While I tried to create some videos during the lockdown, my time was taken up with my day job, so in the end I produced a grand total of one video (the Talbot County Werewolf). A friend of mine recently suggested we record some stories to test some of his video equipment, and this is the result.
Told from the shores of West Point Lake in Troup County, Georgia, these three stories take place near this lake. One is a personal story, I also include a story from my Strange LaGrange tour, and finally, the story of the mysterious Hearn Tablet.
The Hearn Tablet, an ancient Sumerian tablet found in Troup County, Georgia. Photo courtesy of the Troup County Historical Society and Archives. All rights reserved.
Please enjoy my Troup Tales from West Point Lake.
Video production by Mark Ryan Patterson. Thank you, Ryan!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
—Williams Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5
The world of the theatre is filled with mysticism, superstition, and spirits. As a theatre person, nearly every theatre I have worked in has this mysterious side, especially in the connection to the spirit world. In his Ghost Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans, author Jeff Dwyer contends that one can be almost certain that a theatre will be haunted.
There are few certainties in ghost hunting. But when it comes to haunted places, ships and theaters offer ghost hunters the greatest opportunities for encounters with the spirit world. Theaters often harbor the ghosts of actors, writers, musicians and directors because something about their creative natures ties them to the place where they experienced their greatest successes or failures. Stagehands and other production staff may haunt backstage areas where they worked and, perhaps suffered a fatal accident. They may also be tied to room where props are stored. The ghosts of patrons remain long after death because they love the theater or, more likely, they loved an actor who performed regularly at that location.
Much of the mysticism in theatre revolves around actors, especially in how they take on a character. Even the language of an actor bears parallels with the language of ghosts and spirits. Some actors will describe an experience akin to possession when they are inhabiting another’s body and lose themselves. Certainly, within the ritual of preparing for a show, there may be a ritual in applying makeup, getting into costume, and warming up. I’ve watched as some actors will walk the set, absorbing the energy of the world of the play, all of which resembles summoning. If the play utilizes masks, actors may put on the mask in a nearly religious manner. Onstage, the actors are in tune with the energy that surrounds them, including that from other actors, the set, the audience, the crew, and the audience. Once the actor has finished his hour of strutting and fretting upon the stage, these spirits are banished to the world of fiction. But, are they really? Perhaps some of these spirits linger in the theatre?
As for the directors, writers, musicians, technical crew members, and the backstage functionaries, many imbue their work with their own passion, thus leaving a little bit of themselves behind in their work. Even once these people pass on, they may return to the theatres to feed their passion in the afterlife.
The practice of leaving a ghost light onstage when the theatre is dark is wrapped up in superstition and practicality. Some will argue that the light assures the theatre’s spirits that the theatre is not abandoned and provides light for their own performances. In a way, this could be a sacrifice to the genius loci, or the spirit of a location. As for practicality, non-superstitious thespians will contend that a ghost light provides illumination to prevent injuries if someone enters the darkened space.
Theatres are often inherently dangerous places where actors, crew, and even some patrons can, and do, get injured. Indeed, there have been numerous accidents throughout history where deaths have occurred on or just off stage sometimes leaving spirits in limbo within the space. The haunting of the Wells Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia comes to mind. One of the spirits in this 1913 theatre may be that of a careless stagehand who became entangled in the hemp rope-operated fly system (a system that is still in use) and accidentally hung himself. Other deaths may be blamed on medical conditions that have claimed have claimed lives while people are at work.
As for lingering spirits of theatre patrons, a love for theatre or a particular space may be reason enough to return in the afterlife. Though it seems that most of the hauntings by members of the audience are residual in nature with phantom laughter and applause sometimes being heard.
Contributing to theatres’ haunted natures, some theatres occupy spaces that were not intended to be performance spaces. These repurposed buildings may already be haunted, and the spirits adapt to the new use of the location. Among the numerous examples of these types of theatres are the Baltimore Theatre Project in Maryland in an old building originally constructed for a men’s fraternal organization and the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville, Florida, formerly a post office and courthouse.
Over the decade I have worked on this blog, I have covered a number of theatres and theatre spaces. In addition to places that have formerly served as theatres, I have added movie houses, larger structures that include a theatre, structures that are associated with theatres, and the Maryland home of the Booth family, which included some of America’s most famous and infamous actors in the 19th century.
