The Haunting of Alabama

By Alan Brown

The definitive guide to the ghost stories and folklore of the Yellowhammer State—from a Confederate captain’s spirit to mansions plagued by the paranormal.

Alabama’s haunted history is spotlighted in chapters that cover the ghostly escapades and happenings at Rawls Hotel, Heritage Bible College, the USS Alabama, Bayview Bridge, and Marion Military Institute, to name a few. Each entry provides a history of the establishment and offers the possible motivations behind the hauntings. Vivid descriptions of the setting, along with detailed eyewitness accounts, enable the reader to experience the hair-raising firsthand. Dip into this ghostly guide for a tour of more than forty haunted sites along with stories of their supernatural inhabitants. In each instance, skepticism abounds and the question remains—is there really a ghost?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781455622917

Alan Brown

Alan Brown grew up in the suburbs of Kansas City and graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School in 1973 and Avila University in 1979. Now He lives in a suburb of St. Louis, MO with my wife and three daughters. He also has four sons that are grown and living outside the home. He enjoys writing about experiences he had growing up, examining the fantastical side, the dark side of a person’s natural fears. All of his books are based on a reality in his life. He is a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. Like his stories, Alan Brown’s will conclude with a twist, something he hope will take the reader by surprise.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Haunted Houses

Baldwin Hill

Livingston

Julian Ennis built the house on Baldwin Hill in 1901. Sometime in the first half of the twentieth century, people began telling ghost stories about the home. A poem written by Mrs. W. H. Coleman addresses the house’s haunted reputation. Using a maid as a narrator, Coleman highlighted some of the reported activity at the home. She mentioned that the porch swing moved back and forth. The ghost on Baldwin Hill also shakes de winders and knocks right on de do.

Lucy Gallman, the current owner of Baldwin Hill, moved into the house with her family in 1954. She was five years old at the time. She was nurtured on stories about the spooky house that she called home. The first tale she recalled hearing was about the previous tenants. Night after night, they heard a bouncing ball. A few seconds later, a spectral voice would say, Robert Ennis is dead. Robert Ennis was Julian’s nephew. Thinking that somebody was standing on the porch and talking through a window, the family sprinkled cornmeal on the porch, hoping to see footprints in the powder the next morning. That night, they heard the same creepy sounds: the bouncing ball and the ghostly voice saying, Robert Ennis is dead. However, when they looked out the front window, the cornmeal was completely undisturbed.

The haunted activity is not restricted to the main house. The little cottages down the hill may be haunted as well. In the late 1990s, a college student who was renting one of them threw open the door and ran up to the main house. When Lucy opened her door, she was greeted by the sight of her young tenant shaking uncontrollably. After she settled down, she told Lucy that she was in the kitchen washing dishes when a white figure floated across the floor and passed into another room. The girl was so terrified that she fled the house without even turning off the tap in the kitchen sink.

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The ghosts of family members have found it difficult to leave Baldwin Hill permanently. (Photo by Alan Brown)

A female spirit roams the halls of Baldwin Hill, and it is very close to the Gallman family, especially Lucy’s husband, Ken. This is actually the truth, he said. We were moving. I looked up for a second and my [late] mother-in-law was standing in the door. It was not a glimpse but it was the clear image of her standing there inside the door. She wore a nightgown that was about forty-three thousand years old but it was comfy. Later on, Ken saw the face of Lucy’s mother staring at him through a window.

Strong family ties may also be responsible for Lucy’s father’s return from the other side. One day, Lucy’s granddaughter saw the apparition of an elderly man inside the house. Her description of the old gentleman’s appearance matched that of Lucy’s father. She said he had white hair, Lucy noted. Also, he was wearing a pale-colored suit.

The ghost’s attachment to Lucy’s family could be behind another paranormal incident that occurred during her niece’s wedding. Lucy’s father was supposed to attend, but he passed away suddenly shortly before the wedding. Following the ceremony, Lucy and Ken were looking at the photographs taken of the family. On close examination, orbs could be seen hovering over the heads of the newlyweds. To this day, the niece’s husband has no intention of ever sleeping inside the mansion.

