Kentucky Hauntings (5 page)

The sheriff concluded that the farmer had tripped accidentally on the stairs and fallen to his death. He saw no reason to search the cellar.

The family tried to stay on in the house, but on stormy nights strange sounds kept them awake. They searched, but they could never find the source. Finally, they had to move away. Others bought the house and heard the same noises. One farmer plowing the field near the barn turned up the remains of a man and a trunk filled with money. The sheriff had no proof, but it was evident what had happened. Nobody wanted to live there after that, so the house was eventually torn down.

Since the peddler was never given a proper burial, some wonder if his ghost is still out there somewhere on stormy nights, hoping someone will help him find eternal rest.

O
ur families were very interested in the news they heard. We did not get daily or weekly newspapers, but our relatives in cities would sometimes send us newspapers or articles. Discussion of a particularly dramatic story would go on and on. There are so many stories on TV, computers, or in newspapers and magazines today that any one story does not remain as popular. New stories come along so fast that a story that captures the imagination one day is replaced by another the next day.

Some of the best stories passed on to us were those that the tellers learned from headlines and news articles. We didn't often see these sources ourselves; some of these stories happened before we were born. In this section we retell stories that intrigued friends or family enough that they read them and passed them on in their own words. Some of the original news articles may still be found in newspaper archives or on the Internet. To find them, just type the subject of the story into your computer and search the Internet.

A Kentucky death that made national headlines back in the 1920s was the death of Floyd Collins. Sand Cave in the Mammoth Cave area of central Kentucky is said to be haunted by Collins, an explorer who was trapped and died in the cave in 1925. This was exciting news to our families because it happened not too far away from us. We had relatives in the area. Thus, the story of Floyd Collins was close to our community and our hearts.

The Collins family owned Crystal Cave near Mammoth Cave. Crystal Cave was beautiful, but it attracted few tourists because of its isolated location. The owners of the various caves in the vicinity competed for tourists in those days, and Collins wanted to find another entrance to the underground cave system that might result in more tourists visiting his family's cave.

For three weeks, Floyd Collins worked on his plan to find an entrance or connection. During that time, he worked alone, exploring and expanding a hole that the news media would later call “Sand Cave.”

Collins worked a few hours in Sand Cave on January 30, 1925, and managed to squeeze through some narrow passageways that he claimed led to a large chamber. His lamp was dying, so he decided to leave before exploring this chamber.

As he was leaving, Collins accidentally knocked over his lamp, extinguishing his light. That made his attempted departure even more difficult. Unable to see where he was going, he dislodged a rock from the ceiling, pinning his left leg and making it impossible for him to get out. Later, it was determined that the rock weighed only 26½ pounds, but the way it was lodged prevented him and his rescuers from reaching it. It was also discovered later that he was trapped just 150 feet from the entrance to the cave and 55 feet below the surface.

When Collins didn't come home, friends searched and found him the next day. They took him hot food and ran an electric lightbulb down into the passage to give him some light and warmth. Rescue efforts were started, but the unstable passage collapsed in two places on February 4. This eliminated his food and water supply and all contact except by voice. The rescuers believed the cave to be dangerous and impassable at this point, so they began to dig an artificial shaft and lateral tunnel in an attempt to reach Floyd through another chamber. Their efforts failed, but they kept trying to find something that would work.

Soon the life-threatening predicament of Floyd Collins caught the attention of the media, and people came from all over the country to visit the site where Floyd was trapped. A kind of carnival-like atmosphere took over as Floyd was trapped and dying. His own family is said to have made a nice amount of money from selling Floyd Collins souvenirs. Reporters sent stories to their papers across the country, and everybody waited and prayed for his rescue. Tragically, that was not to be. Rescuers finally reached him on February 17, but by then he was dead from exposure, thirst, and starvation.

At that point, rescuers decided that it was too dangerous to attempt to remove the body, so they left it as they found it and filled up the shaft with debris. Later, a doctor estimated that Floyd had died three or four days earlier, probably on February 13.

