see her one last time, but Grandmother could not hold out that long. I believe Mom was dealing with some regrets because of this, but I do not mean to say that Grandma and my mother were not close. I feel that Mom just felt she had left some things unsaid, as we all do when we lose someone fairly suddenly. Whether it was a longing for Grandma because of what I just mentioned, or whether it was something else, I just don’t know. I do know that my mother is not one to believe ghost stories, but she cannot explain what happened in any other way.

My parents used a wood stove in their house to supplement the heat that the furnace provided. This stove had an ash pan that my mother emptied at the edge of the garden that was located just a few feet from the side of their house. This is what she was doing on the evening that Fm describing, and it was just a short time after Grandmas death. There was no breeze blowing, and no lights were reflecting from the road that ran past the house. But at the moment my mother dumped the ashes, she saw a formless, shadowy-white something fly over her head. At that same moment, she distinctly felt the presence of her mother.

Mom has often tried to explain this incident about the ashes flying up above her in some way, but without a breeze blowing. Whatever it was, it just doesn’t explain Mom’s feeling of Grandmother being so near to her.

63. “A Husband’s Return”

Rowan County

A friend of mine told me that after she lost her husband to cancer, a few months later she was lying on the couch resting when all of a sudden she felt a presence and there was her husband lying there beside her. He wrapped his arms around her, and that caused her to feel more love at that time than she had ever felt. His presence just surrounded her with warmth and love.

Since that first happened, her late husband has appeared at the times when she was in a crisis of some kind, and this gave her courage to go on.

One of her other family members has also seen him.

64. “The Imprint of a Dead Girl’s Face”

Lewis County

My daddy was a C & O Railroad worker in Lewis County. He worked with a crew that kept the train tracks in a state of repair. One day while on their lunch break, he saw an old man sitting in a small cemetery crying beside a tiny grave. Daddy walked over to the old fellow to offer any comfort he might be able to give. Probably, this was a man who had lost his only child, or so he thought. He found out that the man did not know the little girl buried there, only the details of her death. Daddy came away with this story:

The little girl’s mother had died leaving behind the child and her husband. The father later remarried a woman who had not a bit of human feeling for the little girl. She began mistreating her from the very first day. Patty tried to please her stepmother, but there was no way. She was constantly slapped and shoved around. Eventually, the father also got in on the act. Together, they made poor five-year-old Patty’s life a living nightmare.

On the cold winter day that Patty died, she had been refused water for quite a while, maybe days. She had somehow slipped away from the parents and gone to the frozen creek to get water. They found her there trying to break the ice. The beating they gave her resulted in the little girl’s death. The story that was given to authorities is not clear, but they were not arrested or punished.

One day the stepmother noticed a strange looking spot on the porch pillar. With each passing day, the marking became more clear. In a few days, the picture of Patty’s face could be seen clearly on the pillar. The stepmother tried to scrub it away but it only became more apparent. The woman then brought a towel and tied it over the image. The next day she noticed another image or picture beginning to emerge from another post. In a few weeks, the house was covered with pictures of Patty. They saw her face everywhere. The harrowed parents could stand it no longer, so they went to the local law officers and confessed. They were given life in prison for the child’s murder. The man crying beside the grave was promising Patty that if the couple was ever released from jail, they would regret it. He would, he said, make their life so miserable that they would gladly kill themselves just to escape him.

Daddy said that he had no doubt that the man meant every word he said.

65. “A Dead Brother’s Peace”

Wolfe County

We’d been out somewhere and come home that afternoon, opened the door and didn’t shut it back because we could hear somebody in the shower. So I come back down to my dad’s to get his gun and went back home, and the shower was still running. So I went in there. The door was closed but the shower was running wide open. Nobody was in it. I shut it off and that was all of it.

My former wife always said that she heard doors and things opening and shutting in that house. And I’ve heard doors slam; yeah, I have.

The house is about twelve years old and is built right next to two graves and right beside the oldest cemetery in Wolfe County. Nobody knows who the two babies were, and a guy come to tell me that nobody knows who they are. The stones are not marked. I won’t bother them graves. I take care of them and keep them clean. But it just might be that the noises and sounds that we’ve heard are coming from those two little babies, or from someone else buried there. But I did dig down about ten feet to be sure that no graves would be disturbed by building the house there. So we didn’t disturb them as far as I know, but the noises may be something caused by people buried there. On the other hand, these noises just might have been the result of my brother’s death, and maybe him coming back.

I had a brother that was killed down here on the street in 1965. He was a school teacher. When they had a funeral service for him, the undertaker gave Mom his shoes and stuff to take home. She put them away. And them shoes had never been found or anything until one day I went over there. You could hear cracking and squeaking doors and everything in the world in that old house. You could be setting around and you’d hear something pop or crack.

One day I was over there at the old house. Some renters had just moved out of it, so I happened to find this box that had his shoes in it. His shoes and socks were in there just like the undertaker had put them in there. Well, I got them shoes, along with some more of his clothes that I found down there, and took them home.

My brother always talked about wanting to build a house where I built my house at, about twelve years ago. And I think he slept about where I took them shoes and stuff and stored them. I’ve got his things there in the house now, and I don’t ever hear that noise anymore.

66. “The Ghost of an Uncle at the Scene of His Death”

Letcher County

My uncle worked on a phalt [asphalt] truck in Isom over in Letcher County. And back in them times you had to stand on the back of the truck and shovel the fault. It was a real bad winter, and he went out to work on the road. They hit a real bad spot and he fell off the truck, and the truck slipped back against him and he was killed.

Today, if it’s raining, you can still see him with his shovel. I’ve seen him myself. His son goes to that same spot every year to see his dad.

