HELLOO and welcome back to The Legend Queens! Sticking with our season’s theme, this week, Austin and Amber dive in to two tales from Appalachia as old as the land itself. First, Amber gives all of the dirty details of the Bell Witch - one of the USA’s most well-known hauntings. Then, Austin recaps the Brown Mountain Lights - a phenomena that the Cherokee and Catawba respected long before colonizers began to record and share their own experiences with the lights.
Shall we begin?
The Bell Witch
By: Amber Brevig
Trigger warnings: Animal abuse, Pedophilia / child marriage, Child abuse, sexual assault
As an ex- Nashville resident, this week’s myth hits a little too close to home. The story of the Bell Witch, originating in the late 1810s and early 1820s in Adams, TN (less than an hour away from Nash- HARD pass) encapsulates a haunted mystery involving the small settlement, a prominent member of the community, a young girl, and… a disembodied voice who knows all and who physically assaults, even MURDERS, townsfolk?
We’ve covered “hauntings” before on The Legend Queens (and if you haven’t checked out Season 2 for more of those tales, I highly recommend you pour yourself another cup of coffee and go give it a look-see after you finish this chapter), but we’ve never covered anything as audacious as the Bell Witch. Let’s get into it-
The Haunting Begins
John (Jack) Bell and his family were well known members of this early colonial settlement and were believed to be exceptionally God-fearing (which was an important social piece back in the day don’tchaknow). Ol’ Jack, however, was not too fond of a Ms. Kate Batts who was described by another member of the community as being the loudest personality he had ever met. Kate was habitually late to church but was always the loudest to say her Amens and Hallelujahs.
One Sunday, though, she gets into a tiff with another member of the church (she’s described in Richard Powell’s (I’ll get to him later) recount of the Bell Witch tale that Kate essentially pinned someone down and sat on them in the middle of the church service - the reasons are irrelevant to this story though and are beyond me), and her and John Bell get into it. Some words are thrown around, and he ends up calling her a “witch” (which still held some weight despite the Salem trials happening in the 1690s).
Batts, though, isn’t having any of Mr. Bell’s BS, and instead of denying the claim she leans in to the accusation, essentially telling him “if you want a witch, that’s what you’ll get. You and your whole family are cursed, and you wouldn’t be able to predict all of the misfortune coming your way if you tried.” Kate Batts turns around and storms out, accepting her status as black sheep of the community from that point forward.
Mr. Bell thinks nothing of this “curse” and returns to life as normal. However, not even a week later, he and his family begin to hear creaks in the house that weren’t occurring before. They begin to hear rocks being *thrown* at the house’s walls and roof at all hours of the day, and at night, the blankets are seemingly torn off of the family members by thin air as they attempt to sleep.
These attacks begin to escalate when John Bell’s 13 year old daughter, Betsy, starts to be physically assaulted by this mysterious entity. The paranormal presence begins *slapping* the girl across the face so strongly that it leaves a red mark that others are able to witness.
Although the Bells didn’t have many answers as to *why* they were being targeted like this in the beginning of this haunting, soon the Bells would have more responses than they knew what to do with.
Just Another Member of the Community
For about a month or so, the Bells kept these mysterious noises and attacks to themselves, but after the entity began *speaking* with them, they finally decided to invite the townsfolk over to try and solve the mystery of this being.
Oh, sorry, did I just gloss over that the paranormal being began talking to the family and subsequently the community members? According to Powell’s account of the haunting, it seemed almost impossible to get the voice to *stop* talking.
The voice would speak about the town and the folks in it, accurately sharing details about their lives with anyone who would listen. It told tall tales about how it came to be, one day claiming it was Kate Batt’s witch, and the next claiming it was torturing the family because its remains had been disturbed on the Bell property (built, of course, on top of an indigenous cemetery). The Kate Batt’s witch story stuck, though, and soon the whole town knew of the “witch” inflicting the Bells.
