Ghost Stories

Crumley Bridge

Baileyton

The old Lick Creek Bridge, also called Crumley Bridge, on Crumley Road, was said to be a site where you can turn off your car and hear otherworldly sounds coming from underneath. According to bridgehunter.com, it was built in 1925, and replaced in 2005. Since then, no otherworldly sounds have been reported.

Train Station

Chuckey

According to the website, “Chuckey, Tennessee Ghost Sightings”, there is a spirit that seems to be waiting for a train at the old train station, near the end of Chuckey Pike, in the 2000-block, before Charles Johnson Road:

Early in the morning you can see the semi-transparent silhouette of a person in front of the train station, at about 6 am. He appears out of nowhere and is only there for a second or so, but he does show up every morning. (Anonymous)

Cedar Creek Cave

Greeneville

Local legend tells of a hermit that still protects the privately-owned cave, he called home, to this day. Folklore maintains that long ago, a cranky old hermit nicknamed “Old Man Joe” died inside the privately owned cave, and to this day he confronts trespassers by screaming, “Get out of my cave!”

An older tale was revealed in The Greeneville Sun article, “Cedar Creek – An Organized Community With A Determined Purpose,” on July 28, 1956:

Local tradition tells of an old man who went far into the cave to “fiddle the devil a tune.” The old man was never seen again, but later his fiddle was washed out of the cave. Another legend reports that “fine” gold has been found in the cave, but the present owner reports that he has never found any of it. (The Greeneville Sun)

Dickson-Williams Mansion

Greeneville

Pain and suffering of patients in the old Greeneville Hospital, now the Dickson-Williams Mansion, at 108 North Irish Street, seems to have continued into the present.

The book, The Dickson-Williams Mansion Greeneville, TN, published in 2003 by the Dickson-Williams Historical Association, reveals that the mansion was established as the Greeneville Sanatorium and Hospital by Dr. C. P. Fox and later called the Greeneville Hospital.

Some people have reported having paranormal experiences in the museum. One person posted a personal account on the forum, "Lets Go on a Ghost Hunt!", on Topix:

The old hospital/Williams/Dickson Mansion is haunted. My mother used to work in that building when there were offices in there. We were in there late one night picking up some work for her to work on over the weekend and didn't even make it into the office due to the groans and cries coming from the upstairs and the old mansion part. The part of the building she worked in is no longer there, but we were spooked enough to leave and the THP used to be in that building also. (Topix)

If people are hearing sounds from the past in the mansion, it is most likely what is known in parapsychology as a “residual haunting”. In theory, these are events that are somehow “recorded” on surroundings, and under certain circumstances, play like a movie to terrified visitors.

General Morgan Inn

Greeneville

The Green Room in the General Morgan Inn, at 111 North Main Street, in downtown Greeneville, is said to be haunted by a ghost affectionately called “Green Room Grace”, and she is blamed when spoons go missing in the restaurant, and the inn’s namesake.

Green Room Grace is reported to be a playful spirit who lived at the General Morgan Inn in Greenville, Tennessee. Grace was a waitress in the Grand Central Hotel which was what the hotel was named before being called General Morgan Inn.

Grace seems to have become fascinated with spoons in the afterlife. Spoons have been disappearing from The Green Room, which is the hotel's restaurant, for more than 75 years. Just the spoons disappear, not the forks and knives. Green Room Grace is known as "the spoon snatcher." (Associated Content from Yahoo!)

On the YouTube video The General Morgan Inn – Haunted Tricities, it is revealed that she’s also blamed for moving objects in the kitchen, as well as causing painting to go crooked in the middle of the night in the green room.

On the YouTube video, The Ghosts of the General Morgan Inn, it’s revealed that “Front Desk Bill”, a former employee, sometimes staffs the old check-in desk, and has actually been mistaken as an employee by guests.

Confederate General John Hunt Morgan (1825 – 1864) is also said to haunt the inn. The same YouTube video says that he haunts the second floor Presidential Suite where his portrait hangs on the wall.

Like many other places of business, management at the Inn have tried to distance themselves from stories of ghostly goings-on, fearing it will hurt their business.

