The Greenbrier Ghost

I've always liked a good ghost story—especially if it's a true one. Last year, I self-published a novel, Them That Go, which had several ghost stories in it, including a true one: the Greenbrier ghost.

In one scene, a high school student relates the story of the Greenbrier ghost to her English class. If you're not familiar with the story, there are several versions of it online, and even a couple of videos. Here's one that summarizes the story:

In a chapter of Them That Go, the English class has been studying Hamlet, in which the ghost of Hamlet's father tells Hamlet about how he was murdered. The teacher asks if the students have heard any ghost stories, and—on pages 99-100— this is what Lizzie says her aunt told her:

“Well, Aunt Sarah said back in the 1890s a woman named Zona married a good-looking stranger who come to town. He worked as a blacksmith, so he was real strong. But he was real mean, too, and Zona’s mama didn’t much like him. One winter day, the blacksmith sent a boy to his house for some reason or other, and the boy found Zona dead at the foot of the steps. The boy run back and told everybody, and the doctor was fetched to see about Zona. But the blacksmith got there before the doctor and was carrying on something awful about his wife being dead. He’d even took her and put her to bed and had her all cleaned up and dressed, even though other womenfolk are supposed to do that for a woman, not the husband.”

Several girls nodded. Likely they had witnessed some home burials. A lot of folks in the county can’t afford a funeral home and have to make do the old way.

“Anyhow, the doctor didn’t get to examine her real good, what with the blacksmith carrying on and crying and hanging onto her. When somebody rode out to fetch Zona’s mama, she said that no doubt that devil had done killed her daughter hisself.”

Nobody was saying a word while Lizzie told this. It wasn’t like some of the boys to be so quiet.

“Well,” Lizzie continued, “next day, they carried Zona in her coffin out to her parents’ farm to get buried. The blacksmith stuck pretty tight to that coffin even during the wake. He put a pillow on one side of her head and a rolled up sheet on the other, which struck her family as odd, but he said it seemed like to him it made Zona more comfortable, so they didn’t mess with what he was doing. He tied a scarf around her neck, too, and said it was her favorite so she ought to be buried with it.

“Right before they closed up the coffin, Zona’s mama slipped that sheet out of the coffin. After Zona was buried and folks had left, Zona’s mama washed the sheet but couldn’t get a stain out of it no matter how hard she tried. She took it as a sign that Zona didn’t die no natural death.

“Meanwhile, she started to pray that her daughter would come to her and tell what happened. She prayed and prayed every night for nigh onto a month until Zona’s ghost appeared and said her husband had got mad and killed her. He beat her some and choked her and broke her neck.

“Zona’s mama went to a lawyer who listened to what she said and got the doctor and some deputies to look into what had gone on. They dug up Zona and examined her real good this time.” Lizzie paused to take a breath. This was the longest I—and likely everyone else—had ever heard her talk.

“What did they find out?” Susan Collins asked.

“Found out that her neck was indeed broke and her windpipe was mashed and her neck was bruised up like somebody had got a’holt of it, so they arrested the blacksmith, and he was tried for murder and sent to prison. Turns out he’d been married twice before and his second wife had died mysterious too. 

“At least that’s the story my aunt told me,” Lizzie said. “I thought it’s kind of like in Hamlet. A ghost appears and tells about a murder.”

* * *

How did I happen to include this particular ghost story in Them That Go? In late summer 2015, when I was midway through Them That Go, I asked on FaceBook if anyone knew of an Appalachian ghost story in which a ghost gave information about his or her own death. A couple of people suggested the Greenbrier Ghost. One was best-selling Appalachian novelist, Sharyn McCrumb, who'd been researching and writing her new novel—a novel, that I was later to learn, based on the Greenbrier ghost. 

At the Franklin County Library in spring 2016, when I heard her speak about her then-new novel, Prayers the Devil Answers, Sharyn gave a bit of a preview of her next book: The Unquiet Grave. When it comes out in September 2017, the cover will look like this:

Meanwhile, I just finished reading an advance reader copy that her publicist sent me. 

I'll do an "official review" on this blog in August, but I can tell you now that I really enjoyed the book. Even though I was familiar the basics of the story, Sharyn McCrumb's novelization of what happened in Greenbrier County back in the 1890s was compelling. It kept me reading way past my bedtime two nights running.

I always enjoy a good ghost story, and The Unquiet Grave was indeed a good 'un.