Kate Batt’s witch’s voice came in several varieties though, and Betsy pieced together that there were actual several personas present (though she often just called the witch “Kate”). They called themselves odd names and held individual personalities. “Jerusalem” was the religious genius, often quoting preacher’s sermons back at the holy men whenever they would come to visit the Bell farm. “Mathematics” was more logical and seemed to enjoy chiming in to more intelligent conversations. “Black Dog” served as the aggressor and would get *feisty* towards outsiders it didn’t like as well as John Bell.
Although Kate could be aggressive towards others, over time she started to seek out validation from the townsfolk - it was important to her to be well liked, even *helpful* at times. During spring seasons, the witch would advise the town (accurately) on when the rainy season would be and when the best time to plant certain crops was for the best yield, and they came to rely on her predictions.
The town became well acquainted with the witch so much so that she stopped being a spectacle and for several years became just another member of the community.
The Wizard and the War Hero
Two unique visitors came to the Bell farm while Kate resided there - a wizard and a war hero.
John Bell sent friends to summon the wizard, a man from a far-off town, who had a reputation for scaring away the paranormal. When he arrived, Kate was on her best behavior and didn’t stir up any trouble. As men do, he took this silence as a sign that he had done phenomenal work, and he began to brag out loud that Kate was no match for him.
But good ol’ Kate was just biding her time, and when the wizard was about to leave after a job well done, she just simply started talking again. Powell describes the wizard in this instant as someone who he didn’t think ever anticipated hearing or seeing any paranormal activity, and the wizard *booked it* out of town never to return.
A similar situation happened with America’s own Andrew Jackson. Yes, that one. Not yet the President, Jackson came to visit the Bell farm after hearing rumors of the witch. As he and his entourage approached the farm, their wagon became stuck as if being held by force. Regardless of what the troop tried, they could not get the wagon to budge. Allegedly, Jackson proclaimed “By the eternal, boys, it is the witch!” and also promptly left town after regaining control of the wagon. Powell even claims that Jackson said he’d rather face the British military any day rather than face the Witch.
Sizzling Out, but not without some Bangs
As time wore on, Kate grew bolder and more truthful with her reasonings of why she was actually attached to this family - her end goal, she stated, was to kill John Bell.
When he fell ill in December of 1820, Kate seized her opportunity. On December 20th, some of the Bells woke up - one didn’t. Kate, laughing, gleefully told the remaining family that she had poisoned him. They found a mysterious vial near his bed, and they tested its remaining contents by giving a small amount to a family barn cat who promptly *died.* To this day, Tennessee recognizes John’s death as a murder by the spirit.
With that, Kate’s work was almost done - but she couldn’t disappear without interfering with Betsy one last time.
The Bell daughter, now 16ish, was well within marrying age, and she soon accepted a marriage proposal from Joshua Gardner, a local boy similar in age. Kate had a different idea though, and she demanded that Betsy call off the engagement. It wasn’t that Betsy wasn’t allowed to wed, it was just that Kate had a different idea for who she should be married to (*cough* here’s where Powell comes into play *cough*). So, despite her excitement about Gardner, Betsy calls off her promise to him and weds Powell, 18 years her senior, a year later.
And with that, Kate’s business was complete - she said goodbye to the family and the town and fizzled out of existence… that is, until Betsy’s *own* daughter turned 13, just like Betsy was when the haunting first began.
Is there More to the Story?
Richard Powell, Betsy’s old schoolteacher and a man who eventually became a Tennessee State Senator, had been lusting after the girl since she was 13, consistently describing her as the most beautiful and comely woman in town. To marry her was a a wish he thought was far out of reach until the engagement with Joshua Gardner was called off.
Despite the age gap, Powell and Betsy seemingly had a good life together, so it was much to his surprise when Betsy started to pull back from him once their eldest daughter turned 13. Like all those years ago, Betsy started to hear rocks being thrown at the walls and ceiling, and she seemed terrified that the witch would return.
Powell picked up a few tricks in his old age though, and he sat Betsy down for a hypnotic session one afternoon to get down to the bottom of her fears.
