The Bell Witch: The Full Account (26 page)

In 1957, six years after John Bell’s gravestone was

stolen from the old Bell cemetery, Covington replaced

it and put additional stones on the old farm property,

about one mile from Bellwood, denoting the location

of the Bell family’s well and where the homes of John

Bell and John Bell, Jr. once stood. All of these

stones remain intact today.

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This gravestone, placed in 1957, replaces the

original gravestone that was taken in 1951.

The Eden Family Buys the Cave

In 1964, the 105-acre tract of land encompassing

the cave, Brown’s Ford Bluff, and many acres of

prime tobacco farmland was purchased by William

“Bims” Eden, a local farmer who had always lived

near the old Bell farm and been fascinated by
the

legend since he was a boy. 49 Although he had

already experienced several first-hand encounters

with Kate over the years, the things he experienced

after purchasing the land were nothing like he had

experienced before. They were far more frequent and

bizarre.

Just after purchasing the farm, Eden razed the old

house that sat on the spot he intended to build a

new house for himself and his family. Built partially

with logs and stones from the original John Bell

house by Joel Bell in the late 1840’s, this house was

the site of several strange happenings in the mid to

late Nineteenth Century. t The house had been used

49 H.C Brehm,
Echoes of the Bell Witch in the Twentieth Century
, 1979.

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only as a storage room in the fifty years leading up to

when Bims bought the property. After the old house

was razed, Bims built a brick home in its place.

Bims’ house was situated along what was once

known as the “Nashville-Clarksville Road,” a pioneer

trail connecting Nashville and Clarksville in the days

of John Bell and for several decades afterward.

The driveway, which turns off Keysburg Road

about a mile north of Adams, roughly follows the old

Nashville-Clarksville roadbed for some distance to a

large sinkhole formed above the cave many years

ago. At this point, the driveway picks up the old

road’s direct path and makes a right turn before

continuing up Brown’s Ford Bluff and through

several fields, eventually intersecting with the old bed

of Brown’s Ford and Springfield Road,” which was

the main thoroughfare during the John Bell era. A

long stretch of the old Nashville-Clarksville roadbed

is now used for farm traffic and hayrides at

Halloween.

“Bell Witch” Cave

Nestled below a steep limestone bluff overlooking

the Red River is the entrance to “Bell Witch Cave.”

During the months of winter and spring, and

following periods of heavy rain, a crystal-clear spring

flows along the cave’s floor and out its entrance

before falling some 75 feet to the Red River.

The cave has two main rooms, the first of which

can be found down a straight, narrow passageway

about 125 feet from the entrance. Near the back of

the first room is an opening where one can look up

and see overhead passages on the cave’s second and

third levels. Because of the vast deposits of mud

that collect on the upper levels, they are generally

not accessible. The cave’s second, or “back” room, is

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195

located down a very narrow passageway about 200

feet beyond the first room.

The cave maintains a comfortable temperature of

57 degrees Fahrenheit, year-round, and was often

used as a storage area by John Bell’s family. It was

also in this cave where one of Elizabeth Bell’s young

friends got his head stuck in a crevice and was

pulled completely out of the cave by Kate. Although

more than fifteen miles long, the cave can be

explored safely only to the back room. Beyond the

back room, the passageways become so narrow that

one must crawl through loose rocks, mud, and knee-

deep water to explore the cave.

Once his new house had been completed and his

family settled in, Bims began equipping the cave with

lighting so that he could take visitors on tours of the

two rooms. Aside from a handful of cave explorers

and archaeologists, very few people had been inside

the cave since the Nineteenth Century; and as a

result, neither Bims nor his sons knew what to

expect when they began stringing the wires and

lights. As it turned out, they experienced strange

events that, unbeknownst to them, marked the

beginning of a series of events that would haunt

them until they left the property many years later.

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Towering some 40 feet above the Red River,

this bluff marks the location of “Bell Witch”

cave.

A Wire Disappears

Early one morning, one of Bims’ sons and a friend

followed the narrow path down the hill to the cave

and began stringing wire for the lights. Starting at

the entrance, they slowly worked their way back

through the cave as they installed clamps, taped

connections together, and made sure that all wiring

was tucked neatly and out of the path of future

visitors to the cave.