67. “The Ghost of Girl Buried Alive”

Adair County

There was a family that lived in the Purdy community here in Adair County, consisting of a father, mother, and grown daughter. I believe my family was related to these people. The daughter became ill and was bedfast for many days. A doctor was sent for but was unable to come. After a few days, the daughter passed away in her sleep. The family sent to Campbellsville for a store-bought coffin and laid her to rest the same day.

Beginning the night of the funeral, the mother began having nightmares when her daughter would appear in ghostlike form and beg for someone to untie her. This went on for days and the mother was unable to get any rest. After some very troubling discussion, the mother finally persuaded her husband to dig up the girl’s body. He did, and upon opening the girl’s coffin it was discovered that their daughter had ripped the lining from her coffin and was tangled in the pieces. It was obvious she had been buried alive. Her fingers had been bleeding and most of her fingernails were broken or missing. She was untangled from the mess, and the lining repaired the best they could.

She was again laid to rest, as there was no question that she was now dead. The mother never had another visitation, or nightmare, about her daughter. The girl was at rest.

Notes

Haunted Houses

1. Told by George Boone and Joy Bale Boone, writers, Elkton, October 28, 1992.

2. Account provided by Janet Meadows, Vanceburg, November 1, 2000.

3. Information extracted from article by Connie Carroll, published in Student Life. EKU Archives.

4. Written by Ruth Y. Colvin, Louisa, 1994.

5. Written by Kimberly Colvin Thomas, Paintsville, January 15, 1999.

6. Gleaned from an article written by Lisa Rose and published in The Eastern Progress, October 31, 1985, p. B-l. EKU Archives. Copy provided by Attorney David Jones.

7. Told by Elbert G. Cundiff, Irvington, November 1, 1997.

8. Written by Margaret Jean Owens, edited by Charles Reed Mitchell, and published in the Knox Countian (fall 1996), issued by the Knox County Historical Museum. The paragraphs about the two sisters locking themselves in the bedroom and the Shadle Funeral Home, written by Owens and Mitchell, were abstracted from the fall 1966 issue of the Knox Countian.

9. Told by Elbert G. Cundiff, Irvington, November 7,1997.

10. This version was written on the basis of information provided across the years by Mary Watts Brown, Molly Tuttle, Jim Crestman, Robert Norman, and journalists Barbara Isaacs’s and Bruce Schreiners individual 1992 and 1993 articles in the Lexington Herald Leader.

11. This account was based on information provided in feature stories published in the Richmond Register by Maryleigh Bucher, October 27,1984; Jim Warren, October 30, 1984; Carolyn Siegel, October 25, 1989; and Rebecca Mullins, October 4,1993. Certain items of information were provided by Kevin McQueen, professor at EKU

12. Told by Angela R.S. Fulkerson, Upton, June 22, 2000.

13. Told by Lindsay Graham, Woodbury, 1997.

14. Written by Angela R.S. Fulkerson, Upton, June 22, 2000.

15. Told by Mrs. Lewis Good, Hopkins County, 1950. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU

16. Told by Mrs. Trentice Head, Lewisburg, to Mary DeShazer, Russellville, 1970. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1970-60.

17. Excerpted from “Lexington Lore,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 31,1884. Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives; copy provided by Bill Dozier, Richmond.

18. Verbatim account as written by Missy Rogers and published in the Anderson News, Lawrenceburg, October 27,1999, p. 1.

19. Written by Jeanine Scott, Paris; provided by Beula Fraley, Paris, August 2,2000.

20. Written by Stacey S. Manning and published in the Kentucky Standard, Bardstown, October 25,1999, pp. Al, A14.

21. Told by Margaret Schwartz, Henderson, 1957. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

22. Told by Lynn Feese, Glasgow, to Kim Harrison, Glasgow, 1989.

23. Written and provided by Wade White, Lyon County, October 2000.

24. Told by Milton and Sherry Dale, West Point, November 30, 2000.

25. Told by Judy Boarman, Owensboro, to Lisa Boarman, February 18, 1989.

26. Provided in written format by Davis Lee Huston IV, Bloomfield, November 23, 2000.

27. Told by Mike Humphrey of Green County, to Aaron Clark, April 4, 1989.

28. Told by Karen Bartlett, address unknown, to Alice Jackson, Browder, 1972. Folklife Archive, Ky. Library, WKU, 1972.

29. Told by Ralph Dorris of Daviess County, to Jim Clark, 1969. This story was later published in Stan Lemaster, Authentic Kentucky Ghost Stories (Owensboro: privately published, 1970), p. 15. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1971.

30. Told by Bruce Hayes, Campbellsville, to John Mark Carter, 1960. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1970.

31. Told by Sandra Lockhart to Kim Edwards, Lyon County, November 11, 2000.

32. Told by M.K. Hendrick, Hardinsburg, to Mary Gail Abell, 1977. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1977-40.

33. Told by Elaine Faulkner, Versailles, to Becky Toomey, April 3, 1989.

34. Told by Mrs. Lewis Good, Hopkins County, 1950. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

35. Initially published in Stan Lemaster, Authentic Kentucky Ghost Stories, p. 6.

36. Told by John Lam, Madisonville, to Amber Rash, 1993, as a personal experience account.

37. Told by James H. Young, Metcalfe County, July 6, 1999.

38. Told by Lauren Matthews, November 9, 1988.

39. Story provided by Judy Hensley Bryson, teacher at Wallins Creek El- ementary School, Harlan County, September 1997.

40. Story provided by Dale Kessler, Munfordville, October 21, 1995.

41. Told by Elvin Byrd, Albany, to M.B. Byrd, 1974. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1974-89.

42. Told by Florence Campbell, Jamestown, to Denishia Miller, September 23, 1972. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1972-388.

