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Podcast Host
Welcome back to the Ancestral Findings podcast. Tennessee became the 16th state in the Union on June 1, 1796. Long before statehood, however, people had already been living traveling, hunting, farming, building communities, and raising families throughout the region for thousands of years. Archaeologists use names such as Paleo, Indian, Archaic Woodland, and Mississippian to describe broad periods in the region's history. These are archaeological classifications rather than the names of specific tribes. Each period represents communities with their own customs, tools, foods, homes, trade routes, and ways of organizing daily life. During the Mississippian period, many people lived in established towns supported by farming, hunting, trade, and carefully managed natural resources. Some towns included large earthen mounds, public gathering areas, defensive walls, and homes arranged around central plazas. When the Expedition of Hernando de Soto entered the southeastern region in 1540, its members encountered organized Native communities rather than an empty wilderness in the area surrounding present day East Tennessee, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama. The Spaniards entered territory controlled by the powerful Coosa chiefdom. De Soto's expedition was searching for gold, wealth, and territory for Spain. Its members took food, forced Native people to carry supplies, seized leaders as hostages, and brought violence and disease into the communities they entered. The written accounts produced by the expedition provide some of the earliest European descriptions of the region, but they were written by outsiders who often misunderstood the people they encountered in later generations. Tennessee became closely associated with the Cherokee in the east and the Chickasaw in the West. Shawnee, Muscogee, Yuchi, Choctaw, and other Native peoples also had connections to parts of the region through residence, travel, trade, hunting, warfare, and family relationships. The Cherokee did not arrive in Tennessee in 1838. Cherokee communities had existed in and around East Tennessee long before Europeans began keeping written records there. The year 1838 is associated with the forced removal of thousands of Cherokee people from their southeastern homelands along what became known as the Trail of tears. In 1756, the British began building Fort Loudoun near present day Vonora. Cherokee leaders had requested a British fort as protection during the conflict known as the French and Indian War. The fort became one of Britain's westernmost military posts, but it was not a lasting settlement. Relations between the soldiers and nearby Cherokee communities deteriorated, and the fort was abandoned in 1760. During the 1770s, settlers established communities along the Watauga, Nollichucky, and Holston rivers. Tennessee was later governed as part of North Carolina and then as part of the Southwest Territory before becoming a state. Tennessee's history eventually included frontier settlements, forced Native removal, slavery, Civil War battles, country music, Appalachian traditions, River communities, and rapidly growing cities. That long history created fertile Ground for stories that sit somewhere between documented events and folklore. Some Tennessee legends begin in isolated farmhouses. Others grow around battlefields, abandoned churches, caves, and music halls. The facts provide the setting, but unanswered questions keep the stories alive. The Bell Witch, Tennessee's most famous supernatural story, began near the small community of Adams in Robertson County. John Bell and his wife, Lucy Williams Bell, moved from North Carolina to Middle Tennessee in 1804. They established a farm along the Red river and became respected members of the community. John Bell acquired considerable land, raised crops, and served as an elder in his church for more than a decade. Life on the Bell farm appears to have been largely uneventful. Then, sometime around 1816 or 1817, members of the family reportedly began seeing strange animals near the property. One account described an animal with the
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Co-host or Guest Narrator
body of a dog and the head of a rabbit.
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Podcast Host
Another described a large black bird that vanished when someone tried to approach it. Soon there were sounds inside the house. The bells heard scratching beneath the floor, knocking against the walls, stones striking the outside of the building, and what sounded like chains being dragged through the rooms. Bedsheets were reportedly pulled from sleeping children. Family members said they were pinched, slapped, scratched, or struck by something they could not see. The disturbances were said to focus heavily on the Bell's youngest daughter, Betsy. She reportedly had her hair pulled and suffered repeated physical attacks.
