Kentucky Hauntings

by Roberta Simpson Brown

  Ronald lay dead on the ground. His face had three claw marks. His gun had been fired once. The rocks were covered with blood, as if he had tried to use them to defend himself. Signs were evident that something like a tail had been dragged along the ground.

  Ronald's death was ruled as “death by an unknown animal attack.”

  The hunters thought about it over and over in the next year. Of course there was no such beast as the one they had described to Ronald. It was just a coincidence that some animal had come out of the woods and killed him. They put it out of their minds and went on their annual hunt. Nobody mentioned the fool's errand they had sent Ronald on the year before.

  They sat around the fire and ate their supper. They were thinking about turning in for the night when faint sounds came from the woods. The sounds came closer and closer, and the hunters realized they were hearing the sound of someone beating two rocks together.

  “Swamp Booger! Swamp Booger!” a voice called softly.

  The frightened men dashed water on the fire, grabbed their gear, and loaded it on their truck. They drove as fast as they could and never looked back. Their hunting consisted of day trips from then on. None of them was foolish enough to go back into the woods at night again.

  Rest for the Traveler

  We travel a lot with our book signings and storytelling, and we take for granted the reserved room at a hotel or motel, hot food and hot showers, and the privacy of a room to ourselves where we can rest and feel safe. We live across the street from a historic inn, which gives us an idea of how it must have been long ago. There are lots of tales about peddlers and old inns, but this one illustrates the conditions we imagine.

  In the old days, hotels and motels did not dot the landscape of our country like they do now. Now when we travel, we take these luxuries for granted, but this was not always the case. In early times, traveling salesmen (or peddlers, as they were often called) could not call ahead and reserve a room for the night. They had to depend on the hospitality of people who lived along the route they traveled to put them up for the night. This practice usually worked out well for all concerned. People living far from town welcomed a chance to buy things they needed from the peddlers, and they enjoyed the company and the news that the peddler passed on. The peddlers appreciated the food and a place to sleep, whether it would be a bed inside the house or a bed in the hay in the barn.

  Naturally, there could be complications. Sometimes a peddler would encounter an unscrupulous host who would notice the peddler's money from prior sales. After offering the peddler a bed, the greedy host would wait until everyone was asleep and take action. He would kill and rob the unsuspecting peddler and dispose of the body somewhere nearby. Since there were no records of these travelers, the murderer would say that the peddler had left early or maybe never came by at all. Such disappearances were rarely pursued or solved.

  The large farmhouse set among the trees was a happy sight for the peddler. He had done well so far, but he was getting too tired to go on to the next town. He stopped and showed his wares to the occupants of the house, and was pleased with his sales there. When his host extended an invitation for him to spend the night, the peddler gladly accepted the offer. He was especially happy to have shelter that night because a nasty storm was brewing, and he didn't want to be caught in it trying to get to the next town.

  The farmer's wife hurried to get supper on the table before the storm hit. She didn't like having her hands in dishwater when lightning was in the air for fear it would shock or strike her. She was relieved that they finished dinner and the dishes just as the storm arrived in full force. The lightning danced on the rooftop, and the rain poured down in sheets.

  It was a great night for sleeping, so they all retired early. The farmer's wife made a pallet for the peddler on the floor in front of the fireplace. He placed his pack beside him on the floor. The farmer had seen quite a lot of money in it when he paid him earlier.

  “You should rest well here,” said the farmer. “We will try not to disturb you, but my wife will insist that we go to the cellar if the storm gets worse. She is afraid of storms.”

  The peddler assured the farmer that he would be fine. They said goodnight, and all went to sleep except the farmer. He lay awake thinking about all the money the peddler was carrying.

  That money would pay off all my debts if I had it, he thought. A wicked plan began to form in his mind.

  While the storm continued, the farmer slipped out of bed and crept into the living room. The peddler was sleeping peacefully on the floor, his pack beside him. If he heard the farmer's footsteps, he probably thought it was the family going to the cellar. The peddler's rest was undisturbed until the farmer picked up the poker and bashed in his head with one blow.

  With his actions covered by the noise of the storm, the farmer dragged the peddler's body to the cellar. He hid it in an old rug, knowing it would not be discovered until he could take it out and bury it later. He made a second trip to get the peddler's pack with his goods and money, and hid the pack in a trunk in the corner of the cellar. He cleaned the poker and went back to bed. Sometime before dawn, the storm moved on.

  The next morning, the farmer's wife was surprised to find the peddler gone. She had expected him to stay for breakfast.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “He left as soon as the storm let up,” her husband told her. “He said he wanted to get an early start.”

  She knew that peddlers did want to get an early start sometimes, so she thought no more about it. Soon after, while the wife and children were visiting neighbors, the farmer took the body and the trunk with the money out of his cellar and buried them where only he would know where to look. He figured he could get whatever amount of money he needed from the trunk when he needed it.

  The farmer was shrewd enough not to pay off all his debts at once. He did not want to make anyone suspicious. He justified his killing the peddler by telling himself over and over that he had worked hard all his life and deserved some good luck, even if he had to create it for himself. Now all he had to do was wait and spend the money a little at a time. Nobody would suspect a thing. He would not have to pay for this crime.