To his surprise, Kate immediately made an appearance (well, as much of an appearance as a disembodied voice can make) to tell him all of the missing details of the Bell Witch days-
Here’s where the trigger warnings come into play, by the way:
Kate starts by telling Powell she has *always* been standing on business when it comes to Betsy’s safety and that she, in fact, was manifested by Betsy’s desire to stay safe in the first place. It turns out that Powell wasn’t the only one in town lusting after 13 year old Betsy- John Bell himself found his way into his daughter’s bed on several occasions. He would pull the blankets off of Betsy’s feet and crawl into bed to assault her, claiming that it was their secret and he just wanted to “show his daughter a special kind of pleasure.”
Kate claimed that back then she started throwing rocks when Bell would visit Betsy to scare him off. And that worked, for a time, but Kate knew she had to step up her game to keep John away from molesting his child for good.
So she killed him, as one should, and Kate declared she made Betsy go pick and carefully squeeze nightshade that grew near the river to give to John in a tincture (Betsy, of course, was in some sort of slumber / hypnotic state so she did not remember).
So why was Betsy punished by the witch if she was the victim? Well, Kate *hated* that the young girl didn’t speak up for herself and tell someone that John had assaulted her. Betsy, although she was scared about the repercussions to her family if her affluent father was labeled with such a heinous crime, was punished for biting her tongue.
Now, though, Kate was back to protect Betsy’s daughter due to Betsy’s own anxiety about… Powell. She feared that her husband would assault their budding daughter as her own father assaulted her all those years before.
And to be honest, that’s a FAIR fear given Powell’s lust for Betsy started when she was similarly aged.
After that hypnotic session, though, the witch’s haunting tactics faded away and she ceased to exist in the physical plane yet again - though Powell speculates that she will *always* be tied to Betsy and the Bells.
So what do you think? I know this is getting pretty lengthy but if you’re interested and because I’ve been learning about this for weeks and have had very few to talk to about it, HERE’S MY THEORY-
I do think Betsy Bell was assaulted - if not by John Bell than by Powell himself (most of the information I learned about the Bell Witch was from Brent Monahan’s “The Bell Witch: An American Haunting” which is stated to be a retelling of Powell’s own hidden manuscript, allegedly a letter to his eldest daughter, uncovered years after the Bell Witch fiasco ended).
I *am* someone who believes in spirits, entities, and demons, but I’m not 100% convinced that Kate fell into that category. I can’t help but wonder if Betsy had *Severe* trauma that led to something like Dissociative Identity Disorder - the naming of the personas being things like “Mathematics”, “Jerusalem”, and “Black Dog” give me reason to believe that they *were* indeed named by a child.
I wonder if somehow Betsy learned to throw her voice or perform some level of ventriloquy (minus the puppet) to convince the adults around her that there was something afoot in Adams.
But that doesn’t explain the visible slap marks on Betsy’s face or Kate’s ability to retell things that had happened around town where Betsy had not been present - all this to say… I’m not 100% convinced, but I’m more like 75% convinced, ya know? The thing that floors me the most is how the witch just became blasé in the town - you’d think you’d never truly get used to a disembodied voice, but what do I know?
I can tell you what I *want* to know… what do YOU think of the Bell Witch? Hoax or nah? Let us know in the comments below!
Brown Mountain Lights
By: Austin Charles Bolkcom
While the passage of time often unravels mysteries, the strangeness of the Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina endures across centuries. Emerging from the era of Native American tribe migrations, predating the arrival of European colonizers, these lights persist as a supernatural historical phenomenon. Their allure draws individuals from around the globe, providing a compelling reason to explore the Carolinas.
Despite the rich history of the Brown Mountain Lights, there's a tendency to overlook Native American narratives and timelines. Modern research often focuses on post-colonization sightings, neglecting the Native American experiences that predate even their settlement in the Americas. Notably, there are instances where white Americans are credited with the discovery, despite the longstanding presence of Native communities on this land.
The Brown Mountains form part of the vast collection of mountains in North America known as the Appalachian Mountains, one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth dating back to the formation of Pangea. This fact alone captivates supernatural researchers due to the staggering number of years these lands have witnessed, along with the wealth of oral and written stories from Native communities about the mountains.
