This is a well-known ghost legend told faithfully in the southwest mountains of Virginia for 150 years. One account given by a local man in the late 1930s was written down.
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| A circuit preacher |
A preacher caught in a
freezing rain one night stopped at a farmhouse to request shelter.
The farmer informed him he
had no room, but there was an empty cabin across the field. After supper, the
farmer accompanied the preacher to this old house to help him gather wood and light
a fire for the night.
Before he left, he told the
preacher he hoped he wasn’t afraid of ghosts, for the cabin was haunted.
Shrugging off the warning, the preacher placed a chair by the fire’s warmth and
read his Bible for a couple of hours.
After he fell asleep, he awoke
several hours later, to find the fire had died out. He struck a match to check
his watch. Twelve o’clock—midnight.
As he hunkered back down into
his bedroll, he heard a loud noise. It sounded as if someone had unloaded a
wheelbarrow full of bricks on the roof. He went outside only to find the rain
falling softly, and no one else around.
Once back in the cabin, he
heard a rooster begin to crow but this sound abruptly stopped, as if something
had choked the bird into silence.
Unnerved, the preacher sat down
and began to read his Bible once more. He looked up from the book, hearing a
loud moan. He couldn’t tell where this sound originated. He stoked the fire and
sat back down.
He then heard a series of
moans and groans, these cries surrounded him. It sounded like a female sobbing. This
woman called something out, which he could not make out. Then the sounds
stopped.
The preacher heard footsteps
approach the back door. It swung open, and he caught the vague form of a woman
who was crying. She faded, and the door slammed shut.
He tried to resume his
reading, but the sobbing and moaning began once more. The door opened, and the
form appeared once more. This time the preacher invoked a prayer and asked, “What
do you want?”
The figure half floated, and
half fell, in the direction of where he sat. This spirit then sobbed and grabbed his coat
lapels with her hands. She drew her face up close to his.
She was wearing a dress that
was faded and in rags. Her hair was tangled around her face. There were dark
empty sockets where her eyes should have been. She didn’t have a nose.
The preacher gasped for
breath as he sat frozen in fear. The frightening form spoke. “I want to be
properly buried. You’ll find my bones buried over there.” She pointed to the
hearth rock, near the fire.
She turned back. “My
sweetheart killed me for my money. If you do what I request, and come back
tomorrow night, I will tell you were its hid.”
The preacher listened frozen
to the spot. “Bury me in the churchyard, all except my little finger on my left
hand. Invite all the neighborhood folks to come to supper tomorrow. Put my
finger bone on a plate, and pass it around.”
She floated above him. “It’ll
stick to the hand of the one who murdered me.” She then sobbed and faded down
into the hearth.
The preacher sat in the chair
the rest of the night, unable to sleep. The next morning he enlisted the help
of the farmer—telling him about what he heard and saw.
The two men dug up her bones
and buried them in the cemetery. The preacher performed a solemn funeral
service and arranged for an excellent supper that night.
A plate with the finger bone
was passed around. When it reached a grey-haired man, it stuck to his hand. He
started to holler and tried to get it off, but it held fast.
The man was so horrified, he
confessed to the murder, at which point the bone fell to the floor. It was a
crime he had committed 40 years before. A
week later, he was hanged.
The preacher returned to the
cabin once more. The spirit true to her word showed him where the money was hidden. But he was never able to wear his favorite suit coat again. The spirit’s
fingers had burned holes right through the lapels.
