If Andrew Jackson indeed still haunts the Rose Room and other areas of the White House, it isn’t surprising that "Old Hickory" has somehow mastered the formula for returning from the dead. Long before he became the nation’s seventh president, Jackson boldly faced down the Old South’s most notorious ghost.
The demonic spirit was known throughout Tennessee and the frontier states as the Bell Witch. A trouble-making poltergeist which took the form of a witch and devoted almost every speck of its evil energy to hounding an unfortunate cotton farmer named John Bell to an agonizing death.
Tourists today can still see the site of the Bell family’s former plantation home in tiny Adams, Tenn., where the malign entity first appeared in the spring of 1817.
The sinister force announced its arrival to the pious family with mysterious tapping at the windows and doors, usually during the evening meal. Soon, eerie moans and cries were heard from the chimneys, and mournful wails enveloped the house, and the disturbing behavior quickly became even more fearful.
The wailing became louder, objects rattled in the rooms, warm quilts were snatched from the troubled farmer as he slept in his bed and the entire house began to shake. Even Bell’s neighbors were disturbed by the dreadful noise and the outrageous goings on, and some feared that the trouble-making spirit would move into their homes. But it never did.
Witches Fame Spreads
Inevitably, the local newspapers picked up the story of the Bell Witch, then by writers in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and other eastern cities. Curiosity seekers, preachers, doctors and self appointed researchers began showing up at the farm from points as far away as New York and Texas.
The Bell Witch turned out to be something of an extrovert and always performed for her visitors, screeching, knocking pictures from walls, somersaulting chairs and hurling dishes and cutlery around the rooms with unseen hands.
Andrew Jackson was curious about the spectral force, and he traveled the approximate 40 miles from his home at the Hermitage near Nashville with several of his cronies to witness the strange events at the cotton plantation.
The tough talking general had bet a gallon of good whiskey that the witch didn’t exist. But when he was within a mile or so of the property, his buggy wheels mysteriously locked and wouldn’t budge. After the men struggled with the baffling problem for several minutes, they heard a voice that seemed to be coming from a bush beside the road. "You can move on now, General Jackson," the voice crackled. I’ll see you tonight."
"By the eternal, boys," Old Hickory exclaimed to his pals, "It’s the witch." Just as mysteriously as the wheels had locked, they unlocked. General Jackson and his men spent that night at the Bell plantation, enjoying a rousing good time in a raucous face-off with the witch – which seemed to enjoy the confrontation every bit as much as the frontier general and his friends did.
Spirit Is Challenged During The Night
As the men were sitting around the fireplace drinking rum, bragging and telling tall tales. One of the boldest members of the group displayed the tail of a black cat, and advised that he had killed the unfortunate animal on a witch's coffin by shooting it with a silver bullet. Then he loaded a huge pistol with a silver bullet and shouted out a challenge for the Bell witch to show herself.
According to another member of the gathering, who was later quoted in the Banner Newspaper, a shadow moved over the room a few moments later a spectral voice croaked; "Here I am, Mr. Smarty. Go on and shoot."
The braggart didn’t waste any time firing his gun into the shadow. A moment later he was swept off his feet and dragged around the room by one leg, knocking into furniture, and bouncing off walls while his unseen attacker filled the air with snickering.
When the terrified shooter at last rolled free, he scrambled to his feet, tossed the pistol away and ran out of the house screaming. This time the laughter that followed him was from Jackson and the rest of his roughhewn frontier pals. "Double-dee-damned," the general roared. This is the most fun I’ve had since I got drunk with Sam Houston."
Missing Tooth
But when General Jackson and his pals left the next morning, they left the Witch behind.
The Bell Witch had begun to talk months before the violent meeting with General Jackson and his cronies. Slowly, as if having difficulty mastering the intricacies of speech, the chilling spirit revealed that she was once a woman named Kate.
She complained that she rested comfortably for years before returning from her grave on the farm to seek revenge on John Bell because his children had found part of her jawbone and knocked out a tooth. The tooth was missing and she wanted it back.
