Why is the bell witch haunting always mentioned during halloween season?”
For historical information pertaining to the characters in the following story, please visit the Biographies page. For an in-depth look and discussion about the legend’s key parts, please visit the Essays page or the book page. Americans responded to the lure of the paranormal in droves, making “The Sixth Sense,” “The Blair Witch Project,” and “An American Haunting” big hits at the box office, proving yet again that people are fascinated with things that go bump in the night, even when the stories are made up or based loosely on facts. Not surprisingly, interest in well-documented hauntings has grown over the past few years. One such haunting is the legend of the so-called “Bell Witch,” a sinister entity that tormented a pioneer family on Tennessee’s early frontier between 1817 and 1821. Unlike the blockbuster films and many other ghost stories, the “Bell Witch” haunting involved real people and is substantiated by eyewitness accounts, affidavits, and manuscripts penned by those who ex
The Bell Witch or Bell Witch Haunting is a poltergeist legend from Southern United States folklore, involving the Bell family of Adams, Tennessee. The legend is the basis of the films An American Haunting (2006) and The Bell Witch Haunting (2004). John Bell Jr. also wrote a book presenting the story as history.[citation needed] Legend An artist’s drawing of Betsy Bell, originally published in 1894. According to the legend, the first manifestation of the haunting occurred in 1817 when John William Bell, Sr. encountered a strange animal in a cornfield on his large farm in Robertson County, on the Red River, near Adams, Tennessee. The animal, described as having the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit, vanished when Bell shot at it. This incident was quickly followed by a series of strange beating and gnawing noises manifesting outside and eventually inside the Bell residence. Betsy Bell, the family’s younger daughter and the only daughter still living at home (Bell’s oldest daughter E