Van Meter Hall, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green
The house and stage of the Louisville Palace. The theater is designed to ensconce the audience in a Spanish Baroque courtyard. The ceiling is an atmospheric ceiling with clouds. In the 1960s, this balcony was enclosed as a second theater, but this alternation was removed in the 1990s restoration. It’s not hard to imagine spirits spending their afterlife in such a magnificent edifice. A handful of spirits have been reported here including a man in 1930s clothing that has been seen in this balcony. When approached by ushers, the man disappears. Photo taken in 1928, courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
I have been meaning to create some videos for some time. Now, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it’s a great time to begin making videos and telling ghost stories.
I wrote this version of the legend of the Talbot County werewolf to be presented at the Georgia Library Association Convention in 2018. While some of the details of this legend are fact, my setting adds scenes and dialogue for effect.
The gravestone of Emily Isabella Burt (1841-1911) bearing the image of an open gate. Photo by Denise Roffe, courtesy of Find-A-Grave.
As always, I must provide a source list.
Sources
Brown, Alan. Haunted Georgia: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Peach State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2008.
Davidson, William H. A Rockaway in Talbot: Travels in an Old Georgia County, Volume I. West Point, GA: Hester Printing, 1983.
In searching through back issues of the Atlanta Constitution that have recently been posted on Newspapers.com, I stumbled across two brief articles detailing a haunting in the small town of Toccoa.
Located in Stephens County, in the far northeast corner of the state, abutting the state line with South Carolina, Toccoa is a small mountain town established in the late 19th century along the Georgia Air Line Railroad. A few miles outside town, Currahee Mountain rises from the landscape which provided military training during World War II.
The 1907 Stephens County Courthouse in downtown Toccoa. Photo 2015, by Carol M. Highsmith. Courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
In the early days of the town’s creation after the Civil War and before the town’s incorporation, the town constructed a calaboose, or jail. In small towns, these buildings were generally one room shacks with bars to hold a prisoner or two. Judging from the newspaper’s vague description, I would conclude that the calaboose was this type of building.
A similar calaboose remains standing in Wingate, Arkansas. This one was built in 1898.
Please note that these articles use racist language typical to the period.
Atlanta Constitution 27 December 1887
CAGED AND BURNED
A Heartrending Scene at Toccoa, Georgia.
A PRISONER SHRIEKING FOR HELP
While the Guard House is on Fire—Unavailing Efforts to Free the Unfortunate Man.
TOCCOA, Ga., December 26.—[Special.]—Roland Taylor, a negro man, who has been working for Mr. W. J. Hayes for a long time, met a horrible death this morning at twenty minutes past 3 o’clock. He was taken by the marshal some time ago for some violation and locked up. He was released on bond, however, and given time to pay the fine which was imposed on him by the mayor. He failed to come up at the proper time, and last night was arrested again and confined in the calaboose. At the time mentioned, night watchmen Carter and Purcell heard someone screaming at a terrible rate, and upon investigation, found the calaboose on fire. They did all they could to save him, but failed, as the heavy doors were swelled so and the man too far gone. Mr. Carter says he is satisfied the darky set it on fire to make his escape.
This morning there is nothing left to tell the tale but some ashes and a small stack of bones. The coroner has been notified and will hold an inquest.
Atlanta Constitution 27 February 1888
THE DEAD MAN’S GHOST
Returns to Haunt the Prisoners Who Succeed Him.
TOCCOA, Ga., February 26.—[Special.]—The town council have had erected a new calaboose exactly on the same spot where the old one was burned Christmas eve, when Roland Taylor was cremated.
The negroes here look upon the new guardhouse with a superstitious awe, and to threaten to put one in strikes terror to his heart. They say the dead negro will surely come back at night, and one darky who was so unfortunate as to remain in custody over night, declares that about 10 o’clock something took him by the legs and pulled most vigorously for some time, all his efforts to release himself from the ghost grasp being in vain. It is needless to say he slept but little remainder of the night.
I have yet to determine the location of this building or if Roland Taylor’s spirit still haunts the area.
Sources
“Caged and Burned.” Atlanta Constitution. 27 December 1887.
“The Dead Man’s Ghost.” Atlanta Constitution. 27 February 1888.
Columbus Stockade 700 East 10th Street Columbus, Georgia
Way down in Columbus, Georgia,
Wanted back in Tennessee,
Way down in Columbus Stockade,
Friends have turned their backs on me. –Jimmie Tarlton & Tom Darby, “Columbus Stockade Blues,” (1927)
In her 2012 book, Haunted Columbus, Georgia, Faith Serafin relates a story that happened to a trio of sheriff’s deputies in 1990. A deputy noticed a light inside the old Columbus Stockade building adjacent to the modern Muscogee County Jail. Knowing that the building should have been empty at that hour, the deputy asked two of his colleagues to walk over to the building with him to check it out.