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Co-host or Guest Narrator
John Bell initially kept the trouble within the family. Eventually, he confided in his neighbor, James Johnston, who came to the house with his wife to investigate. According to later versions of the story, Johnston experienced strange activity himself and became convinced that the Bells were facing something beyond ordinary explanation. Word spread. Neighbors, ministers, curiosity seekers and self appointed investigators began visiting the farm. Instead of quieting the disturbances, the growing audience appears to have made the story larger. The presence supposedly began whispering and singing before developing a clear voice. It answered questions, quoted scripture, repeated conversations that had taken place far away, and addressed visitors by name. Some people called it a spirit. Others called it a witch. Eventually, it became known as the Bell Witch. The voice was sometimes called Kate. Later stories connected it with a neighbor named Kate Batts, who had supposedly believed that John Bell cheated her in a business transaction. According to this version, she cursed him before her death. There is no firm documentation proving that Kate Batts created the legend or or that she made such a curse. Her connection to the haunting may have been added as storytellers searched for a human identity behind the mysterious voice. The Bell witch was said to have two main goals. One was the death of John Bell. The other was the end of Betsy Bell's engagement to a young man named Joshua Gardner. John's health declined as the disturbances continued. He developed weakness, difficulty swallowing, and periods in which he appeared unable to speak or move normally. In December 1820, members of the family reportedly found him unconscious. A small vial containing a dark liquid was discovered nearby. According to the legend, the spirit announced that it had given John a dose of the liquid during the night. The family supposedly tested the substance on a cat, which quickly died. John Bell died soon afterward. At his funeral, the unseen voice was said to sing loudly, laugh, and make insulting remarks until the mourners left the cemetery. Those details are part of the legend. Historical records establish that John bell died in 1820, but they do not prove that an invisible presence poisoned him. Betsy's engagement to Joshua Gardner also ended. The legend gives the Bell witch credit, although ordinary family concerns, personal disagreements, or social pressure could have played a role. After John's death and the broken engagement, the disturbances reportedly became less frequent. Before leaving, the spirit announced that it would return in seven years. According to the story, it kept that promise. In 1828, the voice supposedly returned and spoke with John Bell Jr. For several weeks. Their conversations ranged from religion and politics to the future of the country. The spirit was said to have claimed that there was a reason John Bell had to die, but it never explained the reason clearly. Before departing again, the Bell witch reportedly announced that it would return in 107 years. That would have placed its next appearance in 1935. No widely accepted event occurred that year, but local stories continued. People reported strange lights, unexplained sounds, shadowy figures, and unsettling experiences near the former Bell property and a nearby cave. The Bell Witch cave later became closely tied to the legend. Visitors have described hearing voices, feeling watched, or experiencing equipment failures inside it. There is no reliable evidence that the cave caused the disturbances reported by the Bell family, but it provides a physical location for a story whose central character never took a consistent form. One of the greatest difficulties in studying the Bell Witch is the age of its most detailed source. Much of the familiar story comes from an authenticated history of the famous Bell Witch published by Martin Van Buren Ingram in 1894. That was more than 70 years after John Bell's death. Ingram said he relied upon family papers, interviews, and an earlier account written by John Bell Jr. But the original manuscript attributed to John Jr. Has not survived for independent examination. The famous claim that Andrew Jackson visited the farm also comes through later retellings. In that story, Jackson and several companions traveled to the Bell property. Their wagon supposedly became stuck on a level road until an invisible voice gave them permission to continue. Jackson is then said to have declared that he would rather fight the British again than spend another night with the Bell Witch. It is a fine line, but no known contemporary record from Jackson confirms the visit.
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Podcast Host
That does not mean nothing happened at the Bell farm.
