Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky

by William Lynwood Montell

  For years and years after that, passersby at midnight could hear the footsteps of the dead old man, and see his lantern as he went about his nightly duty.

  86. “The Ghost in a White Nightgown”

  McCreary County

  One evening about six o’clock, when I was about ten or eleven years old, Mom was cooking supper. She always cooked big meals.

  Altogether, there were about ten of us kids and grandkids, and she sent all of us up the hill to get a gallon of cow’s milk from my great aunt. We didn’t know that no one was at home. We called out my aunt’s name, because she had a dog that would bite. We called her name three or four times. Suddenly, we saw someone who looked like a woman in a white nightgown walking slowly back and forth across the porch. We never knew who it was or what it meant.

  On certain nights now, I can see a woman holding a baby in her arms, looking out the window of that old house. That house is right above where my house is now.

  87. “The Haunted Abbot House”

  Elliott County

  Kentucky Highway 32 crosses into Elliott County out of Rowan, and runs on into Lawrence County. Along this highway here in Elliott County, near Newfoundland, is Brown Ridge, named for the prominent Brown family that settled there in the mid-1800s.

  Immediately east of the Wallace Brown place there is a deep valley that extends eastward to the stream known as Big Caney Creek. Today, the valley is completely overgrown with every form of vegetation from matted vines to huge oak and poplar trees. Today, no evidence can be found to indicate that a log structure, then known by older residents of the county as the Abbot house, once occupied a small plot of flatland near the head of the valley.

  The date when the Abbot family established residence in the valley seems to be unknown, and, in fact, there is no proof that Mr. Abbot was the one who erected the log structure. It is assumed that he did.

  Apparently, the Abbots lived there for only a short time before they moved from this old house, which would later become the home of various families, one of them being the Henry Jenkins family.

  During that particular period in the history of eastern Kentucky, there were very limited means of entertainment. But one that was popular was the Saturday dance, day or night. This form of entertainment usually took place in one of the local homes and always called for the community fiddler. In most cases, the local purveyor of “white lightning” made his appearance. This was the situation, then, at the Jenkins home in the late 1870s, or early in 1880.

  During the evening’s activities, Jenkins was said to have poked fun at Patrick Conn, a local man of limited mental capacity. Conn became angry at Jenkins’ jest and struck him on the head with a heavy object, which, according to old-timers, was a large rock. The blow killed Henry Jenkins. When the census was taken the following summer, Jenkins’ wife was listed as a widow with two small daughters, all three living in the home of her parents.

  Lying east of Big Caney Creek were the communities of Stark and Mauk Ridge. Anyone traveling from those communities along the crude road that crossed Brown Ridge often related strange, even frightening, events at the old abandoned house.

  Henry Porter, who grew up in the Stark area, married a young lady west of Brown Ridge. They made their home near there. When going to or returning from visits with kinfolk in the Stark community, he had to pass the Abbot house. In later years, he often related to a daughter-in-law some of the strange and unexplainable events he had witnessed at the “hainted house.”

  Perhaps Porter’s first encounter with the unexplainable occurred very late one evening when he was returning home from a day’s visit with relatives in Stark. He stated that as he neared the abandoned house, he heard the sounds of music, laughter, and the slapping of dancing feet coming from the old house.

  Thinking that a family had moved in, Porter tethered his horse to the paling fence that enclosed the yard and proceeded up to the front door. When he pushed the door open, to his amazement the music stopped instantly, and he was staring into an empty and silent room.

  Porter was said to be a man not easily frightened, but according to his own words, he made a hasty retreat to his horse and resumed his journey on home. But again, he was totally dismayed to hear the music and other jovial sounds commence as he rode away.

  Porter also related that on another occasion he was approaching the old house when he saw a small “snow white dog” come trotting down the road toward the house. Again, he assumed that another family had moved in but thought nothing of it until the small dog got to the gate in the paling fence. Porter swore that the animal just faded away like a vapor at the time it made contact with the gate. It did not reappear.

  Neighbors always said that Henry Jenkins went to the kitchen window at the same time each summer day and called his cows down to the stable where he milked them. As might be expected, various travelers who later passed by at that specific time reported that they could hear Jenkins calling his cows.

  Years went by, and a family with nowhere else to live moved into the Abbot house. In a short time, they told of frightening experiences they were suffering through. They swore to a local medical doctor that the old house was “hainted.”

  The doctor tried to convince them that there was no such thing as a “haint,” and that whatever they had witnessed could be explained. To prove it, the doctor told the family that he would come by some evening and demonstrate to them that the strange happenings were nothing more than some natural occurrence.

  Even though it was a bitterly cold, snowy night, the doctor tethered his horse to the hitching rail and joined the family in front of the large fireplace in the living room.