43. Told by Marida A. Winters, Morehead, November 12, 2000.

44. Told by Beverly Haworth, Frankfort, to Molly Tuttle.

45. Told by James H. Young, Metcalfe County, July 6, 1999.

46. Told by Howard Poindexter, Bowling Green, to Karen Poindexter, December 16, 1985. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

47. Recorded in the 1930s by Laurel County resident Perry Larkey, who was a member of the Federal Writer s Project at that time. Archives, Kentucky Historical Library, Frankfort.

48. Told by Samuel W. Moore, Greensburg, to Mrs. Terry Mills, 1972. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1972-471.

49. Written by Allison Wheeley, Woodburn, 1995.

50. Told by Daisy Lytle, Rochester, Butler County, to Deanna Drake, December 4, 1978. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1979-18. Although not quoted in the present account, a feature story about the Lytle House, by Judy Jenkins, was published in the Henderson Gleaner, October 26, 1978.

51. Told by Nadine West, Morgantown, February 18, 1999.

52. Told by Elizabeth Hall, Monroe County native, February 25, 1999.

53. Told by Diane Smith, Somerset, March 31, 1999.

54. Told by Darlene Carter, Tompkinsville, 1962.

55. Told by Scott McDonald, April 23, 1987.

56. Written by Roberta Simpson Brown and published in the Louisville magazine, October 1998, p. 54.

57. Written by Roberta Simpson Brown and published in the Louisville magazine, October 1998, pp. 56-57.

58. Told by Stacy Criss to Sherrie Mallicoat, both of Union, Boone County, April 1989.

59. Told by Josh Riley, Princeton, to Elizabeth Harrington, April 7, 1989.

60. Source unknown; recorded by Elizabeth Ballard, Bedford, Kentucky; date unknown.

61. Told by Ashlee Hobgood to Linda Nance, teacher at North Hopkins High School, Madisonville, 1993.

62. Told by Sharon Vincent, Hopkinsville, April 25, 1999.

63. Told by Mrs. Sam Dizney, Wilmore, to Paul K. Lane. Initially published in the Kentucky Folklore Record 10, no. 2 (April-June 1964): 29-31.

64. Told by Christina Gregory, Franklin, April 1992.

65. Told by Joan Roberts, Philpot, as learned from her mother. The story was written by Mason Smith and published in the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, October 30,1980, p. Dl. A slightly different version of the same story was written by Bill Osinski and published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, October 31, 1979.

66. Told by Elbert Cundiff, Irvington, November 7, 1997.

67. Told by John Frederick Young, Metcalfe County, July 6, 1999.

68. Told by Delpha Langdon, Whitley County, 1957. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

69. Told by the mother of Leota F. Sherman, Morgan County, 1960. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

70. Told by Mrs. Wilma Miracle, Knox County, 1956. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

71. Told by Beatrice Lowe, who learned it from her grandmother (b. 1839), to Loretta Hobbs, Greenup County, 1959. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

72. Told by Edith Buckley, Pike County, to Orethia Miller, 1971. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

73. Told by Delphia Langdon, Clay County, to Lucy H. Smith, 1957. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

74. Told by Henry Smith, Evarts, Harlan County, to Betty Cusick, 1956. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

75. Told to Roscoe and Verlie Turner, Perry County, 1956. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

76. Told as a true story by Eula Mae Flora, Poplar Plains, to Mimagene Conley, Fleming County, 1959. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

77. Told by Joyce Lewis, Lacy Creek, to Nellie Cantro, 1960. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

78. Told by Larry Mattingly, Lebanon, to Jerry Harris, April 27,1961. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

79. Told by Floyd Home, Martin County, 1959. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

80. Told by C.H. Stambough to Ulysus C. Home, Johnson County. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

81. Told by Mrs. Ben Gibson, Pineville to Chesney Busseni, 1957. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

82. Told by Mrs. H.F. Thomas, Livermore, to Ann Calhoun, 1956. D.K. Wilgus Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

83. Told by Pear Newbold, Earlington, to June Wells, May 17, 1961. D.K. Wilgus Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

84. Told by Allen J. Miller, Rumsey, McLean County, to Faye Dever, May 2, 1961. D.K. Wilgus Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

85. Told by R.B. Hooks, Smiths Grove, to Barbara Clay, May 1957. D.K. Wilgus Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

86. Told by anonymous person, Parker’s Lake, McCreary County, to Amy Rollins, May 17, 1996. Published in Sara McNulty, If These Hills Could Talk (Cumberland Falls, Ky, 1996), p. 8.

87. Told and written by John A. Stegall, Sandy Hook, July 19, 1999.

88. Told by James D. Madden, Allen County, to Carl Lambert, 1965. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1972-179.

89. Told and written by Donna Bowman, West Chester, Ohio, July 12, 1999.

90. Told and written by Donna Bowman, West Chester, Ohio, July 12, 1999.

91. Told by Weldon Edwards, Sulphur Wells, to Debora Reece, Glasgow, September 14, 2000.

92. Presented by journalist Bill Powell in the Paducah Sun, October 2, 1967, who had received this ghost-house account from Zelner Cossey, sheriff and former judge of Trigg County. Cossey had run across “an old yellow, crumbling newspaper clipping” and sent it to Powell. Copy provided by Special Collections, Murray State University (MSU) Library.

93. Told by William Mink to Rebecca M. Mink, student at Alice Lloyd College, November 14, 2000.

94. Written by Judith A. Maupin and published under the column heading, “Echoes from the Past,” in the Murray Ledger and Times, December 18, 1976.

