HGB Ep. 556 - Nashville's Belmont Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Three Stags Head Pub (Suggested by: Lyn Beasley)

There is a pub called Three Stags Heads located in Wardlow Mires, just outside of Derbyshire, England. The structure is a longhouse that was built in the mid to late 18th century with a simple whitewashed exterior. The facade is adorned with three stag skulls, hence the name, while the interior harkens back to days gone by where it is said that modern phones and such are not allowed. There are various versions of lurcher dog art to be seen as well as consumed. It is said that their Dark Lurcher beer is quite strong. They serve other local brews and food as well. One item within the pub however is quite unique, at least to modern times. Within a glass case in a corner, sits a mummified cat. The animal was found inside the chimney and is said to have been placed there to ward off evil spirits. There are some European cultures that would often place a deceased cat within a building's walls. This was done because of the belief that cats were thought to bring good luck to the people residing in a building and that the cats could ward off bad luck. Most accounts have shown that this practice proved to have used felines that had previously passed away before being concealed within a buildings' structure. Regardless, finding a mummified cat within the walls of a building, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Attica Correctional Facility Riot

In the month of September, on the 13th, in 1971, New York State Police stormed Attica Correctional Facility. A riot of inmates began on the 9th in the overcrowded prison with 1,281 inmates at the maximum security institution, taking over a large portion of the facility. The rioters were seeking to negotiate to improve conditions and treatment at the prison. The police were able to retake most of the facility on the 9th, however, the rioters moved to an exercise field called D yard and there they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. Prior to that, one guard was beaten to death. Eventually negotiations stagnated and the New York Governor issued a mandate to regain control of the prison by force. On the morning of September 13th, a final notice was read to the inmates by police, ordering a surrender. The convicts responded by holding knives to their hostages' throats. Shortly thereafter, helicopters flew overhead and dropped tear gas. During the melee, officers fired 3,000 shots killing 29 of the inmates and 10 of the hostages while wounding 89 others. Many of the deaths and injuries happened during the initial gunfire, however some inmates were shot and killed after they surrendered. The resulting deaths of both prisoners and hostages caused condemnation by the public and prompted a Congressional investigation. It was not until January 2000, that New York State settled a 26 year old class-action lawsuit that had been filed by the Attica inmates against prison and state officials. The payout totaled 8 million dollars that was then given to former and current inmates.

Belmont Mansion

The Belmont Mansion is haunted by a woman who knew devastating loss, Adelicia (Add ah lish ah) Hayes Franklin Acklen Cheatham. That's a lot of surnames because there were a lot of marriages. The mansion is located in Nashville and is now a part of the Belmont University Campus. This is an elaborate antebellum villa that served as a summer respite from the Louisiana heat. And it just might be a respite for Adelicia in the afterlife. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Belmont Mansion.

The story of Belmont Mansion begins and ends with Adelicia Acklen. Her parents were lawyer and minister Oliver Bliss and Sarah Hightower Hayes and she was born on March 15, 1817 in Nashville. This early Nashville was a couple years from the first steamboat arriving, which would bring the town out of isolation and starts its build into a big city. Adelicia was raised in Nashville and attended the Nashville Female Academy. It would be after her graduation that tragedy would begin in her life. She met a man named Alfonso Gibbs and the two became engaged. Gibbs never made it to the altar, dying before the wedding. A new love would come into her life in 1839, when she was twenty-two. This was a wealthy slave trader and planter named Isaac Franklin. The slave trade he owned was one of the largest in the south. He was twenty-eight years Adelicia's senior and the couple had four children: Victoria, Adelicia, Julius and Emma. Tragedy struck again as Julius lost his life in 1844 at birth. Two years later, Adelicia senior would lose Victoria to croup, Adelicia Jr. to bronchitis and her husband Isaac. She wasn't yet thirty years of age and she would now be the wealthiest woman in Tennessee. Isaac Franklin passed onto her the Fairvue Plantation in Tennessee, four cotton plantations in Louisiana, some land in Texas, stocks, bonds and hundreds of enslaved people.

In 1849, she met and married attorney Joseph A. S. Acklen who hailed from Huntsville, Alabama. Huntsville had been founded by and named for his grandfather John Hunt. He was born a year after Adelicia and started at the University of Alabama at the age of fourteen. He went to fight in the Texas Revolution in 1835 and served under Colonel James W. Fannin, Jr. Nearly the entire company was executed at Goliad, Texas, on March 27, 1836, but Joseph had already left for home and escaped the massacre. He studied law in Huntsville and President Martin Van Buren appointed him the United States Attorney for the North Alabama Judicial District in 1840. He visited Nashville in April of 1847 and attended a ball where he met the recently widowed Adelicia Franklin. They started a long distance relationship and within two years, Joseph had moved to Nashville to marry Adelicia. And an interesting note here is that Adelicia bascially got him to sign a prenuptial agreement that stated she would retain ownership and control of all the property she brought to the marriage and Joseph agreed. 

The couple decided to build Belmont Mansion in Nashville and began construction in 1850 on 175 acres. The mansion was originally called Belle Monte or "beautiful mountain" and sat on a hilltop. This would take ten years and when it was finished, it was the largest home in Tennessee at the time. It was designed by architect Adolphus Heiman in the Italian villa style and included 36 rooms. The Grand Salon was really something and was designed to impress. The room was larger than most people's homes and featured a columned chamber that was filled with natural light from floor to ceiling windows and the barrel-vaulted ceiling that rose 20 feet was adorned with a dramatic painted sky. A six foot cast iron fountain provided natural water sounds. The walls featured carved woodwork and painted finishes. All first floor rooms connected to the Grand Salon. A stairway connected the Grand Salon to the private bedrooms upstairs and the upper hall had access via another stairway to the cupola, which was a full on octagonal room that could be opened up in the summer months to cool the house and provided a view of the grounds. There was also a telescope in the room. 

The Central Parlor had an optical illusion on the ceiling to make people think they are sitting in a Roman palazzo. The original mirror and Cornelius and Company gas chandelier still remain in this room. The parlor still has eight of the twelve pieces of the Acklen’s parlor suit. The grounds themselves were beautiful with gardens and gazebos, a water tower, a two-hundred-foot long greenhouse and conservatory, bathhouse, bowling alley, art gallery and even a zoo. The Gardener’s Monthly featured an article about the greenhouse at Belmont in 1868 describing it as "built of iron, [was] truly a Crystal Palace, with its high dome and spacious wings." The greenhouse had plants from all around the world with a two-story conservatory in the center. A furnace under the greenhouse helped to control the temperatures. The heat from the furnace would rise through the vents in the floor providing climate control. The mansion really was a showplace and the family even opened the gardens and zoo up to the public.

The couple had six children, Joseph, William, Claude, Pauline and Laura and Corinne who were twins. The twins were named for her sister. Tragedy struck yet again in 1855 when the last surviving child from her first marriage, Emma, passed away from Diptheria. The Acklens commissioned a painting from the artist Gschwindt that was described in The Daily Picayune as, "The child is reclining on a sofa and seems to be just awaking from a pleasant dream, of which the last scene is just fading away. From the clouds, in the background, we see the vanishing form of an angel emerge, clasping the hand of the unconscious child, and pointing to the future. We need only to add that the child soon after died." This portrait was hung in the library of the mansion, but no longer exists. At this point, Adelicia has lost all four of her first children. But 1855 wasn't done with her. The twins, Laura and Corinne, died from Scarlet Fever at the age of three. So she has lost six children at this point. Adelicia would take a trip to Europe after the Civil War and bought a sculpture featuring two little girls cuddling each other and she had inscribed with "Laura and Corinne."

As we mentioned, there was an art gallery on the property and Adelicia and Joseph amassed quite the art collection. This was the first major art collection in Nashville and the couple loaned their collection to various exhibitions. Adelicia was even appointed by the Governor in 1875 to serve on a committee that decided what art pieces would represent Tennessee at an exhibit held in Philadelphia for the United States Centennial. She became very involved in charity work and was elected Treasurer for the Ladies Soldier's Friend Society in 1861. The Nashville Refugee Clothing Association was an organization that supported refugees of the Civil War and Adelicia served on its board in 1864. She donated to orphanages, purchased city bonds for post-war redevelopment in Nashville, invested in the Maxwell House Hotel and in the 1880s, served on the Board of Directors for the Working Women Exchange. Adelicia loved to entertain. There were cotillions and galas and balls and most were held out in the gardens under the full moon. She would pick different themes for the parties and use exotic decor like Japanese lanterns to light the festivities. 

The Civil War brought change for the Acklens and strife. Tennessee seceded from the Union in June of 1861. Joseph paid to get a Tennessee militia armed and in uniforms. He got little thanks for that when the nearby Fort Donelson fell and the Confederate army decided not to defend Nashville. Adelicia stayed at Belmont, but Joseph ran to Louisiana to run the plantations they had there. About a third of Nashville's population left. Now before you think Joseph ran off scared, he actually went to a worse situation. One of the plantations was on the Mississippi River and this area was controlled by Federal gunboats. The Confederates liked to cross here though, so skirmishes happened often. On top of that, both sides wanted to burn the cotton on the plantation because they didn't want either side to benefit from it. Joseph was trying to protect around 8,500 bales of cotton. The Union came to him and offered to protect the cotton, but Joseph didn't want the Confederates to retaliate against him. The Union did eventually provide protection against his will. Despite being only 45, Joseph was sick, tired and so arthritic he couldn't write by 1863. He asked a friend to write a letter for him to Adelicia that the South was going to lose the war and slavery would be over and he was happy that this was going to be the case. Joseph then died of malaria and Adelicia had lost her second husband. 

This left Adelicia in a quandary. The cotton down in Louisiana was worth a lot of money. A story told about her is that she traveled secretly down to Louisiana and used her beauty and charm to get both sides of the war to help her with the cotton. She convinced a Confederate General she was friendly with, not to burn the bales of cotton and then she contracted with a Yankee wagon train to transport the cotton to a New Orleans port. This was with the help of a Union Admiral she was friendly with. The only problem was getting the cotton from the plantation to that port without having rebels rob the train. Somehow she managed to convince some Confederate soldiers to escort the cotton on the train. Neither side knew that she was working both sides. The cotton made it to New Orleans and was sold to the Rothschilds in London for nearly a million dollars in gold. That would be worth nearly 17 million today. 

The couple's eldest son Joseph was off at military school during much of the Civil War. He then went overseas to colleges in France and Switzerland and returned to Tennessee to finish his law degree in 1871 at Cumberland College, School of Law in Lebanon, Tennessee. He set up shop in Memphis and married a woman there named Hattie Bethell and then moved to her sugar plantation in Patternsonville St. Mary Parish Louisiana. Hattie became pregnant shortly thereafter and died in childbirth. The baby also passed. Joseph, Jr. stayed on at the plantation until 1884 and served in politics in Louisiana. He moved back to Nashville in 1884 to practice law again and lived at Belmont until it was sold in 1887. He married again and had eight children and passed away in 1938.

