MIDDLE TENNESSEE SKEPTICS
Giving Common Sense a Chance
This web site originated in 2001 primarily as a blog of our analysis into the Bell Witch Legend. We hoped visitors would report factual errors and omissions in our research. After many e-mail comments (thank you), we still have NO evidence validating the legend or elevating it any higher than a good campfire story. Virtually, every comment has substantiated that the legend is totally fictitious. One college level professor has even shared with us his extensive documentation which offers a very convincing argument that the entire legend was fabricated by M.V Ingram. He promised to put all his work in a book and publish it. In our last contact his book was done; his publication was not.
We believe the manifestations in Adams, Tennessee could have been nothing more than Betsy Bell's case of schizophrenia, horribly exaggerated by superstition prominent in that region at that time and commercialized by the inventive mind of a newspaper entrpreneur anxious to make a buck. It is not unlike its modern day sequel the Amityville Horror hoax.
THE ONLY TWO ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS PROVIDE NO SUBSTANTIATION
The Bell Witch Legend is based primarily on recreations from two original accounts: the 1894 book by MV Ingram's and the 1903 book by A. Hudson (available on the Internet.) Other reports reference these two accounts, add no credible information, or are imaginative adaptations.
The Hudson book reports Mississippi folklore purportedly from members of the Bell family, including the infamous Betsy, who relocated to Mississippi around the mid 1830's. Unfortunately, many of its details are so obviously erroneous that it has little historical value. Wandering the imaginations of three and four generations, Hudson records only what he says he heard without constructive criticism.
A fairly exhaustive study of the phenomenon, MV Ingram's book includes a long list of credible witnesses who seem to attest to occurrence of many of the reported events. MV Ingram appears to present an over-whelming case. However, not one person on his list personally observed any aspect of the legend itself. They are only character witnesses for the people who Ingram claims saw the haunting. Ingram's yarn has achieved historical strength through a hundred years of countless repetition. And we know it's got to be true because, we read it a hundred time on the Internet.
Ingram's witnesses, in order of significance, are:
- General Andrew Jackson, 7'th President of the US- Joel Thomas Bell, son of an John Bell, Jr., primary source of the Ingram account- Rev. Joshua Featheton, personal friend of Baptist Mininsters mentioned in legend- Dr. J.T. Mathews, personal friend of Miles & Porter, intimately involved in the story- Mr. E. Newton, personal friend of Baptist Ministers mentions in legend- R.H. Pickering, son of Major G. Perkering who personally kicked witch out of bed- J. Gunn,son of Rev. Alex Gunn who was prominent in the legend- D. T. Porter, son of Porter who was prominent in the story- J.I Holman, friend of Polk who was a neighbor to the Bells- Wm Wall, attests to Uncle Billy Wall's experience with the witch- W.H. Gardner, verifies Uncles Joshua Gardner's experienceRead the testimony of the above witnesses (excluding Jackson) in Ingram's book.
Although quite different in details, the two stories are obviously about the same event. Far less sinister, the Hudson's story is more representative of a poltergeist manifestation. Perhaps, in order to sell books, Ingram took a simple rumor and dramatized it, exactly as what has become standard practice for modern writers.
