Tales from Tate’s Lane

What is a Sept/Oct issue without a few ghost stories and some goosebumps?

When I was a young Girl Scout eating s’mores around the campfire, we’d pass a flashlight to shine on our faces and try to get the hair on each other’s necks to stand up. My mother, whose camp name is Mama Bear, never failed to tell the best story.

Usually, we’d force her to retell our favorite, which she called “The Cemetery Rat.” She should have won a Campfire Emmy the way she delivered it, with facial expressions and various animated voices (but I just invented Campfire Emmys…you’re welcome, Scouts.) By the time the funeral director was trapped in the coffin of the man he’d murdered for his diamonds, someone would always scream.

I never reveal the whole story without marshmallows, chocolate and gluten-free graham crackers, so you’ll have to invite me to your campout if you want to hear the rest. I promise to do my best Mama Bear impersonation.

The first story you’ll hear around a campfire in Tennessee is that of the Bell Witch. She’s probably the most famous ghost in America, and she’s only an hour away from here.

Kate, as she prefers to be called, “lives” by the Red River in Adams Station, TN, which is in Robertson County. She is a mostly invisible and extremely chatty gossip of a ghost who first started annoying a local farmer named John Bell Sr in 1817.

Old Kate Batts took a liking to the Bells’ youngest daughter, Betsy, but she showed her fondness by picking especially hard on her. She would pull everyone’s hair and scratch all of the children equally, but Betsy would also get slapped and pinched and stuck with pins. Kate loved Betsy’s mom, Lucy, and would frequently serenade her and bring her fresh fruit.

She also loved to gossip. Sometimes she would leave a conversation and spy on the neighbors and come back with stories of what they had been up to. She liked to quote Bible verses and sermons, transform herself into a rabbit, dog or bear, and sometimes she would “call the dogs” on an unwanted visitor.

The stories are mostly playful, evoking the idea that she was something like a bratty child putting tacks on the teacher’s seat, but Kate wasn’t all fun and games, she reportedly hated John Bell Sr. and frequently talked about killing him. Eventually, she poisoned him, according to legend. She also didn’t want Betsy to marry her fiancé, and fearing her anger, Betsy never did.

Through the years and for generations after the events, several of the Bell family descendants have written or contributed to histories of what was certainly a well-documented haunting. Many tales of mischief and murder are accredited to the Bell Witch, but she hasn’t been seen or heard from very often since the turn of the 19th century. Many movies and television series have used her lore to scare their audiences, including Poltergeist, The Witch, and The Amityville Horror.

These days Kate is believed to reside in a cave near the farm where she first revealed herself and terrorized the family. Some folks say that if you remove a rock from the cave, she will follow you home and haunt you.

Some folks say Betsy Bell was a very good ventriloquist.

A slightly lesser-known, but still totally binge-able spooky story can be found an hour away in a slightly different direction. The Thomas House is located in Red Boiling Springs, TN, which is in Macon county.

The historic resort used to be called the Cloyd Hotel and was built to give visitors a luxurious place to relax between dips in the nearby mineral springs. After it was destroyed by a fire in 1927, it was rebuilt on the same location and continues to accommodate guests, even some of the non-living variety.

The family that runs the hotel lives on the premises, and so do a few of the deceased former owners. In room 37, you may encounter a child named Sarah Cloyd who likes to play with toys and flashlights and such. Guests frequently bring her dolls and the decor has become quite appropriate for the television shows that have been filmed there.

Another ghost has been nicknamed “The Whistler” and he was caught whistling when the Ghost Hunters visited the Thomas House in Season 8, episode 1. They also found a reason to believe there is an older lady occupying the place and roaming the hallways.

If you want to see these spirits for yourself, Thomas House offers a fun package which includes dinner, ghost hunter training, snacks during your ghost hunts, a bedroom to sleep in and breakfast in the morning. It might be the perfect adventure for those who prefer a more hands-on ghost story experience.

You never have to wander far from home to find a good ghost story, though. When I was younger, my Great Uncle bought a historic home that had once served as the town’s only funeral home. It had been in disrepair and my father, having many types of construction prowess, rented it in exchange for labor. All of my friends were excited to spend the weekends on the hunt for the ghosts that “everyone knew” lived in my future house.

I, being only 9 at the time of the move, was very apprehensive. For a few weeks, we spent the nights at my grandparents’ house while my Dad and Mom slept in the only room with walls and insulation. One of those nights, my parents awoke to the sound of chains rattling. They both refused to believe their ears, claiming “I didn’t hear that, either,” and went back to bed. The third time they woke up, my dad bravely brandished a flashlight and went searching for the source of the sound.
Downstairs in the unfinished back half of the house was an antique claw foot tub, an old crystal chandelier, and my cat, Smokey, playing with the chain. Most of my ghost stories ended like that and no one ever succeeded in getting haunted during one of our slumber parties.

In preparation for this issue, I asked my boyfriend, Paul, to share with me all of the haunted houses and spooky stories between the lakes. He took Krys and I for a drive down Tate Lane.

The old Tate house has been torn down and the new neighborhoods are far too well lit, but the spirit of the lane is the same as when he was a teenager with a crisp new driver’s license and a Bo Duke-style truck. He and his friends would cruise down Tate lane without their headlights on, (which is very, VERY dangerous and not encouraged by this magazine or mom) and look for the ghosts that haunted the road.

Old Man Tate was said to be a mean slave owner and officer in the Civil War. He would punish his slaves by locking them in cellars or hanging them from trees along the lane. Some of them vowed to haunt him and to kill racists on their return. Many a car accident is said to have taken lives on Tate Lane, but I believe that dangerous twists and lack of headlights might be more to blame.

The road is most definitely very old, though, and has sunk significantly beneath the roots of the trees that grow there. It’s a gorgeous drive during the day but beware of dangerous teenage drivers.

Those are extremely scary creatures, indeed.