Adelicia would marry for a third time in 1867 to a doctor named William Archer Cheatham. He was a medical reformer and ran the Tennessee Insane Asylum. While there, he implemented the most advanced theories of moral treatment for the mentally ill that had been developed during the 19th century. Dorothea Dix considered the Tennessee hospital the most superior for mental health and it really was one of the best in the nation. Cheatham first wife had passed in 1864 and he brought two children into the marriage, Martha and Richard. He established a private practice in Nashville and worked at that until his death in 1900. Adelicia remained at Belmont Mansion until 1884 when she left for Florida with her three other adult children. The following spring they went to Washington D.C. and this is where Adelicia died in May 1887. Before her death, she sold Belmont Mansion to a developer who sold 15 acres of the land and the mansion to two women from Philadelphia. They opened a school for young women called Belmont College in 1890. This merged with Ward Seminary in 1913 and became a junior college named Ward-Belmont. Minnie Pearl graduated from here as did Mary Martin. In 1951, the school changed ownership and is today Belmont University, which reopened as a coeducational, liberal arts school offering bachelor and graduate degrees.

Today, Belmont Mansion is open as a museum and conducts tours under the care of the Belmont Mansion Association. For years they have painstakingly restored and refurbished the mansion and it is gorgeous. Many pieces of furniture belonged to Adelicia's family. The Rose Garden remains, although it is only about a quarter of the size it had once been. There were roses of every color here and many were show-worthy. A Freedom Fountain has been installed where some of the enslaved cabins would have been at one time. Some of those people included Brutus Jackson, Frances Jackson, Aggie, Fred, Ben Gant, George, Rena Gibbs, Julia Ann, Mortimer, Randolph, Rose, Salley, Manuela and her two children, Betsy and her children: Alexander, Amanda, Harriet, Ivey, James, and Joseph; and Maria and her children: Ezekiel or Zeke, Mary Ann, and William. They've done a great job at the mansion with digging into the history of the enslaved who were here. There are names of other enslaved people who had been at the other Acklen plantations on the fountain as well: John Baker, Betsy or Bettie Baker, Ruffin, Georgina, Eva Snowden Baker, and London.

The east campus entrance for the university had once been the service drive and entrance. Delivery vehicles would damage the oyster shell lined carriage drive, so this separate drive was created with an entrance on the east side of the house where the kitchen was located. A white Italian marble fountain is still located in the front of the mansion and was installed in 1857. And guess what? It actually still works and is said to be the oldest operational fountain in its original location in the American South. A water tower fed water via gravity to this fountain and two others. And there is also a cast and wrought iron gazebo that dates to 1853 that was bought out of the Janes, Beebe & Company of New York catalog. The center featured a large cast-iron outdoor aquarium filled with gold and silver fish. The original Aviary is still here and would have been filled with exotic birds that included a white owl Adelicia had received as a gift.

Unexplained things have happened in this house for a very long time. Adelicia herself claimed that she was haunted by the spirits of her twin daughters. She kept their room as it had been when they were alive and she would spend hours in there, running her hands over the furniture. She would tell friends that she sometimes heard their laughter. The main spirit here is thought to be Adelicia though. Faculty and students have both claimed to see her disembodied spirit. One employee claimed that she was walking down a hallway, cleaning up and checking things after an event, when she ran in the apparition of Adelicia who was wearing an elegant evening gown. On another occasion, a tour guide saw the spirit of Adelicia and as told that the furniture in one of the bedrooms was not in its proper place. 

Adelicia seems to gravitate towards holiday seasons and so is most often seen around Christmas. People believe this is because the university conducts an elaborate ceremony in which a massive tree is set up in the main hallway and a chorus descends the stairway dressed in period clothing and carrying lit candles. Adelicia would've loved this kind of pomp and circumstance. Thoughts as to why she would be here in spirit include her sadness over the loss of her children and possibly that she was greedy and unwilling to give up her earthly treasures. Haunted Nashville written by Frankie and Kim Meredith Harris in 2009 has some great ghost stories and this is one connected the Christmas hauntings. (pg. 84)

And they share these other stories as well. (pg. 86)

David Weatherly wrote on the Eerie Lights blog in 2019, "Susan, who shared her ghostly encounter with me, had spent a lot of time at Belmont in the early 2000's and it was during this period that she had her own run ins with the spirit of Adelicia. As she reports, 'I was friends with one of the security guards at the time, and he worked in the mansion and on its grounds. He would tell me quite often how the motion detectors would go off in the middle of the night when the building was completely empty. They would investigate of course, and find nothing, and they'd have to reset all the alarms. A friend of mine had sworn to me that she'd seen the ghost of the woman, Adelicia, right outside the building one night. A ghost that she swore vanished when she was looking at her. I was doubtful and thought maybe she'd just been up to many hours studying, or maybe she'd been drinking or something, but she always swore she'd had nothing to drink and wasn't tired. Then, one night I was in the main building myself. It really is a beautiful building and there are a lot of items that are original and belonged to the family like furniture and artwork. I was looking at some of the things when I heard what sounded like a child crying. I knew there were no kids in the building. It didn't sound like a baby, more like a little kid, maybe 5 to 7 years old, crying from being upset or hurt. I only heard it twice then it was as if there was silence beyond what's normal silence. I felt a chill and the hair went up on the back of my neck. It's like that feeling, you know someone is behind you and it was almost like slow motion, I turned around, and there she was, this woman in an old-fashioned dress. I know my jaw dropped and I felt frozen, just staring at her. It felt like a long time, but I know logically that it was only seconds. She was looking around like she'd heard that kid crying, and she had her left hand up to her face like she was upset. I saw her and then she just faded away! That made the whole thing even scarier! I knew right away that I'd seen Adelicia Hayes. Maybe she was looking for one of her kids who had died in the house. I never doubted my friend again, and in fact, we both had another sighting of the woman when we were together outside the mansion a few months later. We saw her out front and the same thing happened, she just faded away. I've been convinced since that time that ghost exists and that Adelicia Hayes still stays around the old mansion.'"

The Belmont Mansion is really something to see and that might be why Adelicia has returned in the afterlife. It must have been hard to leave and hard to sell, but now she has the freedom to come and go as she wishes, if it is indeed her haunting the place. Is Nashville's Belmont Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 531 - The Haunting of Loretta Lynn

Moment in Oddity - The Eschif in Perigueux (Suggested by: Karen Miller)

In the country of France, there is a very unique building that dates back to 1347 called the Eschif in Perigueux. It is located in the city of Perigueux (pear-hee-GOO) and consists of an oak timber framed building with wattle and daub infill. Wattle and daub is a composite building method used for making buildings where a wattle, or woven lattice of wood strips, is daubed with a sticky material which was typically a mix of wet soil, sand, animal dung and straw. The unusual building is balanced on the narrow ramparts of Puy-Saint-Front (poo-wee-sant-fron) which was the medieval center of Périgueux, and is supported on oak struts along its length. At nearly 700 years old the fact that this building is still intact is amazing. During the middle ages the building was used as a method of surveillance of the Tournepiche (TOR-na-peesh) bridge, which was a toll bridge. The building, which is shaped like a house, sits atop a wall. The rampart looks to be approximately 20 feet high. Aside from the angled support beams, the width of the supporting rampart looks to only be about a third of the building's footprint if it were sitting on the earth. Structural engineering today can produce all sorts of amazing feats, but a nearly 700 year old building still accomplishing this in modern times, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The Three Mile Island Accident

In the month of March, on the 28th, in 1979, the Three Mile Island accident occurred. Three Mile Island was a nuclear generating station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The accident started at 4 a.m. and began releasing radioactive gases and iodine into the surrounding areas. There was a failure in the non-nuclear secondary system which then was compounded by a valve in the primary system which became stuck in the open position. There were further mechanical failures that arose. The Three Mile Island incident is considered one of the worst accidents in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history. It brought about new regulations to the nuclear industry. This also stimulated the anti-nuclear movement activists who fought for the ceasing of nuclear production due to worries of regional health effects. The cleanup of three mile island began in August of 1979, officially ending in December of 1993. The nuclear plant was restarted in 1985 but then was officially retired in 2019. The decommissioning is predicted to be finished in 2079 at an expected cost of $1.2 billion.

The Haunting of Loretta Lynn (Suggested by: Ivy Johnson) 

Hurricane Mills Rural Historic District is the name of Loretta Lynn's ranch in Tennessee. This is a large 3500-acre property that is basically its own little village. Loretta Lynn wasn't shy about telling people that her ranch was haunted. Loretta embraced the paranormal and even claimed to have her own psychic abilities. The world lost an amazingly talented singer and songwriter when she passed in October of 2022. On this episode, we will explore the life of this coalminer's daughter and the hauntings that surrounded her.

Loretta Lynn once said, "To make it in this business, you either have to be first, great or different. And I was the first to ever go into Nashville, singin' it like the women lived it." We think she was being modest as she proved to be both great and different. While many might think of her as a classic country and bluegrass singer, she wasn't afraid to twist things up as she did in 2004 when she recorded the duet "Portland Oregon" with rocker Jack White of the group White Stripes. She was only the second country music singer to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And with three Grammy Awards, seven American Music Awards, eight Broadcast Music Incorporated awards, 13 Academy of Country Music awards and eight Country Music Association awards, she remains the most awarded woman in country music history. Although she rose to these great heights, she started from very modest means.

She started as Loretta Webb in April of 1932, named for film star Loretta Young. Loretta was born to Clara and Theodore Webb in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky. Ted was a coal miner who battled black lung disease for many years before dying of a stroke at the age of 52. She had seven siblings, one of whom is country music star Crystal Gayle. Butcher Hollow was a remote Appalachian hamlet and the family lived in dire poverty in a mountain cabin with Ted Webb providing much of the family's food from what he raised on their property. The family clearly had music though, based on the musical success that has come from this family, right up to Loretta's granddaughter Emmy Russell who tried out for the recent season of American Idol and got her ticket to go to Hollywood. But becoming a music legend wasn't initially in the stars for Loretta. Getting married and raising a family seemed to be her destiny and it came early. She was only fifteen when she met 21-year-old war veteran Oliver "Doolittle" Mooney Lynn. The couple were married a month after meeting and Doo, as Loretta called him, moved her to northwest Washington to live in a logging community.

The marriage would last nearly fifty years until Doo died in 1996. It wasn't a happy marriage. Doo was a hellraiser and a serial philanderer. Loretta had four children by the time she was twenty. The couple would add twins in 1964 after Loretta got started on her music career. And it was that music that saved her sanity. Imagine being moved away from your country roots and everyone you knew at such a young age and then being responsible for a home and children when still a teenager. Loretta wrote in an autobiography, "I married Doo when I wasn't but a child, and he was my life from that day on. But as important as my youth and upbringing was, there's something else that made me stick to Doo. He thought I was something special, more special than anyone else in the world, and never let me forget it. That belief would be hard to shove out the door. Doo was my security, my safety net. And just remember, I'm explainin', not excusin'... Doo was a good man and a hard worker. But he was an alcoholic, and it affected our marriage all the way through." That something special was definitely her voice. Loretta would sing while doing her chores of hand laundry, gardening, canning, cleaning and cooking and Doo would listen and tell her over and over that she was better than anyone he heard on the radio. 

