WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: Bell Witch 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.480 Happy Saturday. It is October. Today's classic is one where 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:10.560 we kick things off being very excited about it being October, 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.119 and that is the bell Witch. Oh. I love this 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.120 story and it originally came out on October fifth, twenty sixteen. 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:23.400 Enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:33.480 production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:39.440 Holly Frye and I'm Tracy d Wilson. Tracy, what is 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:44.440 that time of year again? Is that time Autumn? It's 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.800 the best time of year, not just Autumn, but halloweeny time. 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:50.800 So as we get into October, for any of our 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:53.720 new listeners that might not know, we can talk about 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.600 some fun spooks and haunts and scary stories. We can 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.920 talk about them year round, there's no law against it, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.640 but we like to get some extra spooky stuff going 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.840 on here as we get into the Halloween season and 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.000 make a special point. Yeah, it's a special enough point 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:12.039 that for long time listeners last year when literally the 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.160 first two podcasts in October were not Halloween, so people 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.560 got real mad. And today's topic is one that we 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.760 often get requests for, and it's a little bit tricky, 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.040 as many stories along these lines can be because a 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.039 lot of the information is not just apocryphal, it is 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.880 flat out made up. But we're going to talk about 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.360 how the legend of the Bell Witch became a well 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.120 known part of American lore. But first we are going 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.399 to indulge in the fall fantasy of talking about the 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.920 alleged paranormal story as it is often told. So the 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.920 primary account of the Bell family and what happened on 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.800 their Tennessee land is a book that was written in 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.720 eighteen ninety four by Martin van Buren Ingram, and it's 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:58.000 entitled An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch. But 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.920 that book was written more than seventy five years after 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.320 the events of the story, and even in the introduction 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:06.480 it kind of sets up this scenario that makes it 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:10.320 impossible to refute. Ingram claimed that he was working from 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:12.520 an account that was written by a member of the family, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.760 William Bell, and that the family had declined to publish 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.519 that account while any of the involved parties were still living, 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.960 but that he had come in and you know, managed 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.359 to make this deal and promised that he would tell 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.640 the true story. By the way that manuscript that he 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.079 claimed to have used, there's no evidence of it ever existing. 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.160 But he also and when I say he, I mean 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.440 Ingram also acknowledges that many people had already come to 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.040 the conclusion that the entire haunting was a hoax, possibly 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.760 perpetrated by members of the Bell family for some sort 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.240 of financial gain, but he dismisses that by describing how 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.080 William's account was written in an effort to clear the 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.000 family name and prove once and for all that the 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.200 whole thing really happened. It's one of the things that 0:02:57.200 --> 0:02:59.600 once he lays it all out there, like the rebuttal, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:06.520 is of nah. Right. So first we're going to talk 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.680 about the story as it is laid out in that book, 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.519 and then we will talk about it from a more 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.680 skeptical perspective. The story all starts with the family patriarch, 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.960 John Bell, who was born in Halifax County, North Carolina 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.959 in seventeen fifty. He apprenticed as a cooper for a while, 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:25.000 but eventually decided to become a farmer. At the age 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:28.040 of thirty two, he got married to Lucy Williams, who 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.480 was twenty years younger than he was. Yeah, that was 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.840 one of those things that when I first did the 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.400 math there I got real creeped out, and then I 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:41.400 was like, oh, this can't be right. And then I 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:44.160 kept looking at other sources and it kept lining up. 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.040 The couple had their first child, a son named Jesse, 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:51.800 eight years later, so at that point Lucy would have 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.760 been twenty in seventeen ninety, and the Bells initially did 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:58.800 really well with their farm in Edgecombe County, North Carolina, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.480 and they also had three more sons. Over the course 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.320 of several years. Starting in eighteen oh one, though, they 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.160 started to have issues with their crops, and eventually they 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.520 decided to leave that farm in North Carolina and move west, 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:14.200 as so many of their friends and acquaintances had already done. So. 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.599 In eighteen oh four, John, Lucy and their children, along 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:19.880 with a slave named Chloe who had been given to 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.039 the couple by Lucy's father when they got married, and 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:26.720 Chloe's eight children, made their way to Red River, Tennessee. 