Pat Fitzhugh, author of The Bell Witch: The Full Account, gives tonight's Evenings Upstairs presentation at the McCracken County Public Library. Legends of the Bell Witch center around the Bell Farm in northern middle Tennessee where there were documented accounts of a disembodied voice physically attacking the family and visitors. Fitzhugh talks tells the story and previews the lecture with Todd Hatton on Sounds Good.
As the story goes, an early pioneer family was terrorized by an invisible malevolent entity for about 4 years in the early 1800s. Though the experiences were originally confined to the family's farm, the affected area grew to include about six miles of surrounding land. Fitzhugh’s book is a journalistic analysis of the legend that dives into the story's different versions, local, state, and federal records, old manuscripts and family bibles, and interviews with descendants of those who experienced the alleged haunting.
Fitzhugh says there are accounts of covers being pulled off beds, physical attacks, and a disembodied voice that liked to argue scripture and curse at people. He says the story has been embellished over the years but the original version is the spookiest. According to the legend, even Andrew Jackson and his group of men were provoked by the voice upon visiting the farm.
Fitzhugh tells the full story of the Bell Witch and talks about the process of tracking down and analyzing historical information surrounding the legend during tonight's Evenings Upstairs beginning at 7:oo p.m.