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Co-host or Guest Narrator
It means that the full account reached print long after the principal witnesses were gone. Memories had passed through families, neighbors, newspapers, and storytellers before becoming the version known today. The Bell Witch remains powerful because it contains several mysteries at once. Was the family experiencing deliberate tricks, illness, family conflict, religious fear, or genuine events they could not explain? Did different people add details over time? Was the speaking presence created by one person, several people, or generations of storytellers? The surviving evidence cannot answer every question. The story still survives in Adams through historical markers, tours, festivals, plays, books, and and visits to the cave. More than two centuries after the first reported scratching beneath the Bell farmhouse, people are still listening for the voice of Kate. Old Green Eyes is often included in Tennessee folklore, although the location most closely associated with the legend is technically across the state line in Georgia. The Chickamauga battlefield lies just south of Chattanooga and is preserved as part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. Because the battlefield is so closely connected with Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley, its folklore has long circulated on both sides of the border. The Battle of Chickamauga was fought from September 18 through September 20, 1863. Union forces under Major General William Rosecrans faced Confederate forces commanded by General Braxton Bragg. The fighting was brutal. Tens of thousands of soldiers were killed, wounded, wounded, captured, or reported missing. The wounded lay in fields, woods, barns, and makeshift hospitals. Many burials were completed hurriedly, and some remains were later moved to national cemeteries. The battlefield became a place of sorrow. Almost immediately, stories developed about cries in the woods, marching soldiers who vanished when approached, riders without visible heads, and figures moving across fields after dark. The best known presence is Old Green Eyes. There is no single description of him. In one version, Old Green Eyes was a Confederate soldier whose head was torn from his body by cannon fire. His head and body were separated during the confusion, leaving his spirit to search the battlefield for what was missing. Some storytellers reverse the idea and describe a floating head with bright green eyes searching for its body. Other witnesses describe something that does not seem human at all. They speak of a large, hairy creature with glowing eyes, long teeth, and powerful jaws. Some accounts make it sound like a wild cat. Others make it closer to a monster that moves on two legs. One version claims that Old Green Eyes lived in the area before the Civil war and fed upon the bodies of the dead after the battle. That version transforms him from a fallen soldier into something drawn to the violence. The legend is wonderfully inconsistent. That inconsistency is useful because it shows how folklore changes. A ghost begins as a headless soldier. Someone adds the shining eyes. Another person adds claws, fur, or sharp teeth. Before long, the battlefield has its own creature. Despite claims that soldiers saw Old Green Eyes during the Civil War, no dependable wartime letter, diary, military report, or newspaper account has been found that identifies a creature by that name. Ghost stories around Chickamauga appeared early, but the named legend of Old Green Eyes seems to have become widely known much later. One account collected from the area describes a traveler crossing the battlefield in 1876 and becoming frightened by a figure he believed was a ghost. The figure turned out to be a woman carrying a bundle. The story demonstrates that the battlefield already had a haunted reputation within a few
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years of the war.
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Even though it does not mention glowing eyes, the modern Old Green Eyes tradition appears to have spread through school stories, late night drives, local tours, park employees, and groups of young people daring one another to search the battlefield after dark. The setting does much of the work. During the day, visitors see monuments, cannons, markers, preserved roads, and carefully maintained fields. At night, those landmarks disappear into shadows. An animal's eyes reflect light from a car. Trees resemble standing figures. Fog settles across low ground. A small sound carries farther than expected. Then someone remembers the story. That does not prove that every reported encounter was imaginary. It shows how a location, its history, and a person's expectations can combine to create a powerful experience. People have reported seeing two green lights moving between trees, a crouched figure near Snodgrass Hill, a large animal that disappeared without making a sound, and a shadow crossing a road before vanishing.