While there's no strict rule, there seems to be a tendency for older places to harbor more energy or activity. The age and history of the Appalachians add an intriguing dimension to the exploration of supernatural phenomena in this region.
But what exactly are the Brown Mountain Lights? Ghostlights? Spirits? Aliens? The Government? The real answer to this day remains a mystery, but there are numerous hypotheses about what the final explanation could be.
As mentioned earlier, some of the earliest reports of ghost lights originated from Cherokee and Catawba tribes, while later reports came from settlers and Civil War soldiers. The lights have undergone three official investigations by the United States government and numerous examinations by private groups. They even made an appearance in a 1999 episode of X-Files, marking one of their many Hollywood debuts.
The Cherokee spoke of the lights with a haunting resonance. In whispered accounts the lights embodied the anguished souls of Cherokee women, ceaselessly searching for their fallen men. Legend spoke of a gruesome battle on Brown Mountain, where the air itself bore witness to the clash between the Cherokee and the Catawba. Now, the flickering lights stood as ethereal remnants, casting an eerie glow that echoed the haunting legacy of that fateful battleground.
One such investigation in 1922 was prompted by general interest in the lights by the United States Government.. The U.S. Geological Survey sent geologist George R. Mansfield to Brown Mountain for a thorough investigation. Mansfield concluded that the area surrounding Brown Mountain is intriguing not due to any paracausal phenomena, but because of its natural environment. He cited factors such as air current, air density, surface refractoriness, and humidity. Mansfield attributed some post-1909 sightings to humans seeing train lights on local locomotives introduced to the area, accounting for lights seen at specific times on certain days. Despite largely discrediting the mystery to special features of the area and advancements in vehicle headlights, there were instances in his investigation where he couldn’t thoroughly explain events with the lights, nor could he formulate a valid hypothesis for these occurrences.
However, Mansfield’s report on The Brown Mountain Lights, which attributed the phenomenon to local locomotives, automobiles, and houses, does not account for what happened three years after his investigation when the train tracks had been washed away by a flood destroying not only the tracks but the roads removing any possibility that locomotives or automotives could reflect rays in the valley.. This discrepancy has led many to question the soundness of Mansfield’s conclusions, despite his good intentions and thorough research.
From the private sector, Appalachian State University had installed two low-light cameras on rooftops that overlook Brown Mountain and Linville Gorge in hopes of capturing either the cause or just the phenomena by itself but by 2014, these cameras have produced over 6,300 hours worth of data without recording any unexplainable lights.
There doesn’t seem to be a big agreement between the paranormal research community and the academic science community when it comes to the conclusion of what these lights could be, but one thing that these two groups can agree on is that the event is occurring, is active, and can be seen to this day happening.
Brown Mountain is the closest thing the Southern Appalachians has to the Bermuda Triangle
–Joshua Warren, paranormal researcher
Warren is intimately acquainted with the phenomena at Brown Mountain. Over his extensive years dedicated to paranormal research, he has authored thirteen novels covering various topics in the field and served as the host of his own show on the Discovery Channel. However, for Warren, the peculiarity of the lights holds a more personal resonance, as he recalls encountering them during his childhood. Despite his two decades of immersive exploration into these mysterious lights, Warren emphasizes the rarity and unpredictability of the phenomenon, having witnessed the event only six times throughout his extensive research.
To me, it doesn’t matter as much what’s happening as much as it matters that something is happening. That’s the real story. People are out here looking at this for some reason or another. People come out and tell ghost stories or they talk about science. It stimulates all sorts of discussion. Even if somebody thinks the whole thing is baloney, they’ll want to talk about that.
There are few phenomena in this world that captivate people's attention and ignite a sense of wonder quite like the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina. These mysterious lights offer a glimmer of hope to those intrigued by the paranormal. While the true nature of these lights may remain a mystery for decades or even centuries to come, their allure continues to draw in curious souls eager for a firsthand experience.