The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 89

-j. rr if 6 (J The Rowdy Iftifch The unexplained phenomenon which according to persistent legend plagued the family of John Bell more than a century ago gets a new treatment when the Nashville Choral Society presents a cantata composed by Charles F. Bryan, young Tennessean who created the work while enjoying a Guggenheim Fellowship By BILL HOLDER our neighbors were invited ajid committees formed, experiments tried, and a close watch kept in and out, every night but all of their wits were stifled, the dem-, onstrations all the while increasing in force The Bell home was crowded every night with visitors who were soon plying the Witch (for it soon became so known) with questions. In reply the Witch began whispering, then talking feebly. Finally, in reply to the question "Who are you what do you it answered, "I am a spirit; I was once very happy but have been disturbed." SOON afterward the Witch began talking of its own accord.

It joined in the singing at the weekly prayer services. Its voice was unsurpassed in sweetness, but the songs it sang had never been heard in that country. It spoke all languages fluently. It foretold the weather, volunteered valuable information of a technical nature at quilting parties, repeated sermons, quoted the scriptures, argued theological matters with preachers, and revealed personal secrets. It kept a visiting Englishman, come to investigate the mystery, informed of the news at home, and even served as a sort of spiritual telephone between him and his distant mother.

At one of Betsy Bell's birthday parties a large basket of fruits was placed on the table by unseen, hands. "Those came from the West Indies," the Witch said. "I brought them myself." j.Jt is said to have pulled a sleigh carrying Betsy and her friends around the house three times. It even shook hands with a man named Calvin Johnson, who described the sensation as that of a woman's hand. The fame of the Witch spread far and wide and the Bell home became so crowded that visitors finally brought tents and pitched them around the house.

Gen. Andrew Jackson and a party of friends journeyed to Robertson county to witness the demonstrations, and one of his wagons Is supposed to have been stalled on level, dry ground. The whip was applied to the horses and shoulders to the wheels, but the wagon wouldn't budge. Finally a voice spoke out of nowhere: "All right, General You can go (Continued on page 8) published at Clarksville in 1894. which Is perhaps the best account.

Other published comments and versions Include Dr. Charles Bailey Bell's familial The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit, affording an account of the Witch's revelations and prophecies on its second visit, and The Bell Witch of Middle Tennessee by Harriet Parks Miller, which utilizes much of the material in Ingram's long out-of-print volume. FR the sake of outlanders now resident in Middle Tennessee, as well as the offspring of natives who have neglected their liberal education, the story of the Bell Witch is well worth the repeating. John Bell (and we are recounting the Middle Tennessee version) immigrated to Robertson county from his native North Carolina in 1804, when he was 54 years old. He was of English descent an honest provident man.

In Robertson county he bought 1000 acres of land, about four miles from the Kentucky line, and built a large double log house for his family, which soon numbered nine children Jesse, John Drewry, Benjamin, Esther, Zadok, Elizabeth, Richard Williams, and Joel Egbert The strange manifestations of the Bell Witch began in 1818 (Richard Williams Bell, who later detailed the occurrences, said they started In May). The Bells were first puzzled by scratching noises on the outer walls. Bed covers were pulled off and there were noises like the smacking of lips, and gulping sounds, like someone being choked or strangled. "Occasionally (wrote Richard Williams Bell) the sound was like heavy stones falling on the floor, then like trace chains dragging, and chairs falling over." Betsy's hair was twisted and jerked. Careful examinations unearthed nothing.

The sounds ceased as soon as the lamps were lit John Bell and his family kept their silence about their "family troubles" as long as they could, but the phenomena became loo troublous (the house fairly shook by now and the noises could be heard at a distance). In desperation John Bell called In his closest neighbor and best friend, James Johnson. When he could not explain the enigma, "All of Bell family when, the "trouble" was in full career. John Bell's daughter, whom Bryan calls "Nancy," wishes to attend a party at a neighbor's house, but John Bell doesn't want her to go, for he fears that something will happen to her. John Bell has been greatly disturbed of late over failing crops and his general misfortune, which he believes is the result of the curse on his family.

Nancy finally obtains his reluctant consent, but he en-1 joins her to take care and "not dance the night away, because there's trouble about" At the party the gay fiddles suddenly stop, for Nancy Bell has fainted "dead away." 'Friends bear her gently home, and, amid hymning and prayers of the neighbors and the distressed John Bell, Nancy cries out, "It's a-comin' through the roof! It's a-comlng to git Save me. Pa!" But there Is no saving her from the dread occurrence. While Bell-Wltch-huntlng in the literature of the past and present Bryan found that the legend was Just as strong in northern Mississippi, where a part of the Bell family subsequently settled, as it is in Tennessee. It is also found in North Carolina, where the Bells originated, and traces exist In parts of Alabama, also attributable to another branch of the Bells. Bryan's cantata, based on the Mississippi version, makes no mention of the Witch, supposedly the departed spirit of a no-account overseer John Bell is said to have slain in North Carolina (according to the Middle Tennessee version, the Witch was feminine and familiarly addressed as Principal characters in Bryan's cantata are three: John and Nancy Bell, and a ballad singer, which Bryan believes to be an Innovation to the cantata form.

Part of the narration Is handled by this ballad eer, and the orchestra simulates the old mountain dulcimer which usually accompanied the mountain minstrels. Bryan based his composition on the tale as recorded by Arthur Palmer Hudson and Pete Kyle McCarter in "The Bell Witch of Tennessee and Mississippi: A Folk Legend," which appeared in the American Journal of Folk-lore in 1934, and on M. V. Ingram's rare An Authenticated History of the Bell -Witch: The Wonder of the 19th Century and Unexplained Phenomenon of the Christian Era, ONE of the folk heritages of Middle Tennessee is the legend of the Bell Witch, a phenomenon which plagued John Bell and his family in Robertson county during the early part of the Nineteenth Century. The invisible Witch, referred to by the Bells as "our family trouble," is supposed to have yanked cover from beds, pulled hair, slapped faces, and performed superhuman feats of strength and intellection.

Once it repeated verbatim two different sermons, delivered simultaneously some 13 miles apart, reproducing the voices and verbal mannerisms of the two ministers. On another occasion, during the illness of Mrs. Lucy Bell, of whom the Witch was very fond, it is said to have dropped grapes out of season and hazelnuts into her hands. The Witch was apparently the sensation of the Nineteenth Century. Reports of its activities were recounted In European papers.

People from far and near made pilgrimages to the Bell home, on the Red river near Adams, to see and hear for themselves. The Witch sometimes greeted them at the door, calling them by name and revealing some pungent bit of information from their past Like most every other Middle Tennessean, Charles F. Bryan, gifted young (36) Tennessee composer rWhite Spiritual Symphony," "Cumberland Interlude, has heard about the Bell Witch since childhood. Long interested in the folk lore of the South, Bryan, a native of McMlnnville, toyed with the idea of writing a folk opera around the Bell Witch legend three or four years ago. Nothing came of it, however, until 1945, when a Guggenheim Fellowship provided him with the money and the time to work out some of his musical ideas on paper.

Bryan gave up his wartime Job with the state, rented a cabin on the Caney Fork river near Rock Island, and began work on his "Bell Witch Cantata." This composition will be given its first public performance by the Nashville Symphony orchestra on March 30. THE cantata (Bryan still hasn't given up the idea of doing the Bell Witch in opera form someday) takes about a half hour to perform, and depicts an afternoon and night in the life of the THI NASHVIUI TENNESSIAN MAGAZINE, MARCH 21. 1941.