95. Told as real life happenings by Ruby A. Hubble, Hustonville, August 8, 1999.

96. Told by Obie Van Cleave, Logan County, to Angela Van Cleave, August 10, 1999.

97. Told by Ruby A. Hubble, Hustonville, August 8, 1999.

98. Written and provided by Gerry Green, Versailles, August 8, 1999.

99. Told by Glynn and Jeanette Williams, Murray, to Carol White Harrison, November 13, 1999.

100. Told by Norma Wade, Murray, to Carol White Harrison, November 8, 1999.

101. Told by Tommy Arnold, Christian County, to Catherine Maddox, Bowling Green, November 19, 1999.

102. Told by Tommy Arnold, Christian County, to Catherine Maddox, Bowling Green, November 19, 1999.

103. Written by Patti Linn Wachtel; published in The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 2, 1958, p. LI. Copy provided by Joan Diersing. Used with permission from The Cincinnati Enquirer-/Patti Linn Wachtel.

104. Written by Patti Linn Wachtel as part of the same account described in story 118; published in The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 2, 1958, p. LI. Copy provided by Joan Diersing. Used with permission from The Cincinnati Enquirer! Patti Linn Wachtel.

105. Obtained from Mary Ann Gentry, Goosebumps in Carroll County, Kentucky (Carrollton, 1993), pp. 8-9.

106. Told by Shirley E. Fraim, Campbellsville, September 5, 1985.

107. Obtained from Mary Ann Gentry, Goosebumps in Carroll County, Kentucky (Carrollton, 1993), pp. 21-22.

108. Told by William Mink to Rebecca M. Mink, student at Alice Lloyd College, November 14, 2000.

109. Told by Anne P., Bowling Green, to Melissa Hammers, October 3,

110. Told by Greg Cundiff, Lindsey-Wilson College, November 14, 2000.

111. Told by Dave Shuffet, Danville, to Melissa Humphrey, April 4, 1989.

112. Told by Janet Oldham Zarmbus, Versailles, November 13, 2000.

113. Written as a true experience by Kristy Hewgley, Franklin, April 1992.

114. Told by Mary Ann Gentry, Carrolton, September 6, 1999.

115. Written by Tiffany Hanke, North Hopkins High School, c. 1993.

116. Told by Janet Oldham Zarmbus, Versailles, November 13, 2000.

117. Told by Albert Farler, to Randall A. Wilson, both of Leslie County, November 20,2000.

118. Written account provided by Martha Reneau Harrison, Glasgow, October 12, 1999.

119. Told by Christy Alford, Franklin, April 1992.

120. Told by Vilma Jean Kinney, Hart County, to Nadine Hawkins, October 21, 1999.

121. Told by Vilma Jean Kinney, Hart County, to Nadine Hawkins, October 21, 1999.

122. Told and written by Stephen Lynn King, Bowling Green, November 28, 1999.

123. Told by Paula Drake, student at Western Kentucky University, date not specified.

124. Told by Leslie Calk, Louisville, to Karen Delewski, 1972. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1972-531.

125. Written by Melinda J. Overstreet for an article, “Supernatural Or Superstitious?” published in the Park City Daily News, Bowling Green, October 23, 1999, p. 1.

126. Told by Bob Carroll and Kay Carroll, Springfield, November 15, 1999.

127. Told by Jennie McGee, Clarkson, December 1, 1999.

128. Told by Carol Harrison, Murray, December 8, 1999.

129. Told by David Pitman, to Steve Bray, Paducah, 1970.

130. Told by Tim LaMonda, Mt. Olivet, to Laura Renea Watson, Harrodsburg, November 25, 2000.

131. Told by Chris Cook, Ft. Thomas, to Chris Daniels, April 7,1989.

132. Told by Mark Stivers, Frankfort, to Steve Deckel, date unknown.

133. Written by Stacey S. Manning and published in the Kentucky Standard, Bardstown, October 15, 1999, pp. Al, A12.

134. Told by Lucy Smith, Clay County, to Delphia Langdon, 1957. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

135. Told by Wanda Deweese, Sulphur Wells, October 10, 2000.

136. Told by Loretta Deitemeyer, Highland Heights, to her niece Shirley Hoffmann, who sent it to me March 27, 2000.

137. Told by Janet Coody, West Point, April 8, 1999.

138. Written account provided by Aunelia Mosher, Louisville, February 15, 2000.

139. Told by Nelson K. Maynard II, Pike County native, currently a resident of Louisville, December 12, 2000.

140. Told by J.F. Blewette, Franklin, to Guy Simmons Jr., 1957. D.K. Wilgus Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

141. Told by James Ratcliffe, Louisville, to a Mr. Yeager, date not specified.

142. Told by Alberta Baldridge, West Point, April 8, 1999.

143. Told by Jim Bowles, Rock Bridge, Monroe County, 1961.

144. Written by Melinda J. Overstreet as part of a larger article, “Supernatural Or Superstitious?” published in Park City Daily News, Bowling Green, October 23, 1999, p. 1.

145. Told by Shannon Muncie, Radcliff, to Mary Muncie, April 1973. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

146. Told by an anonymous woman, Olive Hill, June 22, 2000.

147. Told by Gary Bealert and Melissa Stanley Bealert, Owingsville, June 22, 2000.

148. Told by Gary Bealert, Owingsville, June 22, 2000.

149. Told by Melissa Stanley Bealert, Owingsville, June 22, 2000.

150. Based on accounts told by Ruth Lindsey Ashley and Lonnie McCrady, Brownsville, to Bertha Skaggs, Brownsville, mid-1999.

151. Provided by Bertha Skaggs, who received it in written format from David Ashley, Brownsville, mid-1999.

152. Told by Tom Tucker, Marshall County, to Carol White Harrison, Murray, December 15, 1999.

153. Written by Stacey S. Manning and published in the Kentucky Standard, Bardstown, October 29, 1999, pp. A2, A10.

154. Account derived from Stacey S. Manning, “Former Bardstown Resident Tries Hand at Ghost Hunting,” published in the Kentucky Standard, Bardstown, October 8, 1999, pp. Al, A15.