  Some time later, another storm came up right after supper. There was no guest that night, but the family ate early and went to bed as they had done before. The farmer's wife was just dozing off when she heard noises in the living room. She heard footsteps, a thud, and the sound of something being dragged to the cellar. She gave her husband a shake.

  “Wake up!” she said. “Somebody is in the house.”

  “It's just the storm,” he told her.

  “No!” she insisted. “I heard something inside!”

  Just to satisfy his wife, he got out of bed and went into the living room.

  “Nothing's in here!” he called.

  “Check the cellar,” she told him.

  She heard her husband open the cellar door, and then she heard him scream! She sat up in bed as she heard what sounded like an inert body thumping from step to step to the bottom of the stairs. Her children were out of bed now and joined her as she hurried down to where the farmer's body lay. Nobody knows what he saw, but the look of fright on his face sent the wife and children running up the stairs to send for the sheriff.

  The sheriff concluded that the farmer had tripped accidentally on the stairs and fallen to his death. He saw no reason to search the cellar.

  The family tried to stay on in the house, but on stormy nights strange sounds kept them awake. They searched, but they could never find the source. Finally, they had to move away. Others bought the house and heard the same noises. One farmer plowing the field near the barn turned up the remains of a man and a trunk filled with money. The sheriff had no proof, but it was evident what had happened. Nobody wanted to live there after that, so the house was eventually torn down.

  Since the peddler was never given a proper burial, some wonder if his ghost is still out there somewhere on stormy nigh
ts, hoping someone will help him find eternal rest.

  Stories from Headlines

  Our families were very interested in the news they heard. We did not get daily or weekly newspapers, but our relatives in cities would sometimes send us newspapers or articles. Discussion of a particularly dramatic story would go on and on. There are so many stories on TV, computers, or in newspapers and magazines today that any one story does not remain as popular. New stories come along so fast that a story that captures the imagination one day is replaced by another the next day.

  Some of the best stories passed on to us were those that the tellers learned from headlines and news articles. We didn't often see these sources ourselves; some of these stories happened before we were born. In this section we retell stories that intrigued friends or family enough that they read them and passed them on in their own words. Some of the original news articles may still be found in newspaper archives or on the Internet. To find them, just type the subject of the story into your computer and search the Internet.

  The Ghost of Floyd Collins

  A Kentucky death that made national headlines back in the 1920s was the death of Floyd Collins. Sand Cave in the Mammoth Cave area of central Kentucky is said to be haunted by Collins, an explorer who was trapped and died in the cave in 1925. This was exciting news to our families because it happened not too far away from us. We had relatives in the area. Thus, the story of Floyd Collins was close to our community and our hearts.

  The Collins family owned Crystal Cave near Mammoth Cave. Crystal Cave was beautiful, but it attracted few tourists because of its isolated location. The owners of the various caves in the vicinity competed for tourists in those days, and Collins wanted to find another entrance to the underground cave system that might result in more tourists visiting his family's cave.

  For three weeks, Floyd Collins worked on his plan to find an entrance or connection. During that time, he worked alone, exploring and expanding a hole that the news media would later call “Sand Cave.”

  Collins worked a few hours in Sand Cave on January 30, 1925, and managed to squeeze through some narrow passageways that he claimed led to a large chamber. His lamp was dying, so he decided to leave before exploring this chamber.

  As he was leaving, Collins accidentally knocked over his lamp, extinguishing his light. That made his attempted departure even more difficult. Unable to see where he was going, he dislodged a rock from the ceiling, pinning his left leg and making it impossible for him to get out. Later, it was determined that the rock weighed only 26½ pounds, but the way it was lodged prevented him and his rescuers from reaching it. It was also discovered later that he was trapped just 150 feet from the entrance to the cave and 55 feet below the surface.

  When Collins didn't come home, friends searched and found him the next day. They took him hot food and ran an electric lightbulb down into the passage to give him some light and warmth. Rescue efforts were started, but the unstable passage collapsed in two places on February 4. This eliminated his food and water supply and all contact except by voice. The rescuers believed the cave to be dangerous and impassable at this point, so they began to dig an artificial shaft and lateral tunnel in an attempt to reach Floyd through another chamber. Their efforts failed, but they kept trying to find something that would work.

  Soon the life-threatening predicament of Floyd Collins caught the attention of the media, and people came from all over the country to visit the site where Floyd was trapped. A kind of carnival-like atmosphere took over as Floyd was trapped and dying. His own family is said to have made a nice amount of money from selling Floyd Collins souvenirs. Reporters sent stories to their papers across the country, and everybody waited and prayed for his rescue. Tragically, that was not to be. Rescuers finally reached him on February 17, but by then he was dead from exposure, thirst, and starvation.

  At that point, rescuers decided that it was too dangerous to attempt to remove the body, so they left it as they found it and filled up the shaft with debris. Later, a doctor estimated that Floyd had died three or four days earlier, probably on February 13.

