Haunted Houses and Family Ghosts of Kentucky

by William Lynwood Montell

  I woke up again one night with a start! She was leaning over me, almost touching my face. Nothing else happened that night, but a few months later, I saw her standing in my doorway. This time, she didn’t have on her night cap. Her curly black hair was parted in the middle and just reached to the bottom of her ears.

  Another night I awoke, raised up in bed and saw this figure coming from the hallway into my bedroom, then head on into the bathroom. For a moment, I thought to myself, “That’s one of my kids going to my bathroom.” Then I realized that there was no one in the house but me.

  At other times, my bed would begin to rock very slowly. When that happened, I’d think to myself, “Oh, here she is again,” and then she would gently punch my side. That happened about six times. And once she jumped up onto my bed and walked about three steps toward me, then flipped my fingers.

  I tolerated all this, but she went too far when she began to scratch the mattress. The sound seemed to come from beneath the mattress and springs. That went on for about ten minutes. “Okay, this is enough,” I thought to myself. So I grabbed my pillow and went to sleep in another bedroom; didn’t go back to that room for two weeks. We turned the mattress to see if scratch marks were there, thinking it might have been a mouse. We put mouse traps in the room, but nothing came of it.

  My daughter told her minister about this and told him that I was tired of it all. He suggested that I talk with my priest. Of course, my priest didnt believe in ghosts, but said that he would come and bless my house.

  Shortly after that, one night I awoke with a start, and this time I was frightened. I jumped out of bed and turned on the light, then glanced at the clock. It was exactly twelve o’clock midnight. This girl’s ghost was floating in the air near the foot of the bed, going in the direction of the window. I said aloud, “In the name of Jesus Christ, go to the other side.” She disappeared, and I haven’t seen her since that night.

  Who is she? It just may be that she is a former resident of the old historic house located next to mine.

  139. “A Ghost Woman’s Flowers”

  Pike County

  This tale is from the lower Johns Creek area, down past Lowe’s Branch, over in Pike County. I got it some twenty-two years ago from a friend of mine in Boy Scouts, who in turn heard it from his mother who told it as a personal experience. I’ll not use her real name since she still lives in that area. I can tell you, however, that she is a white woman, born in Pike County circa 1940. She is well educated, and for years was a science teacher in the Pike County schools. We’ll call her Shelly, and here’s her story.

  Not far below the hollow where Shelly grew up there was an old house down near the creek bottom. It was a two-story frame house with plank siding weathered in gray, and it had been abandoned for as long as she knew. She hadn’t heard any stories about it, but folks in that area always warned their kids to stay away from that old house, because tumbledown buildings aren’t safe places for children to be playing. But to the children, this only made the place all the more inviting. Still, Shelly was a mindful girl, so she stayed away from the old house like her parents told her.

  One early summer day when she was about ten years old, Shelly and one of her girl friends went for a walk along the creek bank. They walked along down the creek for a bit until they came up behind the abandoned house, and what should they see but the most beautiful flowers growing wild in the old back yard. Shelly s friend said to her, “Aren’t those the prettiest flowers you ever saw! Let’s pick some to take home with us.”

  “Well, no,” says Shelly. “My mamma said we shouldn’t go around that old place, so I couldn’t tell her where I got the flowers, and I can’t lie to her. Let’s just leave them here.”

  “But Shelly, we wont go in the house,” she said. “Your mamma wont mind if we just pick some from the yard; why nobody has lived here for years, so who’s to miss them?”

  So both girls went up and began to pick the flowers. They picked two handsome bundles of the prettiest blossoms, and when they had all they could carry, they decided to go home. They picked up their bouquets and were heading toward the creek on their way home when Shelly s friend glanced back and gasped, and that made Shelly turn around also. Coming out of the house was an old woman in an old-timey black dress, with big sleeves and a high collar. Her silver hair was pulled back tightly on her head, and she looked angry as she walked toward the girls. “What are you doing?” she said sharply. “Those are my flowers! You can’t have them, so put them down now and get off my property this instant.”

