The True Story of the Bell Witch from the Movie An American Haunting

The recently released movie, "An American Haunting" stars Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland as Lucy and John Bell. In the opening, the audience is told that this is the only recorded death due to a haunting. The movie takes some license of the real story, for entertainment value. However, the Bell Witch story is a well-documented case of the tormenting haunting of an American family.

John Bell was of Scottish descent, born around 1750. He married Lucy Williams Bell, and they had seven children, including Betsy Bell, who became the most tormented of any in the family. John Bell was a pillar of his church and community, owning a prosperous farm of 1000 acres in Red River, Tennessee (now known as Adams, Tennessee). The trouble began in 1817, when John Bell was on a hunting trip and was viciously charged upon by a black wolf. Upon firing his gun, the wolf seemed to disappear into thin air. John was visibly shaken.

In December of that year, the knocking began. Each night at ten o'clock, an hour after the family retired for the night, an insistent knocking would be heard at the back door. Upon investigation, the family would find no one was there. However, upon returning to bed, the knocking would begin again. It would continue until around midnight, when it would stop. The family at first dismissed this as pranks, although that was never proven and no culprits were caught.

A couple of months after the knocking, the children began to hear noises in their rooms at night. Sounds such as growling, gnawing, chains rattling, and lips smacking were heard. However, when the children would quickly light a candle, there would be no one in the room. Soon after the family began to hear rocks being dropped onto their roof, but no rocks were ever found.

The haunting continued with various family members awaking to having their bed covers being slowly peeled off their bodies and onto the floor. Upon pulling on the covers, they could feel a tug from the other end and the covers would be jerked from their hands. The family had tried to deal with this on their own, being private people, but when fourteen year old Betsy was jerked from her bed and held by the hair above the ground by invisible hands, the family fear overcame their pride and they asked for help.

The Bells reached out to their neighbors for help, and the Johnston family attempted to perform an amateur exorcism, quoting Bible verses and prayers. This seemed to rile the spirit and young Betsy took the brunt of it, being pulled again into the air by her hair and also being violently slapped in the face repeatedly.

The Johnston family was not the only additional people to witness these attacks. Other neighbors, being concerned but also curious, also witnessed the attacks on Betsy, the objects hurled through the air, and eventually, in 1819, the voice of the spirit. Andrew Jackson was the most famous of these curiosity seekers, traveling to the Bell farm and camping in their back yard so as not to tax their hospitality. He also observed and commented on what he had witnessed.

The spirit began to speak in early 1819, and the voice was female. At one time the voice identified itself as "Old Kate Batt's Witch", the name of a neighbor in the community. At other times, the voice claimed to be Native American and go by the name of "Black Dog".

Many of the happenings seemed to be indicative of poltergeist activity, which has been reportedly documented since Classical times. However, no poltergeist was ever known to speak. The spirit seemed to follow the Bell family, quoting the Sunday sermons to them. At other times, it reviled John Bell by calling him vile names, and threatening to kill him.

Once the spirit threatened her father's life, Betsy's torment seemed to ease. John, however, became the target. He began to have swelling and soreness in his mouth and tongue, and complained of a feeling like "a stake jammed between the teeth". He could not speak, and could barely eat. He became weaker and finally became bedfast. To this, the spirit said, "He will never get up. I did it."

John Bell died and, after his death, a mysterious bottle of an unknown substance was found on his bedside table. A portion of these was fed to the barn cat, and he reacted by having violent fits.
A month or so after her father's death, young Betsy seemed to be symptom free. However, the spirit did show up at a later date to break up her engagement. At a social gathering, the voice cried out, "Betsy, you will not marry Joshua Gardner!" She listened, instead marrying her schoolteacher and long time friend, seventeen years her senior.

Betsy died some fifty-one years later, and never spoke publicly about her ordeal. However, the experiences of the family have been well documented and continue to be a story told by ghost lovers everywhere to this day.