Community Voices

A Memoir: The Belle Witch

By: Phyllis Nash

I have been having more experiences with lost and found! Some are quite eerie.

My son had left some footwear over here and never seemed much concerned to take it with him, so I threw it into a green recycle bag with some papers. I thought that he’d get them when he needed them. However, soon after, when he wanted them, I couldn’t find them in with the papers, but he said not to worry.

My son did want to look at some family pictures that he had found. We’d thought that they were in some moving totes, but he found those in a plastic box, underneath the bookcase. We enjoyed looking at the pictures and my son left.

Next, I continued looking in another handbag and found a camera for which I had been searching a long time. Further looking in to the green paper recycle bag, I found the footwear!

Then something from the bookcase fell by my feet all by itself. It was a book, The Bell Witch by Charles Bailey Bell, a ancestor. I’d been wondering about this prized book for several years.

Many years ago, my late father had mentioned that The Bell Witch was quite a story, but he never went into details. My late husband used to haul riders back and forth to work and one of the men came to visit after he had retired. Later, after his visit he gave us the book, The Bell Witch, and said to let him know what we thought of it. He had relations in Adams, Tennessee, the location of the story. He quoted them as telling of how the ground near the Bell land would slide under them. About 200 years ago, the wealthy Belle family and their visitors heard a woman’s voice; then strange things happened. The witch spirit caused a male relative to be poisoned. The bottle appeared and a lone spoon dipped it into his mouth and he subsequently died. The spirit would laugh at bad circumstances particularly those she caused. She supposedly liked Lucy Belle and gave her food when she was ill. From what I understood, these people did NOT disbelieve the story.

I don’t know if the story is true, but I’m happy my son has his footwear; and I have the extra camera and the prized book to read again.