The Bell Witch

The CampfireThe openingFree

This is the most famous haunting in American history. It's a legend, so nobody can prove it. But the Bell family was real. The farm was real. The graves are real. And people in Adams, Tennessee, still won't say her name three times in a mirror.

It started in 1817, on a farm on the Red River, near the town of Adams, in northern Tennessee. John Bell was a respected farmer. He lived there with his wife Lucy and their children. One of them was a twelve-year-old girl named Betsy.

One day, John Bell was walking in his cornfield and saw a strange animal sitting between the rows. It looked like a dog, but its body was wrong. Like a rabbit, but too big. He shot at it. It vanished.

That night, the knocking started.

At first it was just sounds. Knocking on the outside walls of the house at night. Then scratching. Like a dog clawing at the doors. Then the sound of chains being dragged across the floor.

Then it came inside.

The children woke screaming. Something was pulling their bedcovers off. Something was pulling their hair. Betsy got the worst of it. Something slapped her. Hard. In the dark. Her family could hear the slaps. In the morning there were red marks on her face, in the shape of a hand.

The family told no one for a year. They were ashamed. They thought people would think they were mad.