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Are those reports evidence of a ghost, an unknown creature, deer, reflected light, fog, or frightened visitors misreading what they saw? The battlefield keeps its answer. Old Green Eyes now has a place in local culture. Through artwork, ghost tours, storytelling events, and festivals, the creature has moved from whispered warning to regional character. Yet the true history should remain at the center of the story. Chickamauga is preserved ground where real people suffered and died. Visitors should respect the land, obey park hours, and avoid treating it as nothing more than a nighttime attraction. Old Green Eyes may be folklore, but the grief beneath the legend is documented history. Four miles northeast of Mason, Tennessee, beneath tall cedar trees, stands Old Trinity Episcopal Church. The small wooden church was built in 1847 and is the oldest surviving church building in Tipton County. It measures only about 20ft wide and 40ft long, its appearance is plain. It has weatherboard siding, tall windows, wooden pews, pine floors, and no electricity. A small cemetery surrounds the building with gravestones belonging largely to families who once lived on plantations in the surrounding countryside. Regular services became less frequent during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1921, the church was primarily being used for an annual service. Its isolated location helped preserve its historic appearance, but it also left the building vulnerable. Vandals damaged portions of the church and Cemetery in 1994. Parts of the wooden railing inside were broken, and some gravestones were disturbed. Repairs were completed the following year. Later folklore gave the vandalism a darker history. Stories began claiming that a satanic group had desecrated the church during the 1930s or 1940s. Other versions placed the activity much later. Reliable historical documentation confirms vandalism, particularly the damage in 1994. It does not establish that an organized satanic cult was responsible or that such activity began decades earlier. The most famous legend at Old Trinity centers on a statue of the Virgin Mary in the cemetery. The statue serves as a grave marker, reportedly for a woman who died in 1912. Visitors began claiming that blood sometimes appeared around the statue's eyes and neck. Some described thin red lines running down the face. Others said the liquid appeared suddenly and vanished before anyone could investigate it properly. The statue became known as the Crying Mary or the Bleeding Mary. There are no dependable medical tests, chemical examinations, photographs, or official church findings establishing that the statue produced blood. Stains from water, minerals, rust, tree SAP, paint, mold, or vandalism could create marks that appear disturbing under poor light. The setting strengthens the effect. The church stands alone among old trees. There are no electric lights inside. The cemetery contains weathered stones, damaged markers, and family names connected to a world that has disappeared. At dusk, shadows stretch across the ground while the white statue remains visible among the graves. That is enough to make a red stain seem deeply unsettling. Other stories grew around the church. Visitors claim they saw lights moving through the cemetery when no one was present. Some heard footsteps, whispering, crying, or movement inside the locked building. Others said the church doors opened or closed on their own. One belief holds that the people buried there are disturbed by the damage done to their graves. In that telling, the statue does not weep for one person. It mourns for the entire cemetery. A more extreme version says a caretaker once placed traps around the property to stop trespassers, including wires stretched at dangerous heights. This claim is repeated in some folklore accounts, but reliable historical records do not establish that such traps were installed. The church's documented history is already compelling without exaggeration. It survived changing congregations, declining attendance, weather, vandalism, and long periods of limited use. Its cemetery preserves the names of people who lived in rural West Tennessee before the Civil War and through the difficult decades that followed. The Crying Mary legend adds another layer. Perhaps someone once saw rainwater mixed with rust. Perhaps vandals stained the statue. Perhaps shifting light created the appearance of tears. Or perhaps the first person who told the story never expected it to spread beyond a few friends. Once people began arriving in search of blood, every discoloration became evidence. Every sound in the trees became a footstep. Every movement near the church became something unseen. Watching from the cemetery. That is how an isolated church becomes a landmark in Tennessee folklore.
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The Ghost of Hank William Sr. Some ghost stories grow around forgotten places. The legend of Hank William Sr. Grew around one of the most famous buildings in American music. Ryman Auditorium opened in Nashville in 1892 as the Union Gospel Tabernacle. It was built after riverboat captain Thomas Ryman attended a revival led by preacher Samuel Porter Jones. The building later became a major gathering place for lectures, religious meetings, theatrical performances, concerts and political events. After Thomas ryman died in 1904, it became known as Ryman Auditorium. The Grand Ole Opry moved there in 1943 and remained until 1974. Those 31 years helped establish the Ryman as one of country music's most respected stages. Hank Williams made his Grand Ole Opry debut at the Ryman in June 1949. He performed Lovesick Blues and was reportedly called back for six encores. He was only 25 years old. During the next few years, Hank became one of the most successful and influential country singers in the nation. His songs included you're Cheatin Heart, hey Good Lookin', I'm so Lonesome, I Could Cry, Cold, Cold Heart, and I Saw the Light. His success was accompanied by severe personal struggles. Chronic pain, alcohol, prescription drugs, missed performances and an unstable