Morgan Culvert

Greeneville

The railroad bridge on Morgan Road, before Old Stage Road, in Greeneville is said to have been a common place for lynching. From here, folklore maintains, countless African-Americans were hanged. Not surprisingly, their spirits are said to still haunt this bridge:

This narrow trestle has a sorted past. It was used to lynch African Americans, some just for being in town after dark. Some people who linger there hear footsteps in the creek that usually runs through it and muffled cries, a reminder of the cruelties that once took place here. (Ghosts & Spirits)

It is more than possible that the folklore surrounding the culvert is factual, but that the phantom footsteps may be nothing more than a visitors footsteps reverberating off of the structure itself.

These stories, however, may have been an invention, and migrated from the Little Chucky Creek Stone Arch. In a post on the group, “Down Home In Greeneville Tn.”, on Facebook, Michael Doty explains:

One of these days I will gladly elucidate on the origins of most of those stories since they have little bearing in fact and are instead the invention of several of us in high school during the 1970s. It is amazing how our storied inventions have grown and transformed over time into a kind or rural myth, but the truth is a very few of us guys made the whole thing up from nothing. If anyone is interested in how that all occurred, please let me know since it will take a ling telling. The basic truth is we were trying to scare our dates into cuddling - a chauvinistic practice no doubt, but true. (Doty)

Old Greeneville Jail

Greeneville

Accord to The Greeneville Sun article, “Hunting Hauntings”, by Sarah R. Gregory, the old, relocated stone jail at 116 East Depot Street, was originally built on Richland Creek, from the limestone and iron taken from an older jail, built by slaves in 1806. It is said, by some, that the spirits of some prisoners still reside in the building.

Robinhood Road

Greeneville

Robinhood Road in Greeneville is said to be haunted by the spirit of a young girl named Ryan, who is desperately trying to leave the road, where it is said she was murdered and buried in a basement:

According to legend, a girl named Ryan was murdered in her own home on Robinhood Road. No one seems to know which house it occurred in. Indeed, no one knows the details behind the murder, and no one was ever tried. Some say that the girl was murdered by her parents, other that she was murdered by an intruder to the house. Of course, there's also the possibility that this is simply an urban legend which never happened, but we won't devote much time to that.

Today, it is said that the ghost of Ryan wants justice for her murder. People claim to see her walking up and down the street, occasionally even approaching pedestrians or walking out in front of cars. She harms no one, and is only wanting to help someone uncover the truth, discover her remains, and bring her killer to justice. But since she can't communicate with the living, it's almost impossible for her to do so. (Ghosts & Spirits)

Like many ghostly legends, the ghost of Robinhood Road is notoriously difficult to prove.

Little Chucky Creek Stone Arch

Mosheim

Greene County Bridge, built in 1921, lies directly in front of the railroad arch, on Hartman Road, but may not be as haunted as some believe.

In a post on the group, “Down Home In Greeneville Tn.”, on Facebook, Michael Doty explains that he has his friends created the story when they were still in high school:

In 1968, Michael Doty and a few of his Junior year male Greeneville High School classmates, whose anonymity he shall protect, heard a vague rumor of a story that there was a haunted bridge on Hartman Road in Mosheim, TN. Being the mischievous bunch they were the band of compatriots found the bridge one dark evening while riding around in Doty’s 1956 Buick Century. Standing on the road bridge beside the railroad bridge, which was supposedly haunted, the band began to create a story line which eventually went something like this:

“During the Civil War the bridge in question was a vital link for supplies from Knoxville to Greeneville, and as a result whichever side controlled the railroad needed to control the bridge in such a conflicted part of the country. On one particular evening the Confederate troops (or the Union troops, it changed as needed), who controlled the railroad and guarded the bridge against saboteurs were attacked in the dead of night. A vicious firefight took place during which the guarding troops (most often Confederate troops) were vanquished and the attacking troops prevailed. As a lesson to the conquered militia the defeated troops were hanged from the trees around the bridge and the commander of the defeated garrison was hanged from the train rail to dangle in the center of the bridge. Ever since that day, on certain evenings (full moon, new moon, you name it) the battle would be revived and woe be to those who happened by at such an unpropitious time.”

