The Bell Witch Haunting (1800s)

Tuesday, December 19th, 1820, John Bale fell into a coma unsuspectedly. The next day he tragically passed away with his family surrounding him. It is suspected that his death was caused by a witch.

The events that led up to his death and what immediately followed would haunt his family and the community for years to come, causing national folklore. This is the real story of the Bale Witch Haunting. For centuries, the legend of the evil entity called the Bale Witch has made waves in rural Robertson County, Tennessee.

The spirit allegedly appeared in the early 1800s to haunt a farmer named John Bale and his family, but she remains a part of American folklore to this day. Although the Bale Witch started as a relatively harmless entity, knocking on walls and pulling blankets from beds, she quickly turned violent. Soon, John's daughter, Betsy, had scratches and welts all over her body, and after three years of escalating hauntings, the ghost supposedly murdered John himself.

Several theories have emerged over the years in an attempt to explain the Bale Witch hauntings. Some believe a local school teacher who was in love with Betsy Bale somehow fabricated the eerie phenomena, so the girl will leave her boyfriend and marry him instead. In modern day scientists think John Bale was slowly poisoned with arsenic, perhaps by one of his enslaved workers.

While it is impossible to note the true nature of the unexplainable events that terrorized the Bale family in the 1800s, the legend of the Bale Witch persists as America's greatest ghost story. According to the official Bale Witch website, the story of the fabled apparition began when Red River, Tennessee, now Adams, Tennessee, farmer John Bale spotted a strange creature in his cornfield in 1817. It looked like a dog with the head of a rabbit, but it disappeared when he shot at it, so he didn't think much of it.

That evening, while John and his family were sitting down eating dinner, they heard a strange knocking sound from outside. Several of John's sons ran out the door to see what it was, but they saw nothing. Over the next few weeks, John, his wife Lucy, and his children continued to see apparitions and hear unexplainable noises.

One of his sons saw a bird of extraordinary size, and his daughter Betsy spotted a girl with a green dress swinging from the limb of an oak tree. Even one of the farm's enslaved workers mentioned that a large black dog had been following him around. In his time went on, the hauntings only increased in frequency and violence.

Soon the family heard knocking and choking noises throughout the house, invisible dogs fighting, the sound of rats gnawing on the beds, and chains being drugged along the floors. The children had their bedsheets ripped off them and endured scratches and hair pulling. The ghost seemed to favor Betsy, as she was pinched, slapped, and stuck with pins.

Sometimes the invisible abuse left red handprints and large welts all over her body. Reportedly, the witch often claimed that she wouldn't leave the Bale family alone until John was dead and Betsy broke up with her boyfriend, who was Joshua Gardner. When John confided in the happenings to a family friend named James Johnston, the man spent a few nights on the bale farm and confirmed that some sort of spirit seemed to be terrorizing the family.

One version of the legend states that the bale witch was the spirit that had been disturbed when the family built their farm on Native American burial ground. Another says that the bale family once asked the ghost who she was, and she responded that she was the witch of Kate Bats, an eccentric neighbor who was known for making up stories for attention. Regardless of its identity, news began to spread about the evil spirit, and the home soon became a tourist attraction of sorts.

People traveled from out of town to witness the witch's tricks for themselves. Even the future president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, supposedly paid the bales a visit. From 1817 to 1820, the bale witch remained a permanent fixture at the bale farm.

According to the historic bale witch cave, the spirit would supposedly speak with the bale family and visitors from around the country about the past and future, and she was especially well versed in the Bible. She once even quoted word for word two different sermons that had been given at the same time 13 miles apart. The entity who began answering to the name Kate, after she claimed to be the witch of Kate Bats, was violent toward John and Betsy Bale, but she seemed like John's wife Lucy.

She reportedly brought her fresh fruit once when she was ill and often complimented her. As the years passed and the hauntings continued, John Bale began experiencing strange muscle twitches in his face. These soon progressed to migraines, tingling sensations, fatigue, and seizures.

Then in December 1820, John suddenly slept into a coma. The following day, December 20th, he died quietly at home. Ollie, his family found a mysterious vial full of dark liquid in the kitchen cupboard that hadn't been there previously.

John Bale Jr. allegedly put a drop on the cat's tongue and it immediately fell over dead. The bale witch's voice then echoed through the house, and it said, I gave old Jack a big dose of that last night, which fixed him.

John Jr. threw the vial into the fire, where it exploded into a blue flame and shot up the chimney. With John dead, the spirit could focus on Betsy.

She began to follow her wherever she was, with Joshua her fiancé pulling her hair, beating her, and shouting threats and curses at the young couple. By March 1821, Betsy couldn't take it anymore. She broke off her engagement with Joshua, and the bale witch suddenly disappeared.

The entity allegedly visited Lucy and told her she was leaving, but she returned in seven years. And sure enough, in 1828, the bale witch reappeared to John Bale Jr. and stayed for three days speaking with him about the past, present, and the future.

She even reportedly made predictions about the Civil War, which was still over 30 years away. When she vanished for a second time, she supposedly said she'd return in 107 years, but there are no records of reappearance in 1935. However, some of John Bale's descendants claim that they've seen signs of the enduring entity.

According to the Associated Press, Lucy Bale Butler claims that she and her daughter have seen a black dog from the original tale, and a giggling girl like the one Betsy saw swinging from a tree limb 200 years ago sometimes runs through their house. Of course, Butler's claims, along with every aspect of the bale witch legend, are doubted by many. After all, the story is essentially a folktale passed down through generations, though there are newspaper articles from the 1850s that mention the witch.

As with any paranormal story, any good paranormal story, there are several possible explanations for the events surrounding the bale witch hunting. One of the older theories involves Betsy Bale's teacher, Richard Powell. Supposedly, although Powell was 11 years older than Betsy, he was madly in love with her and was visibly disappointed when he discovered she was engaged to Joshua Gardner.

He was also rumored to have knowledge in O'Neill Cote. In other words, if anyone could pull off such an involved hoax, it would be him. This theory is strengthened by the fact that Powell did indeed marry Betsy Bale after she broke off her engagement with Gardner.

A more modern explanation of the bale witch hunting comes from Dr. Megan Mann, a chemistry professor. She said, The son talked about all these strange medical symptoms he was having, and a lot of them sounded very neurological to me.

As someone who knows a bit about things like biochemistry and toxicology, she also continued, if you look at the neurological symptoms, those are often times caused by heavy metal poisoning. She also noted that arsenic was a commonly used poison in the early 19th century and long-term exposure to the element would have caused the symptoms, such as muscle twitches and trouble swallowing like John experienced. Additionally, arsenic burns blue, which would explain the colorful explosion when John Jr.

threw the mysterious vial in the fireplace. She also believes that someone, perhaps someone from the church, who didn't like the bale family or one of the wealthy farmers and slave workers, slowly poisoned John Bale over the course of three years, finally finishing off the job in December 1820. No one will ever know the truth behind the bale witch legend, but the accounts and theories associated with the folklore certainly offer great material for late-night campfire stories.