The
Bell Witch or
Bell Witch Haunting is a
poltergeist, or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis denotes an ostensibly paranormal phenomenon attributed to an an invisible spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving and influencing objects, generally in a particular location such as a house or room or place within a...
legend from Southern
United States folkloreThe folklore of the United States, or American folklore, is one of the folk traditions which has evolved on the North American continent since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it should not be confused with the tribal beliefs of...
, involving the Bell family of
AdamsAdams is a city in Robertson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 566 at the 2000 census.-History:Originally incorporated as Red River in 1869, the town was renamed Adams in 1898 in honor of James Reuben Adams, who first owned much of the land on which the town was built. The town's...
,
TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
. The legend is the basis of the films
An American HauntingAn American Haunting is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an...
(2006) and
The Bell Witch HauntingThe Bell Witch Haunting is a 2004 supernatural thriller, written and directed by Ric White. The movie stars Doug Moore, Stephanie Love, Amber Bland and Ric White. It premiered in Nashville, Tennessee on March 27, 2004 and showed in theaters in a limited released in the southeast areas of the...
(2004).
John Bell Jr. also wrote a book presenting the story as history.
According to the
legendA legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
, the first manifestation of the haunting occurred in 1817 when John William Bell, Sr.
The
Bell Witch or
Bell Witch Haunting is a
poltergeist, or recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis denotes an ostensibly paranormal phenomenon attributed to an an invisible spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving and influencing objects, generally in a particular location such as a house or room or place within a...
legend from Southern
United States folkloreThe folklore of the United States, or American folklore, is one of the folk traditions which has evolved on the North American continent since Europeans arrived in the 16th century. While it contains much in the way of Native American tradition, it should not be confused with the tribal beliefs of...
, involving the Bell family of
AdamsAdams is a city in Robertson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 566 at the 2000 census.-History:Originally incorporated as Red River in 1869, the town was renamed Adams in 1898 in honor of James Reuben Adams, who first owned much of the land on which the town was built. The town's...
,
TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
. The legend is the basis of the films
An American HauntingAn American Haunting is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an...
(2006) and
The Bell Witch HauntingThe Bell Witch Haunting is a 2004 supernatural thriller, written and directed by Ric White. The movie stars Doug Moore, Stephanie Love, Amber Bland and Ric White. It premiered in Nashville, Tennessee on March 27, 2004 and showed in theaters in a limited released in the southeast areas of the...
(2004).
John Bell Jr. also wrote a book presenting the story as history.
Legend
According to the
legendA legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
, the first manifestation of the haunting occurred in 1817 when John William Bell, Sr. encountered a strange animal in a cornfield on his large farm in Robertson County, on the Red River, near Adams, Tennessee. The animal, described as having the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit, vanished when Bell shot at it. This incident was quickly followed by a series of strange beating and gnawing noises manifesting outside and eventually inside the Bell residence. Betsy Bell, the family's younger daughter and the only daughter still living at home (Bell's oldest daughter Esther married Alexander Bennett Porter July 24, 1817), claimed to have been assaulted by an invisible force.
Bell Sr., later in life, suffered frequent facial
seizureAn epileptic seizure is a transient symptom of excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain. It can manifest as an alteration in mental state, tonic or clonic movements, convulsions, and various other psychic symptoms...
s, often rendering him speechless. He died on December 20, 1820. A small vial containing an unidentified liquid he allegedly ingested was found near his body. When some of the contents were force-fed to the family cat, the animal died. The vial was then disposed of in the fireplace.
Pat Fitzhugh's retelling of the Bell Witch legend concludes with a statement to the effect that some people believe that the spirit returned in 1935, the year when the witch claimed it would return ("one hundred years and seven" past 1828), and took up residence on the former Bell property. Other sources say that 1935 brought nothing out of the ordinary to the Bell descendants or the surrounding community.
Published accounts
The earliest written account is at page 833 in the
Goodspeed History of Tennessee, published in 1887 by
Goodspeed PublishingGoodspeed Publishing was a publishing company that wrote and published many works on local history and biography in the 1880s.The works were primarily divided into sections for each county they studied and provide an important snapshot of the lives and the economic situation that existed at that...
.
The most famous account is recorded in what has come to be called the
Red Book, the 1894
An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch of Tennessee by Martin Van Buren Ingram, which cites the earlier
Richard William Bell's Diary: Our Family Trouble. Richard Williams Bell lists several witnesses, including General (later President)
Andrew JacksonAndrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . He was military governor of Florida , commander of the American forces at the Battle of New Orleans , and eponym of the era of Jacksonian democracy...