  That was all the girls needed to send them flying home as fast as they could run, dropping their flowers behind them as they ran. They never looked back to see if the old woman gathered up the flowers, or if she went back to the house, or if she just stood there watching them run. When Shelly had stopped running and her heart had stopped pounding, she realized that while she had heard the old woman’s voice, she did not ever hear a door close, or footsteps, or skirts swinging as the woman walked toward them. And, of course, she knew that there was no one living in that old house, nor had there been for years. Not a living soul.

  Shelly grew up, went to school and became a teacher. She taught for many years right up the road here, and she still lives on the creek, not far from where she grew up. The old house is still there, too, and she tells her own children not to go play around it, because it’s not safe. She’s never seen the old woman again, but she never picks flowers without asking.

  You probably shouldn’t either.

  140. “The Ghost of a Murdered Hired Hand”

  Simpson County

  Many years ago, there lived in the house in which my family now lives a woman, her son, and a colored hired hand. The son came in late from a ball game one night and cut the hired hand’s throat with a hatchet. No one knows for sure the exact motive. However, the most popular one is that the son found the hired hand in bed with his mother.

  This being a rural community, everyone was aroused, and several people gathered around the house within a short time. They said that immediately upon killing the hired hand, the son took his shotgun and headed for Robey Swamp. He returned to his barn to sleep the next night and was apprehended.

  His plea of insanity got him sent to an asylum instead of a prison. The boy is still living with his mother in the northern section of Simpson County.

  Some of the people in the community were a bit superstitious and believed that the man’s ghost would haunt the house. Subsequently, in a short time all kinds of stories were floating around about the house being haunted. We heard these stories from neighbors within a short time after we moved in.

  In the room in which the man was killed, blood is said to come up on the floor every time that it rains. There is a swinging door between the dining room and kitchen which swings sometimes when the wind blows just right. Some think that this is the ghost. There are big mirrors over the mantles in some rooms, and car lights can be seen flashing in them sometimes as there are roads all around the house. This is said to be another of the ghosts pranks. Other things, such as the brushing of limbs against the house give grounds for their ghost stories. One girl told me right after we moved there in 1946 that she wouldn’t spend a night in that house for one hundred dollars.

  141. “The Haunted Mansion of Ransom Avenue”

  Jefferson County

  A long time ago, where Goodwin’s Garage is now, stood a very old mansion known as the Ransom property from which Ransom Avenue in Louisville takes its name. They offered anybody free rent to go there and live. So I thought that this was a good chance for me. So with a good .44 pistol at my belt I seemed to have no fear, though to everyone around there it was known as the haunted house.

  I went upstairs and selected a room, and before retiring for the night, I took a two-by-four piece of timber and some spike nails and nailed this piece of timber against the door, put my .44 under my head, undressed, and crawled into bed.

  About midnight, this noise woke me up.
I set up real quick like in my bed and turned my flashlight on, but didn’t see a thing that would have made the noise. But I kept looking and finally the noise started up again. Suddenly, I could see that the timber was coming up a little at a time. I forgot that I had a .44. Anyway, I reached for my clothes, put them on in a big hurry, then raised the window and jumped out. And, man, I almost broke my neck when I hit the ground.

  But I got up real quick and started to run away from that old house, and I didn’t stop running until I got back home on West Main Street. Believe you me, after that I was well satisfied to stay there on West Main.

  142. “The West Point Lady in White”

  Hardin County

  Last year, there was a woman and a man who came to West Point from Illinois. She walked down to the river, then walked back to the house. There were a lot of people in the yard at the time. She acted real funny. Well, I was going out that night. She said to me, “Can I talk to you?”

  I said, “Yeah, honey, what do you want?”

  She said, “I lived here in this house in the 1970s, and my husband was in the army at Ft. Knox. I lived in Apartment One. Can I come in and talk to you?” I said, “You sure can.”