Entering the building, the deputies encountered the stench of rotting flesh. Assuming that an animal had died inside, the men split up to find the decaying remains. One of the deputies backed up against a cell and had something pull him against the bars. As he screamed out of shock and fear, the other deputies came running.
It took the strength of two deputies to free their frightened colleague. The three men searched for the culprit, but were surprised to find the cell and the whole building empty.
Like so many other jails and prisons I have covered, see the Kentucky State Penitentiary; LaGrange, Georgia’s LaGrange Art Museum; West Virginia’s Moundsville Penitentiary; and Charleston, South Carolina’s Old City Jail, the architecture chosen for the structure was meant to evoke a sense of foreboding and oppression. The Columbus Stockade employs heavy architecture with Italianate elements that add a sense of lightness and also help it to blend with the other buildings of that period.
An undated photo of the old Columbus Stockade.
There is a question of when the building was built. In her recent history of the city, Virginia Causey notes that building may date to as early as 1858, though she believes it was likely built around 1870. The preparers of the Georgia Historic Resources form which was used when listing the building on the National Register of Historic Places, state that the building is made up of two structures that were likely connected in the early 1900s. Originally, these buildings housed both the police department offices and the jail, and the building was used to incarcerate inmates until 1972.
After closing, the suggestion was made to demolish the building, but history-minded locals saved the structure based on, of all things, an old country song.
In 1927, a pair of local musicians, Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarleton wrote and recorded a song, the Columbus Stockade Blues.” After recording the song, the pair made the regrettable choice of accepting a flat payment of $75 rather than signing a contract for royalties. The song was a hit and sold two hundred thousand records in the first year alone. While the song put Columbus and its stockade on the map, the song’s writers lived out the remainder of their lives in obscurity.
It turns out that neither Darby nor Tarleton spent any time in the place they made famous, but it seems that a number of spirits remain incarcerated in the old stockade.
Sources
Alexander, Nancy, Roger Harris & Janice P. Biggers. National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form. 2 December 1980.
Causey, Virginia E. Red Clay White Water & Blues: A History of Columbus, Georgia. Athens, GA: U. of GA Press, 2019.
Kyle, Clason F. “Fate Unsure: Stockade ‘Way Down’.” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. 23 April 1978.
Serafin, Faith. Haunted Columbus, Georgia. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2012.
This is the second entry of my Encounter Countdown to Halloween. There are only 29 more days until All Hallows Eve!
Waverly Hall Cemetery
GA-209
After graduating from college in 2003, I ended up getting an apartment with my best friend, David, in Columbus, Georgia. He was still in school and was very interested in ghosts and ghost hunting. With some of his college friends, David often went on late night jaunts to haunted places. Had I not had a day job, I would have joined them.
One night he and his friends decided to explore the cemetery in the small town of Waverly Hall, about 30 minutes away. This old, Harris County town boasts a few haunted places, but the town’s 1829 cemetery could be considered the crown jewel.
The Crook Monument erected for Maj. Osborne Crook, d. 15 October 1851 and his wife, Elizabeth C. Crook, d. 25 October 183[?]9. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.Arriving at the cemetery they saw some shadowy figures flitting among the tombstone. They proceeded to try capturing some voices on an audio recorder.
One of those present posed the question, “Do you know that you are dead?”
The recorder picked up a clear response whispering, “Not dead—dreaming.”
As a theatre person, after hearing that response I immediately recalled the immortal words of Shakespeare, To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause.
Jim Miles’ 2006 Weird Georgia describes the cemetery as one of the most haunted in the state and includes two accounts from paranormal investigators who captured evidence here. Many of the details in these accounts back up my friend’s story. One account makes mention of a group who visited the cemetery on several occasions. On the first visit they witnessed a number of orbs that “danced and darted” around them. On the second visit, one of the group members had a figure walk right in front of them.
The Lowe Monument, erected for General Henry H. Lowe, d. 8 July 1854 and his wife Mariah H. Lowe, d. 27 November 1852. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
I was caught by surprise by a black figure that walked right in front of me. It walked rapidly, swinging its arms at its side, as if angry and in a hurry. It was clearly defined and male, about six feet two inches. It had a top hat on. I could see no face of specific features.