155. Told by Mrs. Nancy Gullette, High Bridge, Jessamine County; published in Paul K. Lane, “Kentucky Folk Narratives,” Kentucky Folklore Record 10, no. 2 (April-June 1964): 26.

156. Written as a true account by Linda Nave, Versailles, August 2000; provided by Danna Estridge, Woodford County Historical Society.

157. Written as a true account by Glent Ayers, Scottsville, September 20, 2000.

158. Told by Tinnie Wheeler, Crittenden County, to Brenda Travis Underdown, Marion, August 14, 2000.

159. Told by Linda Ayers, Scottsville, September 20, 2000.

160. Told by Dianna Embry, Temple Hill, October 3, 2000.

161. Told by Harold Embry, Temple Hill, October 3, 2000.

162. Told by an anonymous person to Julie Smarr and Ginny Snipp, Versailles, October 9, 2000.

163. Told by Leslie Miller and Robert Kelley, Woodford County, to Ginny Snipp, October 11, 2000.

164. Written as a Pendleton County true account by Carolyn Reid, Alexandria, October 22,2000.

165. Written by Nelson K. Maynard II, Pike County native, October 23, 2000.

166. Told by Sherry Howard, Carlisle, October 25, 2000.

167. Told by Sherry Howard, Carlisle, October 25, 2000.

168. Told by John David Sims, Mt. Olivet, October 25, 2000.

169. Told by John David Sims, Mt. Olivet, October 25, 2000.

170. Told by Melissa Pugh, Mt. Olivet, October 25, 2000.

171. Told by Melissa Pugh, Mt. Olivet, October 25, 2000.

172. Told by Rodney Insko, Germantown, October 25, 2000.

173. Told by C.W. (name withheld), Sulphur Wells, and Donna Chasteen, Summer Shade, to Debora Jeffries Reece, Glasgow, September 15, 2000.

174. Told by Terry Edwards, Sulphur Wells, to Debora Jeffries Reece, September 15, 2000.

175. Copied from James Roberts, “Ghosdy Presence,” Springfield Sun, October 25, 2000.

176. Told by Irma J. Thomas, Morehead, November 1, 2000.

177. Told by Myra Bumette, Celina, Tennessee, assisted by relatives, November 1, 2000.

178. Written and submitted by Janet Meadows, Vanceburg, November 1, 2000.

179. Told by Debbie Howard, Salyersville, November 9, 2000.

180. Told by a ninety-year-old woman to Carol Harrison, Murray, October 2000.

181. Told by Crystal Stephens, Clay City, November 9, 2000.

182. Told by Sally Collier, Lexington, November 8, 2000.

183. Written and submitted by Rebecca M. Mink, student at Alice Lloyd College, November 12, 2000.

184. Told by Edna Campbell to Kim Edwards, Lyon County, November 16, 2000.

185. Told by Sandra Lockhart to Kim Edwards, Lyon County, November 16, 2000.

186. Told by Janet Oldham Zarmbus, Versailles, November 11, 2000.

187. Provided in written format by Brenda Vance, Bath County resident, November 24, 2000.

188. Told by Dean Quinn, Columbia, November 28, 2000.

189. Told by Virginia Jewell and Lucille Owings to Violet Reid, Clinton, December 4, 2000.

190. Newspaper account from the Lexington Leader, p. 2, cols. 1-2, March 9, 1891. The subtitles read “The Commercial Gazette Finds More Ghosts in Lexington” and “An Interview With a Family That Claims to Have Lived in a Haunted House—A Blood Curdling Narrative.”

191. Newspaper account from the Lexington Leader, p. 5, cols. 1-2, February 2, 1891. The subtides read “Warranted to Make Your Hair Stand on End” and “The Commercial Gazette Tells of the Apparition that Compelled a Lexington Family to Leave for Another House.”

192. Newspaper account from the Lexington Leader, p. 1, col. 7, September 22, 1888. The subtitles read “Queer Spirits That Have Puzzled Lexington People” and “An Unceremonious Nocturnal Visitor that Removes Bed-Clothing from Sleeping Persons—A Musical Merchant’s Spirit Plays Airs on the Piano.”

193. Told by Karen and Steve Bridges, Woodbury, Butler County, to Bridgett Childers, December 12, 2000.

194. Story provided by Hunt-Morgan House, © 1998 Blue Grass Trust for Historic Preservation. A footnote to the story states the following: “Circumstantial evidence leads us to believe that the child in this story is Alec Forsythe, 1874-1879, son of ‘Kitty’ Morgan and her third husband, Alexander Forsythe. Dr. Forsythe died in 1875 and ‘Kitty’ returned to live with her mother, Henrietta Hunt Morgan, at Hopemont.”

Family Ghosts

1. Written by Laura Wellington, Louisville, January 21, 1989.

2. Told and written by Jacqueline Michelle Weissinger, Franklin, 1992.

3. Told by Elizabeth Harrington, Princeton, April 24, 1989.

4. Written by Amy Grace, Lincoln Elementary School, Franklin, 1992.

5. Written by Matt Martinez, North Hopkins High School, Madisonville, September 29,1993. The names Ken and Susan are pseudonyms.

6. Written by an unknown person; date also unknown.

7. Told by Bobby Runyon, Barren County, to Mike Brannik, Louisville, May 1972.

8. Told by Lois Osborne, Louisville, January 3, 1972. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU, 1972-86.

9. Told by Golda Swain, Paintsville, May 21,1971. Text provided by Robert Rennick, January 1999.

10. Told by Elmer Hurt, Mt. Pisgah, Wayne County, July 15, 1975. Text provided by Robert Rennick, January 1999.

11. Written by the author on the basis of numerous versions heard across the years.

12. Told by Faye A. Perry to Sebrina Campbell, McCreary County, May 21, 1996. Published in Sara McNulty, If These Hills Could Talk (1996), p. 10.

