Betty said she must have had a totally stunned expression on her face, because the first-grade teacher said, “Are you all right?” Betty said she just managed an “uh-huh.” The teacher told her the little boy was named Geoffrey, and she introduced him to Betty. Betty asked him, “Are you new here in town?” The youngster replied in a very strange manner for a first-grader. He looked up at her and said, “Yes and no. I know you. I’ve always known you.” Betty said it gave her the cold chills as she recalled seeing that very same little white face, those same dark-circled blue eyes, in her bedroom on that summer night visit.
Betty went on to tell me that all year little Geoffrey would try to sit as close to her chair as he could. He didn’t seem to want to mix with the other children, and she would catch him just staring at her. Sometimes he would lean over and say to her . . . “You know, I’ve always known you.”
The books the youngster seemed to like most were old-fashioned books, with illustrations from the late 1800s and early 1900s. He showed no interest in Ninja Turtles and space adventures like the other children.
This year the youngster is again at school, and he still comes to the library story sessions. Betty says he is beginning to mix more with the other children, but there is still something very strange, very disturbing, and rather sad, about the little boy. And he still continues to tell her . . . “Don’t you know? I’ve always known you.”
Has anyone any explanation for this? I have had several psychics suggest that this is a classic case, supportive of reincarnation. Have you a better explanation?
CHAPTER 3
History and Mystery in Far
South Texas
BRIGHT SHINES BAILEY’S LIGHTS
Docia Williams
Oh, there are lots of phantom lights
That light the still and foggy nights;
Lights that bob along a fence,
Or in the forests, dark and dense.
Lights, no bigger than a ball,
And lights, we’ve heard, near six feet tall!
Lights like those on Bailey’s Prairie,
Big, and bold, and downright scary . . .
That’s seen to come, and seen to go
’Bout every seven years or so.
Oh, so strange, these ghostly lights
That come to haunt our Texas nights!
The Light on Bailey’s Prairie
Down near Angleton there’s a place known as Bailey’s Prairie. “Brit” Bailey, for whom it is named, was one of the most colorful of Texas’ frontier characters. What was the truth, and what was fiction, has all gotten sort of tangled up over the years as different tale spinners talk or write about the colorful figure.
Brit, a hard-living, hard-drinking, sometimes controversial but always highly interesting Texas frontiersman, still seems to appear from time to time! At least that’s what folks around Bailey’s Prairie say. Bailey’s appearances, which take the form of a big ball of light, known as Bailey’s light, seem to take place about every seven years. Old Brit has carved himself a unique and permanent niche in the “Hall of Fame” of Texas “ghostdom.”
Having read numerous accounts of Bailey’s life, death, and subsequent hauntings, all of which did not always agree, I was delighted when I was contacted by his great-great-granddaughter, Mary Lou Polley Featherston, of Port Arthur. Her letter stated, “I was a Polley, great-granddaughter of Mary Bailey Polley, daughter of Brit Bailey. She married Joseph H. Polley who was also one of the Old Three Hundred. (This refers to Stephen F. Austin receiving permission from the Mexican government to bring 300 Anglo families into Texas in April of 1823.)
James Briton “Brit” Bailey was born on August 1, 1779, in North Carolina. He took pride in being descended from Robert Bruce of Scotland. As a young man, he moved about a good bit, and lived in both Tennessee and Kentucky. During the War of 1812 he served as a U.S. Navy captain.
In 1812 he packed up his wife, Edith Smith Bailey, and their family of six offspring, and came to Texas where they settled on a piece of property along the Brazos River in what is now known as Brazoria County. This land grant was under Stephen F. Austin’s jurisdiction. At first, it’s said that Austin tried to oust Bailey and his family when he (Austin) learned that Bailey had served time in the Kentucky state penitentiary for forgery. Bailey often stated it wasn’t serving in the pen that caused him embarrassment; it was the term he’d served in the Kentucky legislature that set heavy on his conscience. After paying his debts to society, Bailey packed up his family and came to Texas, just wanting a new start where they could be left alone. The settler finally got squared away with Austin, and while they were never really friendly, Austin accepted Bailey in July of 1824 as one of the “Old Three Hundred.” He was able to live and die on his original land claim, a “league of land.”