The second account in the book notes that the group captured “forty-three fantastic EVPs.” While many of them urged the investigators to leave, one voice attempted to lead them his grave. Perhaps one resident of Waverly Hall Cemetery does want some company in their eternal dreams?
Sources
Miles, Jim. Weird Georgia: Your Travel Guide to Georgia’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. NYC: Sterling Publishing, 2006.
In her 2001 book, Cemetery Stories, Katherine Ramsland includes an odd tale about the Olde Pink House, one of Savannah’s most prominent restaurants. Tales have been told about this building for years; and I haven’t yet seen a tale quite like it among the sources on this place.
The James Habersham Jr. House, between 1939 and 1944, taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston for HABS (Historic American Buildings Survey). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
It seems that a young lady working in the restaurant’s bar located in the basement of this more than 200-year-old home, became intrigued with a regular patron. This young man would come in, order a beer, and say nothing as he drank. The young woman watched him intently and eventually developed an infatuation with him. One evening, as he got up to leave, the young lady decided to follow him into the warm night air.
Ramsland doesn’t provide the actual route, though I suspect that the young man followed Abercorn Street south. This would have brought the man around Reynolds and Oglethorpe Squares before approaching the gates of Colonial Park Cemetery at the intersection of Abercorn and Oglethorpe Avenue.
The young lady watched as the man entered the gates of the cemetery. He approached the plot of the Habersham family. “He stopped at the iron fence surrounding the aboveground monument and then walked right through it and disappeared.”
Shocked at what she had just witnessed, the young lady approached the grave thinking this was perhaps a trick of the light and shadows in the cemetery. To her astonishment, there was no one in or around the grave site.
There are a couple details of the story concerning the cemetery itself that may not be correct. The story speaks of the man simply entering the cemetery gates at night. The gates of Colonial Park are closed at night, in fact the cemetery’s official website notes that it closes at 8 PM March through November and 5 PM November through March. However, the Habersham family plot is located near the fence line on Oglethorpe Avenue, so the young woman could have observed the man from just outside the fence. The second detail that may be incorrect is that the Habersham plot does not have a fence.
In digging around for this article, I did come across a much older version of this story. The Visit Historic Savannah page on Colonial Park mentions several ghost stories about the cemetery including one involving a young maid from the City Hotel. One night, this young woman was found sitting outside the gates of the cemetery distraught after she followed an intriguing young man from the hotel. The young man, it seems, entered the cemetery gates and vanished within its precincts. It should be noted that the City Hotel building is now the home of the Moon River Brewery, one of the most discussed and well-known hauntings in the city.
Ramsland writes in her book, Ghost: Investigating the Other Side, that her version of the story was told on a ghost tour of city. This would make sense. In my own experience of taking a tour in Savannah, I heard one story on my tour that was a local adaptation of a typical ghostly hitchhiker story. In fact, I recall quietly groaning when I realized what the story was. It would not surprise me if the City Hotel version of the story had simply been updated to a more modern setting. While the story is intriguing, it may very well be fiction.
Savannah is a city of stories and the restaurant where this tale originates has many of its own. The restaurant’s name is a reference to the red brick underneath the home’s stucco that has bled through over the years. The home was built by James Habersham Jr., son of noted colonial merchant and planter James Habersham, around 1789. It is James and his three sons, James Jr., Joseph, and John, who lie in the family crypt in Colonial Park Cemetery. The home was converted to use as a bank in 1812 and became a tea room and antiques shop in 1929. The building was transformed into a restaurant in 1970 and remains one of the most prominent restaurants in the city.
James Habersham Jr. by Jeremiah Theus.
Among the supernatural stories from the Olde Pink House are several telling of a man in colonial dress seen drinking at the bar. He is believed to be the spirit of James Jr. still watching over his former home. A few other spirits may also be in residence in this stately old home. I plan on exploring those ghost stories in future articles.
Sources
Caskey, James. Haunted Savannah: The Official Guidebook to Savannah Haunted History Tour, 2008. Savannah, GA: Bonaventure Books, 2005.
Throughout the South, there are many places where you can sip with spirits. This guide covers all of the bars that I have explored in the pages of this blog over the years. Not only have I included independent bars, but breweries, wineries, restaurants, and hotels with bars as well.
Middleton Tavern, 1964. Photograph for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS). Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.