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.919 This is near the area that's now known as Adams, Tennessee, 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.120 which is not far from Nashville, and the Bells were 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.280 welcomed into the community, where John bought a home and 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.920 some property that included both barnes and an orchard, and 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.640 the family established their farm, and they were again pretty prosperous, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.440 and everyone really adored Lucy. That comes up over and 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.239 over that everyone just loved this woman. And over time 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.200 Bell added to his landholdings and he became one of 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:58.240 the most wealthy, influential, and respected men in the area. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.039 As the farm got bigger, as so often the case, 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.240 the family did too. The Bells had several more children, 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.600 including a daughter born in eighteen oh five named Elizabeth. 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.760 She was called Betsy, and she becomes central to this 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:16.760 whole haunting legend. After thirteen years in Red River, things 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.640 started to shift from the happy prosperity that the Bell 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:23.800 family had enjoyed up to that point. Initially, the first 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.799 thing that happened was that John Bell saw a weird animal. 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.839 He spotted a creature out in the cornfield that he 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.760 would later describe as having a dog's body and a 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.520 rabbit's head. He shot at it and he missed, and 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.480 one of his sons, Drew Bell, saw a massive bird 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:42.880 on a fence near the home. When he went to 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:44.880 get a gun to shoot at it, the bird, which 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.080 he thought was a turkey, revealed itself to be a 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:54.080 strange bird that he just couldn't identify. Betsy. At one point, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:56.159 was walking in the woods with the younger children of 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.000 the family one evening when she saw what appeared to 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.880 be a little girl in green dress swinging in the trees. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.080 That girl was not actually there. And then one of 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:08.480 their servants named Dean, claimed that he had seen a 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.520 black dog on his regular walks to visit who his wife, 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:13.640 who was also a slave and was owned by a 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.599 friend of the family named Alex Gunn, and this dog 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.320 would allegedly trot along in front of Dean while he 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.000 walked over to the gun home, and then the dog 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.800 would vanish just as they arrived there. The next strange 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.880 happening was a variety of tapping noises inside the family home, 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:32.479 and they couldn't figure out what the source of these 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.120 noises was. These noises had actually been going on for 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.520 some time, and at first they had been attributed to 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:43.279 much more ordinary things like the children being mischievous, but 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.640 it continued to get more frequent and louder. There was 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.599 a faint voice that the members allegedly started to hear. 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.400 It was too feeble for anyone to make out the 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.760 words or the songs, but they sounded like they were 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:01.560 coming from an elderly woman, and according to the Bell children, 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.040 their bedding began to be pulled off of them in 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.920 the night, and they also reported that animals, possibly rats, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.840 could be heard chewing on their bed posts, but that 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.920 whenever the noises were investigated and someone lit a candle 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.440 or tried to look, nothing was actually there. Then they 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.920 started to report that they heard what sounded like dogs 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.440 fighting in the house, and then there were sounds of 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.440 chains on the floor, and then additional creepier noises were 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.920 also detailed in William Bell's account, including what sounded like 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.760 the smacking of lips and occasional gulping. Those are like 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.040 the sort of great details for me, Like that's such 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.000 a good creepy noise detail. Like if you were just 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.080 lying in bed and you heard what sounded like someone 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.920 gulping or smacking their lips near you, wouldn't that be 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.000 delightfully creepy? And at this point, the symptoms of their 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.920 haunting are kind of like a haunting Schmorgus board. It's 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:59.120 like we're just gonna have a buffet things happening, and 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.440 then we're gonna new strange things and then different strange things. Yeah, 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.200 and the next strange thing was that William recounted that 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.800 he felt as though someone had grabbed his hair in 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.480 the night and began to lift him off the bed 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:18.440 by his head with it. So this elderly woman's frail 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.200 voice we've been talking about that had been too faint 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.480 to make out not so much the case when speaking 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.760 to Betsy. This witch is said to have given some 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:32.920 very clear direction that Betsy should not marry her intended, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.720 which was a boy named Joshua Gardner. And we were 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:37.800 gonna get back to that in a little bit, but 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.600 before we talk about how the family handled all of 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.080 this wacky stuff that was happening. Like Tracy said, it 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.360 is sort of the haunting Smorgasboard. We're gonna pause for 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:59.559 a word from one of our fantastic sponsors. So getting 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.600 back to the John Bell, the patriarch of the family, 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.280 started to have some medical issues during all of this, 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:10.360 and his condition gradually worsened. Initially, it was described as 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:13.800 quote a stiffness of tongue. So when he was having 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.520 an episode of this illness, he couldn't eat, and he 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.120 described it as