13. Told by Jeremy Ray Logsdon, Munfordville, April 1999.

14. Real-life experience written by Fatima S. Atchley of Russell County, 1999.

15. Told by Tammy Taylor, McCreary County, May 19, 1996. Published in Sara McNulty, If These Hills Could Talk (1996), pp. 10-11.

16. Written and provided by Roberta Brown, writer and storyteller, Louisville, July 6, 1999.

17. Told by Marnie Dishman, Campbellsville, to Darrin Carnahan, April 10, 1989.

18. Written by Lisa Boarman, Owensboro, based on information provided by Patti McConnell, March 2, 1989.

19. Told by Margaret Cooper, Sturgis, to Laura Wellington, January 20, 1989.

20. Written by Elizabeth Harrington, Princeton, April 10, 1989.

21. Told by Gail McCann, Leitchfield, to Amy Spalding, April 4, 1989.

22. Told by Dana Vickery, Hodgenville, to Chris Daniels, April 3, 1989.

23. Told by Jana Wilson, Centertown, to Julie Cecil, March 22, 1989.

24. Written by Alica Carter, Burkesville, November 22, 1989.

25. Told by James Abbott, Jamestown, to Don McClure, April 2, 1989.

26. Told by unidentified woman, resident of London, to William Kenneth Baugh, date unknown.

27. Told by Mrs. Elmer Hester, Pike County, to Diana Hester, 1969. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

28. Told by Mrs. Cleo Teague Sanders, Sulphur, Henry County, to Sondra Staples, May 1959. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

29. Told by Mimma Nickles, Knott County, to Catherine Nickles, 1960. L. Roberts Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Berea College.

30. Told by Brenda Mitchell, McCreary County, May 1996. Published in Sara McNulty, If These Hills Could Talk (1996), p. 18.

31. Told by Mrs. Allied Blythe, Kettle, Cumberland County, to Judy Baise, February 26, 1972. Folklife Archive, Kentucky Library, WKU.

32. Told by Justyn Settles, Nicholasville, August 4, 1999.

33. Told by Carol White Harrison, Murray, November 5, 1999.

34. Told by Robin Torrian to Dana Phillips, Louisville, March 23, 1989.

35. Told by Laura Benson, Louisville, to Andrea Collin, c. 1992.

36. Told by Cathy Caldwell, Somerset, c. April 1989.

37. Written by Tracy Cothran Jordan and published as “Granny Hayden and the Ghost Star,” Between the Rivers, September 1998, pp. 16-17.

38. Written by Coy Owen, Henderson, November 15, 1999.

39. Told by Linda Cox, Cave City, to Louise Hellstrom, April 3, 1989.

40. Written by Donna Wilkerson, Franklin, 1992.

41. Told by Dana Thrasher to Andrea Collin, Louisville, April 5, 1989.

42. Told by James Pearson, Logan County, to Linda Crafton, April 1999.

43. Told by Melinda Mize, Shelbyville, to Joseph Metzger, April 12, year unknown.

44. Written by Jeremy Ray Logsdon, Munfordville, April 1999.

45. Told by Mrs. J.D. Turnipseed, Bowling Green, to Sue Wager, 1961.

46. Written by Paul Murray, Franklin, 1992.

47. Written by Jeremy R. Logsdon, Munfordville, April 1999.

48. Told by Mark Lindsey to Kevin Eans, 1989.

49. Told by Sally Brant, Crestwood, to Joseph Metzger, date unspecified.

50. Told by Ruth Colvin, Louisa, 1994.

51. Told by Tammy Burris, Glasgow, to Connie Reader, who provided the written account, December 1999.

52. Told by anonymous ninety-year-old woman, Ashland, June 22, 2000.

53. Told by J.R. Mondie, Russell Springs, June 27, 2000.

54. Written as a true experience by Angela R.S. Fulkerson, Upton, June 22, 2000.

55. Told by Rose Pell Henderson, age 96, Lewisport, to her cousin Earl Gregg Swem III, Louisville, May 28, 2000.

56. Recorded by John I. Sturgill, Floyd County, in the 1930s; obtained from William Lynwood Montell and Trudy R. Balcum, Kentucky Ghost and Witch Stories from the 1930s (Nashville: Express Media, 1997), pp. 77-78.

57. Told by Renee Bolen Kohlenberger, Aurora, to Carol White Harrison, Murray, January 10, 2000.

58. Told by Rusty Young, Sheperdsville, to Sherrie Mallicoat, April 2, 1989.

59. Told by Harold Embry and wife, Temple Hill, October 3, 2000.

60. Told by Harold Embry, Temple Hill, October 3, 2000.

61. Told as a Pendleton County incident by Carolyn Reid, Alexandria, October 22, 2000.

62. Told as a Pendleton County incident by Carolyn Reid, Alexandria, October 22, 2000.

63. Told by Irma Thomas, Morehead, November 1, 2000.

64. Told by Janet Meadows, Vanceburg, November 1, 2000.

65. Told by Gay Campbell, Campton, November 9, 2000.

66. Told by Crystal Stephens, Clay City, November 9, 2000.

67. Told by Dean Quinn, Columbia, November 28, 2000.

Index to Stories by County

Adair: “The Ghost of Girl Buried Alive,”; “A Haunted House in Breeding,”

Allen: “The Cries of a Starving Baby,”; “An Encounter with the Supernatural,”; “Ghostly Noises and Other Things,”; “A Haunted Cellar,”; “Spirits, Spooks, and Ghostly Pool Players,”

Anderson: “The Woman Who Fought Off Indians in a Haunted House,”

Ballard: “Woman’s Ghost Seen on Porch,”