T. R. R. Cobb House
175 Hill Street
Athens, Georgia
Several years ago, a visitor to the T. R. R. Cobb House was touring the upstairs alone when his cell phone rang. Answering it, the gentleman stepped into the room that had once been T. R. R. Cobb’s bedroom. Suddenly, he heard a voice shushing him.
The gentlemen quickly headed back down the stairs. After sheepishly apologizing to the museum’s staff, the guest discovered that none of them had been upstairs or had shushed him. Perhaps Mr. Cobb wanted some undisturbed sleep.
Portrait of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb by Horace James Bradley, 1860.
Cobb certainly may need sleep after living a vigorous life. Born in Jefferson County, Georgia, Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb moved with his family to Athens at a young age. After graduating from the University of Georgia at the top of his class, he married the daughter of Judge Joseph Henry Lumpkin, later the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, and served as a reporter for the same court, producing the 15-volume Digest of the Statute Laws of the State of Georgia in 1851. In the tension-filled days leading up to the outbreak of the Civil War, Cobb’s legal scholarship heartily defended the institution of slavery in his massive volume, An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States of America.
Angered by the election of Lincoln as president, Cobb vociferously denounced the Federal government and began preaching the gospel of secession throughout the state. After the state’s secession, he became a member of the Confederate Congress and set to work writing the Confederate constitution as well a new constitution for the state. Despite his effort in creating the constitution, Cobb resigned from the congress in frustration from the lack of cooperation. He set about forming a military regiment that became known as Cobb’s Legion.
He led his legion the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of Manassas in Virginia, and Antietam in Maryland. While defending the infamous stone wall at Marye’s Heights south of Fredericksburg in December 1862, Cobb was mortally wounded when a Union shell exploded nearby. With his femoral artery severed, he bled out at a field hospital as his troops continued to hold their position behind the meager stone wall.
Years later, Woodrow Wilson described the fiery Cobb, “One figure in particular took the imagination and ruled the spirits of that susceptible people, the figure of Thomas R. R. Cobb. The manly beauty of his tall, athletic person; his frank eyes on fire; his ardor…given over to a cause not less sacred, not less fraught with the issues of life and death than religion itself; his voice…musical and sure to find its way to the heart…made his words pass like flame from countryside to countryside.”
Thomas Cobb’s majestic home has led a life that’s equally as twisting and turning as the firebrand who lived there. The house started life as a much plainer Federal-style home around 1839. It was purchased in 1842 by Cobb’s father-in-law who presented it, according to family lore, as a wedding present to his daughter and son-in-law. It was Cobb who added octagonal additions and columns, elevating the home’s appearance in 1852.
The Cobb House in its original location on Prince Avenue, 1939, by Thomas Waterman. Photo taken for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the house saw a variety of residents and uses ranging from a boarding house to a fraternity house. It is from this period that the earliest report of paranormal activity was documented regarding the house. Collected as part of the WPA Writers’ Project during the Great Depression. That account recalls the spirit of “a gentleman wearing a gay dressing gown” who is seen descending the stairs and sitting in front of the fire in the drawing room.
In 1962, the house came under the ownership of the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta, who used the structure as a parish house, rectory, and offices for St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. During that time, two priests and several nuns living in the house had encounters with a man in grey who entered the library and stood by the fireplace.
One priest recalled a fascinating moment in the house. The priests tended to accumulate newspapers on the back porch. After reading the papers, they were consigned to a stack that soon reached from floor to ceiling. One day, the papers erupted into flame. While the papers burned, the house remained untouched and the fire extinguished itself miraculously.
After serving the church, the dilapidated house was sentenced to demolition in 1984. Instead of resigning the house to the wrecking ball, the house was dismantled and moved from its original Prince Avenue location to Stone Mountain Park, just outside of Atlanta. The park intended to restore the home as part of its Historic Square, which contains a number of historic structures collected from throughout the state along with their accompanying ghosts. Instead, the Cobb House was put up on cinder blocks and sat unrestored for nearly twenty years.
With funding from the Watson-Brown Foundation, the home was returned to Athens, having taken the scenic route from Prince Avenue to its new location on Hill Street, but not without some controversy. A 2004 article in the New York Times stirred the pot by enumerating Cobb’s ardent positions on slavery and race, positions that do not mesh with the current atmosphere in modern Athens. Despite protests from throughout the city, the house was returned and restored.
T. R. R. Cobb House, 2011. Photo by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
Throughout two house moves and a major restoration, spirits have remained active in the home. Staff members regularly hear the sounds of people entering the home during the day only to discover that no one is there. They are also regularly treated to the sounds of footsteps and laughter when the house is quiet. One of the more amusing incidents took place late one afternoon when an older couple was touring the house.