A funeral service was held for Floyd Collins on the surface of the cave, but this did not seem right to his brother Homer. Sand Cave did not seem to Homer Collins like a proper resting place for his brother, even though notable explorers in Europe were often buried in the caves they discovered. Two months later, Homer and some friends reopened the shaft, dug a new tunnel, and were finally able to remove Floyd's body on April 23, 1925. On April 26, Floyd's body was buried on the Collins homestead near Crystal Cave. Later the cave would be renamed Floyd Collins Crystal Cave in his honor. It seemed that Floyd would finally be able to rest in peace, but stories about him tell us that his rest was not for long.

In 1927, Floyd's father, Lee Collins, sold the homestead, along with Floyd's grave and Crystal Cave. By June 13, the new owner had thought of a wonderful tourist attraction. He had Floyd's body placed in a glass-topped coffin and exhibited it for many years at the entrance to Crystal Cave. People say it was a profitable move because many people came and paid to gawk at a man who had become a legend.

Later, other stories circulated. As if it were not disturbing enough for people to pay to look at this unfortunate man, someone stole his body on the night of March 18–19, 1929. Some people thought the owners of the property might have done it for publicity to increase tourist interest, but they had no proof. Others thought it was a prank, but nobody ever knew for sure. The body was soon recovered not far from the cave, but Floyd's left leg was missing. The leg was never found.

After this theft, the body was kept in a chained casket in a secluded section of Crystal Cave. Most of the family had long objected to Floyd's casket being placed in the cave for public viewing.

In 1961, Crystal Cave was purchased by Mammoth Cave National Park and officials closed it to the public. At the request of the Collins family, the National Park Service removed Floyd's body and interred it in the Flint Ridge Cemetery on March 4, 1989. It took a team of fifteen men three days to remove the casket and tombstone from Crystal Cave and take it to its final resting place.

After the long ordeal of his stay in the cave both in life and death, Floyd Collins's spirit may feel more at home there than in Flint Ridge Cemetery. Some people have reported hearing a weak voice in the cave calling for help. Others claim to have seen him standing in the cave. Perhaps he is looking for his lost leg. True or not, the elements are there for the ghost of the fallen hero to return.

Two questions often come up in discussions about ghosts. “Are there evil ghosts?” and “Do they ever kill?” We rarely encounter stories that say yes to either question, but Kentucky folklore does have one such story, about a man named Carl Pruitt. Troy Taylor, our good friend and renowned author of many books on the paranormal, has written about this case in his book
Beyond the Grave.
His version is our favorite. Other renditions of the story may be found in the late Michael Paul Henson's book
More Kentucky Ghost Stories,
as well as on the Internet.

Our story begins in eastern Kentucky in June 1938. Carl Pruitt came home from work and discovered his wife in bed with another man. The cowardly lover escaped through a window, leaving the wife to face the wrath of her husband alone. He was so enraged that he strangled her with a small piece of chain. When his rage subsided and he realized what he had done, he committed suicide by shooting himself. Police considered it a clear case of murder-suicide and closed the case. It was not over, however. In fact, it was just the beginning.

Carl and his wife were buried in separate cemeteries. Unfortunately, no pictures of the graves are available. She evidently rested in eternal peace, but Carl's rage apparently lived on. A few weeks after he was buried, people began to notice the pattern of a chain forming on his gravestone. A discoloration in the stone kept growing until it formed a small-linked chain that twisted back on itself to form a cross. It frightened the local residents so much that they wanted to remove the stone. Officials refused to let them do it, but they remained uneasy.

Something about this strange occurrence seemed evil to those who saw it. Most people chose to stay away from the grave and leave Carl Pruitt alone. Of course, there were a few who didn't, and they paid dearly for it.

About a month after the image on the stone stopped growing, a group of local teenagers decided to ride their bicycles through the cemetery where Carl Pruitt was buried. One boy decided to defy the warnings of people who said evil was associated with the stone and that it was dangerous to disturb it. He stopped and threw rocks at the gravestone, knocking several large chips out of it. Laughing, yet a little frightened now that one of the group had actually caused minor damage to the stone, the teenagers all pedaled away toward their homes.

Suddenly, a strange thing happened to the boy who did the damage. His bicycle began to speed out of control, and he couldn't stop it. It veered off the road and crashed into a tree. Then the unbelievable happened. The sprocket chain tore loose, wrapped itself around the boy's neck, and strangled him to death. Even more unbelievable, the day after the boy's death, the tombstone was completely whole again. The pieces he had knocked off were back on again!