~

Reading About Spirits

Since it's so close to Samhain, it's only natural that I should be reading about various forms of spirits. The books I've read over the last month or so certainly cover a variety of spiritual goings-on:

Two of the authors, Susan Coryell and Ginny Brock, are members of my writing group—Lake Writers—so I've known both for a long time. I've also known Franklin News-Post reporter and columnist Morris Stephenson and genealogist Beverly Merritt for several years. I just met Arlene S. Bice at the Brewed Awakening Bookfest in Danville earlier this month. I've never met Vaishali, but Brewed Awakening in Danville offered her book as a freebie.

Coryell's novel, Nobody Knows, deals with ghosts at Overhome, an estate located on fictional Moore Mountain Lake in Virginia.  As in her two previous novels in the Overhome series, ghosts get the attention of the heroine Ashby Overton to help them resolve an issue. Spooky stuff ensues over the course of a summer.

Some of the ghosts Bice writes about in her non-fiction books, Living With Ghosts and  Ghostly Spirits of Warren County, North Carolina and Beyond, also have issues. Living With Ghosts is about the numerous spirits who inhabit the town of Bordentown, New Jersey, where Bice lived for a time. Some of the ghosts Bice describes are benign, others not. But if you like true ghost stories, you'll find the book interesting.

Brock is known around the Smith Mountain Lake area for having psychic abilities, and her latest non-fiction book,  As It Is in Heaven taps into those abilities. Subtitled True Stories about life before life on earth from children who remember, Brock relates stories of children who did indeed remember their  previous lives and where they came from. This book, which deals with our spiritual natures, gives you something to think about.

Vaishali's non-fiction book, Wisdom Rising, is subtitled A self-help guide to personal transformation, spirituality, and mind/body/spirit holistic living covers a lot of territory in a person's own spirituality. This book also gives the reader a lot to think about. 

Stephenson and Merritt's non-fiction book, Franklin County's Famous 1935 Moonshine Conspiracy Trial: Complete Daily Newspaper Accounts is about a whole 'nother type of spirits—the liquid kind that made Franklin County, Virginia, the moonshine capital of the world. Stephenson and Merritt didn't so much write this book as they compiled it. They collected and put together anonymously written newspaper stories (now in public domain) that reported the trial activities on a day-to-day basis. These stories are what the average person, who wasn't present at the long-running trial, would read in 1935. This book will give you an idea what was happening in the Rocky Mount courthouse in 1935.

So—if you're interested in reading about spirits in their various forms, you might want to consider these books.

~

My Favorite Ghost Writer

L.B. Taylor is known for his “Ghosts of Virginia” series. I have several volumes and wish I owned more. He's not only a good writer, he's also a self-publishing phenomenon and a good storyteller. I'd heard him speak a few years ago at the Franklin County Historical Society; when I heard he was returning on Sunday, March 16, I made plans to be there.

In fact, I went early to chat with him before the meeting. We'd both been at the 2007 Hanover bookfest, but I hadn't gotten a chance to talk to him then. I was surprised and delighted that he remembered I lived near Hainted Holler.

Although he's famous for writing about Virginia ghosts, Taylor says he’s never seen one. Speaking to Franklin County Historical Society members and several guests on Sunday, March 16, he related numerous ghost stories and showed slides of apparition photos that many folks had sent him. Apparently, a lot of folks send him photos. Here's one, taken in Manassas' Battlefield, near where a hospital once was:


Taylor, who has “spent twenty-five years chasing ghosts over the state of Virginia,” started writing ghost books when a New York publisher commissioned him to write a book about haunted houses.

“After I’d done the book, I had plenty of material left over,” he said. Those leftovers led him to self-publish twelve volumes in his “Ghosts of Virginia” series, as well as several books about ghosts in particular regions.

His first book, “The Ghosts of Williamsburg,” is now in its 22nd printing. His New York publisher had told him that regional books didn’t sell well, so Taylor decided to self-publish if a Williamsburg gift shop would agree to carry his book. It did, and the rest is history.

While his stories cover all regions of the Commonwealth, some have connections to the Franklin County/Bedford County area. Volume III of “Ghosts of Virginia” contains stories of ghosts from Rocky Mount—the Blue Lady at the Grove, owned by Keister and Ibby Greer, and “Uncle Peter” Saunders at The Farm, owned by Dr. Amos. Both are featured stops on the Historical Society’s annual ghost tours. Volume IX mentions the Baptist Church at Union Creek. Taylor also did some research at Ferrum’s Blue Ridge Institute.