Doo was so impressed with Loretta's singing that he bought her a guitar and told her she needed to learn how to play it and write songs. Lynn said, “After he got me the guitar, I went out and bought a Country Song Roundup. I looked at the songs in there and thought, ‘Well, this ain’t nothing. Anybody can do this.’ I just wrote about things that happened. I was writing about things that nobody talked about in public, and I didn’t realize that they didn’t. I was having babies and staying at home. I was writing about life. That’s why I had songs banned.” She started performing at nightclubs in the area and one night when she was at a club in Vancouver, Canada, executives from Zero Records heard her sing and they offered her a contract. She debuted her first single "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl" in March 1960. The song was based off a woman Loretta met while performing at a club who was very intoxicated and told her about how terrible her life was and was recorded in the Bakersfield Sound style, which meant it had a west coast shuffle. Doo and Loretta hopped in their Mercury and drove around the country self-promoting the song to radio stations.

Nashville loved the song and she was invited to sing at the Grand Ole Opry on October 15, 1960. The Wilburn Brothers befriended her and helped her polish her style and got her signed by Decca Records. That contract came because Decca producer Owen Bradley loved Loretta's song "Fool #1," but he didn't want to sign another female country singer. Teddy Wilburn said he could only have the song if he signed Loretta. Brenda Lee went on to make "Fool #1" a pop hit. Owen eventually came to adore Loretta and he dubbed her "the female Hank Williams." Loretta's first song with Decca was 1962's "Success." This made the top ten and would just be the first of 50 top-10 hits for Lynn. The Grand Ole Opry invited her to be a regular member of the cast in 1962 and it would be during this time that she would become friends with another subject of one of our haunted people episodes, Patsy Cline. Cline taught her how to dress and style her hair and make-up and the friendship was so enduring that Loretta named one of her twins after Patsy.

In 1966, Lynn's song "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Man)" hit No. 1, making her the first country female recording artists to write a No. 1 hit. Controversy was a part of many of the songs that Lynn penned. Her most controversial was 1973's "Rated X." The song was about the stigma women faced in the early 1970s after getting divorced. It reached No. 1 and spent a week there. The White Stripes often included the song in their play list at concerts in the late 1990s. Loretta teamed up with Conway Twitty in 1971 to record a duet and it was the beginning of a long and beautiful professional relationship. They would have five No. 1 consecutive hits from 1971 to 1975 together. *Fun Fact: Shel Silverstein who wrote the beloved classics "The Giving Tree" and "Where The Sidewalk Ends," wrote Lynn's No. 1 hit "One's on the Way."

The 1970s were a huge peak for Loretta. She made many appearances on TV talk shows, was featured on the cover of Redbook and Newsweek, was the first woman to win "Entertainer of the Year" at the CMA Awards and she was named "Artist of the Decade" by the Academy of Country Music. She's the only female to have that honor. The film "Coal Miner's Daughter" debuted in 1980 starring Tommy Lee Jones as Doo and Sissy Spacek as Loretta. Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. The movie was based on her first autobiography. Lynn would write a second one in 2002. Loretta continued to produce hit sings and albums for the rest of her life, even experiencing a late career resurgence in 2004 that continued to 2022. The year 2012 brought a third autobiography. Her 50th studio album dropped in 2021. Loretta had a stroke in 2017 and broke her hip during a fall in 2018, but she fought back and continued performing. She died in her sleep at the age of 90 on October 4, 2022. She was buried on her ranch next to Doo, who had died in 1996. His death was heartbreaking for her and she never remarried.

Loretta's ranch is the sixth largest attraction in the state of Tennessee. It stretches over 3500 acres and is known officially as Loretta Lynn's Ranch. Loretta and Doo were looking for a piece of Tennessee they could call their own when they stumbled upon Hurricane Mills in 1966. The property had been around since the late 1800s and the Lynns wanted the big house on the hill. The owner of the house would only sell if the couple would buy the whole town too. So they bought the full 3500 acres in 1966. There were many historic buildings, including a grist mill on the property. The Lynns preserved the old grist mill and the village is centered around it. The Hurricane Creek Dam was built in 1839 from wood and stone and refaced with concrete in 1912. There was also the Hurricane Mills Bridge, which is a gorgeous steel bridge built in 1911 by the Nashville Bridge Company and the Hurricane Mills General Store and Post Office, built in 1926. A school is also on the property. The Hurricane Mills Rural Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. The paperwork has very detailed descriptions of all the buildings: https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/99001449_text

Loretta and Doo lived in the Classical Revival-styled mansion here from 1966 to 1988 that was originally known as the Hillman-Anderson House. It was built in 1876 and has a two-story Queen Anne-style front porch with the rest of the farmhouse being in a Neoclassical Revival-style. The interior has a central-hall floor plan with a curved, self-supporting staircase in the central hall. There is molded trim, carved scrollwork and paneled doors and transoms and Greek Revival and Queen Anne wooden mantelpieces. The Lynns renovated, adding a new kitchen, a one-story side wing, new bathrooms and central heat and air. After they moved out, the home was open for touring, so that people could see how they lived and see memorabilia and family photos. A replica of the cabin she grew up in has been recreated and is on the property for touring and was used in the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter." The museum on the ranch features Loretta's outfits she wore during performances and awards she won. And up until her death, Loretta lived in a small private residence behind the mansion. There are several guest cabins and 300 powered campsites for RVs where people can stay and there are many things to do on the ranch from horseback riding to hiking to fishing to jeep events to motorcycle events and there are places to eat.

There is a paranormal side to Loretta Lynn via not only her haunted ranch, but the woman herself. Loretta claimed that she could see and talk to spirits from a very early age and at first she didn't think it was strange. She thought all kids experienced the same thing. Lynn claimed that her mother had been psychic too and she thought that it came from the Cherokee side of their family. Her mother would have premonitions of things that would happened two weeks later. People would laugh when she would tell them things, but after she continued to be right about so many things, family members started believing her. Loretta claimed her mother had told her that she would meet Doolittle. Psychic abilities came to Loretta not only in being able to see family members and others who had died, but she would have very vivid dreams. Many times, the dreams would scare her. Often she would say that spirits didn't scare her, but her dreams did. Shortly after moving to Washington, she awakened at 4am and told Doo that her father had died. She saw him in a coffin. Several minutes later, a neighbor knocked on the door and told Loretta she needed to come to his house for a phone call because she and Doo didn't have a phone. The call was her sister-in-law telling her that her father had passed. When she got home for the funeral, she told her mother that her father was in the coffin and suit she had dreamed about. 

Loretta Lynn appeared on "Celebrity Ghost Stories" on Season 3, Episode 9 and psychic Kim Russo came out to explore the ranch. Loretta told the show that the mansion had been used as a Civil War hospital. Album covers that lined the walls of the staircase would get turned upside down and would be crooked. At night they would hear things like disembodied footsteps. Her twin daughters would tall her stories in the morning about a woman who would come and stand by their beds. This would be a woman dressed in white with her hair up in a hairdo from another period. Her son Jack once claimed that he laid down on his bed one night after doing some drinking and he was awakened by a man trying to pull his boots off. When he turned and looked at the man, he saw that he was wearing a Civil War soldier uniform. His dog was in the room and growling at the guy. The dog lunged at the guy and went right through him. That's when Jack realized he was looking at a ghost. Jack got up, ran out of the room and nearly fell down the stairs because he was so scared and running away.

Loretta was really sick on tour once and had to be put in the ICU. She dreamed that she had lost her boy. Shortly after that her husband came in and told her that Jack had died. He had been riding a horse and he drowned in the river on the property. The really weird twist to this story is that Loretta's mom had visited her right after the Lynn's had purchased the property and as they walked the property, Loretta's mother grabbed her arm and told her that one of her children was going to drown there and that she should move away. Loretta had hoped that her mother was wrong. A seance was conducted on the property with the singer and her closest friends and they contacted a spirit calling himself "Anderson." He seemed angry to have them contacting him and Loretta claimed that he started shaking the table angrily and it eventually broke apart.

Loretta was walking up to the mansion on a day when it was misty raining and she looked up and saw a woman in white standing on the balcony. The woman was crying and wringing her hands. Loretta thought that perhaps her twin's babysitter had upset the woman, so Loretta went in and asked the babysitter, Gloria, who the woman was. The babysitter said that no one was there, but her. The balcony was empty when they checked. Loretta wanted to know who the woman was so she visited several people in the area inquiring as to who had built the house and who had lived in it. One woman brought out an album of pictures and Loretta was looking through them trying to find a picture of the woman and she found it. The lady in white was a member of the Anderson family and her baby died during childbirth and she mourned herself to death. She cried all the time. Kim Russo claimed that a James Anderson joined her in the car as they drove onto the ranch. He wanted the car to be stopped near an open field and he told Russo that he was going to serve as a guide for her. She got out of the car and could feel a vortex of energy and she could hear the horses and sounds of battle from the Civil War. She could smell the artillery and saw a lot of bloodshed. Those spirits are still running around the property. James said he sticks around to protect Loretta and her family after her husband died. James claimed he was going to mess with the audio to let them know he was around and Loretta's audio got really overdriven at one time.

Loretta's grandson told Tennessee’s WJHL News that “The power happened to go out one night, and as I was rounding the corner to get back into my room, the chandelier was the only light that was on in the house. What’s so strange about this is that the entire house is on the same electric breaker. There’s no possible way the chandelier could have been on while all the other lights were off.” Lynn's son Ernest and his girlfriend had said they didn't like to be outside their home on the property at night because there were so many spirits around. They would see the apparitions of Confederate soldiers and that was probably because several had been buried in the yard near their home. WKRN visited the house in 2016 and the crew claimed some weird stuff happened in the haunted room upstairs. One thing was knocking coming from inside the closet. They would open it and find nothing inside that could be causing the knocking.

Loretta's ranch was the first celbrity home that the Ghost Adventures team visited. They caught the following EVP: "Get Your House Back", "I Hear Them, I Hear Them Coming", "I Need To Go Down The Stairs", "Possibly In Trouble", "Loretta", "Lynn", "I Was Hurt", Vulgar Voice, "Gonna Cut Ya", "Ya Can't Touch Them." Aaron and Zak both claimed to be physically touched.

A review on TripAdvisor in 2011 reads, "We Loved Our Fall Visit to Loretta Lynn's Hurricane Mills Ranch. We did not know of the History of Paranormal Activity in the Area until we watched the Show on BIO last night. I remembered these Photos taken down at the River by the Campground during the "Songwriter's Festival" in 2009. We were puzzled with the two photos as there was no fog or mist in the area. No light other than from a few campfires nearby. It was clear and nothing was in my Camera View when I personally took these Photos. As you can see several were made within seconds of the ones with the Strange Mist / Orbs and are fine. I compared my photos with other Friends who were taking Photos that night. No one else had anything strange show up in their Photos. We could not explain these photos."

A tour guide was leading a group through the house and stopped at the staircase. She stepped up onto the staircase in the foyer and explained that the spirits don’t like it when you mess with the picture frames. And the guide then moved on of the picture frames. She turned around and then noticed that the visitors were looking at her funny, or rather at something behind her. They claimed that a shadowy kind of thing had appeared behind her. She was then pushed off the second step onto the floor. All the tourists ran out of the house and the tour guide followed them.