The dead boy's mother was distraught after his death. During the next month, her grief and anger built until she couldn't stand it anymore. She had to have revenge. She took a small hand axe to the graveyard and pounded Carl Pruitt's tombstone into a dozen pieces. Then she went back home, feeling some relief after what she had done. The next day, she did the family wash and took the clothes out to the yard to hang them on her clothesline to dry. Most clotheslines were made of rope or wire, but hers was made of a small chain. While she was hanging the clothes, she somehow stumbled and became entangled in the clothesline. She was strangled to death trying to get free. After she died, the Pruitt tombstone she had smashed with her axe miraculously became whole, just as it had done once before.

As news of these strange deaths spread, a morbid interest in the tombstone grew. There were those who believed and stayed at a respectful distance, but there were those who disbelieved and wanted to prove the believers wrong.

A short time passed, and one day a farmer and three members of his family were driving by the cemetery where Pruitt was buried. The farmer was one of the skeptics and likely wanted to prove something to his family members. He pulled out a gun he always carried and fired several shots at Pruitt's headstone. He hit his target, and chunks of the headstone flew in all directions. Frightened by the shots, the horses ran faster and faster until the wagon was out of control. The family members jumped to safety, but the farmer held on, pulling the reins to stop. His efforts were useless, and the wagon swerved around a curve, throwing the farmer from his seat. He flew forward and caught on one of the trace chains, breaking his neck. Once again, after this tragic event, Carl Pruitt's tombstone was whole again!

Talk of curses and mysterious deaths grew in the community and was called to the attention of the local congressman. He felt compelled to respond, so he sent two police officers to the cemetery to investigate the odd stories. One of the officers considered the assignment somewhat beneath him, so he laughed and joked about ghosts and curses. He and his partner took some photos and left to interview some witnesses to the events. As they were leaving in the police car, the skeptical officer saw a light coming from the direction of Carl Pruitt's headstone. As it came closer and closer, the officer drove faster and faster. As it reached the car, the officer swerved off the road and crashed the car between two posts. He was hit by a chain that had been hanging between the two posts. It smashed through the windshield, wrapped around the officer's neck, and almost severed his head. The other officer was thrown free and injured only slightly.

The officer's death was enough to make most people believers and to keep them away from the cemetery. There was one unfortunate exception, however; his name was Mr. Lewis. He declared the whole thing was nonsense and set out one night with a chisel and sledgehammer to prove it. People in the vicinity of the cemetery could hear the sounds as he chipped away at the stone, but they kept their distance and did nothing until they heard a blood-curdling scream cut through the night air. Several men grabbed lanterns and hurried to the cemetery to see what had happened. When they reached the gate, they found Mr. Lewis dead there, looking as though he had been running to escape. The long chain used to keep the gate closed was wrapped around his neck. They figured that he must have been so frightened by something that he forgot about the chain and ran right into it. The strange thing was that all the hammering he did on Pruitt's stone did no damage to it at all.

This last death convinced people to stay away. Many bodies were removed and reburied at other locations because nobody wanted to visit their loved ones with Carl Pruitt nearby. Eventually, Pruitt's grave became overgrown with weeds. He and his wife were childless, so there was nobody to tend the grave. In 1958, a strip-mining operation covered the grave and the body forever.

Was Carl Pruitt really an evil ghost who reached out and killed the people who disturbed or mocked him? We will never know for sure, but we do know that these stories persist. There is enough evidence to convince many people that some spirits are not to be laughed at or bothered.

We especially love stories from towns near us. Relatives in Somerset told us of a haunted place nearby.

Cumberland Falls State Park, located in the Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky, draws more visitors than any other park in the state. It's known as the Niagara of the South because of the 125-foot-wide falls that plunge 60 feet into a gorge below, which makes it the second largest waterfall in North America. It also has the Western Hemisphere's only Moonbow, a phenomenon that occurs on a clear night with a full moon by the mist of the falls. With such magic, Cumberland Falls naturally has its share of legends and ghost stories.