The other day I recorded a Halloween episode with my A Haunt Mess podcast ghoulfriends, Deedee and Sara. (Hence the get up in the photo.) One of the things we had planned to do for the episode was to share a real ghost story. I didn’t decide until the day of our recording what story I would share, but at the last minute, I decided on an American haunting, the Bell Witch legend.
For you movie buffs, yes it was the ghost story that inspired a 2005 horror movie called An American Haunting, which was only so-so as horror movies go. But the fact that it’s based on a true story is a point in its favor.
I wanted to make sure I had the legend straight so I rifled through my collection of special edition paranormal magazines, including Life‘s “The World’s Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly, and Notorious Spots” and History‘s “Haunted History: Real-Life Ghost Stories and Supernatural Events.”
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Surely the story of the Bell Witch was in them, right? It’d been a while since I’d flipped through them, but I thought I’d seen the legend in at least one of them, hadn’t I?
Apparently not.
I was shocked to find neither of them had included it.
What gives?
Really? How was that possible? Why was it excluded? It’s as classic an American haunting as apple pie is a classic American dessert!
The Bell Witch legend almost always makes the “top” lists of real American ghost stories, like one from MapQuest that highlighted nine of them, or another from Country Living that found 11 worth listing.
Heck, a man who would become president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, even witnessed the paranormal activity at the Bell household. That seems like it should give the tale a little more credence and help it make the special edition issue.
But I guess not.
So what was worthy of the real-life ghost stories they shared?
The Haunted Map
The “Haunted History: Real-Life Ghost Stories and Supernatural Events” issue included a Haunting Tales map, which also served as somewhat of an index to the specific cities and their haunted places within the issue.
The map included ghosts, some of which had callouts with info on them about a specific haunting. Others had numbers on them that corresponded to the boxes on the side of the map with details about what pages to find their stories on.
It highlighted the obvious places with spooky stories, like Salem, New Orleans, Key West, and Savannah, as well as the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, and the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I figured the Bell Witch legend out of Adams, Tennessee, ranked up there with those places.
Clearly, I figured wrong.
Maybe because it wasn’t considered “scary” enough? That was what the map specifically highlighted: “Some of the scariest supernatural stories from every state in the nation.”
The Rant
After I recorded the A Haunt Mess episode, I recorded a rant about the Bell Witch legend being left out of the magazines. I meant to post it to YouTube Monday but ran out of time, so I did it today.
As I re-watched, I realized my rant was a bit incoherent. What was I blathering on about? What was my point?
Who knows? I was in the moment at the time.
Clearly, I felt passionate about the Bell Witch legend being excluded from the magazines. I guess I just needed to vent, because I certainly have no answer why the legend was omitted. That’s likely to remain as much of a mystery as is whether or not a spirit haunted the Bell family in the 1800s.
5 Other Famous Haunts Not on the Map
To my surprise, these five haunted places also weren’t on the magazine’s map:
- The Queen Mary
- The Myrtles Plantation (But it was covered in the magazine under the “Disturbances in the South” section.)
- Alcatraz
- The Whaley House
- St. Albans Sanatorium
Another thing I noticed, there weren’t any haunted lighthouses or theatres on the map or within the magazine, and very few restaurants or pubs were mentioned either.
The Consolation
However, even though I was bummed the Bell Witch legend wasn’t among the scary places in the “Haunted History” issue, I was psyched to see the Historic Anchorage Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, made the map.
It’s not always on “Most Haunted Hotel” lists, but it will always be on mine. There’s only one room reported to not have experienced activity, and it’s the room that’s hardest to book. I find that fascinating!
Check-In
What real-life American ghost story fascinates you?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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The Bell Witch is a popular legend. It is surprising that it was overlooked. The Sallie House in Atchison KS is a ghost story that both interests me and scares me!
What are the magazines names that you were speaking about? I’d like to check them out. And I love The Bell Witch story. It was scary to me.
Agreed! That’s another interesting yet scary one for sure!
They’re special edition ones. One was called Haunted History: Real-Life Ghost Stories and Supernatural Events. It was by History. The other was the World’s Most Haunted Places: Creepy, Ghostly and Notorious Spots. Life magazine put that one out. The one by History is a reissue I found again this year. Hope that helps!