Loretta hasn't been gone that long and there haven't been any stories about her apparition appearing anywhere...yet. But if there was a place she was going to haunt, no one could doubt that it would be her ranch. Was Loretta Lynn psychic and is her former home haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 522 - General Morgan Inn and Old Greene County Jail

Moment in Oddity - Death Crowns

On this episode, we are featuring a couple of locations in Appalachia and while researching the area we came across a creepy bit of folklore. There are these things called angel crowns or death crowns. These things are usually discovered by family members of a loved one who has recently passed away in their bed. A death crown is created inside of a feather pillow. It's usually noticed when a bereaved family member clutches the pillow and hugs it to themselves. They'll feel a weird clump or lump of feathers. When they open the pillow, they find a crown of feathers tightly wound together. All the quills of the feathers point to the center of the crown. Appalachian folklore claims that these death crowns are signs that a deceased loved one has made it to heaven. The death crown symbolizes that a person has been absolved of their sins. So if you had a family member that perhaps was a little on the bad side, this would bring you comfort. Finding a death crown is a great omen, but only if it's found in this way. If, for example, you find a death crown in your pillow, it means you are not meant to have a long life. Or it could also be an evil omen that a witch has cast a curse on someone. The best way to deal with that is to cast the crown into the fire. Appalachian tradition holds that family members are to put the death crown on display and most are stored in shadow boxes. Many families will share pictures with the local paper as well. Many times, these are passed down through the family. This is an interesting tradition and bit of folklore, but it also certainly is odd!

This Month in History - The Canning of Beer

In the month of January, on the 24th in 1935, canned beer made its debut to the American public. The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company made 2,000 cans of their Finest Beer and Cream Ale available to the public in Richmond, Virginia. The consumers gave an approval rating of ninety-one percent, motivating the Brewery to continue their production. Cans had already been widely used for food items starting in the late 19th century. In 1909, the American Can Company experimented with canning beer but they were unsuccessful. Two years of research went into the development of a can that could contain the pressurized liquid with a special coating to keep the beer from chemically reacting with the tin. The major beer companies were not keen on marketing their brews in cans initially. However, after Krueger took the leap of faith, their sales soared with eighty percent of distributors carrying their product. The market blew up in three short months and following Krueger's success, the 'big three', Anheuser-Busch, Pabst and Schlitz jumped into the game. By the completion of 1935, over 200 million cans of beer had been manufactured and sold.

General Morgan Inn and Old Greene County Jail (Suggested by: Ivy Johnson)

Greeneville is part of what is referred to as the Tri-Cities in Tennessee. This is a region that comprises the bigger cities of Kingsport, Johnson City and Bristol and smaller towns in Northeast Tennessee. This is part of Appalachia, a place known for its legends and spirits. Two locations here add to that reputation: The General Morgan Inn and the Old Greene County Jail. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of these two Tri-City locations!

Greeneville, Tennessee was home to the 17th president of the United States, Andrew Johnson. This is a smaller town at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains and is the county seat for Greene County. Both the county and the town are spelled with an E at the end in honor of General Nathanael Greene. He was one of the most respected generals of the Revolutionary War and was a great military strategist. Before settlers were here, there was a large indigenous village. This was during the Woodland Period, which was dated from 1000 BC to 1000 AD. Eventually, the Cherokee used the area as their hunting grounds. Euro-Americans arrived in the late 18th century and the first was Jacob Brown, who had moved from North Carolina. He leased a plot of land from the Cherokee and he named it the Nolichucky Settlement. Another settler, Daniel Kennedy, decided to break free and his group formed Greene County. This area was still a part of North Carolina. In 1784, several counties decided to break away and form their own state, which they planned to name Franklin. This group was called the Franklin Movement and it eventually collapsed and North Carolina took back control in 1785. Greeneville officially became a town in 1786 and Tennessee became a state in 1796. Many Quakers moved to Greene County and so there was a strong abolitionist movement in the early 19th century. Andrew Johnson arrived in the city in 1826 and his home is now the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site.

Taverns were the precursor or grandfather to the saloons that would spread across America into the Old West. These were social gathering places to hear music, to dance, to drink and to find a simple room. DeWoody Tavern was no different. This tavern was built by William Dunwoody in the early 1790s and offered a spot for travelers along the Great Wagon Trail, which is today parts of U.S. Highway 321 and State Highway 11. The Great Wagon Road stretched for 800 miles between Philadelphia and West Virginia and broke off into the Wilderness Road to arrive in Kentucky and Tennessee. The early stages of the trail could only be traversed by horseback because it was so narrow and rough. After the French and Indian War, it expanded as it became the most heavily traveled road in America. This would have been a beautiful path, as it is today, but one can only imagine trying to get through it with a Conestoga wagon packed full with supplies and possessions and a trail full of mud and animal waste. Taverns and inns offered a respite from that and a place to water animals. 

The DeWoody Tavern was a wooden structure described as "janky." It offered food, supplies and lodging and had plenty of water because of Greeneville’s Big Spring. By the 1820s, the tavern was being called the Bell Tavern and was owned by William K. Vance and was advertised as a "Public House at the sign of the Bell in Greeneville." During the Civil War, the inn was owned by Joshua Lane and he called it the Lane House for himself. This establishment didn't choose sides during the war and served both Union soldiers and Confederates. And while being neutral during a war seems like a safe bet, it didn't work out for Greeneville because the soldiers themselves can't be trusted to keep the peace. One of Greeneville's most infamous skirmishes occurred on September 4th, 1864. 

There was a Confederate General named John Hunt Morgan, but everybody knew him by his nickname, "The Thunderbolt of the Confederacy." Morgan was from Kentucky and attended Transylvania College in Lexington until he was expelled for bad behavior. He turned to the military after that and enlisted with the 1st Kentucky Cavalry and joined the fight during the Mexican War. At the Battle of Buena Vista, he conducted himself gallantly and headed back to Kentucky in 1847. Morgan got into hemp manufacturing and formed a militia he dubbed the Lexington Rifles. He armed the entire militia at his own expense. Kentucky wasn't quick to join the cause of the Confederacy at the beginning of the Civil War, but Morgan was and he led the Lexington Rifles to Bowling Green where they fought under General Buckner. By the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862, Morgan had become a colonel. A couple months later, he began running raids all on his own with his cavalry and in July 1862, Morgan began a thousand-mile ride through Kentucky, acting like a thunderbolt destroying everything in his path. Railroad and telegraph lines were destroyed and they took Union soldiers as prisoners. They seized supplies too. Newspaper headlines documented the raids and people feared Morgan. So now you see how he came by his nickname.

Morgan continued under his own lead through the next year. His leadership ordered him to not conduct any more raids, but he rode along the Ohio River and terrorized southern Indiana and Ohio for three weeks until he was captured at West Point by the Union cavalry. Morgan was shipped off to the Ohio State Penitentiary, but he managed to escape. Morgan had a friend who lived in Greeneville named Mrs. Catherine Williams and she had invited him to stay at her mansion in the middle of the town. The property had quite a bit of vegetation and trees and a vineyard, so it provided a bit of secrecy. Despite this, some Union troops had been tipped off that Morgan was in town and they surrounded the mansion in an ambush. The Williams family tried to help Morgan escape, but there was no hope. Morgan was shot and killed as he ran from the yard to the stables. The soldier who is said to have shot him had served under him during the Mexican War. The Union cheered the end of a man that had terrorized everyone.

The landscape changed for Greeneville in 1886 when the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad built a new train depot in the town. A local entrepreneur named Colonel John Doughty decided the city needed a new hotel, so in 1884, he tore down the Lane House and built the Grand Central in its place. This was a four-story brick building with marble belts at each floor and window level. This was said to be the finest hotel "from Chattanooga to Roanoke." The interior featured wide hallways and luxurious furniture and sixty rooms. The lobby featured a warm fireplace, 35-foot ceilings, a hand-painted canopy and ornate chandeliers, that have been recreated for the modern era hotel. An upper balcony stretched across the front of the second story. There were several shops on the street level of the hotel and a flight of stairs lead out onto Main Street. Several spaces in the hotel were designated as "sample rooms" where salesmen could ply their wares. 

Grand Central Hotel not only rented rooms for a night, but people could rent them for a month. The hotel tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Humphris Reaves who were newlyweds that married in December of 1892. They spent their first six months of marriage renting three rooms for $30 a month and they got three meals a day as well. As the seventh month rolled around, Mrs. Reaves told her husband it was time to end their extravagant living and they rented a house for $12 a month until they built one of their own. Three other railroad hotels joined the Grand Central and all four hotels were connected on their second floors with bridges. 

Mrs. E.J. Brumley bought the Grand Central in 1920 and she reopened it as the Hotel Brumley. In 1925, William Jennings Bryan, who was a well-known orator and three-time presidential candidate, stopped at the hotel for lunch on his way to the Scopes trial in Dayton. In 1928, the Brumleys began an extensive remodeling of the hotel, adding the Crystal Ballroom on the second floor, where formal events such as balls, dinners and wedding receptions were frequently held. Judd Brumley, who was the son, took over operating the hotel and he opened the General Morgan Room in 1948. This was a supper-club style private dining room on the first floor of the hotel where the elegant Crystal Ballroom had been. He purchased azure-etched mirrors for the space that hang in the Brumley's bar today. It was a hit and was soon known for being a prestigious location to hold an event. Mrs. Brumley died in 1964 and Judd followed her soon thereafter and other family members took over operations. The Brumley family ran the hotel until it closed in May of 1981 and then sat vacant for several years. 

A local development group formed a new board called Olde Town Development Corporation and their goal was to buy up historic buildings. The Hotel Brumley became one of their purchases and after nine years of planning, fund-raising, and construction, they opened the General Morgan Inn and Conference Center in 1996, named for the Confederate general who came to his end in the town. A friendly foreclosure sale was held on November 29, 2000, and the hotel was sold to the Morgan Inn Corporation, which still runs it today. The General Morgan Inn was added to the National Trust Historic Hotels of America and the National Trust For Historic Preservation. It is a popular wedding venue today and has 51 guest rooms, a luxurious suite and a corporate apartment. The inn also boasts the signature restaurant and lounge Brumley's. This space features the bar, the Club Room, the Greene Room and the Library. And it's a favorite space for a ghost or two.

Many of the articles written about the General Morgan Inn claim that there are dozens of ghosts in the hotel. Possibly as many as forty. One of the spirits is said to be General Morgan himself. Perhaps he was attracted to a place that had been named for him. We aren't sure how close the mansion was to the hotel, but he more than likely didn't die on this property. Although he did once tell a group that was investigating Room 207 that he had been shot in the back and died on the premises. So perhaps he did die here. His favorite area to hang out is on the second floor and he loves the suite since it is the finest room at the inn. General Morgan was a handsome man and was thought to be quite vain. He wouldn't allow anyone to photograph him unless he had his general's hat on his head. This vanity has lead the General to be quite attached to his picture, which hangs in the suite. Guests have called the front desk claiming to hear screaming coming from the suite, even when nobody is staying in there. The staff usually says they'll take care of it, even though they know the room is empty. They're used to it by now.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, a waitress worked in the inn and her name was Grace. She was good at what she did and clearly liked the hotel enough to stay on in the afterlife. The staff affectionately refers to her as Greene Room Grace. She is seen nearly daily and even if not seen, she tends to do some kind of mischievous thing in the Brumley Restaurant. Her favorite thing to do is to steal silverware with a particular fondness for spoons. And she usually takes those spoons out of the Greene Room, which is where her nickname comes from. Grace is pretty possessive of the spoons as well, meaning that she never returns them. No one knows where she puts them.

