Alan Brown - Haunted Kentucky: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Bluegrass State

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FIRST EDITION

Design by Beth Oberholtzer
Cover design by Tessa J. Sweigert

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brown, Alan, 1950 Jan. 12

Haunted Kentucky : ghosts and strange phenomena of the Bluegrass State / Alan Brown. 1st ed.

p. m.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
ISBN-13: 978-0-8117-4307-5
ISBN-10: 0-8117-3584-2 (pbk.)
1. GhostsKentucky. 2. Haunted placesKentucky. I. Title.

BF1472.U6B7427 2009

133.109769dc22

2009003415

To my wife, Marilyn,
my ghost magnet

IN THE MINDS OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC, KENTUCKY IS A WARM PLACE, AN image owed in large part to Stephen Fosters song My Old Kentucky Home. Indeed, horses graze peacefully in the pastures of the Bluegrass State. Spectators dressed in their finery sip mint juleps as they watch their favorites gallop to the finish line in the Kentucky Derby. In some remote pockets of the Appalachians, people still play the old fiddle songs, tell the old stories, and, some say, brew a little moonshine. Stone fences snake their way along the roadside, marking off the boundaries of family farms, where farmers continue to make a living cultivating fields of tobacco and corn.

But Kentuckys surface beauty is offset by the violence and suffering that occurred during the regions sometimes brutal history. After 1775, Indians siding with the British repeatedly attacked early settlements. And Kentuckians could not insulate themselves from the Civil War, despite the states desire to stay neutral. In 1862, battles were fought at Mill Springs on January 19, Richmond in August, and Perryville in October. Between 1904 and 1909, in a conflict now known as the Black Patch War, night riders who opposed the large firms that controlled the tobacco market burned warehouses, fields, and barns of farmers they felt had sold out to the tobacco monopolies. The last public execution in the United States took place in Owensboro, when a black man named Rainey Bethea was hanged on August 14, 1936, for the rape and murder of a seventy-year-old white woman. Death, it seems, is no stranger to Kentucky.

For generations, the descendants of the English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, and African Americans who settled in Kentucky spun tales in its backwoods and small towns. Many of these stories reflect the folk culture of their place of geographic origin. A case in point is the story of the Russellville Girl, whose indelible image still remains on a pane of glass in her home. Another theme commonly found in stories from both Europe and the United States is the vanishing hitchhiker. In the Kentucky version, the hitchhiker is a girl who is picked up by two young men on their way to a dance in Tompkinsville.

Paranormal experts claim that psychic residue from Kentuckys bloody past remains at some of the states historic sites. In the early nineteenth century, Mammoth Cave was as famous for its four-thousand-year-old mummies and stories of the ghosts of ill-fated explorers as it was for its labyrinthine passages and geologic formations. A number of Kentuckys bed-and-breakfasts, used as hospitals during the Civil War, still seem to resonate with the suffering and death experienced there. Some of the former penal institutions, such as Bardstowns Old Jailers Inn, reportedly house the spirits of convicts incarcerated there years ago. Waverly Hills Tuberculosis Sanatorium, said to be one of the most haunted places in America, attracts hundreds of tourists each year eager to make contact with the spirits of people who spent their last agonizing moments there.

A number of other paranormal sightings or encounters have also been reported in the state, including the alien abduction of three women in Stanford in 1976 and the collision of a train with a UFO near Paintsville on January 14, 2002. Cryptozoologists flock to Kentucky in search of the Lizard Man, Goat Man, and assorted Bigfoot-type creatures. And many people bore witness to a shower of flakes of meat from the sky in Olympian Springs on March 3, 1876

Every other state has its mysteries. as well, but the dark side of the Bluegrass State seems particularly dark. Could this be because so much of its land is covered with impenetrable forests and cloud-shrouded mountains? Or is it because the dead who lie under Kentuckys soil find it difficult to rest in peace? Read on and decide for yourself.

MADE UP OF PORTIONS OF THE BLUEGRASS AND PENNYROYAL REGIONS, Central Kentucky was one of the first areas of the state to be settled and is among the most historically significant. Today the states largest cities and much of its industry can be found here. Kentuckys first permanent white settlement, Harrodsburg, grew up around Fort Harrod, which was erected to protect settlers from the Indians. Daniel Boone, one of the forts defenders, lived and hunted in the region. Kentuckys most famous resident, Abraham Lincoln, was born near Hodgenville. The regions storied past has been immortalized in its folklore.

Harrodsburg was founded in 1774 by a band of pioneers from Pennsylvania led by James Harrod. The little village they carved out of the wilderness, which was the first permanent English settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains, was originally known as Harrods Town. It was abandoned briefly in 1774 as a result of Indian attacks but was resettled the next year. During the Revolutionary War, the residents of Harrods Town found themselves fighting constant battles with the Indians. By the time the second post office in Kentucky opened in the town in 1794, it was known as the Birth-place of the West, because it was the starting point from which pioneers went on to settle the rest of the frontier. During the 1840s, Harrodsburg, as it is now called, was a tourist destination because of the curative powers of its mineral springs. People who stayed here attended concerts, horse races, plays, and parties. Near the edge of town was the Harrodsburg Springs Hotel, developed by Dr. and Mrs. C. C. Graham into one of the most luxurious inns in the entire region. The hotels supreme attraction was its lavish ballroom, complete with a band, crystal chandeliers, and more than a hundred lamps. Its most famous guest was a mysterious young woman who apparently has never left.

Late one summer afternoon in the 1840s, shortly before supper, the guests sitting in the rocking chairs in the wide gallery were captivated by the sight of a beautiful young woman entering the hotel. They were struck by the fact that she seemed to be traveling without an escort. Some of the guests later recalled that the girl walked up to the front desk and identified herself as Mary Virginia Stafford of Louisville. She explained that her parents, Judge and Mrs. Stafford, would be arriving later that evening with her luggage. She had wanted to come early so that she could rest up before the ball.