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During those three years of darkness and famine, some of Europe’s greatest artists created their 
It all began with a farmer shooting at a 'something' in a field. Or it may have started from a dispute with a neighbor. Or it may have never happened at all. However it began, the legend of the Bell Witch has been a popular tale in the United States since the mid-19th century, and today, it attracts an international audience. The feature film An American Haunting (2005), though panned by critics, still made a respectable return at the box office. The movie was based on the novel The Bell Witch: An American Haunting (2000) by Brent Monahan, which was well-received.
These are only two of the many works concerning the Bell Witch, not to mention the popular tourist attraction of the Bell Witch Cave and the Bell Witch Fall Festival (featuring the play Spirit) in Adams, Tennessee, or the websites, television specials, documentaries, and other works – including the blockbuster The Blair Witch Project (1999) – dealing with or inspired by the story of the Bell Witch.
The witch takes her name from the Bell family and the supernatural events they experienced between 1817 and 1821. Whether those events actually happened as described is still debated, but, prior to 1820, there was no "Bell Witch"
There were tales of witches, of course, just not this one who has since become legendary. Like any enduring legend, the Bell Witch story resonates with audiences because it touches on a central aspect of the human condition. What that aspect may be is up to each individual to interpret, and I don't know any better than anyone else, but, to me, it addresses the need to find a way to explain suffering.
The Bell Witch Legend
The story begins in 1817 when John Bell, a farmer of the Red River community (modern-day Adams, Tennessee), came across an odd creature – something the size of a large dog with the head of a rabbit – sitting in one of his fields. Bell's first impulse was to shoot the thing – and so maybe the moral of the story is that, when you shoot first and ask questions later, you shouldn't expect gentle breezes of blessings to follow – but, at the shot, the creature just vanished.
Shortly after Bell took a shot at the rabbit-headed dog, strange sounds began to be heard around the house.
In some versions of the legend, just before this event, John Bell had an altercation with a neighbor, Kate Batts, who claimed he had cheated her on a land deal. Batts was regarded as a witch by the people of the community, and so some versions account for the supernatural events that followed by claiming Batts cursed Bell.
This claim is supported by later events in which the spirit who torments the Bell family identifies itself as 'Kate', but the story works just as well without Batts. The event in the field could be interpreted as, in firing on the 'something', Bell enraged an earth spirit out for an afternoon's stroll. The events that followed, then, would be this spirit seeking revenge on the man who had greeted it so ungraciously.
Shortly after Bell took a shot at the rabbit-headed dog, strange sounds began to be heard around the house: knocking outside when no one was there, banging on walls and doors and roof, the sound of chains clanking, and of something gnawing on wood. A large black dog or wolf was seen in the fields and, as time went on, blankets were pulled from beds at night, voices whispered, and the Bell's 14-year-old daughter, Betsy, was physically attacked. Some invisible entity would slap her and pull her hair.
John Bell kept these events a secret from the neighbors as long as he could, but finally enlisted the aid of his friend and neighbor, James Johnston. Johnston and his wife agreed to spend a night in the house and, though skeptical at first, had the same experiences. Johnston told Bell that the house was haunted by an evil spirit, such as are mentioned in the Bible.
Once word got out, people would travel to the Bell home to ask the spirit questions – which would be answered enigmatically, like riddles – in the tradition of any oracle. It seemed to be able to travel enormous distances in seconds – or be in two places at once – as when it was able to recite the words to two sermons preached at the same time 13 miles (21 km) apart.
As word spread, it reached General Andrew Jackson, who was acquainted with the Bell family as John Jr. and his brothers, Jesse and Drewry, had fought under his command at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Jackson came toward the Bell home with a large wagon of provisions, which was suddenly stuck for no reason. After many failed attempts at getting the wheels moving, Jackson said, "By the eternal, boys! That must be the Bell Witch!" and they suddenly heard a disembodied voice telling them she would see them later – and then the wagon was freed and rolled on.
That night, at the Bell home, Jackson's party witnessed one of their number – who claimed to be a 'witch tamer' – attacked by some invisible force and thrown from the house. The entire party left quickly the next morning, with Jackson claiming he would rather fight the British again than take on the Bell Witch.