Barren: “Bloodstains on a Burial Dress,”; “The Ghost of a Murdered Woman,”; “The House on Black Hill Lane,”; “Mother’s Frequent Returns,”; “Mysterious Ghostly Noises,”; “Noises in the Kitchen,”; “The Old House near Temple Hill,”; “The Temple Hill Ghost House, Continued,”

Bath: “The Ghost of a Doctor Who Hanged Himself,”; “Ghostly Premonition,”; “Weird Happenings in an Owingsville House,”

Bell: “Strange Events at a Haunted House,”

Boyd: “The Ghost of a Previous Owner,”; “The Ghost of Representative Donald Farley,”; “A Little Girl’s Vision of Her Grandmother’s Ghost,”

Boyle: “I Was There,”; “Many Ghostly Experiences,”

Boone: “Unsettled Spirit,”

Bourbon: “Brutus and the Teen Square,”

Bracken: “The Little Girl in the Window,”

Breathitt: “A Haunted House in Breathitt,”

Breckinridge: “Eva Carrigan’s Ghostly House,”; “Footsteps and a Rattling Door,”; “Mysterious Knocks on the Door,”; “The Tapping Ghost,”

Bullitt: “Grandpa’s Ghost at the Window,”

Butler: “Grandfathers Protective Spirit,”; “A Haunted House in the South Hill Community,”; “Haunted Houses at Leonard Oak and Woodbury,”; “Little Girl’s Ghost in the Window,”; “Morgantown’s Woman in White,”; “The Old Lock-keeper’s House in Rochester,”; “Strange Happenings at Grandma’s House,”

Caldwell: “A Dead Mother’s Return,”; “The Disappearing Ghost,”; “Ghostly Footsteps,”; “A Haunted House near Princeton,”; “Mom,”

Calloway: “The Ghostly House in Brandon Springs,”

Campbell: “Afraid to Go Home,”; “Screams of Victims Dying in Flames,”

Carroll: “A Ghost’s Satisfaction with Her House’s New Owners,”; “Mysterious Happenings in an Old House,”; “Young’s Bed and Breakfast,”

Carter: “The Haunted Trailer,”; “The School Teacher’s Ghostly Return,”

Casey: “Current Ghosts,”; “The Old McKinney House,”

Christian: “Ghostly Lights, Sounds, and Touches,”; “A Lady in White in an Old House,”

Clay: “The Knocking Ghost of a Murdered Man,”; “The Knocking Spirit,”

Clinton: “The Chair That Rocks by Itself,”

Crittenden: “Ghostly Tinkling of Bells,”

Cumberland: “A Dead Uncle’s Return,”; “The Ghost of a Wife Seeking Vengeance,”

Daviess: “The Haunted Distillery,”; “Mrs. Petrie’s Ghost,”; “A Woman’s Ghost at Various Life Stages,”

Edmonson: “Angels on Earth Today?,”; “The Old McCrady House Ghost,”

Elliot: “The Haunted Abbot House,”

Fayette: “Daniel Boone’s Ghostly Visit to Henry Clay,”; “A Ghost Story,”; “A Haunted Apartment,”; “Spirit Land,”; “Where is This?,”; “A Hunt-Morgan House Ghost Story,”

Fleming: “Please Go Away,”

Floyd: “A Dead Mother’s Return to Her Child,”

Franklin: “The Gray Lady of Liberty Hall,”

Fulton: “The House Haunted by a Murdered Woman,”

Graves: “The Crying of a Little Girl’s Ghost,”; “A Mother’s Ghost at a Window,”; “The Shattering Glass Ghost,”

Grayson: “A Dead Father’s Return,”; “Ghosts at the Green Mansion,”

Green: “The Disappearing Guide at an Old, Abandoned House,”; “The Haunted House in the Woods,”; “Mell Ridge Ghosts,”; “The Shaking House,”; “Was It Really a Ghostly Coffin?,”

Hancock: “The Ghost of a Beauchamp,”

Hardin: “Children’s Ghost Tale,”; “The Death Shadow,”; “Ghost Mother among Us,”; “Ghosts in Ditto House,”; “A Historic West Point House,”; “The Old Slave Man,”; “The West Point Lady in White,”

Harlan: “The Haunted House on the Hill,”

Hart: “A Ghostly Image’s Foretelling of Death,”; “The Man in Black,”; “Noises of a Family Ghost,”; “The Swimming Ghost That Foretold Danger,”; “Uncle Frank’s Ghost Really Wasn’t,”

Henderson: “A Host of Unknown, Humorous Family Ghosts,”; “The House on Center Street,”

Henry: “Uncle Lish’s Buried Treasure,”

Hickman: “The Clock That Kept Ticking,”

Hopkins: “The Abandoned Haunted House,”; “An Elderly Woman’s Ghost,”; “The Disappearing Ghost of Little Girl,”; “Hell’s Half Acre,”; “A House Too Haunted to Live In,”; “Poor Susan,”

Jefferson: “An Ancestor’s Ghost Annually Reenacts His Death,”; “Dead Grandfathers Image in Photo,”; “A Dead Mother’s Return,”; “The Ghost of a Teenage Girl,”; “Ghosts That Prefer Libraries,”; “The Ghost That Visited the Scene of His Wife’s Death,”; “A Great-grandmother’s Return,”; “The Haunted Mansion of Ransom Avenue,”; “I Am Still with You,”; “My Ghost Girl,”; “Return of Great-Grandmother,”; “Was It the Ghost of Mom?,”

Jessamine: “Bloodstains on the Floor,”; “Ghostly Activities in an Old House,”; “A Visit from My Uncle,”

Johnson: “The Ghost of Burning Fork,”; “The Living Mother and Son Who Saw Each Other’s Ghost,”

Kenton: “The Covington Woman Who Died in Bitterness,”; “The Woman Who Passed Away in Grief,”

Knott: “Gnatt Hudson and a Spirit,”

