William Lynwood Montell - Ghosts Across Kentucky

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

Copyright 2000 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.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montell, William Lynwood, 1931

Ghosts across Kentucky / William Lynwood Montell.

p. cm.

ISBN-10: 0-8131-9007-X (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. GhostsKentucky. I. Title.

BF1472.U6 M66 2000

133.1'09769dc21 00-032058

ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-9007-5

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

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dedicated to all my family members

who told me ghost and ancestral stories as a child;

to my wife, Linda; to my daughter Monisa;

my son Brad; and five grandsons,

all of whom know the old family stories.

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

I began gathering the stories contained in this book during the early months of 1998 and continued on a regular basis through August 1999. The compilation of this collection offolk narratives about Ghosts was greatly aided by the assistance of numerous persons. Were it not for friends, students, and other individuals who collected or wrote newspaper articles about these supernatural accounts across the years, this book would not have been possible. Thus my debt is heavy to many contributors, some of whom will be identified in the following paragraphs. All others are recognized as storytellers or collectors of these accounts in the notes to each of the stories contained on the final pages of this very special book.

First of all, thanks to Roberta Simpson Brown, Judy Bryson, Berry Craig and Norman Goldstein of the Associated Press, Mary Ann Gentry, Frankie Hager, Stan W. Lemaster, Sara McNulty, Charles Mitchell, and Margaret Owens for granting permission to publish ghost accounts from some of their previous books or articles, all of which are identified in the notes.

Newspapers from which some of the stories were gleaned include the College Heights Herald (Western Kentucky University), Columbia Daily Statesman, Green River Sprite, Knox Countian, Lebanon Enterprise, Lexington Herald-Leader, Louisville Evening Post, Madisonville Messenger, Murray State News, Nelson County Record, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, Ohio County News, Paducah Sun, Richmond Register, and Kentucky Standard. Thanks also to Max Heath, director of Landmark Enterprises, who supplied me with numerous names of newspapers and editors, as well as telephone numbers.

Libraries and archives whose staff archivists proved so very helpful include the Southern Appalachian Archives, Hutchins Library, Berea College; Mt. Saint Joseph Archives, Maple Mount; Ohio County High School Library; Pogue Library, Murray State University; Special Collections and Archives, Margaret I. King Library North, University of Kentucky; De partment of Library and Special Collections, Folklife Archive, Western Kentucky University.

Finally, my heartfelt thanks go out to student collectors at Western Kentucky University from 1969 to 1999, who acquired these supernatural accounts from peers, parents, grandparents, and older neighbors; also to Linda Anderson, Sister Emma C. Busam, Shirley Caudill, Elbert Cundiff, Dr. Ron Dobler, Dr. Terry Hall, Kay Harbison, Dixie Hibbs, Patricia Hodges, Dr. Loyal Jones, Becky Leavy, Mabel Martin, Dr. Robert Rennick, Sue Lynn Stone, James H. Young, and to certain teachers and students in Albany, Buthesville, Campbellsville, Franklin, Madisonville, and Wallins Creek. Without the contributions of stories from these persons and others listed in the previous paragraphs and in the notes to each of the stories, this book would not have been possible.

Thanks to all of you.

Introduction

Across the centuries, people have passed along from one generation to the next their cherished heirlooms, such as beliefs, traditions, and historically significant family and community stories. Sitting around fires or under a shade tree at night, older men and women told stories to entertain, also to explain the unexplainable. Children have always looked to parents, and especially grandparents, for insights into the mysteries of the world about them. Adults told stories about the things they had witnessed or experienced. They of ten embellished them with their own interpretation of the events described, perhaps even simply to make a good story better.

Kentucky was settled by people with a myriad of social and cultural backgrounds. They were mostly Americans by birth, but of various nationalities and races, being chiefly of English, Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, French, German, and African descent. Many of these early ancestors, who moved across the mountains onto the western frontier, preferred the soon-to-be comforts of towns and villages, while others became primarily backwoods people by choice. They fondly accepted the wild freedom of the frontier rural landscape. "A lonely house in the middle of a great farm was their ideal, and they attained it even before it could be done with safety," according to geologist Nathan S. Shaler. All of these groups brought with them the folk heritage of their social and cultural class, as well as fond memories of their places of geographical origin. Folk beliefs and narratives of all varieties, told and retold in any given area, reflect the ethnic makeup of the people who live there. Thus it is that the wealth of the stories and beliefs brought to an area by immigrants are translated, and sometimes modified, as they are passed along from generation to generation.

All across the state, Kentuckians have produced a great body of supernatural beliefs, stories, and historical legends. From pioneer times down to the present, Kentucky has always been rich in ghost legends or personal accounts of ghostly visitations. Traditional stories that tell of ghostly sightings and felt presences of spirits and other supernatural creatures still persist as a vestige of the past, as they help to describe life and times of a bygone era.

Ghost stories of ten provide Kentuckians at home or elsewhere with meaningful historical ties with their ancestors and with the old family home place. Through family and community beliefs and stories, people are introduced to the names and actions of dead family members whom they never knew personally. Thus, they become acquainted with the ancestral dead as well as the living. At least that's the way it was in times past. Such stories, even those with ghostly themes and elements, are bonding agents. They provide meaningful continuity between past and present generations.