The Bell Witch: The Full Account (39 page)

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oath, I might add), and the legend has endured too

long for there not to be anything to it. As is the case

in a court of law, one is presented with evidence and

must draw conclusions of fact. The evidence in the

case of the “Bell Witch” is overwhelming.

Something out of the ordinary did happen in

northwestern Robertson County during the early

Nineteenth Century, and it terrified everyone who

experienced it. I feel that it happened to the Bell

family for the reasons I discussed earlier. Who

knows — if something so incredibly sinister ever

happens again, it just might be your family caught in

the middle of it. Good night, watch those covers, and

pleasant dreams.

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APPENDICES

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Appendix A:

Biographical Sketches of Those

who Figured Prominently Into

the Legend

M ANY PEOPLE FIGURED INTO THE LEGEND

of the “Bell Witch.” Because these people

actually lived and led very interesting lives,

the author has provided biographical sketches of

those he feels played the most prominent roles in the

legend.

John Bell (1750-1820)

Often called “Ol’ Jack Bell” by Kate, John Bell is

the only person in history whose death was

attributed to the doings of a Spirit. In 1817, Bell

contracted a mysterious affliction that worsened over

the next three years, ultimately leading to his death.

Kate took pleasure in tormenting him during his

affliction, finally poisoning him one December

morning while he lay unconscious after suffering a

number of violent seizures.

Born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, John

Bell apprenticed as a barrel maker during his

formative years and later pursued a career in

farming. He married Lucy Williams in 1782 and

settled on a farm he had bought earlier. The Bells

prospered over the next eight years and were among

the most successful planters in the Tar River area of

North Carolina.

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293

With the birth of their first child, Jesse, they began

a family. In the years that followed, John and Lucy

Bell had three more sons, John Jr., Drewry, and

Benjamin. All went well with the Bells until the 1801

and 1803 crop seasons when their crops failed and

they decided to move westward and join their friends

who had started successful farms there.

In the winter of 1803-1804, John Bell and his

family embarked on a journey over the treacherous

mountains of North Carolina and east Tennessee to

an area known as “The Barren Plains,” settling in the

northwest section of present-day Robertson County,

Tennessee. Bell became a successful farmer and

gained considerable respect in his new abode. He

later became an Elder of Red River Baptist Church.

The affliction that John Bell was stricken with in

1817 was most likely a neurological disorder. Very

little was known about such disorders during the

early Nineteenth Century, thus few treatment options

were available.

It is interesting to note that Sir Charles Bell, a

Nineteenth Century anatomy professor, discovered a

neurological disorder that yielded symptoms almost

identical to those John Bell suffered at the onset of

his affliction.

This usually non-fatal disorder is known as “Bell’s

Palsy,” and was discovered several years after John

Bell’s death. The fact that John Bell’s earliest

symptoms mimicked those of Bell’s Palsy, a disorder

named for the Bell surname, is coincidental.

John Bell died on December 20, 1820, and is

buried in the old Bell Cemetery near Adams,

Tennessee along with his wife and some of their

children.

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Lucy Bell (1770-1837)

Born in Edgecombe County, North Carolina to a

family of wealthy planters, Lucy Bell was a pleasant

and mild-mannered woman who was nearly always

on Kate’s good side.

All throughout her reign of terror over the Bell

family, Kate pretended to treat Mrs. Bell nicely –

singing to her, bringing her food when she was sick,

and comforting her in other times of need. The

emotional damage suffered by Mrs. Bell because of

having to see and hear Kate’s acts of physical abuse

towards her husband and daughter offset any good

deeds that Kate performed for her.

After John Bell’s death and estate settlement, Lucy

Bell inherited one slave, Dean, and a 106-acre tract

of land that included the Bell home and cemetery.

She remained at the old homestead up until her

death in 1837. Lucy Bell is buried in the old Bell

Cemetery near Adams, Tennessee along with her

husband and some of their children.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Bell (1806-1888)

Like her father, Elizabeth Bell

suffered a great deal from Kate’s

acts of physical abuse by

having her hair pulled and

getting slapped and pinched to

the point that her face and

arms covered with welts and

bruises. 58 Kate never gave a

reason for her relentless abuse

of Elizabeth, but she

emphatically disapproved of her

engagement to Joshua Gardner.