Beverly Murzyn was a server at Brumley's Restaurant for several years and she told WJHL Channel 11 in 2019, "You'll walk through and you'll notice a spoon is missing. So we have to order spoons all the time. We're always out of spoons, it's crazy. Why spoons, I don't know. Where she puts them, I don't know." Beverly also confirmed that Grace likes to make the pictures in the restaurant go crooked. They constantly have to straighten them. A dowser came in to investigate the hotel and thought they were speaking with Grace who said she had been haunting the building for 75 years and that Grace claimed to have nine ghosts with her. Beverly believes that she saw one of these spirits as a full-bodied apparition out of the corner of her eye while she was filling salt and pepper shakers. When she turned, she saw the outline of a body walk away. It was so quick she assumed it was one of the dishwashers. She went around the corner to see who it was and there was nobody there. She said to herself, "'It's time to go.' I'd never seen a full-bodied apparition just go across the kitchen." 

And the kitchen is pretty active itself. Heavy objects move by themselves in the kitchen and occasionally go flying across the room. One time, huge cookie sheets went flying off the top of the oven and across the kitchen. Another spirit in the restaurant is a man who sits at a booth in the clubroom and drinks coffee and reads the newspaper. And the elevators are haunted, moving up and down on there own and opening on floors where they haven't been called. During an investigation near the front desk, a ghost named Bill was contacted. He claimed to be very happy working at the front desk and he claimed to have 26 ghosts with him. He is now known as Front Desk Bill. 

Another haunted location in this city is the Old Greene County Jail. The jail is the oldest jail in the state of Tennessee and is located at 115 Academy Street, but it didn't start at this location. The jail was built in 1804 in the middle of Depot Street and it was very close to Richland Creek, so it was thought it would be better to move it to prevent flooding. And this was done, brick by brick, in 1838. It has been in its current location for over 180 years. This location is behind the current day Greene County jail and courthouse. The jail was a dark place and prisoners would live in semi-darkness. Originally there was only one floor, but a second was added in the late 1800s. The first floor had one cell and a place for prisoners to relieve themselves by sitting over a hole in the floor and the second floor was more modern and had four cells where there was at least a platform for prisoners to sit on to do their duty. There was no running water and no heat for a very long time until the second floor was upgraded. Some prisoners were executed. The last legal hanging took place in 1890. The jail ran until 1987. At Halloween time, the jail is turned into a haunted house attraction, but there are those who claim that there are real hauntings here. 

It's said that the local police refuse to enter this location after dark because it is so haunted. Josh and Jon head up Southern Afterlife and they investigated the jail in 2021. They heard a humming sound coming from a corner cell, kinda like a ringing sound. Possibly something bouncing off the metal of a door? They set up a spirit box and it was really weird because they first got what sounded like a baby crying and then a very clear child voice asking, "Play?" Then it said, "This is Pat's block." A female voice answered that her name was "Marissa" after being asked. The name "Thomas" came through and they asked if this was Thomas and it said, "Yep." And then "Thomas here." Multiple voices came through and said, "Help us leave." There was a scream and then a voice said "Quit screaming."

They were told multiple times to leave and get out. They weren't sure if it was a request for them to leave or if they were being asked to help the spirits leave. A cell door slammed on its own. It was pretty startling. They tested the door to see if it would slam on its own,  but they couldn't find any way that it would do that. They heard disembodied steps coming down the hallway. They also caught a couple of little figures on the SLS camera. Were these kids again? Another group of paranormal investigators were in there in 2021 as well. They were told to get out. They said they would leave the cell if they were told a name and they got the name "Peter." And they caught a few strange sounds. 

There is also a bridge that is reputedly haunted in Greeneville called Little Chucky Creek Stone Arch. It is a stone bridge and its lasted many years. We didn't find any stories on it so we don't know why they claim its haunted. But the jail and inn seem to have something unexplained going on. Are they haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 476 - Haunted Smoky Mountains

Moment in Oddity - Sea-Cat Passports (Suggested by Darren Girard Koch)

In the summer of 2021, an old black and white photo started making the rounds on social media. The picture featured an old black and white photo of a cat on what appears to be a passport. The name of the passport holder is listed as "Herman the Cat" and his occupation is recorded as "Expert Mouser". The social media postings generally state that around the turn of the 20th Century, "sea-cats" needed their own passports. These days many people take their fur-kids abroad and are required to have proper documentation and health clearances to do so. What likely gave this story legs, or four paws, was an old article run in the New York Times on January 15th, 1943. It featured Herman's quote/unquote "passport" even including his stamped pawprint and it read, "With port precautions being what they are, even the cat must have his identification card". Although there has been no evidence found that sea-cat passports were actually a thing, the fun idea of such a necessity for that time, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Birth of George Pullman

In the month of March, on the 3rd, in 1831, George M. Pullman was born. George Mortimer Pullman was an American Industrialist born in Brocton, New York in 1831. In 1845, Pullman's family moved to Albion, New York for his father's work on the Erie Canal. George loved to watch the packet boats travel the canal when he was young as they carried mail and passengers. In 1864, he developed his first railroad sleeper or "palace" car after the design of the packet boats. When President Lincoln was assassinated, Pullman arranged to have his body transported from Washington, D.C. to Springfield, Illinois using one of his Pullman sleeper cars. This brought George national attention due to the hundreds of thousands of people who lined the train's route to pay their respect to the deceased President. Shortly thereafter, orders for his sleeper car began pouring in. Eventually Pullman introduced a sleeper car with an attached kitchen and dining area and the company hired African-American freedmen as Pullman porters who became very well known and widely respected for their elite service. As his company grew and production increased George decided to purchase 4,000 acres south of Chicago to establish Illinois' first company town. The aptly named town of Pullman, Illinois is today a historic town which hosts a walking tour with stops at key sites to learn about this model industrial community and its stories from a bygone era.

Haunted Smoky Mountains (Suggested by: Jennifer Billingham)

The Smoky Mountains carry a certain mystique about them and since they are a part of the Appalachian Mountains, the Appalachian culture has enhanced them with a rich folklore. But it wasn't just the Europeans who felt the peculiar ethos of the region. Native American tribes have long shared stories of the supernatural and incorporated pieces of their mythology into this land. This is a gorgeous area that many people enjoy for its natural beauty, but few probably know about the spiritual side of this ground. Join us as we share the history, legends and spirits of the Smoky Mountains!

The Smoky Mountains are also known as the Great Smoky Mountains and/or the Smokies and are a part of the Appalachian Mountains that rise along the Tennessee and North Carolina border. If you have seen them in person, you know why they carry that moniker. Early morning clouds and mist really do make it look like the mountains are covered in a blanket of smoke. It's something everyone should have on their bucket list. This is home to 187,000 acres of old growth forest and much of this has been protected since 1934 by the National Park Service as part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This National Park is THE most visited park in America with over 11 million visitors every year. The park is also an UNESCO World Heritage Site. The forest here is home to a large black bear and salamander population.

The Smokies have a human history that stretches back to prehistoric Paleo Indians. This was Cherokee territory until the French and Indian War when settlers came to the mountains. The Americans launched an invasion of Cherokee territory during the American Revolution because the tribe had aligned with the British. American forces burned many villages. By 1805, the Cherokee had ceded the Smokies to the U.S. government, however; some did manage to stay on the Eastern band. They eventually bought back land from the government. What had happened here is that the Cherokee were removed under the Indian Removal Act and sent West on the Trail of Tears, but one Cherokee in the Smokies named Tsali fought the removal and he gathered a small group with him. Eventually Tsali was captured and executed and the group he had with him was offered the opportunity to live if they would renounce their Cherokee tribal citizenship and become US citizens. They did and that is why the Eastern Band is still here. Forts were built and then many settlers eventually immigrated to the area and became the Mountain People, some of whom were loggers, others were moonshiners and there were farmers who would grow sorghum and corn.

Once the government started buying up land in the Smokies, it was just a matter of time before the Mountain People would be run off. Logging would come to a stop as well. The animals would now be free to roam safely. One of the unfortunate casualties of humans in the area was that the cougars who had once called this home, were all hunted out by the settlers. If you hear a story of a cougar sighting in the Smokies it is just that, a story. Any modern day claims have been proven to be hoaxes. The highest peak is Clingmans Dome and there is an observation tower atop it at 6,643 feet. The Civilian Conservation Corps built most of the trails, infrastructure and fire towers. The cities that surround the park are Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. Each of these cities has hauntings and so could be considered part of the haunted Smokies. We knew we wanted to include the legends directly connected to the park, but what about places in these cities? We decided to include a couple of those.

Jennifer - who suggested this location - loves the area and has visited many times from the time she was a child. She wrote, "There is so much energy in these areas! But there was one site a couple of years ago we unexpectedly visited that was up a steep hill that we abruptly came upon, and the energy just intuitively forced me to stop and tell my son and husband 'no' and not to go in further. It didn’t feel right and we felt watched after that as we walked through the woods more. Maybe our minds were getting a little too into themselves, but there was definitely an energy shift after that!" So, needless to say, we were intrigued as to what we would find. 

Devil's Courthouse

With locations like the Devil's Courthouse, it's no wonder that many people feel a certain mystical air about the place. The Devil's Courthouse is located at Whiteside Mountain in North Carolina and early settlers gave this craggy rockface of soapstone that name because it looked like the Devil himself. Legends went on to claim that he actually held court in a cave beneath the cliff. Beliefs about this cave go further back to the Cherokee who claimed this was the home of Tsul 'Kalu - or Jutaculla as Europeans came to spell it - who was a slant-eyed giant with a voice like thunder who carried arrows made from lightning. He danced in the cave and carried out judgements there. In Cherokee mythology, he was in charge of the hunt, so he would be invoked in hunting rites and rituals.

Spearfinger

The Cherokee have another piece of creepy folklore. The Cherokee have a female monster they call U'tlun'ta, which means "the one with pointed spear." The more common name for this creature is Spearfinger and that is because she has a sharp finger on her right hand that seems to be made from obsidian. She uses it to cut her victims. Spearfinger had stone-like skin and blood stained her mouth because she ate the liver of her victims. Spearfinger sounded like thunder when she walked because she crushed rocks beneath her feet and her voice echoed through the Smokies. Spearfinger could shapeshift into family members of her child victims. Her favorite spot was to walk the trail that joined Chilhowee Mountain and the Little Tennessee River. The Cherokee believed that she lived on Whiteside, which was a thunder mountain. Said to roam Noland Creek Trail and Whiteside Mountain, Spearfinger may be one of the creepiest Cherokee folklore traditions.You might want to stay clear of these haunted places in the Smoky Mountains as Spearfinger is one frightening spirit to encounter. This mythology represents the belief that the Cherokee had that shapeshifters stalked the mountains. 