. However, no mention of the Bell Witch was ever made by Jackson in any of his letters, journals or papers.
The
Black Book was written much later, and published in 1934 by Dr. Charles Bailey Bell, great-grandson of John Bell.
Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey by
Kathryn Tucker WindhamKathryn Tucker Windham is a storyteller, author, photographer, and journalist. She was born in Selma, Alabama and was raised in nearby Thomasville....
includes the story of the Bell Witch.
The
Guidebook for Tennessee, published by the Works Project Administration in 1939, also contains an account that differs from Ingram's on pages 392–393.
In popular culture
- Other Worlds, a book published under the name of Barbara Michaels (a pen name of Barbara Mertz
Barbara Mertz is an author who writes under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels.Barbara Mertz has a Ph.D from the University of Chicago in Egyptology, studying under John A. Wilson, which she received at the age of 23. She has written two books on ancient Egypt, but has primarily...
) in 1999, includes a detailed version of the Bell Witch events.
- Bell Witch: The Movie
Bell Witch: The Movie is a 2007 horror film. It is based on The Bell Witch legend and stars Betsy Palmer as the voice of the Bell Witch...
starring Betsy PalmerPatricia Betsy Hrunek is an American actress, best known as a regular panellist on the game show I've Got a Secret, and later for playing Pamela Voorhees in the notorious slasher film Friday the 13th....
was shot in 2002 in TennesseeTennessee is a state located in the Southeastern United States. According to the 2008 census, it has a population of 6,214,888, an increase of nearly 9.5% since 2000. Tennessee is the 14th fastest growing state in the US and is ranked 17th by population. It is ranked 36th by total land area. In...
and released to video in September 2007.
- The Bell Witch Haunting
The Bell Witch Haunting is a 2004 supernatural thriller, written and directed by Ric White. The movie stars Doug Moore, Stephanie Love, Amber Bland and Ric White. It premiered in Nashville, Tennessee on March 27, 2004 and showed in theaters in a limited released in the southeast areas of the...
is a 2004 film made by Willing Hearts Productions. Filmed near the original location, the director claims to have encountered production difficulties such as fires and expresses the opinion that the Bell Witch might have been responsible.
- On May 5, 2006 a film based on the Bell Witch legend, titled An American Haunting
An American Haunting is a 2006 horror film written and directed by Courtney Solomon. It stars Donald Sutherland, Sissy Spacek, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and James D'Arcy. The film was previewed at the AFI Film Festival on November 5, 2005 and was released in U.S. theaters on May 5, 2006. The film had an...
, was released. An American Haunting is a thriller written and directed by Courtney SolomonCourtney Solomon is a Canadian film producer. Solomon produced, wrote and directed the 2000 film Dungeons & Dragons...
. It is closely based on the narrative presented by author Brent Monahan in his novel, The Bell Witch: An American Haunting. This movie's explanation of the phenomena, derived from the novel, was that John Bell sexually assaultedSexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may be by a man on a man, woman on a man or woman on a woman. Approximately one in six American women will be a victim of a sexual assault in her lifetime...
his daughter, and her repressed memoriesRepressed memory is a theoretical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
of the event were transferred to the "hauntings of the witch". Despite being based on a work of fiction, the film was marketed as a true story.
- In October 2003, the Nashville Ballet and Nashville Chamber Orchestra premiered The Bell Witch, a one-act story ballet with an original score by Conni Ellisor, choreography by Ann Marie De Angelo, and 3-D effects by artist Gerald Marks.
- The Bell Witch - promotional EP
An extended play is a vinyl record, CD, or music download which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as an LP. Usually, a CD single has around 10–28 minutes of music, an EP has up to 36 minutes, and an album generally has 30–80 minutes. Mini-LPs generally contain 20–30...
released by Mercyful FateMercyful Fate is a Danish heavy metal band cited among the influences in the black metal, thrash metal, power metal, and progressive metal genres.-Career:...
to herald the band's reunion album. It features two tracks off In the Shadows, of which one is based on the American legend of The Bell Witch, plus four live tracks. The EP was released in 1994.
- The T.E.D. Klein novella The Events at Poroth Farm begins with a strange animal sighting similar to the one experienced by John Bell.
External links