feeling as though a stick was lodged 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:24.280 sideways in his mouth between his cheeks preventing him from eating, 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:26.240 so when he would try to eat, the food would 0:09:26.320 --> 0:09:29.319 kind of fall right back out. At first, john was 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.000 encouraging the family to keep the strange happenings at the 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:35.440 farm and his mystery illness under wraps, but eventually he 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.360 disclosed what was going on to a neighbor and friend 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:43.280 named James Johnson. Johnson and his wife spent a night 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:45.960 at the Bell home at John Bell's request, and they 0:09:46.000 --> 0:09:48.280 were hoping that they could maybe shed some light on 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:51.520 this situation and offer an outsider's perspective as to what's 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:55.760 going on. And after leading the family in prayer and 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.280 then retiring to bed, Johnson and his wife witnessed the 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.400 same Finni that the Bells had been experiencing, including hearing 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.319 all of the noises in racket, having their bed covers 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.960 pulled off of them as they slept, and mister Johnson 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.920 apparently had the presence of mind to try to speak 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.960 with the mysterious entity, and he determined that a it 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.679 was intelligent and b it would cease its actions when 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.560 spoken to, and then c that John Bell should no 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.840 longer keep this situation secret, but should seek the help 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.800 of the community. So a lot of people started going 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.679 to the Bell Home to visit and to investigate this spirit, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.240 who at this point people were saying was called Kate, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.160 And really all they were figuring out was that Kate 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.840 really hated John Bell and seemed like basically a gossipy, 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:46.360 busybody and not an actual problem. Her manifestations did start 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.960 to have become stronger, and it became clear that she 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.320 was speaking Bible verses and singing hymns. When asked who 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:56.000 she was and what she wanted, she replied, I am 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.920 a spirit. I was once very happy, but have been 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:04.080 disturbed later after she grew more adept at communicating. The 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.440 spirit apparently said that she had been buried nearby, but 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.560 that her grave had been disturbed, and that one of 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.840 her teeth was under the Bell Home and she was 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.160 looking for it. Yeah, there is a whole wack a 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:20.480 doodle story about an animal's head showing up and a 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:22.400 tooth falling out of it and into a crack in 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:27.360 the floor, but we don't know well. And this whole 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.360 thing we were talking about before the break, that was 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:31.679 like and then there were noises, and then there was singing, 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:33.640 and then there was levitation, and then there was someone 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.000 grabbing my hair. I'm like, none of these things are 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.040 really creepy to me. But then we get to this 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.200 part where she's like, and my tooth is under your house, 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.880 and I'm like, all right, come out out of the story. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:51.320 Ghostly Dentistry is where Tracy draws the line. And this witch, though, 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.480 was devoted to John's wife Lucy, just like everyone else. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.000 She loved Lucy, And as we said, she had come 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:01.319 to be known as Kate, and this consequently has associated 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.560 her with a neighbor of the Bells, a woman named 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:05.760 Kate Bats. And we're going to talk about Kate Bats 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.680 a little bit later in the episode, and there's even 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.760 the suggestion that she, this disembodied voice claimed herself to 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:19.720 be Kate Bats. But whatever her true origin, whether it 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.920 was Kate Bats or just a mystery person, she became 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.240 downright famous in the area, and for a time she 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.479 almost seems to have been seen as a good influence. 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.360 People were just afraid enough of her that they lived good, 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:38.160 honest lives. According to Ingram's writings, quote, everybody got good. 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:42.760 The wicked left off swearing, lying and whiskey drinking. The avaricious. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.120 We're careful not to covet or lay hands on that 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.440 which belonged to their neighbors, lest Kate might tell on them. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:51.080 No man allowed his right hand to do anything that 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.439 the left might be ashamed of, And the story of 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:59.280 what the spirit was troubled about, i e. That lost tooth, 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.800 among other things, did not stay consistent, though, so later 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.680 she told a visitor that she had once had a 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:07.960 great deal of wealth, but had buried it, and she 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.199 would only tell Betsy Bell the location of this buried treasure. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.040 She later eventually told several men in the family as 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.840 well as close friends of the family, on the stipulation 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.200 that they give every dollar that was buried to Betsy. 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:24.800 And these men went out and they dug, and they 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.920 dug in the named spot, which was this very tricky area. 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:29.800 I think it was near a stream, but it was 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.000 like a there was a lot of heavy rock over it. 