Wampus Cat

And where there is a National Park, there just has to be a cryptid or two, right? The Wampus Cat is a mythological creature in the legends of the Cherokee. There was a Cherokee woman who was curious about the secret and sacred ceremonies of the elders. It was forbidden for her to watch, but one night she snuck into a spot where she could watch such a ceremony and she was caught. Her punishment was a curse that turned her into a half bear, half cat. She was left to roam throughout the years, searching for livestock and whining into the night. People claim to hear that whining around their campsites. And many people have seen the golden glow of the Wampus Cat's eyes. They have described the animal as looking like a mountain lion, but with six legs instead of 4. Others describe a more amphibious creature.

The Enchanted Lake

The Cherokee called the Smokies the “Land of Blue Smoke.” One of their favorite places here was Atagahi, an enchanted lake that humans cannot see. This is a sacred place meant for the creatures of the forest. They like to swim in it because the waters heal their wounds and sickness. A young Cherokee man really wanted to see the lake, so he spent days fasting and praying. The spiritual devotion paid off and when he went out into the forest, the lake emerged and he saw its stunning violet color. Then he saw groups of animals and waterfowl coming to the lake and it was the most beautiful thing he ever saw. He set up a pile of rocks to mark the spot. The winter came and was brutal and the Cherokee began to starve. The young man knew that the Enchanted Lake would make a good place to hunt, so he set off to find his marker. When he got there, he saw a bear and he shot an arrow into the animal's heart. The bear fell into the lake and was immediately healed. It climbed up on the shore and angrily yelled that the young man had betrayed the animals. Several other bears came out of the forest and they all descended on the hunter, killing him. The Cherokee eventually found the young man's body in the snow, but the lake was nowhere to be seen. It is said that sometimes people who are standing on top of Clingmans Dome can see a morning mist rising from the magic lake.

Cades Cove

Cades Cove is a broad and lush valley that is surrounded by mountains with lots of wildlife. For hundreds of years the Cherokee hunted this valley. Europeans settled here in the early 1800s and they built three churches, log houses, barns and a gristmill. They lived here for 100 years before the National Park was established. One interesting part of the community were their weaner cabins, which were small cabins built for a son to take his new bride to live that was far enough away from his family for privacy, but they still could get help if needed. Most families willingly sold their land to the government for the formation of the park, but some had to go to court several times before finally losing their land or signing a life-lease. By the end of the 1940s, no one was left in the community.

Mavis and Basil Estep lived in a two-room cabin in Cades Cove. Mavis had been born during a thunderstorm and so she always had an extreme fear of lightning and she was afraid she would be struck by lightning. Thus, she never allowed her husband Basil to buy them a metal bed. Mavis eventually died some time later from a persistent illness, but before she passed she made Basil promise that he wouldn't sell her beloved handmade quilts and that he wouldn't put any of them on a metal bed. Basil promised he wouldn't, but things changed after he remarried a much younger woman. Her name was Trulie and she was too big for Mavis' wooden bed, so Basil bought them a metal bed. Trulie got cold one winter night and asked Basil if they could put one of Mavis' quilts on the bed and Basil said "yes." This particular quilt was nicknamed the Cussing Cover because Mavis had made it using one of Basil's red flannel shirts that he had worn during their first fight. A thunderstorm rumbled that night and sure enough, a flash of light burst down through the house and knocked Trulie out of bed. She could smell ozone and charring and when she rolled over, she saw that Basil had been charred to a crisp and yet, the quilt had no marks upon it. Legend claims the quilt was sold to a collector.

People claim that Cades Cove is haunted. There have been tragedies and there have been murders. The gravestone of Gregory Russel reads "Killed by North Carolina Rebels." Pictures have captured orbs in the cemeteries and cabins, but the creepiest photo captured a woman's face coming out of the wall of the Primitive Baptist Church. She has sometimes been seen as a full-bodied apparition and sometimes just a face. And although the buildings are abandoned, people claim to feel as though they are being watched by something they can't see.

Roaring Fork Motor Trail

The Roaring Fork Trail has a hitchhiking ghost named Lucy. The story claims that Lucy died in a cabin fire in the early 1900s. A short time later, a man named Foster was riding his horse through the forest when he spotted Lucy. She was beautiful and appeared to need help. It was winter and cold and she was barefoot. He offered her a ride on his horse and gave her his coat. He got her nearly to her cabin when she jumped off the horse and said her father wouldn't understand. Foster ran into Lucy several times and fell in love with her and so he asked Lucy about talking to her father. She would always refuse and run off.  He was persistent and so he asked some of the neighbors what they knew about Lucy and where her home was and they told him that a Lucy had died in a fire many years before and that her family had left the area. Now travelers in the area along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail claim to see Lucy still looking for a ride. Now apparently this cabin didn't burn to the ground and was repaired and rented out as the Cabin on Roaring Fork. One family that had stayed there were pretty messy and they had left stuff all over the kitchen and table before going to bed. When they awoke in the morning, they found the table set and everything cleaned up.

Garden Plaza Hotel (Formerly Holiday Inn)

The main road through Gatlinburg is US-441 and along this route was the Garden Plaza Hotel, which used to be the Holiday Inn. Back in the 1980s, this hotel was the scene of a horrible crime. In July of 1980, two teenage girls from Crestwood, Kentucky decided to take a trip to Gatlinburg. They got separate rooms, 401 and 413 on the fourth floor of the Holiday Inn. The girls went out to dinner at a local steakhouse and lounge called The Rafters where they met a local drifter. They were seen leaving with the man and the next day, the girls were found murdered at the hotel. One was found in a stairwell that lead to the roof and the other was found in her room lying on the floor next to the bed. The drifter was found and arrested. At least that is according to one story. Other stories claim that one girl was drowned in a bathtub and the other was dragged to the roof and strangled. Whatever the case, these two girls did indeed end up murdered and now people claim that the hotel is haunted. Room 413 is the main location for much of the paranormal activity. People claimed to hear odd noises in the room like bangs, screams and even shrieks. There is also the sound of unseen people running in the hallway. And there is also running on the stairs. Activity was so bad that the Garden Plaza Hotel stopped renting out Room 413. Another spirit at the hotel was said to belong to Alvin who had been a longtime employee. He liked to hang out in the kitchen. His activity was of the poltergeist kind and usually entailed utensils flying through the air. But that all changed with the demolition of the hotel. A Hampton Inn was built in its place and we aren't sure if any of the spirits are still there.

The Greenbriar Restaurant

The Greenbriar Restaurant is probably the most haunted location in Gatlinburg and is found off the beaten path at 370 Newman Road off of Highway 381. When one enters, the first room you see is an entry into what had been an old hunting lodge established in the 1930s. A woman named Blanche Moffet had built the cabin lodge and named it The Greenbrier Lodge.  Her main customers were hunters and other travelers looking to get away from the city. She also ran part of the lodge as a boarding house for men working in the area. Blanche had a room upstairs and she also had women traveling alone stay up there while single men bunked downstairs. This lodge ran similar to a bed and breakfast as Blanche made breakfast for guests in the morning. The first in-ground pool in Gatlinburg would be installed by Blanche at the lodge.

Actors and actresses who attended the University of Tennessee in nearby Knoxville stayed at the lodge starting in the mid-50s all the way up until the mid-70s as they performed in plays at the Hunter Hills Theater in Gatlinburg.  This amphitheater was one of the first in the Southeast and provided entertainment during the summer months. After nearly fifty years in business, Blanche was getting tired and in 1980 she decided to sell. Dean and Barbara Hadden became the new owners and their six children helped turn the former hunting lodge into a restaurant. The Haddens decided to lease the property out in 1991 shortly before Dean passed away. The people who leased it didn't do well and shut the restaurant down fairly soon after opening. Barbara decided to reopen the Greenbriar in 1993 and today her son David, his wife Becky and their son Jordan run the establishment. Everything we read about this place gives it great reviews for atmosphere and food. It is an upper-end restaurant, but well worth it. 

And there's even more for us to love because the restaurant is reputedly haunted, a claim made by employees and patrons alike. Employees claimed to have seen the ghost of a lady by the name of Lydia. The story is pretty typical. She was spurned at the altar. One can only imagine the heartache and anger that she suffered. Lydia had stayed at the Greenbriar Lodge the night before her wedding and it was there that she had slipped into her wedding gown before the ceremony, so she returned there after being abandoned. She went to the second floor landing, tossed a rope up over the rafters and hanged herself. The legend claims that she was buried in a nearby unmarked grave. The groom apparently got what was coming to him when a mountain lion killed him in the mountains when he went hunting.

Sightings of Lydia began shortly after her death with her awakening a caretaker at the lodge with her mournful cries. She kept repeating, "Mark my grave, mark my grave." The caretaker had to endure several nights of this before he decided to go out and place a marker on the grave. After that was done, he never saw Lydia again. But the same cannot be said for the employees and patrons of the restaurant. Owner Becky Hadden said, "Today, the ghost of Lydia still roams the old Greenbrier Lodge, now our Greenbrier Restaurant. Her spirit is often seen on the stairs of the second floor landing. Guests who eat here claim to see her small, sad figure wandering around from time-to-time." Murfreesboro Post journalist Dan Whittle wrote an article in 2014 about visiting the restaurant. Dan wrote, "Jason, our table server, confessed he's never seen 'Lydia,' but that fellow Greenbrier work associates 'have witnessed food items being knocked off food shelves in the restaurant pantry. And some diners have seen Lydia, in the form of a petite young girl, on the stairs in this old building.'" 

Lydia may not be the only ghost here. The lodge's pool was eventually filled in with concrete, but not before a little boy drowned in it. Apparently, the spirit of this little boy likes to hang out at the restaurant. Customers have felt his presence near the bar, especially under it and he likes to play on the staircase. The employees have placed some jacks under the stairs to give the boy something to play with. A medium has also told the Greenbriar that there is an older man who sits in the back corner of the restaurant who gets quite grumpy when it is loud in the establishment.

Wheatlands Plantation

Sevierville is located in the foothills of the Smokie Mountains in Tennessee. The Wheatlands Plantation is here near a trail that had once been the Great Indian Warpath. The man who founded Sevierville, John Sevier had followed this path in 1780 to engage in a battle with the Cherokee whom were defeated at the Battle of Boyd's Creek. The battlefield is where the Wheatlands Plantation was built. This was originally known as Boyd's Creek Farm and was established by Timothy Chandler. When he died in 1819, his son John inherited the property. The original farmhouse burned to the ground in 1823 and John built the two-story Federal-style plantation house that still exists today. The Queen Anne style porch and windows were added in 1889. He named it Wheatlands and it became one of the largest farms in Sevier County covering 4,600 acres. The farm raised livestock and grew buckwheat, sweet potatoes, hay, oats and corn. The work was done by fourteen enslaved people. John also started a distillery where they manufactured 6,000 gallons of whiskey.

