Adams, Tennessee, is home to one of the most notable Ghost Story in the US. For 200 years this creepy story has been scaring the living snot out of youngsters during Halloween. And well it should be. The Bell Witch Haunting is one of the only (if not THE only) Ghosts
legally acknowledge to have killed a person. In Tennessee, we don’t mess around with bed sheets and brooms. We come after your ass!

(from Your Ghost Stories) Kate Batts was a spiteful old woman who believed that she had been cheated in a land purchase by John Bell and was hell bent (literally) on tormenting him and his children, or at least his favorite 12-year old daughter, Betsy.

On Kate’s deathbed, she vowed to haunt the family of the Bell’s who had done her wrong. After her death, she made good her promise. It felt to the Bell family that this ghost took no other pleasure than tormenting them incessantly. Kate pinched their noses, poked needles into them, threw kitchen objects about, screeched at them in her now notorious high-pitched voice, pulled hair and was a presence that none of them could escape.

So popular did the story become that General Andrew Jackson, the future President of the United States, gathered a few friend to investigate the story himself. He and his cohorts wanted to either debunk or repel the feisty spirit of Kate Batts.

Jackson and his men were in for a surprise though. When their wagons stuck fast to an otherwise smooth and flat road, their jests of dealing with the witch came to a halt. No matter how they examined, pushed, cursed or whipped the horses, their wagon was not moving. It was said that Jackson, in a fit of frustration and resignation, declared, “By the eternal, boys, it is the witch.” Much to the amazement of Jackson and his men, the legendary screech could be heard from a nearby bush that replied, “”All right General, let the wagon move on, I will see you again to-night.” Moments later the wagon and horses were suddenly free to move about. There wasn’t a person present that could account for the voice’s owner or its whereabouts.

Ghosts never die so it was not surprising that the haunting of Kate lasted the duration of John Bell’s life. In fact, the ghost of Kate Batts was said to have been responsible for John’s death.

In October of 1830, John Bell was rumored to have suffered a stroke and taken ill. While he was bedridden, his family found him in a particularly bad state of stupor and position. Alarmed, his son ran to the medicine cabinet to fetch what he thought was his father’s medicine. After administering it, the family heard the witch’s glee as she victoriously declared she had poisoned John herself the night before with that vial and this last dose was surely his undoing. True enough, it was. The contents were later examined by a doctor and found to be very poisonous.

It is also noted as one of the very rare poltergeists that caused a man’s death.