After reaching a point about halfway to the first

room, Bims’ son turned on his flashlight because

there was very little light left from the entrance. He

watched his friend, who was blind in both eyes, with

amazement as he effortlessly routed wires through

the cave and taped their connections tightly. After

they had been working for some time, Eden’s

flashlight began to dim. In an effort to conserve what

little battery power that remained, Eden turned off

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197

his flashlight and sat it down.

As the men continued working, Eden’s eyes

adjusted to the darkness. Eden felt a sudden jerk as

the strand of wire he was holding for his friend

completely left his hands. Each man thought the

other had accidentally jerked the wire, but after some

brief discussion, they realized that someone or

something else had jerked it.

Both on their hands and knees, they felt around

the cave’s floor in search of the missing strand of

wire. They began feeling up and down the cave’s

walls after their search of the floor turned up

nothing. Still unable to find the wire, Eden traced

the men’s footsteps back to where he had put the

flashlight.

As his friend sat and waited, Eden began carefully

scanning the cave’s floor, walls, and ceiling with his

flashlight. The wire was still not seen. Then out of

anger and desperation, Eden walked in the direction

opposite the area where they had been running the

wire – knowing the wire wouldn’t be there but not

wanting to leave any unturned stones, either. As he

shined his flashlight up at the ceiling, the misplaced

strand of wire came into clear view — lodged between

two rocks in an area of the cave they had not yet

reached.

The wire finally came loose after several minutes of

frantic tugging and jerking. The men eventually got

all of the lights installed in the cave after several

days of hard work and tricks being played on them.

A Distorted Picture

Several weeks after the lights had been installed, a

man and several young boys from nearby Guthrie,

Kentucky visited the cave for a tour with Bims. After

finishing the tour, the man asked one of the boys to

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pose for a picture with his dog in front of the cave’s

entrance. The man then made what he thought

would turn out to be a normal picture, but soon

learned that it was far from normal.

As the picture began to develop, Bims and the man

who took the picture noticed that while the dog and

the boy’s lower body appeared normally, his

shoulders and head were covered by what appeared

to be a “white sheet” stretched across the cave’s

entrance. Aside from the fact that no sheet had been

around at the time it was taken, the picture showed

distinctive bulges in the “sheet” where the boy’s head

and shoulders should have been.

Human Mist Figure in the Cave

On another afternoon, Bims and several teenagers

were talking in the cave’s back room when one of the

group suddenly yelled, “Hey, look at that! What is it?

It’s right there! See it?” “Yeah!” replied the other

members in the group.

What they saw was a misty, human-like figure

facing in the opposite direction of where they were

standing. They could clearly see the body from its

head down to its knees; however there was nothing

but air below the knees. As the mysterious entity

seemed to float through the passageway toward the

cave’s first room, the group cautiously followed

behind it in amazement. The entity became more

transparent as it got closer to the first room and

eventually disappeared.

This was one of the very few occasions when

everyone present saw an apparition. In most cases,

only one or two people in a group will encounter

something strange if it happens. On one such

occasion, Bims took a man, his wife, and their son

for a tour of the cave where the wife saw something

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but the others did not.

A Woman’s Figure in the Upper Passage

As Bims pointed out the various flowstones,

crystal-clear pools of water and rock formations that

line the cave, he noticed that the woman was staring

in the direction of an overhead passage that led to

the cave’s second level. She appeared to be either

very scared or in some kind of trance. Soon, the

woman screamed, “There she is! It must be the ‘Bell

Witch!’ She is so young looking, and her long black

hair is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. She isn’t

walking, either. She seems to be floating through the

air! Look up into the hole and you’ll see her!”

Curious, Bims and the woman’s husband and son

rushed over and looked up into the passageway

where they saw nothing out of the ordinary. The

woman kept her eye on the passageway and insisted

once again that the entity was present and floating

through the air. The group continued looking

through the passageway and watching the second

level, but it appeared that the only person able to see

this terrifying apparition was the woman. After a

short time, she indicated that the entity was still

lurking in one of the cave’s upper levels but had

floated out of her sight.

The people quickly made their way towards the

front of the cave; however, they did not make it far

past the first room before something else happened –

and this time, everyone experienced it. As they were

passing through the first room and into the

passageway leading to the entrance, they began

hearing what sounded like faint breathing coming

from a large stone that juts out from the cave’s wall.

Although terrified, the group remained calm as