The Bell witch,Tennessee

The Bell WitchTennessee, is the scene of one of America's most famous haunting's...The Bell WitchThe ghost of Kate Batts, commonly known as the Bell Witch, haunted the Bell family, especially John Bell and his 12 year old daughter.Kate Batts was known as a spiteful and vengeful woman, who on her death bed vowed she would haunt and torment the Bell family.Kate believed that she had been cheated by John Bell on a land purchase and vowed to get revenge.After her death she certainly stuck to her word, it is reported that she tormented the family,poked them, pinched the children's noses, stuck needles in them, threw kitchen objects around, but her anger was mainly aimed at John and his daughter Betsy. The rest of the family got off lightly. She took great pleasure and delight in mentally and physically torturing those two, with her shrieking voice and or physically punishing antics.As we all know gossip spreads very quickly in small towns, and the farming town of Adams was no different. Word soon spread about the ghostly goings on in the Bell house hold and folk started travelling from miles away to visit the house, not all were greeted with friendly handshakes either, some got shrieked at !!The story became that well known that general Andrew Jackson, who was also to be the future president of the United states, decided to gather a few friends and travel to this mysterious house hold. He wanted to either dispel this evil nasty woman or debunk the whole ghost story theory.Jackson's journey to the dwelling was certainly not uneventful, they had been jesting about the witch, when their journey came to a halt, not matter how they tried they could not get the wagons moving again, they whipped and cursed the horses, but nothing, they wouldn't move it is almost as if they were frozen. The surprising this was there was no earthly reason why they should have been stuck, they were on a flat dry pathway, nothing for the wheels of the wagon to get stuck in.It is believed that after the General declared it was the witch that was stopping them and there jesting had stopped, that a voice could be heard by all, saying " All right General let the wagons move on" and with this the horses began to pull the wagons once more. No one could see anywhere or one one who could have spoken those words.By all accounts Kate did not spare the General and his men that night, they were subjected to the same taunts as the Bell family, pokes, prods, shrieks and bed covers ripped from them as they tried to sleep, she spared them no mercy.Jackson and his men left the following morning.Kate haunted John Bell till the day he died, for a fact some believe she was infact the actual cause of his death.It was in the year of 1830, the month of October that John Bell was believed to have suffered a stroke, and whilst lying bed ridden his family found him in a poor state. Shocked and alarmed by this his son went to the medicine cabinet to fetch what he thought was his fathers medicine, which infact turned out to be something very poisonous.It is alleged that after the medicine was administered, Kate could be heard with great delight saying that she herself had poisoned John the night before and the the last amount that had just been given to him, had then sealed his fate, and true to her word it was. The contents of the vial were examined and it was concluded that it was infact a very poisonous mixture.Kate obviously delighted at the demise of john bell, is said to have been heard singing happily at his graveside, and the singing could still be heard as the last person left.Was john Bell the first person to be killed by a poltergeist ? who really knows for sure.This is believed to be a true story and the famous American film " An American Haunting" and the " Blaire Witch Project" were born of this tales, many books have also been written as it became so popular.