In 1824 Austin used Bailey’s cabin to meet with settlers who lived along the lower Brazos, where they took an oath of loyalty to Mexico’s federal constitution in 1824. At the same meeting a company of militia was organized, and Brit was appointed as a lieutenant. That same year he took part in the Battle of Jones Creek. This was a no-win fight between Captain Randel Jones and his group of some twenty-three settlers, and a party of thirty or so Karankawa braves who were camped on a tributary of the San Bernard River. The Indians had massacred some settlers, so Austin authorized Jones to go after them. Both sides suffered losses in the skirmish, and no one came out the victor.
Because he was a good talker, Bailey was often called upon by Austin to negotiate with the Indians.
Tired of the cramped conditions of his little cabin, in 1827 Bailey contracted with Stephen Nicholson and Peter Reynolds to build him a frame house 18 feet square, with 9-foot galleries on all sides. The finished house was painted bright red! Bailey paid the builders the sum of $220 in cash and the balance in cattle and hogs. A visitor to Bailey’s place in 1831 wrote to a friend that Bailey’s red house “sure had a novel appearance.”
Bailey became very successful as a cattle rancher and cotton grower and gradually expanded his land holdings until he owned a great deal of real estate from Houston south to the Gulf Coast.
The Mexican government evidently thought highly of Bailey, because in 1829 General Viesca commissioned him a captain in the militia.
Brit could be the epitome of the solid citizen; responsible and trustworthy, a good businessman and a good leader. But he had two faults. He loved his liquor, and he had a very short fuse. He thoroughly enjoyed a good fight, and when he was bored or just a little too liquored up, he’d pick a fight just for the sheer fun of it!
His short temper showed itself on many occasions. One time, when a horse he was riding wasn’t behaving to his liking, he reached down and bit the critter’s ear until the blood flowed. The mustang, not taking kindly to such ill treatment, bucked and threw Bailey to the ground. Not to be bested, Brit promptly took out his hunting knife and slit the poor horse’s throat!
One afternoon when his family was away, old Brit got pretty well inebriated. He hadn’t counted on the circuit-riding preacher knocking on his door to seek lodging for the night. Brit greeted the churchman with his customary greeting, “Walk in, stranger.” He told the preacher he could stay the night if he would agree to abide by the house rules. Not quite knowing what the “rules” were, the man of the cloth hesitated a minute, but needing a place to stay, he agreed, feeling quite sure the “house rules” couldn’t amount to much. After supper, Brit picked up his rifle and told the preacher to disrobe and then get up on the table and dance a jig that was called the “Juba,” an African dance popular with the local black population. The preacher told Brit he didn’t know how to dance, but a shot aimed at the preacher’s foot convinced him he could dance pretty well after all! He stumbled around on the table top, “jigging” as best he could while one of Brit’s black servants played “Juba” on the fiddle!
It was said that Brit was just about the hardest drinker in all of Austin’s colony, a dubious honor. The Bailey family histo
ry records tales of some of his most noteworthy sprees. One Saturday night, Brit, accompanied by a black boy named Jim, rode into town for a little partying. There was a revival going on, and most of Brit’s usual drinking companions had been dragged to the camp meeting by their wives. Brit was pretty let down. He and Jim rode on back out to Brit’s place, and after sitting under the old oak tree pulling on his jug for a good long while, Brit decided to liven things up a bit. He really lit up the night when he set fire to the corn crib, and sat drinking and admiring the flames till all his corn had gone up in smoke. It’s said he probably would have set fire to the house as well if his favorite daughter hadn’t arrived and talked him out of it!
There are all sorts of tales about Brit’s drinking escapades, and unfortunately, most of them are true!