Bell and his children spent the rest of that day looking for the missing tooth to reunite it with the jawbone, but it was never found. The concerned plantation owners nevertheless did his best to placate the angry spirit. Helped by his older boys, he dug up the woman’s remaining bones, reunited them with the jawbone and called in the preacher so that she could be laid to rest in a local cemetery with a proper Christian burial.
But that wasn’t good enough for the vengeful Witch. Neither were the efforts of the preacher. When the clergyman began to conclude the Solomon ceremony, he pronounced the traditional, "May she rest in peace…" But as he added the phrase, "…and bother the Bells no more, " the service was interrupted by an unearthly and angry outburst.
"I want my tooth," the Witch screamed.
The frightened cotton farmer, joined by members of his family and neighbors, once more searched the property for the missing tooth. But again their efforts were in vain. When Bell reluctantly confessed to the spirit, she screamed: I will see John Bell buried and in his grave. I will murder him. But not until he has suffered.
Mystery Illness
And Suffer he did. In a few days, Bell had become a walking skeleton. His tongue swelled until he could hardly eat or speak. He could barely swallow water. Doctors were helpless to treat the perplexing affliction. The prayers of the clergy didn’t help.
Almost a year after the farmer’s health had broken, the Witch showed herself in human form for the first time. She revealed herself to the farmer’s 12-year-old daughter, Betsy. Curiously, the evil spirit was so relentless in tormenting John Bell she took a liking to his daughter. On one occasion the Witch even teleported a basket of grapes, oranges, limes, and bananas to the Bell home as a present for the young girl, and reported that she had brought them from the West Indies. Even the most stubborn skeptics had to admit they couldn’t explain the sudden presence of the fruit in its distinctive basket in the backwoods of Tennessee.
Neighbor’s Ordeal
Betsy was the only member of the large family – the Bells had nine children – which the Witch favored. But the affection wasn’t constant. The sinister Witch’s moods changed constantly, and even Betsy was subjected to her hair pulling, quilt snatching, and other abuse from time to time. When she later fell in love with a neighbor boy, the spirit tormented her so relentlessly about the boy she broke off the engagement.
The Bells were popular in Tennessee, and their friends didn’t abandon them just because a bad tempered ghost was pestering them. The neighbors were especially anxious to find some means of helping John Bell and his family. One of the family’s close friends, Will Porter, spent a night at the house to see if he could do anything to discourage the malignant spirit.
Ghostly Presence
Porter had barely gone to bed when he felt a ghostly presence pulling the covers off. Leaping from the bed, he found the bedclothes rolled up, and moving quickly he grabbed the bundle and headed to the fireplace with it. He was convinced that he had captured the poltergeist and had every intention of seeing whether he could cleanse its evil with fire.
But he hadn’t taken more than a few steps before the burden in his arms became so heavy he could hardly hold it up – and it was getting heavier by the second. Even worse, it began to stink appallingly. The smell was worse than the most putrid garbage or even burning sulfur.
At last porter simply couldn’t hang onto the bundle any longer, and he dropped it to the floor, running outside to gulp lungfuls of fresh air. A few minutes later, when he returned to the room to inspect the roll of bedclothes, it was empty and the graveyard stench was gone.
Although Betsy was having a difficult enough time putting up with the torment, her poor suffering father was the most consistent target of abuse. Worried family members, neighbors, and doctors to those of the Biblical Job compared his sufferings.
John Bell lived in terrible agony for years, with his tongue swollen and his emaciated body covered with bruises and lacerations from invisible hands.
When he at last fell into a coma and died on December 21, 1820, the Witch rejoiced with an obscene outbreak of crackling and chanting. She even disrupted the funeral, screeching snatches of ribald songs as the unfortunate farmer was finally laid to rest.
Then she left the rest of the family at peace for a few months. Although the Witch returned briefly to announce that she would continue to visit the family’s plantation at seven-year intervals, she confined her pranks to no more than a few scratching of windows and walls and some bedclothes tugging.
Her evil work was complete.
