I have always enjoyed a good ghost story at Halloween. Three of my favorite ghost stories actually have a factual basis.
The oldest recorded ghost story in the area is of the haunting of the Military Road (Highway 12) crossing of Black Creek four miles northeast of Columbus. In 1851, Joseph Cobb wrote a book titled “Mississippi Scenes” which contained the story “The Legend of Black Creek.” It is the account of a traveler on Military Road going to Columbus and his frightening late night experience attempting to cross Black Creek.
“It is a forbidding spot, shaded by huge willows and swamp-oaks, whose thick foliage imparts an aspect of gloom and terror sufficiently ominous to put a suspicious or superstitious soul on his guard, independent even of the ghostly associations connected with its history.”
There was a story told by an old army veteran of how, “Old Hickory, having arrived on the banks … rashly ordered two young dragoons (mounted soldiers) to try the depth of the ford, and how both of them were swept away by the swift current, and never seen more.”
Cobb told other accounts of persons being murdered there or drowning while crossing the creek when it flooded. He told of the horrible murder of a man there and how, on the anniversary of that evil deed, “…anyone with the misfortune to be at Black Creek would first hear the sound of horses’ hooves and a man whistling,” followed by a gunshot with a pistol flash lighting the scene where a “rider dropped from his horse, a man rushed out and rifled him in a trice, and then, mounting a huge black horse, which stood a little way off, breathing fire and flames from his nostrils, both vanished in a whirlwind which happened to meet them just at the top of the hill.”
On other occasions travelers “beheld two men on horseback, with plumes in their caps, and great crooked swords dangling at their sides, rearing and plunging through the air about the height that the creek usually rises to in high flood, whilst a great white figure darted up suddenly, with a shriek, out of the dark pool, and then fell back heavily again, as if pulled down with a dead weight.”
Is there a historical basis for Cobb’s “Legend of Black Creek”? Not far north of Black Creek on a hill overlooking Howard Creek, I recall seeing the grave of a U.S. soldier who died there during the construction of the Military Road. How he died is not recorded, but he might have drowned crossing a flooded Black Creek, his story surviving as a ghost story.
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A lost silver mine often forms the basis for a good ghost story. In the 1930s, both James Prowell and R.C. Cox of Lowndes County were asked for family stories about the old Plymouth Bluff settlement on the Tombigbee. Both wrote letters that are at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, telling of a lost Choctaw Indian silver mine.
Cox, the descendant of an early settler at Plymouth, related an old family account that around 1830, Plymouth housed a silversmith. The silversmith obtained his silver from Choctaws who would be gone for three days and return with silver, silver ore or lead.
Prowell wrote that his grandfather had moved into the area in 1828 and settled at Plymouth in 1830. He also mentioned a silver mine and said, “At frequent intervals the Indians would leave Plymouth and, after being away about a week, would return with silver. … It was said there was a silver mine near the village, location of which was known only to the Indians.”
Other stories told of a Choctaw who was going to lead some men to the mine being found dead on a trail leading from Plymouth. The story goes that the spirit of the murdered Choctaw haunts the woods around old Plymouth.
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The Tombigbee, as it flows past Columbus, is awash with ghost stories. Last week I told the eerie story of the steamboat W.H. Gardner. There is also the Eliza Battle, which burned and sank on a freezing flooded Tombigbee river during an ice storm in 1858. Ghostly figures are reportedly seen walking to the river bank by the west end of the old bridge, only to disappear into thin air.
One of the strangest stories is that of the steamer James T. Staples.
In 1908, Norman Staples constructed the most palatial boat built on the Tombigbee since the Civil War, and he named the boat the James T. Staples, after his father. The steamboat was his pride and joy.
But by late 1912, Norman Staples was having severe financial problems, and he lost the steamboat to creditors. Staples could not accept the loss of the boat and, in early January 1913, took his own life with a shotgun. The boat’s new owners directed her captain to proceed up the river from Mobile on the same day as Staples’ funeral. The captain declined and quit. After several unusual occurrences concerning the steamer, including Staples’ ghost being reported on board, most of the crew also quit.
With a new captain and crew, the Staples steamed out from the Mobile Wharf and headed up the Tombigbee. Norman Staples had just been buried at Bladon Springs Cemetery near the river, when the James T. Staples reached the place on the river closest to its former owner’s grave. At this point, its boilers exploded, sinking the boat. Twenty-six people, including its new captain, were killed. The survivors were rescued by the John Quill, a Columbus-Mobile packet boat.
Unlike most ghost stories, the unusual circumstances surrounding the Staples’ loss were picked up by news media, including the Jan. 13, 1913, Columbus Commercial, which had a front-page account of the loss. The article actually commented on the strange circumstances surrounding the disaster.
While many ghost stories are simply stories, some have a very eerie element of truth within them. Those are the stories that really leave you pondering what you have just heard.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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