The spirit focused its attention on John and Betsy Bell (and sometimes the other children) but left John's wife, Lucy, and John Jr. alone. The spirit repeatedly swore she would kill John Bell and, in 1820, she did. He was found dead on 20 December 1820 – poisoned by some strange liquid in a vial no one in the family had ever seen before. When the contents of the vial were thrown into the fire, it exploded in an eerie blue flame.
At John Bell's funeral, attended by a large crowd of mourners, the entity showed up, toward the end, singing drinking songs. It continued to sing and would not stop until the last people had passed out through the graveyard's gates.
With the death of John Bell, it might have been expected that the spirit would leave the family alone, but not so. The entity seemed especially enraged by Betsy's engagement to a young man named Joshua Gardner and tormented her until she called the engagement off in 1821.
The spirit then visited the family and told them she was now leaving but would return in seven years, and, according to the accounts, she did – providing John Jr. with insights into the future – and then was never heard from again. Or, according to some, she never left, is still there in Adams, Tennessee, and always will be.
The Bell Witch History
Arguments over whether the Bell Witch is legend or history have been going on for over 100 years, and that discussion will not be addressed here. The Bell Witch is mentioned, though not by name, in a letter of Captain John R. Bell (no relation to the family) in 1820, but the first full-length account of the story is An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch (1894) by M. V. Ingram, a newspaper editor and writer.
Ingram claimed that he had a manuscript written by Richard Williams Bell, son of John Bell, given to him by R. Williams' son, James Allen Bell, and provides an eyewitness account of the events in the Bell home between 1817 and 1821. Ingram's book, he claims, is a faithful transcript of this account:
The author only assumes to compile the data, formally presenting the history of this greatest of all mysteries, just as the matter is furnished to hand, written by Williams Bell, a member of the family, some fifty-six years ago, together with other corroborative testimony by men and women of irreproachable character and unquestionable veracity.
It may be a strange story, nevertheless it is authentic, not only as recorded by Williams Bell, but transmitted to the present generation of the surrounding country through family reminiscences of that most eventful and exciting period of the century which set hundreds of people to investigating, including Gen. Andrew Jackson, and is recognized in every household as a historical truth.
This sounds very impressive – but there is no record of the "hundreds of people" who investigated, no evidence of flocks of people coming to the Bell home to ask the spirit questions, and no account placing Andrew Jackson anywhere near the Bell home between 1817 and 1821. There is not even any evidence that Jackson knew the Bell family, and no reports from the many said to have attended John Bell's funeral that a disembodied spirit sang drinking songs toward the end of the service.
If the story is fiction, the historical touches lend it weight and ground it in time.
Many historians, folklorists, and scholars have claimed Ingram probably made the whole story up as the manuscript of R. Williams Bell has never been found, or that R. Williams Bell created the fiction, or someone else sometime prior to the letter of Captain John R. Bell in 1820.
If the story is fiction, the historical touches lend it weight and ground it in time. The events did not happen 'at some point' but between 1817 and 1821. The events were not witnessed by 'just anybody' but by General Andrew Jackson, who would become the 7th President of the United States. If the story is an account of actual events, as many claim it to be, then these details are simply part of the family's history.
Conclusion
A story, however, does not need to be 'true' to be meaningful. Folktales, legends, and myths need not to have 'really happened' to resonate with audiences over centuries and across cultures. An insistence on the historicity of the Bell Witch legend can actually detract from it by trying to narrowly define and hold it. Like any folktale, the story needs room to breathe and grow, have details added and others cut or modified. And what that tale means should be open to anyone who hears or reads it – whether they want to take it as fact or fiction.
In his short story, Sonny's Blues, American author James Baldwin's character Sonny says:
No, there's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it, to keep on top of it, and to make it seem – well, like you. Like you did something, all right, and now you're suffering for it…Why do people suffer? Maybe it's better to do something to give it a reason, any reason.
I can't definitively say what the Bell Witch legend means, but I think it goes to the old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We know that John Bell and his family existed and that they were held in high regard, and, maybe, between 1817 and 1821, they seemingly suffered without cause, having done nothing wrong.
And maybe everything happened just as the details are given in the famous account. But maybe Baldwin is right, and it's easier if you can give suffering a reason – any reason – even a witch that's out to get you whose motives are entirely her own. And maybe that's how the Bell's neighbors explained what they felt was unexplainable – which is what myth and legend often do best – and provided a better reason for suffering than no reason at all.
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