  As they talked, the latch to the front door lifted of its own accord and the door swung open. But no one was at the door. The doctor, convinced that someone was outside pulling the drawstring, reclosed the door and pulled the drawstring to the inside. Again, the latch lifted and the door swung open. This time, a prop was placed against the door, and even a huge chair was also placed against it. But nothing, absolutely nothing, would keep the door closed. The prop flew from its position and the chair was sent flying across the room by some mysterious force. It seemed like an evil force was present and was taunting the doctor.

  By that time, the doctor was thoroughly frightened by the occurrences and had to admit that he could not explain them. In fact, he was so frightened that he feared to return home that night. Despite the bitterly cold weather, he even refused to venture outside long enough to take his shivering horse to the stable.

  When Jenkins was dying, his blood flowed across the floor and dripped to the ground underneath. For many years thereafter, local people claimed that a red moss grew on the blood-soaked ground. An elderly lady that had lived in the house when she was a child told me that she had seen the red substance on the ground beneath the house, but she could not explain what it was.

  Many years went by. From time to time, families with nowhere else to live occupied the old house, and the ghost stories continued. One local man told me that when he was a young man, he was “talkin” with a young lady, a daughter of this man that lived in the old house. After leaving the house one dark night, a huge ball of fire seemed to rise from right under his feet and floated softly along until it faded from view.

  Sometime during the 1930s or early 1940s, a local moonshiner decided that this haunted house would be an ideal place to set up his illegal operation. Everything went well until a jar of his “white lightning” shattered when it fell to the floor. The whiskey splashed onto the fire and instantly the entire place was engulfed in flames. The distiller escaped, but his distilling equipment was destroyed, and the “hainted house” was reduced to ashes.

  The ghosts were never heard from again after that.

  88. “A Haunted Cellar”

  Allen County

  Before the outbreak of the Civil War, there were a few families in Allen County that owned slaves. One of these families owned thirteen to fifteen slaves, and they were
kept in small slave houses behind the main house. Although all the slaves lived in these quarters, there was a cellar in which the few slaves that were thought to need discipline were kept. There were shackles on the wall, and slaves might be kept chained up in the cellar for as long as three or four days in order to restore their usefulness to their owner.

  Since the man who owned these slaves was possessed of a very violent nature, no one said anything to him about the cruel way in which he treated these black people. About the time that Lincoln’s war began and the news spread around the country, the slaves began to make plans to run away since they knew they would never be released voluntarily. One night they ran away and escaped, except the two that were in the cellar at the time. The others fled north and were eventually helped to complete safety by people with antislavery sentiments.

  Their owner here in Allen County searched for them for about two days with no success, and he finally returned home. He was determined to carry out his vengeance against the two slaves that had remained chained to the cellar wall. His wife pleaded with him to let these slaves go, but he refused, and shot them both.

  After his fit of anger had passed, he became frightened because of what he had done. He buried the two bodies of the slaves in the cellar. He then locked the door to the cellar, and even boarded up the door. Shortly afterward, he joined the Confederate Army, and in the course of war was killed.

  His widow never reopened the cellar, and the few people who came to visit her reported that she went out of her way to avoid going near this particular door, although it was located in a very centralized position in the house.

  After a while, she became sick and died after a lengthy illness. The house was sold by the nearest of kin to a family from neighboring Barren County, and it seems that this family was not well acquainted with the house s history. They cleaned up everything, brought in all their own furniture, and reopened the cellar door.

  The cellar had a strange musty smell, which no amount of ventilation could get rid of. After a short time, the two children of the family told their parents that they heard strange noises at night which came from the vicinity of the cellar. The parents, of course, considered this only as a product of the children’s imagination.

  One night that summer, their mother woke in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. She could not account for this weird feeling, and suddenly she noticed that her husband was also awake. Both of them agreed that they had heard a strange noise from the general direction of the cellar. The husband got up and headed toward the cellar to investigate, while the wife stayed behind in bed.

  No one was ever certain exactly what happened, but the wife heard a cry, then a noise. She got up out of bed and went down to the cellar and there found her husband dead. He apparently had tripped on the top stair, fell into the cellar and broke his neck in the process.

  After he was buried, his wife and children moved back to live with her own family in Barren County. She sold the house after quite a while, at a great loss, to a family that had moved up from Tennessee. And after a while, they, too, insisted that they kept hearing strange sounds in the house. Although nothing drastic happened to this family, they soon moved out.

  Even though the house and farm were up for sale for a long time, they were never sold again. Nobody would buy that place. Now, only the foundation stones and a part of the cellar are all that are left of this old house. Until this day, people who are brave enough to venture out at night to this spot insist that they hear strange noises and smell an unusual musty smell in the area of the old cellar.

  I guess that those poor slaves are still getting even.

  89. “The Ghost of a Previous Owner”

  Boyd County

  We lived in this house on Bellefonte Road in Ashland. We had been living there a few months when I was awakened from a deep sleep dreaming that someone was looking at me. I quickly awakened, and to my surprise I saw a ghostly figure slowly rotating on the floor furnace in the middle of our hallway. As the ghost slowly rotated, our eyes finally met, and whatever it was disappeared at that very instant.