Finally, the hard-drinking character took sick and died of what they called cholera fever on December 6,1832, at the age of sixty-three. At the time of his death his marital status was a subject of controversy, also. When he arrived in Texas in 1821, he brought his wife, Edith Smith Bailey, and their six children. However, an 1826 census of the Austin Colony lists his wife’s name as Nancy. In his last will and testament he left his property to his “beloved Nancy and our two girls, Sarah and Margaret.” The three surviving children that Brit and Edith brought with them to Texas were disinherited, without any “just cause.” In 1838 Elizabeth Milburn and Mary Polley petitioned to have the will declared null and void, claiming they were Brit’s legitimate children and that Nancy was only “represented” to be Brit’s wife. (She might have been a common-law wife.) The plea was first denied, and then the will was set aside in January of 1839, some seven years after Brit’s death.
Now, Bailey made some mighty strange requests concerning his burial, too. For one thing, he insisted he be buried standing up because he had “never stooped to any man while alive, and didn’t intend to change after death.” He wanted his gun placed over his shoulder, and his powder horn nearby. He wanted to be buried facing west, because he’d been moving in that direction all his life, and wanted to be facing in that direction when he crossed over into the next world. And one last request, he wanted a big, full, jug of whiskey planted right at his feet!
Nancy Bailey saw that his instructions were carried out. A huge hole, over eight feet deep, and “big around as a wash tub,” was dug in a pecan grove near the red house. The remains were placed in a pine coffin, and provided with a gun and ammunition as requested. But when Bubba, a favorite slave of Bailey’s, a giant of a man, came up with a huge jug of whiskey to plant at Bailey’s feet, Mrs. Bailey would have none of that. Bubba insisted that it was what his master had requested, but on that one request, Mrs. Bailey flatly refused. It is said she jerked the jug away from Bubba and threw it out the window. She said Brit had had more than enough of that stuff on earth, and she didn’t think he needed any wherever he was headed to in the great beyond. And that’s evidently what caused all the trouble to start out on Bailey’s Prairie!
Bubba used to talk a lot about old Brit. And he would always conclude his stories saying that “Marse Bailey don’t stand easy in his grave. He’s still out huntin’ dat jug of whiskey.”
A few years after Brit died, the place was sold to John Thomas, who brought his wife, Ann, there to live. He had heard tales that the old red house was haunted, but he hadn’t told his young wife. Soon after they moved in, business called John away. On a very dark night, Ann and a servant girl were sleeping in the bedroom when something suddenly awakened Ann. The night was very dark, but darkness had never frightened her. No, there was something different, a “presence” that she felt. She gazed towards the door and could barely make out the form of a big man. She instinctively knew that this was no mortal man. She knew she was seeing a ghost! As the figure seemed to drift towards her, she was far too frightened to scream. As it came to the foot of her bed, it seemed to stoop and grope around under the bed. Then the figure retreated to the doorway and disappeared.
The servant girl, named Malinda, had also been awakened by the figure. She was too petrified to cry out. She told Mrs. Thomas that she (Mrs. Thomas) was sleeping in the very bed in which Brit Bailey had died four years before! This thought brought no comfort to the frightened Mrs. Thomas, and she promptly changed bedrooms!
As soon as John Thomas returned from his trip, Ann told him of her experience, which he explained away as a nightmare, or just a figment of her overactive imagination. But she said she wouldn’t sleep in their bedroom again. He said he would go sleep in the room and show her that there was nothing to fear. In fact, he said, Old Brit had been a friend of his, and if he made another nocturnal visit, John joked he’d just get up and shake the old man’s hand!
Well, in the bedroom opposite to where she now slept, a few nights later Ann heard a terrible, unearthly scream. She could, and did, move this time. She burst into the room, and found her husband sitting on the side of his bed, rigid with fear. His face was streaked with sweat, and he was just able to gasp . . . “I saw him! It was old man Bailey. I saw him plain as day!” It wasn’t too long after that that the Thomases moved away from the big red house.
As the years rolled by, the old house that had belonged to Bailey stood vacant and forlorn. But something was still around. As new dwellings rose up on the other side of Bailey’s Prairie, people began to report seeing strange lights. In 1850 Colonel Mordello Munson was awakened by the mournful wails of his hounds. When he went outside to investigate, he found his dogs crawling on their stomachs, cowering in fear. Then he saw a great column of light, the size of a big man! It was some distance away. Although he and a friend pursued it for most of the night, on horseback, they were never able to catch up to the elusive and mysterious light.