  I took her in the house. Then she told me, said that she was in the kitchen doing some ironing when this happened. That was after a flood in the 70s. She rented an apartment. She said the ceiling in the kitchen fell, and her husband was in bed, and the bed broke. And she said that they moved upstairs temporarily.

  The people that owned the house back then had a little boy, three to four years old. She said, “I was sleeping when this little boy got out on the back porch upstairs and knocked on the door. When I went to the door, he told me, said, “The lady in white kept me from falling off the porch.”

  Now, this woman from Illinois told me all this. She knew nothing about the strange things that had happened here in this house.

  143. “The Ghost That Sews at Night”

  Metcalfe County

  I’ve heard my mother tell about going to Aunt Rachel Kelly’s. I don’t know, but I think she was Uncle Jimmy Kelly’s wife. Tim Lee Carter would know; he’d know just exactly. There’s a place called the red house, up here in the edge of Metcalfe County.

  And Mother stayed all night there that night. She said that it sounded like pistols would fire in the fireplace. She said there was something strange that would just whisper, whip across the floor, just like somebody a-walking all night. She said along about one o’clock that night the sewing machine went to sewing. Said she thinks to herself, “Well, what in the world is Aunt Rachel sewing for this time of night? Why it’s nearly daylight!” And said she could hear the cloth, hear it ripping and hear the scissors a-snap-ping. Said the next morning, said Aunt Rachel come and set down on the side of Mothers bed. Said, “Sara Bell, did you sleep good last night?”

  “No,” she says, “there is some kind of racket here. I want to know what you was a-doing sewing on the sewing machine?”

  “Why,” Rachel says, “Child, I didn’t use the sewing machine last night.”

  “Well,” Mother says, “I thought, why would you be sewing at twelve o’clock in the night?”

  Rachel says, “I’m going to tell you, none of my boys won’t sleep in this room.” She says, “They say that this room is hainted. I don’t know. Now, in the basement here under this room, there’s some people that were killed in the time of the Civil War. The blood stains are still on the side of the walls down there now.”

  144. “Ghostly Noises and Other Things”

  Allen County

  David Calvert told this about the house he moved out of about thirty years ago in Allen County. It didn’t have as many odd things happening as his brother Phillip Calvert’s house off Kentucky 101. Former residents of this house have told numerous stories of pots and pans rattling in a built-in cupboard that had doors that flew open by themselves, a sugar bowl scooting across the table by itself, and a chair moving across the room by itself.

  Phillip Calvert says some people who were building a closet found their tools dumped out and scattered on the floor when they returned from lunch, and a man who was painting and wallpapering heard a cabinet door open and pans fall out and dishes break, but found no evidence that it happened.

  145. “Children’s Ghost Tale”

  Hardin County

  Once there was this great big, old, colonial-style mansion that was located out in the country. It was made of stone. And this family that had lived there, all of them died or had moved away. Finally, a family by the name of Tucker moved in.

  They had a little boy. Everyday he would go to the kitchen, and he would cry when he saw that the cellar door was open. He screamed and cried until they shut it. So every time they went to the kitchen, they had to make sure that the cellar door was closed so that Danny wouldn’t start screaming and crying. See, back in them days, the cellar was located under the house right next to the kitchen.

  Well, soon the little boy was old enough to go to school. So they took him to a psychiatrist. They told him that ever since the little boy was almost a baby, he was afraid to walk around by himself, that he was afraid the cellar door would be open. They had told him many, many times that they had put things in the cellar and that they had never found anything wrong with it.

  So the psychiatrist said, “Let me talk to Danny alone.” Well, he was talking to Danny alone, and he asked Danny what he thought was in the cellar.

  Danny said to him, “I don’t know, but I think it is something bad.”

  He said, “All right Danny, that’s all I wanted to ask you.”

  So the doctor fellow called the boy’s parents back in and told them to leave the boy in the cellar for at least an hour, with the light on and the cellar door open. They agreed to do that, and so a week or so went by before they did it.

