MIDDLE TENNESSEE SKEPTICS
Giving Common Sense a Chance
Originally, Wikipedia referenced our skeptical analysis of the Bell Witch Legend and in the process demonstrated a balance in its documentation. But in recent (Sep 2007) re-work of its Web page, the editor removed those notes and in the process provided credi-bility to the paranormal aspects of the legend. On the positive side Wikipedia described stories about the legend without drawing any conclusions relative to the validity of any of them.
In reviewing the "Discussion" section we found the editor did not consider our study to contain valid research and made misstatements as to the content of this Web Site saying it relied wholly of the review of one book. We can only conclude lack of understanding by this editor of the legend, ignorance of what constitutes research or what is on this Web site, and an attempt to bias the article.
NO First-Hand Evidence Exists for the Events of the Bell Witch Legend
In the preparation of the information on this site we examined hundreds of different accounts of the legend, we visited Adams, Tennessee, we researched archival material in Robertson, Montgomery, and Davidson Counties. We chased down every reference to its original source. Our goal was to verify through independent "first hand" sources what really happened. We relied heavily on Pat Fitzhugh's work because he has probably done the most research of anyone publishing on this sub-ject. Our only issue with his work is his tendency to deviate from factual reporting and to dive into supernatural theories that have no credible substance. However, our primary source material of the legend is the 1894 work of Martin Van Buren Ingram. That document is the basis of subsequent reporting.
So for the benefit of Wikipedia -- its readers and editors,
we list the facts of the Bell Witch Legend
1) No credible first-hand accounts exist of the events related to the legend. The only reported first-hand documentation is the "diary" of William Bell who was six years old during the event and wrote this "diary" twenty-five years later. No record of the diary exists. (J Cook suspects this diary was a fabrication of Ingram)
This volume was written 60 years after the fact and is regarded by some historians as a novel that used real people and places to give it the appearance of reality. Ingram was a newspaperman who was on the hustle for a story all of his life. Repeated business setbacks, family problems, and poor health may have made him hungry for a hit. In 1896, the act of cashing in was not anachronistic .
. . . Little Ghost on the Prairie by Grady Hendrix
2) Records of members of the family and of Richard Powell (Betsy's husband and childhood tutor) exist in court and church records. but none of them even vaguely refer to anything out of the ordinary about the Bells.
3) No Records exist in the journals of President Andrew Jackson (who is claimed to have participated in the Bell Legend) even though his election was extremely vitriolic and his opposition could have made issue of this encounter. (J Cook documents Jackson specifically not in Robertson County)
4) Pat Fitzhugh reports of a story in the Saturday Evening Post sometime between 1846 and 1849, but no researchers have been able to find that story. The story is said to have reported the event as misbehavior of Betsy and as nothing paranormal.
5) NOBODY has found any documentation that predates the 1894 Ingram book, its promotions, or influences (such as the 1886 Goodspeed note). So if Ingram has provided the ONLY SOURCE, from where does the information in the other hundreds of Bell Witch reports derive. These subsequent "references" are no more accurate than Ingram's fable and are fabrications of their author's imagination.
6) Telling a story over and over again does not make it true. Hearing it reported from hundreds of different sources, including Wikipedia, does not validate it.
But, facts are not important; promotion of ignorance and superstition apparently is. No amount of evidence (or lack thereof) will change a person's mind who has committed to believe to the contrary (cognitive dissonance). Consequently, just like stories of William Tell shooting the apple off his son's head or the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the dike, these reports of the Bell Witch feed upon each other. One bizarre fictional account becomes the reference and basis for an even more preposterous story.
And soon because of biases, weak "references" (such as Wikipedia) fail to check the sources, promote complete fiction as "facts," and make the lies and unsubstantiated fabrications more credible than the truth.