People living around the Prairie still talk about the lights. It is my understanding that Catherine Munson Foster, the well-known Brazoria-area folklorist and writer, now owns Bailey’s Prairie. She wrote about it in her book, Ghosts Along the Brazos. She says the light would most often appear on late fall nights. It would circle around as if searching for something. Everybody who knew about Brit Bailey and his strange burial rites were convinced that his ghost was still abroad, searching for his jug.
Gradually the lights have lessened in size and intensity, until they seem to appear only once in a great while. Around West Columbia these days they say that Brit can only work up enough strength to shine his strange light every seven years. Some folks say he has caused cars to stop dead on the road, and some even say he caused a gas blowout when oil well workers worked too close to the site of his grave, an unmarked site somewhere up on Bennett’s Ridge that no one can seem to locate now.
If you accept the seven-year theory, then figure that Brit should be around again in about 1995. That is, if he is still searching. After so much looking for years and years, he may have found his lost jug by now and be well settled down into an eternal stupor.
The Legend of Knox Crossing
While researching the South Texas ghost situation, it became my privilege to enjoy a highly interesting correspondence with Wilbur Butler of Beaumont, who shares my interest in “spirits.”
Wilbur first heard the story of Knox Crossing from his mother, Wilma. He said it had been so long ago he can’t even recall when he first heard it, but it must have been over forty years back. His mother was a schoolteacher at Choate, a little community on Highway 239 between Kenedy and Goliad. She taught in the Mexican school. In those days, the Anglo and Hispanic children attended different schools, Wilbur explained.
Mrs. Butler said back in the early 1930s, one of her students, who was named Pedro Chavez, told her what had actually happened to him, and of course, she repeated the story to her family. Young Wilbur and some of his teenage friends investigated the area where Pedro had his strange encounter, but they never had a sighting. Years later, Wilbur and his wife and children visited the area and this time came back convinced that there was something to the story after all. Wilbur sent me the story he had wr
itten about Pedro’s strange experience and has given me the permission to quote it to you, just as he wrote it:
There is no such thing as a ghost, is there? This is the question that seventeen-year-old Pedro Chavez pondered as he walked along. The dirt road beneath his feet, lit only by the light of the moon, paralleled the San Antonio River down near the farming community of Choate, Texas. In the moonlight Pedro could make out an opening in the shadows in the trees up ahead. He knew the area well, and so he knew the break in the shadows, that indicated another dirt road intersecting the one on which he traveled. He must now follow its path on his way home, just as he had many times before.
It was late at night, for Pedro had stayed at the dance much too long. On previous occasions he had always left early enough to pass this way well before midnight. But he had so much fun dancing with all the girls, he let time get away from him. Anyway, as he danced, he kept telling himself, “There’s no such thing as a ghost.” It was easy to convince himself as the music played and he held pretty Maria in his arms. Now alone, as he trudged along the dark dirt road, it wasn’t quite so easy to believe!
As he neared the intersection of the roads, his pace grew slower. Stopping to check the time, he fumbled in his pocket for the watch he had borrowed from his father. By the light of the moon he could see it was 11:58 p.m. Pedro kissed the small gold cross that dangled from the watch fob, and made the sign of the cross across his chest with one hand as he stuffed the watch back into his pocket with the other. He now quickened his pace, hoping to get across the river before anything happened. As he reached the intersection, he stopped and peered around the corner. His knees trembled as he stood and looked over the river bridge in front of him. It was an old wooden structure with a heavy wood framework on both sides and across the top.
He had come to Knox Crossing, well known for its apparitions. Pedro had crossed over this bridge many times before and nothing had ever happened. But tonight a cold wind seemed to pass through Pedro, as he stood there, his heart pounding and his breathing becoming labored. Yet, he saw nothing. Just maybe, if he walked quickly and quietly, nothing would happen.
Ghosts along the Texas Coast Page 7