personal life damaged his career and health. The Grand Ole Opry dismissed him in 1952 after repeated missed appearances and problems connected to his drinking. Hank died on January 1, 1953, while being driven to a performance. He was 29 years old. His career had lasted only a few years, but his voice never left the Ryman. That statement is historically true. Through recordings, memory and musical influence, folklore gives it another meaning. Employees and visitors have claimed that Hank Williams still appears inside the auditorium. Some say they have seen a thin man in a white cowboy hat standing near the stage or walking through a backstage hallway. Others have reported hearing Footsteps when the building was empty, a guitar playing without a performer, or a distant voice singing one of Hank's songs. One employee reportedly saw a pale mist move across the stage and believed it took the form of a performer. Another story describes a figure seen near the alley behind the Ryman. Hank's ghost is also associated with Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, located across the alley from the auditorium. Performers often slipped out the Riemann's back doors and crossed the alley to nearby bars between appearances. There is a curious wrinkle in that part of the story. The establishment did not receive the name Tootsie's Orchid Lounge until after Hank's death. A bar operated at the location earlier, so he may have visited the building, but he could not have known it by the name used today. That small detail demonstrates how folklore attaches a famous person to a familiar modern landmark. The location is correct, but the name belongs to a later time. Hank's restless image also appears in country music itself. In David Allen Coe's song the Ride, a hitchhiker is picked up by a mysterious driver who appears to be Hank Williams. The ghostly driver warns him about the cost of becoming a country music star before leaving him beside the highway. The song strengthened the idea of Hank's spirit traveling the roads between Alabama and Tennessee, still testing singers who hoped to follow him. Why would Hank Williams haunt the ryman? The answer given by folklore is simple. It was the place where he received one of the greatest welcomes of his life and later experienced one of its greatest rejections. The stage represented fame, belonging, failure, and loss. That interpretation is emotionally satisfying, but it remains an interpretation. Old buildings produce unexplained sounds. Air moves through backstage areas. Stage lights create reflections. Music from nearby businesses can travel through walls and alleys. People entering the ryman already know its history, and Hank Williams is one of the first performers they associate with it. There is also something powerful about standing on a stage where a person once sang before thousands. The performer is gone, but the room remains. A visitor does not need to see a ghost to feel the presence of the past. Still, when the ryman grows quiet and a sound seems to drift from the empty stage, some people listen closely. They may be waiting to hear Hank Williams ask for one more song.
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Tennessee's folklore demonstrates how stories form around
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real people, real locations, and real tragedies. John Bell lived, farmed along the Red river, became ill, and died in 1820. What caused the strange events reported by his family remains uncertain. The Battle of Chickamauga produced terrible loss near the Tennessee border. The historical record documents the battle, but it does not identify a green eyed monster roaming the field. Old Trinity Church was built in 1847 and vandals damaged portions of it in 1994. The records do not establish that a statue in its cemetery sheds blood. Hank Williams performed at the Ryman, became a country music star, lost his place in the Opry and died at 29. None of those facts proves that his spirit walks backstage. Folklore often begins where documentation becomes incomplete. A family remembers knocking in the walls. A driver sees green lights among the trees. Someone notices a red stain beneath a statue's eyes. An employee hears music inside an empty auditorium. The story is repeated. Each teller preserves part of it, changes part of it, and adds something that seems to explain what came before. After enough years, the newest details can sound as old as the earliest ones. For genealogists and family historians, these legends offer a useful warning. A story may contain a real person, place, date or event, while still including details added much later. A newspaper can repeat gossip. A memoir can reshape a childhood memory. A family account can combine two different people. A local legend can move an event across a county line or even across a state border. The goal is not to strip every story of wonder. The goal is to identify which portions can be supported, which remain possible, and which appeared only after years of retelling. That careful approach makes Tennessee's folklore more interesting. The Bell Witch becomes a study of family testimony and late published sources. Old Green Eyes shows how a battlefield's grief can produce a monster. The Crying Mary reveals how vandalism and isolation can reshape the reputation of a historic church. Hank Williams demonstrates how quickly a beloved performer can become part of the folklore surrounding the stage where he once stood. The facts give each legend its foundation. The unanswered questions keep people telling it.
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Podcast Host
If you've got a hard to find ancestor you're stuck on, I'd love to hear about it. Just head over to ancestralfindings.com and click on Contact to send me a message. While you're there, take advantage of our free weekly genealogy lookups, explore thousands of articles, and enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. We've been helping family history researchers since 1995, and if you're looking for even more, check out our Genealogy Gold Q and A series over on Patreon. Thanks for listening and, as always, happy searching.