During the Civil War, the Union took over the plantation and used it as a Winter Quarters for the Tenth Regiment Cavalry out of Michigan and the 8th division from Western Pennsylvania. The location allowed them to run raids into Sevierville, Gatlinburg and Newport. After the war, Chandler began paying the former slaves who were now emancipated and decided to stay on at Wheatlands. Chandler not only paid them, but upon his death in 1875, he left them a section of land on the south side of the property that became known as The Chandler Gap and a strong black community grew up in this area long into the 20th century. The Chandler family held onto the plantation for eleven generations, finally selling it in 2011 to Richard Parker and John Burns who restored the house and opened it to the public for tours. Although based on what we could find, it has been closed for several years now and may even be owned privately. 

There are many original structures here including the house, a smokehouse, the summer kitchen with dining hall, and loom house. Unfortunately, the distillery burned in the late 1930s. Much of the interior is original as well with hand-planed railings and windows. The mantel have hand-carved details and entablatures, which are the flat parts of the mantlepiece. Many houses of the time had the standard parlor hall layout, but this one had a central floor plan. The smokehouse was built in the early 19th century, and was made from hewn logs with a board and batten door.

There are so many reasons for this house to be haunted. First, we had that initial Revolutionary War battle and the bodies of 27 Native Americans killed during that battle were put into a burial mound on the property and there are two graves for Revolutionary War soldiers. We have also heard that there may have been up to 50 to 69 slaves buried on the property. This was a Civil War headquarters. And John was a Freemason who purposefully built the house on top of a giant geode. There are also claims that the house has seen 70 deaths, some from murder. One of these murders was of a father by his son who used an iron poker to do the deed. Apparently, the father was jealous that his mother had skipped over him and left the estate to his son upon her death. There is a bloodstain that remains on the living room floor and no amount of cleaning has ever been able to get rid of it. Two women died on the staircase, one from falling and another had a heart attack. Fifteen people died of natural causes in the master bedroom.

People who took tours claimed to hear strange sounds like the yells of a man, thudding noises and a sickening gurgling noise. Almost as though a murder is playing out in a residual manner. Several members of the Chandler family that died in the house are thought to still roam the house in the afterlife. People have even seen apparitions in the gardens. Children who had been enslaved are seen still playing on the property and even play hide and seek with visitors. The spirit of a young girl in a blue dress is seen in the house, many times on the stairs.  Other disembodied voices are heard and there are shadow figures.

The Destination America show Ghost Stalkers visited the plantation in 2014. This was hosted by Chad Lindberg and John E.L. Tenney. Chad was doing an EVP session in the cellar and he captured a voice saying, "Hi." John thought he saw a figure in the master bedroom. The Gamma Radar recorded a lot of energy in there. And then it went completely dead. Chad got tapped on his shoulder and felt really cold in the master bedroom. John was in the parlor where the murder happened and he got a scratch on his abdomen that was noticeable. This may have been in the same place where the father had been stabbed.

The Smoky Mountains are an incredibly beautiful part of America. We've driven through them, but never had the chance to actually hang out for a while and clearly, based on all these legends and haunting experiences, this is a place ghost hunters need to check out. Are the Smoky Mountains and all these locations haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 459 - Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary

Moment in Oddity - New Orleans Bull Run

Most of us are familiar with the 'Running of the Bulls' or 'Encierro de Pamplona', a tradition in Spain that originated when bulls were brought from the fields where they were bred into the bullring, located in the city. During the run, youths would jump into the bulls path and attempt to outrun the creatures as a display of bravado. Well, a favorite city of many, decided to take a twist on this tradition. Every July, New Orleanians congregate in the traditional colors of Spain to host their own version of a bull run. During this event, the New Orleans Roller Derby Girls chase runners on their roller blades armed with plastic bats. Runners line up dressed in white with a bit of red included in their attire. The NOLA tradition began in 2007 with just 200 runners and 14 derby girls. Today, nearly 14,000 runners and the Big Easy Rollergirls and guest bulls numbering around 400, participate every July. The bulls attack runners with foam filled plastic bat horns attached to their helmets. From the sounds of it, the festivities are just as much fun for the spectators as the participants. But one thing is for sure, a running of the bulls with people posing as the bulls and getting to whack the runners with plastic bats, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - The First Transcontinental Flight

In the month of November, on the 5th, in 1911, aviator Calbraith Perry Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight across America. On September 17th, Rodgers took off from Sheepshead Bay, New York to begin the 3,417 mile journey. Just the prior spring, he had become interested in aviation after visiting his cousin John. The cousin was studying at the Wright Company factory and attending flight school in Dayton, Ohio. Rodgers took 90 minutes of flying lessons from Orville Wright and later, along with his cousin, purchased a Wright Flyer airplane. When Rodgers took his official flight examination he became the 49th aviator licensed to fly by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale. In October of 1910, William Randolph Hearst had offered a prize of $50,000 to the first person to fly coast to coast in less than 30 days. Rodger's plan was to fly above railroad tracks to navigate his journey from New York to California. There was a train of three cars to join him on his journey consisting of a sleeper car, dining car and a car of spare airplane parts for any repairs needed along the way. Calbraith hired the Wright brothers' technician, Charlie Taylor, to ride on the train so he could assist with the plane's maintenance and repairs when needed. During the trip there was often significant damage to the aircraft due to more than 15 crashes that occurred. Although he missed the prize money award by arriving 19 days after his 30 day cutoff, Rodgers successfully landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California, to a crowd of 20,000 excited spectators. 

Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary (Suggested by: Tammie Burroughs and Kelsey Meyer)

Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary is located in Petros, Tennessee. This was an old coal mining town that only boasts a population of 600 people. The jail is basically its claim to fame and this location is quite famous for being haunted. There were thousands of deaths here and something dark seems to be on the property. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. 

Did you know there was such a thing as leasing convicts? After the Civil War, southern states were broke, of course. They came up with a means to make the government money, while saving money. They rented out their convicts and Tennessee was one of the states to do that. Companies would pay the state for the convict labor and the state didn't need to bother to build prisons or maintain them. Coal companies made use of this practice and they built their own stockades near the mines. The coal mining industry was expanding quickly in Tennessee. Petros was one of the towns near a coal vein and a coal mining comapny set up operations here, along with a company town. Like many companies, this one took advantage of the coal miners by charging inflated prices for rent, clothing and food. By the end of a month, coal miners had little to show for their work. So they joined together and planned strikes and they made sure to plan them during the Winter when coal demand was really high. The mine workers demanded to be paid in cash, rather than scrip and to be able to choose their own checkweighmen, so they wouldn't get cheated. The companies embraced the convict lease program because they would now have a compliant workforce.

The Tennessee Coal Mining Company in Anderson County started leasing prisoners in 1891. Obviously, the coal miners weren't keen on having criminals take their jobs. They started numerous campaigns to disrupt mining operations, but the mining companies didn't budge because they were getting a steady stream of labor as more and more young men, particularly black men, were arrested for petty crimes and given long prison terms. This was a cash cow for the state. The state may have rethought this practice if it had known it would lead to one of the most significant events in labor history, the Coal Creek War.

This conflict took place on the eastern fringe of the Cumberland Mountains in the towns of Briceville and Coal Creek. The Briceville mine had been shutdown after miners wouldn't sign a contract and was reopened on July 5, 1891 with the goal of using convict labor. The miners' homes were torn down and a stockade erected. On July 14th, 300 armed miners surrounded the Briceville stockade and disarmed the guards without much effort. They then marched the convicts to Coal Creek, loaded them onto a train and sent them to Knoxville. They contacted the labor-friendly Governor John P. Buchanan and told him what they had done and why and asked for his intervention believing he would support them. Two days later, the Governor responded with three Tennessee state militia companies. In their company, they had all the convicts that had been sent to Knoxville. The miners were enraged. The Governor was confronted and he explained that he had a duty to uphold the law. The miners scoffed because he hadn't upheld any laws to protect them and that night, shots were fired at the stockade. The Governor was nearby and he hightailed it out of there leaving 107 militiamen to deal with the miners.

The miners faced off against the militia with 2000 men and the Colonel leading the militia quickly conceded. Months of negotiations and court cases followed with a final case going to the state's Supreme Court and the miners lost. There was a call to arms and on October 31, 1891, a group of miners burned the stockade at Briceville and seized the Coal Creek stockade. They burned company buildings and looted. The 300 convicts at the stockades were given food and freed. A couple days later, another stockade was burned. General J. Keller Anderson was sent with a militia and they built Fort Anderson at the top of Militia Hill that overlooked Coal Creek. Newspapers at the time chose sides with some calling the miners "thieves and outlaws" while other papers called the government "inhuman." Fort Anderson came under attack and Governor Buchanan sent 583 militiamen to restore order. Hundreds of miners were arrested. The uprising had been put down and many things changed. Governor Buchanan didn't receive his party's nomination to run again, so he switched to third party and lost. His political career was over. The amount of money used to keep up the militia far outweighed the leasing of convict labor, so the practice was done away with. Three hundred miners were indicted, but no one got serious jail time. And the state legislature laid aside money for the building of Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Morgan County where convicts would mine coal for the state rather than be leased to companies. And there was one ghost story that came from the melee.

Miner Richard Drummond was hanged in 1893 from what is today called Drummond's Trestle, a bridge that is located near the junction of Highway 116 and Lower Briceville Highway. This was eventually tried as a murder as a militiaman took it upon himself to sentence Drummond to hanging after he had killed a soldier. People who visit the bridge claim to hear disembodied gasping of breath. No cattle will graze near the bridge and dogs won't cross the bridge. An apparition is sometimes seen hanging from the bridge. And a ghost is sometimes seen pacing on the bridge. Amber wrote of her experience visiting the bridge on the Gatlinburg Haunts website, "Before we even saw it, we felt a strange sensation as we drove into the area. The air almost seemed electrified, the trees looked dead, and there was absolutely no movement of the leaves. For it being the middle of autumn, it was strange that no leaves were falling. We left our car and walked towards the river, knowing that the bridge would appear eventually. I began to feel nauseous...Kristin said that she was feeling strange too, that the woods were making her dizzy. As we walked, we were wondering where in the world this haunted bridge was. Just as we questioned it, we finally came upon the Drummond Bridge, and both stopped in our tracks. It stood ominously, towering over the river, a testament to the history of the area. It was stained, rusted, and overgrown. We decided to avoid walking on the bridge, as it no longer seemed sturdy. We sat down on some stumps and just listened for a moment, but all we heard was nothing. Not even birds were singing in the area. After a while, we decided to go back to the car and head out to Sevierville, where our lodging was. As we left, I could have sworn I heard a faint ‘wait!’ as we walked away from the area. When I looked back, I saw a golden orb shoot behind a tree but decided to avoid telling Kristin as she scares pretty easily. Did the spirit of Richard Drummond show himself to me that day? It’s hard to say for sure, but the bridge itself and the area surrounding it do have unexplained energy, one of sadness and life lost too young."

Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary wasn’t just built to be a jail since the main purpose was to have convicts work as coal miners. The original structure was made from wood in 1896. Overcrowding was a persistent problem. In 1931, there were 976 men in the prison, which was 300 over capacity. A new structure was necessary and the wooden structure was replaced with a four-story castle-like stone building made from stone quarried by the convicts. The design of the building was either a cross or upside-down cross based on how you were looking at it, but since the front of the jail makes up the arms, it really does seem to be upside down. And perhaps that is why it feels as though evil is here. Death was just a part of being at Brushy Mountain. There was violence and murder within the walls. Chronic illness was rampant with epidemics of typhoid fever and tuberculosis sweeping through and many convicts were struck with pneumonia and syphilis. Three fourths of the black prisoners had syphilis. These were also convicts, not miners. They weren't trained for this work and the prison wasn't real strict on keeping things safe, so mining accidents were common. By the time the prison shut down in 2009, ten thousand men had died here.

Unruly prisoners were thrown into The Hole to get straightened out. The Hole stopped being used in 1957 when the D-block was built for the really bad dudes. Something that is troubling about the D-block is that it was built where the prison used to have a death house. This was a storage room for keeping the bodies of the dead until families came to retrieve their family member or until the body was buried in the on site pauper cemetery. The mining operations at the mine continued until 1969 when Bushy Mountain was reclassified as primarily maximum-security. Prisoners who only needed minimum-security where moved to a structure that was "outside the walls" and they held jobs in the community. The maximum-security prison remained a place where the worst of the worst were housed. This was the last stop for many inmates who had become too much to handle for other institutions. Others were men who had committed unspeakable crimes. 

Conditions weren't just bad for the prisoners, the guards felt unsafe. In 1972, they went on strike and the prison had to closed. It stayed closed until 1976 when security improvements were made. Mining operations stopped at the prison too. Racism was rampant in the prison at this time. White inmates and black inmates fought against each other often. This came to a head in 1982. Seven white inmates managed to capture several guards at knifepoint and then were able to commandeer their guns. They went to find their black rivals and opened fire on them in their cells, killing two of them. The other two survived because they hid in the corner behind their mattresses.

One of the most infamous people to be held at the prison was James Earl Ray. Ray was born in March of 1928 in Alton, Illinois. He struggled in life, finally ending up in the Army at the end of World War II. He served in Germany, but was eventually discharged for ineptitude. And then his life of crime began. These crimes included armed robbery and mail fraud and he ended up in Leavenworth for four years in the 1950s. After getting out, he went back to his life of crime and was sentenced to twenty years in prison, which he started serving at the Missouri State Penitentiary. He escaped from there in 1967. Ray made his way to Mexico and settled in Puerto Vallarta in October of 1967. There he pretended to be a pornopgraphic director and got sex workers to work for him. After no success, Ray went to California and had rhinoplasty to change his appearance. George Wallace was running for president at the time and Ray was drawn to his segregationist views because Ray was a rampant racist.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was making his way around the country at this same time, spreading his message of peace and equality. Ray hated King and he put the man in his crosshairs. He traveled to Atlanta in March of 1968 and found the house where King lived and the church where King preached. On March 30, 1968, Ray bought a Remington Model 760 Gamemaster .30-06-caliber rifle and a box of 20 cartridges from the Aeromarine Supply Company under the name Harvey Lowmeyer. He had found out that King was going to be in Memphis, Tennessee in early April 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968 when a single shot from Ray's Remington rifle hit him in the lower right side of his face. King was pronounced dead an hour later at the hospital. The hotel remains as it was the day King died. Sheets still rumpled and cigarettes still in the ashtray and King's car still in parking lot. Many people claim to feel uncomfortable at the motel and they believe that King's spirit is still here. 

Ray went on the run, heading to Atlanta and then he made his way to Canada. Then he was off to England and Portugal and then back to London. When he attempted to go to Brussels, He was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport. He was extradited to Tennessee. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 99 years and he ended up at Brushy Mountain in March of 1970. Ray set his sights on escaping immediately and he made several attempts, finally succeeding in 1977. Ray and six other inmates climbed over the wall using a 16-foot ladder made of salvaged pipe. Ray only made it a few miles from the prison walls when he was captured two days later. Ray was later stabbed 22 times by three other inmates in 1981. He left Brushy in 1992 and died at the state facility in Nashville six years later.

Another inmate here was politician Byron (Low Tax) Looper. And yes, he changed his middle name to Low Tax. He campaigned on exposing corruption and eventually got into office where he proceeded to hold a press conference and announce that he’d discovered $100 million worth of property taxes that hadn’t been paid. This was apparently a “normal backlog” for property taxes at that time of year. Looper became a corrupt politician himself and in 1998, shot his opponent in the head. He was arrested, convicted, and served his time at Brushy until it closed. 

One of the worst criminals to serve time here was Paul Dennis Reid. He was first convicted and served time when he was only 20 years old. This was for armed robbery and he got 20 years. When he got out, he went on a killing spree. In February of 1997, Reid would become the Fast Food Killer. His first target was a Captain D’s where he forced a 16-year old employee and her 25-year old manager into the cooler and shot them to death. He then emptied the register. In March, he hit a McDonald’s three miles from the Captain D’s and killed three people. The next month, he killed two at a Baskin-Robbins. Reid was finally caught, convicted and given seven death sentences. He served at Brushy until it closed and died at another prison from pneumonia in 2013. 

There was a deer that did time at Brushy too. This was a young deer that fell off a cliff and into the Brushy yard in the 1970s. The inmates cared for him and named him Geronimo. He liked to chew on unlit cigarettes. When Brushy closed for that brief time in the 1970s, Geronimo was moved with the inmates, but he got unruly, not liking the new location. He eventually broke his leg and it needed to be amputated. No one knows what eventually happened to the deer.

The jail closed to inmates on June 11, 2009. Jail functions were transferred to the Morgan County Correctional Complex. In 2013, the Brushy Mountain Group formed to save the jail and they worked with Morgan County to reopen the jail to the public. Today, the location is open for historic tours and paranormal tours. The Warden’s Table is a restaurant here and offers a variety of southern food. And there is also the Brushy Mountain Distillery, which features Frozen Head Vodka, Double Barrel Whiskey, Brimstone, Copperhead, and End of the Line Moonshine and Struggle Bus Bloody Mary Mix. "End of the Line Moonshine is available in 9 flavors. From farm to still, we use water from the mountains’ natural springs to make this one-of-a-kind moonshine and vodka." And then there's those pesky ghosts.

There were Native Americans on the land before the prison was built and some believe there is residual energy connected to them here. And then, of course, this was the end of the line for thousands of men who died here. Activity started while the prisoners were still housed at the jail. Visitors to the jail get scratched and sometimes feel nauseous in the building. There are several areas that visitors get to explore when investigating including A Block, B Block, D Block, the Chapel, the Auditorium/Hospital, the Gymnasium, Laundry, Cafeteria, Courtyard, The Hole, and The Yard. The cafeteria is said to have many spirits, one who has identified himself as "Waterhead." This was an inmate killed with a meat clever in the cafeteria. The courtyard is home to a female apparition that is named Bonnie. No one knows why she is here since no women served time here. The third floor auditorium has a dark entity that has physically attacked people. Paranormal investigators once played the "I Have a Dream" speech outside the cell that once housed James Earl Ray and they captured a voice saying, "Hush."

The Tennessee Wraith Chasers visited during Season 4 on their show Ghost Asylum. A former inmate told the team that the Chapel was one of the most dangerous places on site. Right as Doogie walked into the Chapel, the Ovilus said "Beast." Later "Hell" came over it. The inmate also told them about Jack Jett, an inmate who was a little person that was stabbed in the neck and then 18 more times at the prison. Later, a couple team members seem to catch some K-2 energy at a lower level and they wondered if they had a kid there. If everything is honest, they didn't know about Jett. Could this have been him? Doogie went down to solitary and banged on a cell door and asked if anyone was still there. He got "Jack" and "me." They heard an audible growl in the cell blocks. Porter was in Maximum Security, the temperature went from extremes of 72 to 100 degrees. The K-2 Meter got several hits and the Periscope, which is a type of K-2 Meter that has vertical rods that light from red to green, also got hits and went from red to green when asked. The group built a Wraith Fog Trap and hoped to get an apparition to materialize with it. This entailed lasers, batteries, a dehumidifier, voltmeter, a fog machine and something called a Jacob's Ladder. This was suppose to give energy to the spirit and the fog was to help see it. When they reviewed the video later, there is no doubt that they caught something walking through the fog. You could mostly only see the legs. It could've been a little person. 

Other hauntings connected to Jett include an area where there were phones. Jett was on the phone when he was attacked. The phone here has been seen levitating off the hook and then being returned to it. There are cold spots felt here and a feeling of dread. Objects in the chapel have been seen floating across the room. Floating orbs have been seen in The Hole in harsh colors like purple and red. Disembodied footsteps and whispers are heard.

Discovery+'s Conjuring Keisha visited the prison in the summer of 2022. Comedian and Actress Whitney Cummings joined Singer Keisha for an investigation at the prison and it didn't disappoint. Whitney had her wrist squeezed really hard before the women even entered the jail and it was enough that she felt like she wanted to leave, but then she was interested to see if it would happen again. They talked to a former correctional officer from the jail named Debbie Williams. She worked at the prison from 1980 to 2009. Williams said that there was violence in the prison daily. Her experiences included being told audibly to "get out" by something she couldn't see. She told Keisha and Whitney that they believe there are two demons in the prison. This was backed up by the owners of the prison, Jaime Brock and her sister Courtney. The property has been in their family since the 1890s. Jaime said that in Cell Block D they have seen apparitions, been touched, things get slammed and they've heard growls and disembodied voices. A woman once recited the Lord's Prayer and the woman said her back was burning and there were three red claw marks down her back.

The sister then mentioned their weird entity here that is nicknamed The Creeper. They call it that because they were using an SLS camera and captured the entity crawling along the floor and then up the wall. On Day 2, Whitney and Keisha brought a Demonologist in with them. A REM Pod in the hospital went off for a sustained period of time and Whitney went to hang out in the area by herself. Shortly after getting in the room, she heard something outside of it. Whitney asked the spirit about gender and the REM Pod went off when she asked if it was a woman. Later, it indicated that it was transgender and had wanted to appear as a woman. Later, the two women used the SLS Camera in here and caught a figure hanging out just behind Whitney on the stairs and then it seemed to climb up the wall and they were pretty sure this was The Creeper. The show ended with Keisha fleeing Cell Block D because they thought they were interacting with a demon. Which we didn't understand because they had a demonologist there and isn't this what they were looking for? 

The Creeper isn't the only weird entity here. There are some who have claimed to see a cloven-hoofed figure. The description matches that of The Goatman.

Kelsey visited this location and had a couple of experiences, "I actually visited there a few years ago and I was at the whipping post there and my mom made a sarcastic comment saying I’d be there all the time and I came home to whip marks on my back. I didn’t feel any pain at all, which was weird and they lasted for a few days. I went into the hole and I sat there for a few minutes while my mom was in another cell and it was just me and her in there no other visitors that day and all of a sudden I hear a noise on the wall in my cell and I ask if anyone is there and all of a sudden I feel a tap on my shoulder. So I ask 'did you just touch me' then immediately after I hear a mans voice say 'yes.'" Many people claim to hear the cries of those who were brutally beaten, sometimes to death at the Whipping Post? 

There seems to be a lot of activity at the prison, which is pretty typical of these tough prisons. This one has one of the highest death counts of any prison. Is Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary haunted? That is for you to decide!