One of his favorite area stories is the “Hound of the Blue Ridge” story that originated in the late 1600’s. It seems a big black ghost dog walked back and forth all night at a mountain pass in Bedford County. People came from all over to see it. The dog always vanished at morning Finally a woman arrived from England in search of her husband, who was supposed to send for her when he’d established a home—but she’d not heard from him. That night, the dog appeared, ran to the woman who recognized him, and got her to follow him. At a particular place, the dog vanished. Men dug there and unearthed the remains of a large dog and a man. The man wore a signet ring, which the woman recognized as her husband’s. The ghost dog never appeared again.

Taylor noted that “people have argued for four or five thousand years if ghosts exist or not.” It’s even difficult to define what a ghost is. Some think ghosts are people who died tragically or traumatically.”

Taylor added that some think ghosts had “left something undone on earth.” He mentioned that another person had defined a ghost as “someone who died and missed the bus.”

He gave examples of things people associated with ghosts: sounds such as footsteps or furniture being moved, smells such as perfume or tobacco, and sights such as the apparition photos that people send him. (I've never seen a ghost, but I smelled Margaret Hale's heavy floral perfume when I was at the Grove a couple of years ago.)

“Most of what people perceive as ghosts can be explained by rational or scientific means. Still, there’s that one percent or less that to me are inexplicable.”

One of the inexplicable cases was a collection of pictures sent to him by an Alexandria woman whose son had died from leukemia. Several pictures she had taken with five different cameras—two Polaroid and three 35mm—contained strange arrowhead shapes. Were they a message from her son?

“I’m not sure anyone really knows what they are,” said Taylor. No one from the audience offered an explanation.

He noted that many people with digital cameras are getting lots of shots of orbs. (I'm one. I got a couple of orb photos on last October's ghost tour.) While some believe the orbs are spirits, Taylor is skeptical. He also doesn’t like the way movies and TV portray ghosts as evil entities. “Ghosts are 99.9% benign and harmless.”

Even though he has never seen a ghost, Taylor has been scared. In his early years of ghost-hunting, he once visited a house in Bowling Green where numerous manifestations of hauntings had occurred. Arriving in the dark, he got out of his car to feel something thump against his chest. At first he thought it was a ghost; then he learned it was only the homeowner’s large but friendly black Labrador.

Besides telling several of the more popular—and inexplicable—stories from his books, Taylor also told a number of humorous “ghost” stories, including one that happened many years ago at a humble log cabin in Henry County. “Grandma” died one night and her son was too poor to have the body attended by an undertaker. The body was placed on a table near the fireplace and covered by a sheet. Soon friends came in to pay their respects. As they sat around chatting, the sheet fluttered and the old woman woke up. No doubt puzzled why she was on the table and why so many people were there, she nevertheless spoke to the person nearest her. “Sure is cold out tonight, ain’t it?” she said.

Although Taylor has written forty-five ghost books and still collects stories, now he wants the stories to be unusual or of historic interest—not just the run-of-the-mill footsteps on the stairs.

“At first, people were reluctant to tell their stories,” he said. “They’re much more open today—they come more willingly.”

L.B. Taylor, his illustrator Brenda Goens, and animal communicator Karen Wrigley.

Volume XII in “The Ghosts of Virginia” was published last November and includes some tales from the Historical Society’s Ghost Tour. Naturally, I bought a copy.

After the meeting, my Lake Writer buddy Karen Wrigley, a friend of hers, and I paid a visit to the town cemetery, where some graves date back to the 1700s.