58 Elizabeth Bell’s photo from
Authenticated History of the Bell Witch
, M.V. Ingram, 1894.

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Elizabeth broke off her engagement to Joshua in the

spring of 1821 after enduring several years of ridicule

about her decision to marry him.

Elizabeth Bell married her former schoolteacher,

Professor Richard Powell, in March of 1824, settling

a few miles from the Bell farm and near a community

that later became known as “Cedar Hill.” Elizabeth

Powell became a homemaker and the mother of eight

children. Only four of Elizabeth and Richard Powell’s

children reached adulthood, one of which was

Leftrick Reynolds Powell. He died in the Civil War

Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in November of 1864 at

the age of 23.

Elizabeth was very supportive of her husband’s

political career and stayed by his side during his

many bouts with misfortune, including a debilitating

stroke in 1837 and his ensuing loss of $10,000 in a

steamboat accident while attempting to raise money

for their family’s financial well-being. Elizabeth

insisted that her marriage to Richard Powell was a

very happy and fulfilling one, despite the hardships

they were forced to endure. Richard Powell’s health

declined over the years following his stroke, and he

died in January of 1848 at the age of 53.

In 1849,
The Saturday Evening Post
published a

story believed by many to be the first commercially

published account of the “Bell Witch.” The story

implicated Elizabeth as having been the culprit

behind the “Bell Witch” disturbances. This angered

her to the point that she threatened the publication

with a libel suit if it did not retract its statements. A

public apology and retraction of the comments

appeared in a later edition of
The Saturday Evening

Post,
and as such, the case never went to trial.

Elizabeth Powell remained in the Cedar Hill area

for many years after her husband’s death and had

the reputation of being a very witty and personable

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lady. Later in life, she gained considerable weight

and a number of health problems befell her as a

result. She was ultimately forced to move to

Yalobusha County, Mississippi in 1874. She lived

out her final years with a daughter, Eliza Jane

Powell, who had moved to the area from Tennessee

about 1849.

It was said that Elizabeth Powell refused to discuss

Kate with people outside the family all the way up to

the time of her death. It has also been said that she

was terrified of sleeping alone and that she always

slept between the wall and another person.

Elizabeth “Betsy Bell” Powell died on July 11, 1888

at the advanced age of 82 years. She is buried in

Long Branch Cemetery near Water Valley,

Mississippi along with Eliza Jane Powell and a son-

in-law, Z.Y.X. Bell.

This is the grave of Elizabeth “Betsy Bell”

Powell. The gravestone in the picture is the

original, and contains a beautifully designed

inscription. After this picture was taken in

1999, the original stone was replaced with a

generic stone.

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Dean

Dean, John Bell’s most prized slave, often reported

encounters with Kate. His encounters included

being followed by a black dog with two heads, being

turned into a mule, and having his head split open

by a large rabbit.

He carried a large scar on his head after the

incident with the rabbit, and often told people it was

the work of Kate. It is believed that his scar was

really the result of a severe beating he received at the

hands of a local planter who “rented” him from John

Bell to do some farm work. Bell was reportedly

outraged by the planter’s cruelty and pursued legal

action as a result.

An honest and dependable field slave, Dean was

noted for his precision with the axe. Despite his

small frame, Dean could take one side of a tree

against any two men on the other side and cut a

deeper kerf. His axe reportedly even split a dog’s

head open, causing it to appear to him with two

heads from that point forward. It was also his axe

that he was looking for when Kate reportedly turned

him into a mule.

Dean, who also mastered the Bells’ wagon from

North Carolina to Tennessee, was one of two slaves

who moved to Tennessee with the Bells. The other

slave was Chloe, his mother, who was 42 years of age

at the time. Chloe had worked for Lucy Bell’s father,

John Williams, in North Carolina before being given

to the Bells upon his death.

It is presumed that Dean and his wife are buried

in two of several unmarked slave graves in the old

Bell cemetery near Adams, Tennessee. They have

many descendants living in the same area today.

The exact date of Dean’s death is unknown.