  In the meantime, the doctor told another doctor about it. The other doctor told him, said, “You better not do that because it may destroy the child. It may kill him because of his fright.”

  So the doctor rushed over, but they had already put Danny in the thing. They didn’t hear a thing out of the boy. They didn’t know it, but the boy had been screaming and crying for a little while, then he stopped. When the doctor and the boy’s parents got into the cellar, they found him on the floor. He had fallen off from where he was sitting.

  When his mother looked at him, she started screaming. The doctor looked at him, and he also yelled out a little. And the father started to cry. What they seen was Danny laying there on the floor all chopped up and everything. He was dead. And the cellar door was wide open. They could see the blood tracks on the cellar steps where something had walked.

  Well, the doctor says, “I had no part in this. I didn’t say that you had to do it.” The mother and father just kept on crying. The mother kept on hollering, “Danny, Danny.”

  The parents never went down in the cellar after that. Soon they sold the old house and moved away, but before they left they closed the cellar up for good. They didn’t want anybody to be hurt like Danny was.

  Now, that’s a scary tale, whether it was a ghost or not.

  146. “The School Teacher’s Ghostly Return”

  Carter County

  This is a story about a school teacher out here at West Carter Middle School. He was a real active school teacher, a young guy. He died real suddenly; just dropped over dead. They have a banquet out here at this school, have it every year. Well, this little boy was walking through the hallway out there, and he heard a noise at the trash can. He turned around and looked and he seen this teacher that had died.

  When he went to his room and sat down in his chair, he thought to himself, “He’s dead.” So he got up and told his teacher about it. He said to her, “You’re going to think that I’m crazy but I just saw the teacher that died here.” She said, “No, you’re not crazy, because you’re not the only one who has reported that they saw him. Other people have reported seeing him, too.”

&n
bsp; The thing about that trash can is that one year when they had a banquet out there, someone put a cigarette into the trash can and it caught on fire. This teacher took care of that fire. He put it out, and ever since that time that’s where they still see him. That fire had nothing to do with his death, but that is still where he is seen. He was a wonderful man; real active in school, and helped young kids all the time. He died about four years ago, but it was just back in May 2000 when the little boy saw his ghost.

  147. “Weird Happenings in an Owingsville House”

  Bath County

  There’s numerous things that go on in this house in which we live there in Owingsville. From what we’ve heard, the house used to be used as some sort of convalescent home. It had about six bedrooms—four upstairs and two downstairs. There’s a full basement under the old house that’s kindly creepy. This old house is about one hundred years old.

  We sleep upstairs, and the stairs always creak at night. Sounds like somebody walking on the stair steps. I keep thinking that it’s my brother coming in late at night. But when I get up to look see what’s making the noise, there won’t be anybody there. Sometimes when I go into the house, I’ll swear that somebody’s talking to me. But when I go into another room to answer them, there’s nobody there. And you can get lots of weird feelings, like somebody is looking at you. It’s just real creepy. And doors can be heard closing by themselves. One day a lady was there in one room, and we were in another. We heard a peculiar noise as this door opened by itself. Neither of us would go near that door and this other woman wouldn’t either. Suddenly, the door just slammed to. But nobody was there by it.

  The strangest thing that happened has to do with my mother. She had liver cancer last year, and she passed away on January 12,1999. In the living room, there’s a screen door that doesn’t have a screen in it during the summer. Last summer I was standing there in the living room, and the air conditioner was on. A car pulled up on the outside, and there was a camper trailer setting on the other side of the street. I was standing there by the fireplace, looking out the window. I thought I saw reflections in the glass behind me. I looked around behind me, but whatever I saw wasn’t there. It was outside and it was my mom, who was almost translucent, walking across the carport in front of the camper trailer. She had been a nurse’s aide in a nursing home, and she always wore white scrub pants to work and a green button-up, short-sleeve blouse. She had red hair pulled back into a pony tail.