No, we didn't "see" anything. At least not anything out of the ordinary, darn it!

~~~

Old Christmas & Stories

January 6 is Old Christmas—Twelfth Night—Epiphany. According to some mountain folk, this is the real Christmas, the day the Magi arrived.

Strange things are said to happen on Old Christmas. Ghosts walk the earth again, animals talk, flowers bloom out of season.

Today—like the preceding week—has been unusually warm. My japonica bush down at the farm is in bloom. I did yardwork in shirtsleeves. I had an unusual day, though. More about that later.

One of my favorite poems is about Old Christmas. This poem tells a story about a mountain woman watching for her husband to return from hunting when she is visited by an estranged friend. The poem is a conversation between these two women:

Old Christmas Morning
by Roy Helton (1886-1960)

"Where you coming from, Lomey Carter,
So airly over the snow?
And what's them pretties you got in your hand,
And where you aiming to go?

"Step in, Honey: Old Christmas morning
I ain't got nothing much;
Maybe a bite of sweetness and corn bread,
A little ham meat and such,

"But come in, Honey! Sally Anne Barton's
Hungering after your face.
Wait till I light my candle up:
Set down! There's your old place.

"Now where you been so airly this morning?”
"Graveyard, Sally Anne.
Up by the trace in the salt lick meadows
Where Taulbe kilt my man."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning . . .
I can't scratch up a light:
Dampness gets on the heads of the matches;
But I'll blow up the embers bright."

"Needn't trouble. I won't be stopping:
Going a long ways still."
"You didn't see nothing, Lomey Carter,
Up on the graveyard hill?"

"What should I see there, Sally Anne Barton?"
“Well, sperits do walk last night."
"There were an elder bush a-blooming
While the moon still give some light."

"Yes, elder bushes, they bloom, Old Christmas,
And critters kneel down in their straw.
Anything else up in the graveyard?"
"One thing more I saw:

I saw my man with his bead all bleeding
Where Taulbe's shot went through."
" What did he say?” "He stooped and kissed me."
“What did he say to you?”

"Said, Lord Jesus forguv your Taulbe;
But he told me another word;
He said it soft when he stooped and kissed me.
That were the last I heard."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning."
"I know that, Sally Anne,
For I kilt him, coming down through the meadow
Where Taulbe kilt my man.

"I met him upon the meadow trace
When the moon were fainting fast,
And I had my dead man's rifle gun
And kilt him as he come past."

But I heard two shots." "'Twas his was second:
He shot me 'fore be died:
You'll find us at daybreak, Sally Anne Barton:
I'm laying there dead at his side."

I didn’t see any ghosts out and about today—at least not yet. Because today is the last day of black powder season, I did see my fair share of rednecks. One of them—JP the milk truck driver—started haunting me early. Maggie and I had no sooner gotten the paper at 6:08 this morning and were halfway back to the house at when he drove by and blasted his horn. Even though, it was dark, I could plainly make out his pickup truck under the dusk to dawn light at the end of my driveway.

Later, after I’d put Maggie in the kennel and fed dogs and horses, I was scattering birdseed on the deck railing about 8: 55 when he drove by again and blasted his horn. Enough, I decided, and called the police. I asked them to patrol the area. A few minutes later, after I’d started yard-work, I saw the cop car go by. A half hour later, one of the unmarked cars went past. Later, I saw a game warden. I felt a lot safer.

A few hours later, as I spread mulch near the mailbox, a newcomer from down the road came along pushing her two kids in a stroller. We stopped and chatted. I asked the little girl if she liked horses. She nodded; I invited them to visit Melody and Cupcake. The woman said she’d go on down the road to the front fence. I walked part way with her and—when I didn’t see the horses in the front field—went to the back field to call them. I vanished into the pines, as it were.

While I was hidden from view by the pines, JP drove down the road, stopped beside the woman and kids and demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?” “Looking for the horses,” she said. “Where’s your old man?” he asked. “Do you mean my husband?” she said. Then he saw me emerge from the pines, and he drove to his buddy’s driveway a couple of hundred feet down the road.

The woman didn’t know what to think. I explained who the guy was and some of the things he’d done in the past. Then we visited with Cupcake and Melody. Turns out the woman’s older daughter loves horses and used to show. Just the kind of folks some of us want in the neighborhood.

Now, I’m perplexed. Did JP think that the woman was me? (I’m at least 25 years older, much fatter, have light hair, and don’t have two small children in stroller. He’s seen me close up several times—like the time last March 4 when he approached me and fired his shotgun three times into the ground while I got my mail from the box.) Or—was he trying to pick up a woman alone on a stretch of country road? Did he just want to intimidate her because he and his kind don’t like all the newcomers who “ain’t from around here” in the neighborhood? Or is he just . . . ? Well, I wonder what the story really is.

The afternoon was even more interesting. On my way home from Union Hall, two stained glass doors in Donna’s antique shop caught my eye. I stopped in to see if there was a story behind them. Turns out, Donna didn’t know of any. They were way out of my price range and I have nowhere to put them, so—tempted though I might be—I didn’t buy them. As we chatted, a guy came into the store. Turns out he’d been wanting to meet me. Ralph and I are kin—third or fourth cousins. We talked genealogy (I found out the old Smith Cemetery is the one at Water’s Edge, and there used to be a Smith’s Chapel there, too.)

Then Pete from next door came in. I mentioned something about today being Old Christmas, and I ended up reciting the above poem. Talk turned to ghosts, and everyone had stories to share. Donna once lived in a haunted house; Ralph and I had both smelled strong perfume from a ghost, plus Ralph had once seen what must have been a ghost. Pete told a story about a relative who’d been frightened in a cemetery.

So, I went to find out the story behind the stained glass, and heard other stories instead.

A most interesting day. Y’all have a Merry Old Christmas!