  A funeral service was held for Floyd Collins on the surface of the cave, but this did not seem right to his brother Homer. Sand Cave did not seem to Homer Collins like a proper resting place for his brother, even though notable explorers in Europe were often buried in the caves they discovered. Two months later, Homer and some friends reopened the shaft, dug a new tunnel, and were finally able to remove Floyd's body on April 23, 1925. On April 26, Floyd's body was buried on the Collins homestead near Crystal Cave. Later the cave would be renamed Floyd Collins Crystal Cave in his honor. It seemed that Floyd would finally be able to rest in peace, but stories about him tell us that his rest was not for long.

  In 1927, Floyd's father, Lee Collins, sold the homestead, along with Floyd's grave and Crystal Cave. By June 13, the new owner had thought of a wonderful tourist attraction. He had Floyd's body placed in a glass-topped coffin and exhibited it for many years at the entrance to Crystal Cave. People say it was a profitable move because many people came and paid to gawk at a man who had become a legend.

  Later, other stories circulated. As if it were not disturbing enough for people to pay to look at this unfortunate man, someone stole his body on the night of March 18–19, 1929. Some people thought the owners of the property might have done it for publicity to increase tourist interest, but they had no proof. Others thought it was a prank, but nobody ever knew for sure. The body was soon recovered not far from the cave, but Floyd's left leg was missing. The leg was never found.

  After this theft, the body was kept in a chained casket in a secluded section of Crystal Cave. Most of the family had long objected to Floyd's casket being placed in the cave for public viewing.

  In 1961, Crystal Cave was purchased by Mammoth Cave National Park and officials closed it to the public. At the request of the Collins family, the National Park Service removed Floyd's body and interred it in the Flint Ridge Cemetery on March 4, 1989. It took a team of fifteen men three days to remove the casket and tombstone from Crystal Cave and take it to its final resting place.

  After the long ordeal of his stay in the cave both in life and death, Floyd Collins's spirit may feel more at home there than in Flint Ridge Cemetery. Some people have reported hearing a weak voice in the cave calling for help. Others claim to have seen him standing in the cave. Perhaps he is looking for his lost leg. True or not, the elements are there for the ghost of the fallen hero to return.

  Kentucky's Killer Ghost

  Two questions often come up in discussions about ghosts. “Are there evil ghosts?” and “Do they ever kill?” We rarely encounter stories that say yes to either question, but Kentucky folklore does have one such story, about a man named Carl Pruitt. Troy Taylor, our good friend and renowned author of many books on the paranormal, has written about this case in his book Beyond the Grave. His version is our favorite. Other renditions of the story may be found in the late Michael Paul Henson's book More Kentucky Ghost Stories, as well as on the Internet.

  Our story begins in eastern Kentucky in June 1938. Carl Pruitt came home from work and discovered his wife in bed with another man. The cowardly lover escaped through a window, leaving the wife to face the wrath of her husband alone. He was so enraged that he strangled her with a small piece of chain. When his rage subsided and he realized what he had done, he committed suicide by shooting himself. Police considered it a clear case of murder-suicide and closed the case. It was not over, however. In fact, it was just the beginning.

  Carl and his wife were buried in separate cemeteries. Unfortunately, no pictures of the graves are available. She evidently rested in eternal peace, but Carl's rage apparently lived on. A few weeks after he was buried, people began to notice the pattern of a chain forming on his gravestone. A discoloration in the stone kept growing until it formed a small-linked chain that twisted back on itself to form a cross. It frightened the local residents so much that they wanted to remove the s
tone. Officials refused to let them do it, but they remained uneasy.

  Something about this strange occurrence seemed evil to those who saw it. Most people chose to stay away from the grave and leave Carl Pruitt alone. Of course, there were a few who didn't, and they paid dearly for it.

  About a month after the image on the stone stopped growing, a group of local teenagers decided to ride their bicycles through the cemetery where Carl Pruitt was buried. One boy decided to defy the warnings of people who said evil was associated with the stone and that it was dangerous to disturb it. He stopped and threw rocks at the gravestone, knocking several large chips out of it. Laughing, yet a little frightened now that one of the group had actually caused minor damage to the stone, the teenagers all pedaled away toward their homes.

  Suddenly, a strange thing happened to the boy who did the damage. His bicycle began to speed out of control, and he couldn't stop it. It veered off the road and crashed into a tree. Then the unbelievable happened. The sprocket chain tore loose, wrapped itself around the boy's neck, and strangled him to death. Even more unbelievable, the day after the boy's death, the tombstone was completely whole again. The pieces he had knocked off were back on again!

  The dead boy's mother was distraught after his death. During the next month, her grief and anger built until she couldn't stand it anymore. She had to have revenge. She took a small hand axe to the graveyard and pounded Carl Pruitt's tombstone into a dozen pieces. Then she went back home, feeling some relief after what she had done. The next day, she did the family wash and took the clothes out to the yard to hang them on her clothesline to dry. Most clotheslines were made of rope or wire, but hers was made of a small chain. While she was hanging the clothes, she somehow stumbled and became entangled in the clothesline. She was strangled to death trying to get free. After she died, the Pruitt tombstone she had smashed with her axe miraculously became whole, just as it had done once before.