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:38.640 And they found nothing. And the spirit when they reported 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.560 back to the house that no, there's nothing in that spot, 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.920 the spirit allegedly laughed at them that night and taunted 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.600 them for being so easily duped. In eighteen eighteen, as 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.760 the stories of Kate were becoming a lot more well 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.720 known in the area, the church excommunicated John Bell. Sometimes 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.480 this is reported as being due to his association with 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.200 supernatural events, but there was a more mundane element to 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.960 the story. You're going to talk about it in a bit, yeah, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.840 and I will give you a slight spoiler alert that, 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.600 for my money, the reason he was excommunicated is way 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:17.840 more troubling than any paranormal thing. There was also allegedly 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:21.880 a notable human visitor to the Bell farm in eighteen nineteen. 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.240 The claim is that Major General Andrew Jackson came to 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.040 stay and during the War of eighteen twelve, the three 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.400 eldest bell Sons had served under Jackson at the Battle 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:36.080 of New Orleans. Jackson had heard, according again to this 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.080 tale of the alleged haunting, and even made a joke 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.280 that the witch must be holding them up when the 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.400 horses he was that were part of his travel group 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.200 suddenly stopped as they approached the Bell farm, and according 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.200 to Ingram's accounts of the visit, this entourage that was 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.600 following Andrew Jackson was intending to spend a week there, 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:58.880 but they left after just one night. She went on 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.960 to spend different arns to subsequent visitors to the Bell 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.160 home claiming at one point to be the spirit of 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.960 a young girl and another to be the ghost of 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:11.840 a family friend's stepmother. Nothing was consistent, much like all 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.960 the earlier symptoms of the haunting, and it seems like 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.120 things were shifting away from jovial toying into being a 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:25.400 little more sinister. At one point, when family friend William 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.480 Porter was staying at the house, Kate claimed to want 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:30.880 to get in the bed with him, and he said 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.680 that the bedcovers slowly twisted into a human shape next 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.720 to him and sort of curled up next to him, 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.920 and thinking at that point that he had the witch captured, 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.720 Porter picked up all of those bedclothes and intended to 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.720 throw them in the fire, but they began to emit 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.520 a really foul smell and he dropped them on the floor. 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.320 In September of eighteen twenty, Lucy Bell had pleurisy, and 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.560 the spirit allegedly acted as a nursemaid, singing to her 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.680 and checking in on her and what's described as a 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:03.680 very loving way. According to William's account, Kate even brought 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:10.320 hazelnuts and grapes to the sick woman, and the manifestations 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.520 then had shifted from irritating we said, they kind of 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.120 ratcheted up and were less jovial, but then they became 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:22.440 downright chilling. So Betsy Bell began experiencing attacks that harkened 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.160 back to the descriptions of spirit torture from the Salem 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.560 witch trials that had happened more than one hundred years 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:31.240 prior to the events on the Bell farm. She described 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.000 the sensation of feeling like she was being pricked with 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:39.000 pins and as though she was being slapped by a disembodied, 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:43.320 non corporeal hand, and her friends actually said that they 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.600 witnessed welts appearing on her face and saw at times 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.040 even her shoes being forcibly pulled off of her body. 0:16:50.480 --> 0:16:53.480 The attacks on Betsy slowly subsided, but as they did, 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.160 John Bell's health really deteriorated. He started having spells that 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.000 lasted a day or two, during what his tongue would 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.280 once again seem to stiffen and his face would go 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:06.960 into spasms. Once these spells had passed, he seemed to 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:09.040 be in fine health and he went about his life, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.800 but the incidents became more frequent and longer and more 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.879 severe over time. Additionally, John Bell was tormented in a 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.840 more assaulted way he started to experience this feeling of 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.879 being slapped in much the same way that Betsy had described, 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.159 as well as also having his shoes jerked off his 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.560 feet repeatedly as he attempted to walk in the fields. 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.040 On the morning of December nineteenth, eighteen twenty, John Bell 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.520 could not be roused from sleep. A vial was found 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.600 near his body that contained a dark liquid, and according 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:45.479 to William's story, the family sent for a doctor from 0:17:45.560 --> 0:17:48.159 Port Royal, and the spirit could be heard saying that 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.159 the family patriarch would never rise from his bed again. 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.280 This part's really hard for me, So if you're an 0:17:55.280 --> 0:18:00.000 animal person, maybe don't listen for the next twenty seconds. 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.159 Contents of that mystery vial were tested by giving it 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.800 to a cat, and that cat, of course, quickly died. 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:08.680 The remaining bits of liquid were thrown in the fire 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.359 and then produced a blue flame. John Bell died on 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.160 December twentieth, and the witch is said to have sung 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.080 joyously throughout his burial there on the farm. After John's death, 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.280 the spirit is said to have largely stopped in her activities, 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.160 although she lingered into eighteen twenty one before she told 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.399 Lucy that she would go but return another seven years later. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.720 Of course, she stayed true to that in Ingram's book 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.520 and appeared at the farm again in eighteen twenty eight. 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.600 So when she reappeared, she started doing the same sorts 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.040 of things as she had been doing early on in 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.120 eighteen seventeen, tapping around the house pulling covers off of beds. 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.320 But this only went on for two weeks and then 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.600 Kate once again vanished. So at that point William, his 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.600 brother Joel, and their mother Lucy were the only people 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.679 still living in the house, and they had all agreed 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.040 to it nor the spirit and not engage with it. 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.240 And apparently that worked, as she left the Bell family 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.600 seemingly for good. And now that we've given some of 0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.560 the highlights of the Bell Witch's time in Tennessee, as 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:15.920 based on William Bell's alleged recollection, we will talk about 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:19.159 things from a more critical perspective. Before we do that, 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.160 we're going to take a brief word from a sponsor. 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.600 There are a lot of theories about the reality of 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:38.880 the Bell Witch and what was actually going on at 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.800 this farm if it was a ruse. One of the 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.760 theories is that someone wanted to break up the relationship 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.600 between Betsy Bell and her fiancee, Joshua Gardner, and if 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:51.400 that had been the motivation, the ruse was in fact successful. 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.080 Betsy was frightened enough by the witch's admonitions against her 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.560 marriage to Gardner that she broke up with him in 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.439 eighteen twenty one. One of the can Temprairie explanations, and 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:04.280 one that we alluded to in the intro to the episode, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.560 was that two of the Bell boys had learned ventriloquism 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.119 when they had traveled to New Orleans on trading trips, 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.159 and then they had taught Betsy the skill, and the 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:16.119 three of them got together to basically lonch to make hopes. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:18.879 But there were some times during these events of the 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.320 alleged haunting when one or the other of the Bell 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.959 boys was away from the family home, and then there 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.920 were also times when all three of them were present 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.920 in plain sight when the noises in the witch's voice 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.600 were heard. And Betsy was, by all accounts a lovely 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.199 girl and very bright as well, who was admired by 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.040 virtually all of the young men in the area, and 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.679 there have been theories that a romantic rival may have 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.280 been behind the hauntings. And while the issues began when 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.200 she was only twelve. By the time she had been 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:51.960 moved to break up with her longtime sweetheart Joshua, she 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.399 was sixteen. One of the more likely suspects in the 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.119 whole suitor theory is a man named Richard Powell. Richard 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.399 had been the Belchi children's teacher, but as Betsy grew 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.480 toward adulthood, he seemed to take a romantic interest in her, 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:07.920 and he was also a close friend of the family. 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:11.640 And one of the things that makes Powell look so 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.800 suspicious is that while he did not apparently tell his 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.880 friends in the area he was married, his wife Esther, 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.840 was almost twenty years older than he was, and she 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.280 died of unspecified causes the same year that Betsy finally 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:30.720 broke off her engagement to Joshua Gardner. And I just 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.040 want to note that while this is mentioned in several 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:37.680 texts with a citation of the records of Robertson County, Tennessee, 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:40.040 I found this little bit of information too late in 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.679 the game to actually get eyes on those records for confirmation, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.920 but it does show up in multiple different accounts. Richard 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.760 Powell started to openly pursue Betsy after her ties to 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.840 Gardner were severed, and he and Betsy were married in 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:58.000 eighteen twenty four. Richard died seventeen years later, and Betsy 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.320 remained a widow for the rest of her life her 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.160 death in eighteen ninety. So, yeah, some people think that 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.560 that sort of chain of events points circumstantially to Richard 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:11.440 Powell having orchestrated the whole thing. And remember that thing 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:14.920 about John Bell being excommunicated from the church. It did 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.880 not have to do with anything paranormal. It actually had 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.840 to do with some shady lending practices and some usury 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.040 in relation to the sale of slaves. So John Bell 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:29.920 was basically making some shady business deals and the church 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.399 did not like that, so that is why he was excommunicated. 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:34.680 It did not have anything to do with demonic possession. 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.200 Another incongruity from the Ingram Book, which is the primary 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:42.840 source that most other Belwich authors draw from, is that 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:46.840 visit from Andrew Jackson. There's never been anything to document 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.320 Jackson making this trip. And Andrew Jackson never wrote about 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.400 it in his personal diaries. One would think that such 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:57.159 a novel experience would merit at least a line or 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:01.560 two in a diary. Yeah, and As for Kate Bats, 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:04.600