  This same sequence of events occurred many times. After seeing the male ghostly figure so many times, I began to sleep with my bedroom door shut. Sleeping with the door shut was not because I was scared or upset about repeatedly seeing this male ghostly figure, but rather because I liked to sleep in privacy, not being watched by a ghost.

  I remained very quiet about this ghostly being, not because I didn’t believe what I was seeing, but because I didn’t want to alarm or cause my children to lose any sleep over these occurrences. However, I did begin to ask questions to other adults in the neighborhood, when the children were not around, to see if I could figure out who this ghostly figure was when he was alive.

  After many conversations with these adults, I concluded that the ghostly figure was that of the man who had owned the house. See, we were only renting the house. The woman who rented the house to me didnt say anything about her deceased husband dying there in the house. I guess I just thought that he died in a hospital, as he died from a bout with cancer, if my sources are correct.

  Well, one evening we had some friends over, and we were all talking about ghosts and telling ghost stories, when my son began to describe the same male ghostly figure he had observed in our hallway. I was astounded to hear him say that he had seen this ghostly figure of a man on several occasions.

  This man’s ghost continued to appear to us on occasion until we moved from that house in early December 1991, after I married my present husband.

  We were never really scared or alarmed to see the ghost. He never caused us any problems or seemed to be seen anywhere else except on the floor furnace. I was told that he used to warm himself on the floor furnace when he was sick and very much alive. We just seemed to accept him being there, and he seemed to accept the fact that we were there in his house. We seemed to live in harmony together as long as we lived there in his house. We truly thank him for not harming anyone in our family.

  90. “The Ghost of Representative Donald Farley”

  Boyd County

  A ghost story is attached to the house in Ashland in which State Representative Donald B. Farley died on March 23,1993. He bought the house in the spring of 1973 as part of an estate. We saw the house as we were looking at houses with a realtor. After our appointment with the realtor was finished, we drove back over to this house to take a closer look at this recently abandoned house.

  We lined up in order of height to peer through the window there in the front door. Of course, I was the first in line, being that I have always been the least in height. We began to peer through the front door, when suddenly it popped open and I was standing in the front room. As a group, we began to go through the house looking from room to room. Very cautiously, we began opening doors to the rooms and closets. Spider webs hung in glorious array, and we expected to see a huge spider descend upon us at any moment.

  We kept looking around and really liked what we saw. It took several months to track down the heirs and get them to agree to sell the house. After we purchased the place, the remodeling proceeded as quickly as possible. We added a second bath, hung drywall, painted, and scraped several layers of wallpaper off a hallway downstairs. We then installed new kitchen cabinets, had the ceilings repaired; then came the new linoleum and carpet.

  We moved into our renovated house on Fathers Day in 1973. Mr. Farley lived there from June 1973 until his death in 1993. He had collected different types of what I will choose to call junk. He thought if he didnt pay much for something, it was indeed a bargain, no matter what the item was. Therefore his house was filled with many items from many yard sales, estate sales, auctions, and the like. Nothing he bought seemed to go with anything else in the house.

  There was a several-year period that I found it very uncomfortable, if not impossible, to sleep in that house. I had a feeling that something was in the house that didn’t feel comfortable being there. What was it? Was it s
omething from an auction or a yard sale? Perhaps we will never find out what I was feeling at that time.

  When I finally received the keys to this house, almost everything had been removed. There seemed to be a real peaceful, calm feeling in the house—something that had not been there for a number of years. I began to feel much better knowing that what had caused my uneasiness had now been removed from the house, and hopefully destroyed.

  We moved our furniture into the house that very evening. Then, we spent many long weekends there, either working or checking on the progress of the contractors. On many occasions, we would be sitting in the very room in which Mr. Farley died, watching television or a video, when we would hear what sounded like footsteps. We would just look at each other and say something about the noise, then continue to watch our show. We also continued to hear other sounds, such as doors opening and closing, or perhaps a creaking board, as though someone was tiptoeing around the house.

  We, as a family unit, have never seen the actual ghost. However, many weird things have taken place that all of us have witnessed. For example, we had a security system installed. It would be on when we left the house, but it was turned off when we got home. Or once I purchased a singing Christmas tree for entertainment purposes. We would turn it on when someone came into the house so that they could see it, and we could see their reactions when it began to sing. However, on more than one occasion, when everyone was in the dining room enjoying a home-cooked meal, the Christmas tree began singing of its own accord. Who was there in the living room by the Christmas tree? No one! Absolutely no one. Too, the tree was sitting in a position approximately at a 90-degree angle from the dining room, making it impossible for any motion in the dining room to be affecting the tree.

  To add to all this, a family moved in across the street from our house. We quickly became friends with them, and our children became real pals. They took turns spending nights with each other, as youngsters tend to do. Yet the little girl from across the street would wake up in our house extremely terrified.