Scary Stories

The Bell Witch

True Story

It has been called America’s greatest ghost story and it happened right here in Tennessee.  In the decades since the “Witch” or “Spirit” first manifested around the Bell family on their farm in Robertson County in the early 19th Century, the Bell Witch has attracted the attention of ghost hunters, skeptics, supernaturalists, religious leaders, story tellers, authors, historians, and curious citizens from all over the world.

Earlier sources of the Bell Witch legend are dubious at best but provide a terrific look into the pervasiveness of the legend and the progression of the Bell Witch story through the years.  The two most famous sources, An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch by M. V. Ingram, published in 1894, and A Mysterious Spirit: The Bell Witch of Tennessee by Charles Bailey Bell are essentially the same narrative differing only in detail and style.  Both these sources tell a fascinating story of the supernatural and provide the basis for much of the Bell Witch folklore.

The Bell Family
John Bell was born in Halifax County, North Carolina in 1750, the son of William Bell and Ann Jones.  In 1782 John Bell married Lucy Williams, daughter of prominent farmer John Williams of Edgecomb County, North Carolina.  The Bells bought a farm in Edgecomb County and began amassing wealth and influence in the area.

In 1804, the family, consisting of John and Lucy Bell, and their children Jesse, John Junior, Drewry, Benjamin, Esther, Zadok, Elizabeth, Richard Williams and Joel Egbert, built a house and started a farm on 1000 acres, located on the Red River in Robertson County, Tennessee.

Of their children, Benjamin died as a young child; Zadok became a prominent lawyer and moved to Mississippi where he also died relatively young.  Esther married Bennett Porter in 1817.  Jesse married Martha Gunn, daughter of Rev. Thomas Gunn and later moved to Mississippi.  John Bell Junior married Elizabeth Gunn, also daughter of Rev. Thomas Gunn and became a successful farmer in Robertson County.  Drewry never married and owned a farm on the north side of the Red River.  Elizabeth (Betsy) Bell eventually married her former teacher Richard Powell and moved to Mississippi.  Richard Williams Bell was married three times, to Sallie Gunn, daughter of Rev. Thomas Gunn, Susan Gunn, daughter of Rev. James Gunn, and Eliza Orndorff.  He lived out his life in Robertson County.  The youngest child, Joel Egbert, married twice and moved to Springfield.

Despite the lasting impact of what the Bells termed “Our Family Trouble,” the family continued to flourish and some descendants of the Bells still live in Tennessee and other Southern and Midwestern states.

Disturbances Begin
The origin of the legendary “Bell Witch” is of course a mystery.  In early accounts the Spirit itself provides its origin stating, “I am a Spirit; I once was very happy, but I have been disturbed and made unhappy.  I am the Spirit of a person who was buried in the woods nearby and the grave was disturbed, my bones disinterred and scattered, and one of my teeth was lost under this house.  I am here looking for that tooth.”  Of course this cannot be verified; however, a number of Indian burial mounds could be found in the region.

In another event the Witch claimed to be, “a Spirit from everywhere, Heaven, Hell, the earth; am in the air, the houses, any place at any time; have been created millions of years.”

The first appearance of unusual disturbances surrounding the Bell family is usually reported as an incident on the farm in which John Bell fired a shot at a “dog-like” creature which vanished.  Drewry and Betsy also began to see strange creatures near the property.  These sights are accompanied by strange sounds around the house.  Betsy, Drewry and John begin to hear unaccounted for knocking on the door and windows, the sound of wings flapping against the ceilings, and the sound of rats gnawing on bedposts.  More disturbingly, the sound of choking and strangling could be heard along with chains dragging and heavy objects hitting the floor.  Sounds emanating from the bedroom as if “beds were suddenly and roughly pulled apart, to which was added the sounds of fighting dogs chained together, making the noise deafening.”  In all cases the source of the noise was never found.  No rats were found in the home despite thorough searching and no damage to the furniture was ever discovered.  During these demonstrations the family refused to speak of the events to their neighbors.