Being opportunistic teenaged boys we then set about making the Haunted Bridge a reality. Many is the night when one of us would tell the tale to an unsuspecting date as we drove through the dark countryside only to stop on a moonlit night on the road beside the railroad bridge while our partners in fright would make soft “battle noises” in the background with growing intensity until with a final scream a dummy was flung from the top of the bridge to dangle in full view of the miscreant and his date. With a shriek and a scream the driver would then speed off down Hartman Road and stop in a remote place later where the terrified girl would be comforted, usually much to the conspirator’s delight. Sometimes it would be a single couple, sometimes a double date, but in the end the act had its desired effect. (Doty)

This tale may have migrated to Morgan Culvert in Greeneville.

Tusculum College

Tusculum

Tusculum College, at 60 Shiloh Road, has a museum that is said to be haunted by a piano-playing ghost, a building where disembodied screams can sometimes be heard, and the crying of a baby can be heard from another building.

Doak House Museum

According to a post on The Shadowlands on the website, "Haunted Places Index – Tennessee”, on the Doak House Museum: “Several people have reported hearing a piano/organ play upstairs, but there’s no one there.” (The Shadowlands) Folklore maintains that this is spirit Sarah Houston McEwen-Doak (1792 – 1864), the second wife of the founder of the college.

Virginia Hall

Some nights, the sedate campus is shattered by a blood-curdling scream from Virginia Hall. According to a post on the same The Shadowlands website: “The head mother’s room was in the attic. The [dormitory] caught on fire but the head mother couldn’t get out. The girls could hear her screaming.” (The Shadowlands) This tale is suspicious because no record of a fire can be found.

Another explanation for the screaming was proposed by a man who wished to remain anonymous, who said that the screams were from a suicide victim. The alumni graduated from Tusculum College in the late 1970s, and said that when he was a student he had heard a young lady had hanged herself from the tree in front of Virginia Hall and it was her screams that echoed through the night. This death was verified by a Kingsport News article on November 6, 1972 titled, "'Apparent Suicide' in Tusculum Student’s Death”:

A Tusculum [College] freshman was found early Monday hanging from an oak tree in the middle of the college campus.

Greene County coroner Buster Greenway said the death of [R. W. H.], of Morristown, [New Jersey], was “an apparent suicide.”

The body was found by another student at the college, [J. S.].

Sheriff David Davis said a loop from a homemade swing was around the victim’s neck, and his knees were touching the ground. Time of death was placed at around [8:00 PM] Sunday.

Davis said that [the victim] was described by his fellow students as a “loner” He said no motive for the apparent suicide was found.

[The victim] would have been 20 years of age Monday. (Kingsport News)

Perhaps this ghost story is a more interesting way of retaining the tragedy of young man.

Katherine Hall

On the website, “Haunted Tennessee Blog Series – Colleges”, The Pigeon Forge Chamber of Commerce claims the sounds of a baby can be heard in Katherine Hall:

Katherine Hall is a largest dormitory on Tusculum’s campus. Built in 1962 and renovated in 1999, Katherine Hall is three stories tall and can house 140 students. Local legend says that while attending Tusculum, a young girl gave birth to a baby in Katherine Hall. The house mother took the child from the girl. According to legend, the young mother took her child back, only to discover the child was dead. In fit of rage, the young girl killed the house mother then took her own life. The baby is rumored to be buried behind the hall. At night, students say they hear a baby crying behind the building. Sometimes, students claim to have heard a woman crying, looking for her child. (The Pigeon Forge Chamber of Commerce)

St Joseph Chapel FWB Church Graveyard

Mohawk

The unattached graveyard, across the street from the church, at 790 McDonald Rd, Midway, TN 37809, has an outlying grave, in the woods. Local legends tell that this was a man who was a devil-worshiper, and because of that, was buried outside of the proper graveyard, facing west. Some say that you can hear him shifting uncomfortably in his coffin.

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