Their tour was led by the education director who politely answered the question about if the house is haunted. The lady who asked, responded that she would be freaked out if she saw a chandelier swinging on its own accord. Lo, and behold, the chandelier in the front parlor was swinging so wildly when the trio entered that the education director had to physically stop it herself.
An antique armoire in the hallway of the house has a door in its side that opens on its own. The furniture, which is original to the house, has an opening in the side that reveals a coat hook. At certain times of the year when the wood expands and causes difficulty in opening the door, it is found open anyway.
There are also apparitions that have been seen by visitors and passersby including an elderly black woman and a little girl. No reports as to whether the grey-clad man has been seen in the house. Perhaps the firebrand phantom is too busy trying to rest in his bedroom.
Sources
Adkins, Tracy L. Ghosts of Athens. CreateSpace Publishing, 2016.
Tree That Owns Itself 277 South Finley Street Athens, Georgia
…the Tree was happy… –Shel Silverstein, “The Giving Tree,” 1964
When I read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree as a child many moons ago, I found the story disturbing. There is more than a bit of sadness in this story of altruism, and I found that disquieting. Perhaps this was one of my first introductions into that grey area where noble ideals spar with reality. That place where morality and immorality square off, where the dramatic tension lies between the blacks and whites of good and evil.
The Tree That Owns Itself in 1910, by Huron Smith for the Field Museum.
The legend of Athens, Georgia’s Tree That Owns Itself exists in this same grey realm of fact and legend. When I stumbled across this 1916 article while browsing the historic newspaper collection of the Digital Library of Georgia, I was happy to be able to add this story to my collection on Athens. Unfortunately, the bottom corner of the paper has been torn and part of the paragraph describing the phantom is lost.
GHOST HAUNTS TREE THAT OWNS ITSELF _____ AT LEAST THAT IS STORY COMING OUT FROM ATHENS, AND THERE IS MUCH SPECULATION OVER REPORT. _____
Atlanta, July 1—Has the ghost of William Jackson come back to haunt the Tree That Owns Itself?
That’s the tale they are telling in Athens, Ga., where on a big hill in the center of the city stands a giant white oak, the only tree that owns itself, trunk, twig and leaf, together with eight feet of land on all sides.
Early in the nineteenth century William Jackson was one of the largest plantation owners of Clarke county. Under the white oak, which is four or five hundred years old, he used to sit and direct his slaves at work. When he died, this paragraph was found in his will:
“For and in consideration of the great love I bear this tree and the great desire I have for its protection for all time, I convey entire possession of itself and all land within eight feet of the tree on all sides.”
Now comes the report that a phantom has been seen beneath the Tree That Owns Itself.
[page torn]…mist of a man, fading is-
[page torn]…a man with powdered
[page torn]…a broad hat
[page torn]…and laces and frills sitting there under the tree, with one hand resting gently on the bark.
Was it the ghost of William Jackson?
Ask the boys of that college town—they don’t know.
A surprisingly thorough article on Wikipedia examines the legend and its inconsistencies, noting that the first documented version of the tree’s legend appeared in the Athens Weekly Banner in 1890. That article, couched in the heroic language of the period, describes the tree as seeming to “stand straighter, and hold its head more highly and proudly as if we knew that it ranked above the common trees of the world.” The 1890 article continues with the history of the tree but noting that the tree’s deed of ownership is mysteriously missing from the county’s records.
The original Tree That Owns Itself shortly before it fell in 1942. Postcard from the Boston Public Library.
Since 1916, the original tree succumbed to rot and fell on October 9, 1942. The Athens Junior Ladies Garden Club took up the cause of the tree and replaced it with a sapling grown from one of the original oak’s acorns. The current tree, sometimes deemed “Son of the Tree That Owns Itself,” continues to flourish from its space on South Finley Street. The tree is now surrounded with a retaining wall and a chain barrier with a plaque denoting the tree’s ownership of itself. Perhaps Col. William Jackson still appears on occasion to rest beneath the stately branches that he gave so much for?
Son of the Tree That Owns Itself, 2005, by Bloodofox, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Sources
“Deeded to itself.” Athens Weekly Banner. 12 August 1890.
“Ghost haunts tree that owns itself.” Daily Times-Enterprise (Thomasville, Georgia). 1 July 1916.