Knox: “A Haunted House on Coon Branch,”; “The Owens House,”; “A Tiny Baby’s Skeleton,”

Larue: “Grandmother’s Return,”

Laurel: “The Ghost That Left No Tracks in the Snow,”

Lawrence: “A Husband’s Return in Human Form,”

Leslie: “Ghostly Footsteps in a House on Greasy Creek,”

Letcher: “The Ghost of an Uncle at the Scene of His Death,”

Lewis: “Ghostly Noises in a Haunted House,”; “The Imprint of a Dead Girl’s Face,”; “Mary Lou’s Story,” 2

Livingston: “The Missing House,”

Logan: “Dark Secrets of an Old, Abandoned House,”; “Father’s Ghost in an Old Two-Story House,”; “The Moonshine House,”; “The Shaker Museum Ghost,”; “The Young Woman in the Window,”

Lyon: “The Confederate Soldiers,”; “The Face,”; “Granny Hayden and the Ghost Star,”; “The House with a Lantern,”; “The Jones House Footsteps,”; “Three Little Girls,”

Madison: “The Blue Lady Ghost in the Keen Johnson Building,”; “Ghosts of White Hall State Shrine,”; “The Stockton House in Richmond,”

Magoffin: “Ghostly Knocking Noises,”

Marion: “The Falling Windows of a Haunted House,”

Marshall: “The Swinging Ghost,”

Martin: “Ghostly Musical Instruments and Other Noises,”

Mason: “Ghostly Footsteps on the Stairs,”; “The County Line Haunted House,”

McLean: “Ghosts, Ghosts, and More Ghosts!,”; “Was It a Ghost?,”

McCracken: “Ghostly Screams,”; “Mother’s Ghost,”

McCreary: “The Ghost in a White Nightgown,”; “Grandmother’s Ghost,”; “Grandmother Nevils’ Ghost,”; “The Touch of My Mother,”

Metcalfe: “Electricity or What?,”; “Ghosts in the Kentucky Head-hunters’ Rehearsal House,”; “The Ghost That Sews at Night,”; “The Old Ferrell Place,”; “The Overpowering Smell of Roses,”; “The Sulphur Wells Country Store,”; “A Woman’s Ghost at the Old Stagecoach Inn,”

Monroe: “Ghosts in the Pretty House,”; “Ghostlike Sounds in an Old Ancestral House,”; “The Mysteriously Opening Door,”

Montgomery: “Anne’s Curse,”

Morgan: “A Haunted House on Lacy Creek,”; “The Talking Spirit s House,”

Muhlenberg: “Cal Bingham’s Ghost,”; “A Man’s Ghost in an Upstairs Window,”

Nelson: “A Ghostly Fiddler,”; “Inmates May Still Haunt Old Jail,”; “The Old Talbott Tavern” 154. “Renovations Awaken Mischievous Spirit,”; “Unfriendly Packing,”

Nicholas: “The Golden Ring,”; “Whistling Sounds,”

Ohio: “Assurance of Love from a Grandmother’s Ghost,”

Oldham: “A Brother’s Return As a Ghost,” 260

Pendleton: “A Final Goodbye?,”; “Grandpa’s Visit?,”; “Whew! A Scary Story,”

Perry: “The Hainted Room,”

Pike: “Ghostly Footsteps on the Walk,”; “Ghostly Memories of the Tan Man,”; “Ghostly Noises in an Old House,”; “A Ghost Woman’s Flowers,”; “One Stormy Night,”; “The Tan Man,”

Powell: “The House on Frame Springs Road,”

Pulaski: “A Telephone Call from a Dead Father,”

Robertson: “A Felt Presence in a Bedroom,”; “A Ghost Looking for Treasure,”; “Ghostly Music in a Church,”

Rockcastle: “The Basement Ghost,”; “Strange Sounds in the Johnny Graves House,”; “Weird Door Openings,”

Rowan: “The Haunted Ambulance Service House,”; “A Husband’s Return,”

Russell: “A Dead Mother’s Ghost Returns,”; “The Ghost That Killed Two Dogs,”; “The Gold Tooth,”; “Julie’s Promise,”

Scott: “Ghosts in the Antique Shop,”

Shelby: “The Ghost of a Murdered Man,”; “Pranks of a Mother’s Ghost,”

Simpson: “The Annual Appearance of Grandma’s Ghost,”; “Ghost in a Rocking Chair,”;”The Ghost of a Murdered Hired Hand,”; “Grandfather’s Ghost,”; “The MacDowell Ghost,”; “Nocturnal Escape from a Haunted House,”; “The Old Letter,”; “The Spirit of a Deceased Aunt,”

Taylor: “A Dead Grandson’s Return,”; “Ghostly Sounds,”; “Sisters See the Ghost of Suicide Victim,”; “A Woman’s Presence Felt,”

Todd: “Elkton’s Halcyon House,”

Trigg: “Confederate Soldiers Ghost,”; “The Old Civil War House,”

Trimble: “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,”

Union: “Was It Really Marcie?,”

Warren: “The Church Register,”; “Cousin Rick’s Ghost,”; “A Ghost’s Return to Engage in Normal Pursuits,”; “Ghost Whispers,”; “Return of Dead Husband,”260; “This Old House,”

Washington: “Ghostly Occurrences in Maple Hill Manor,”; “The Lady in White and Other Ghosts,”

Wayne: “Ghosts of Mother and Father,”

Whitley: “The Ghost of a Slain Robbery Victim,”

Wolfe: “A Dead Brother’s Peace,”

Woodford: “Airy Mount Bloodstain,”; “The Felt Presence,”; “The Ghost Man,”; “The Guardian,”; “Miss Lucy’s Ghost,”; “Woodford Library Ghost,”

Kentucky counties

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1: Haunted Houses
- Part 2: Family Ghosts
- Notes
- Index to Stories by County