The Beavers House

Cuba

The tranquility of small-town life in Cuba was shattered on May 22, 1978, when two fugitives from an Oklahoma prison—Eugene Dennis and Michael Lancaster, both twenty-five—arrived. They had escaped at 1:45 P.M. on April 23. The pair signed out of their cell block to attend the prison’s nondenominational church. Apparently, they sneaked past the chapel and entered a small passageway leading from the old prison mess hall to a new building under construction. They broke their way through the three yards of concrete sealing off an abandoned utility tunnel. Once outside the power plant, they climbed two fifteen-foot chain-link fences and escaped. They stole a red Chevrolet Camaro in Waynesboro. Mississippi, and made their way to Butler, Alabama. On May 16, a Butler policeman named Dean Larsen Roberts spotted a car matching the description of a red Camaro that had been used in the break-in of a local drugstore. He pulled the Camaro over and stopped a few yards behind it. Suddenly, the passenger got out and fired a shotgun five times at Roberts’ squad car, blowing out the passenger-side window and hitting the officer in the arm. The escapees ditched the Camaro in a dense patch of woods in Choctaw County and walked over to the home of Emma Mae Williams. No one was there, so Dennis and Lancaster helped themselves to underwear, pillowcases, and canned goods. They also cut the telephone lines and ate dinner. The pair then went to the home of a neighbor, Isabell James, and stole her 1975 Mercury.

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On May 22, 1978, sixty-nine-year-old Stacey Beavers was murdered in the hallway of her home. (Photo by Alan Brown)

On May 22, a sixty-nine-year-old resident of Cuba, Stacey Beavers, arrived at the antebellum home where she lived alone. She parked in front of the house and, carrying a plate of food from the church social she had attended, walked in. Police believe that she was attacked by Dennis and Lancaster as soon as she set foot in the house. The men slashed her throat and left her bloody corpse lying in the doorway. When word of the horrific murder spread, panic swept through Cuba. People made jokes about sleeping with their shotguns.

Not long after Stacey Beavers’ death, officers from Oklahoma drove to Alabama to assist Choctaw County Sheriff Don Lolley with the investigation. The fugitives remained in Alabama for four more days. Finally, on the morning of May 26, the state troopers learned of their location. Dennis and Lancaster stood their ground, killing three troopers before being killed themselves. By the time their reign of terror ended, they had killed eight people, including Stacey Beavers.

Charlie and Linda Munoz purchased the Beavers House and the forty-eight adjoining acres at auction for $72,000 in 1978. They suspect that price was low because of the home’s reputation. They had not lived in it for very long before people began driving up their long drive, hoping to catch a glimpse of the murder house. Linda was shocked when she heard that Stacey Beavers’ niece was the one who cleaned the blood splatter off the walls of the entranceway.

Charlie and Linda learned about the early history of the house by conducting research and talking to longtime residents of Cuba. The house was built in 1850 by Steve Potts, Charlie told me. It was the first plantation in Cuba, which was called Clay Station back then. A dentist named Dr. Beavers bought the house in 1898. He changed the lines of the house to make it more Victorian. He was a traveling dentist. His office was in a little room upstairs. Stacey Beavers was born in the house.

The first indication Charlie and Linda had that their home might be haunted was strange smells. One night, I woke up, and the smell of strong perfume was right next to my head, Linda said. It was so strong that it woke me up. I can’t tell you what kind of perfume it was. I just know that it was something that I don’t wear. I nudged Charlie and said, ‘Charlie, do you smell that? Do you smell that?’ He woke up, but the smell had drifted away. He would get up in the middle of the night because he thought I had left candles burning. He would walk up and down the halls looking to see where the candles were burning. A year or so after that, one of Stacey Beavers’ nieces came to the house and asked, ‘Have you ever experienced anything here?’ I said, ‘Yeah, we would get up in the middle of the night thinking that candles were burning. I have smelled the scent of strong perfume.’ The niece got a very strange look and said, ‘My aunt loved splashy perfume, and she burned candles all the time.’

Charlie and Linda soon discovered that Stacey Beavers’ spirit may have attached itself to one of the objects in the house. One of the first pieces of furniture they acquired for the home was a piano once owned by Stacey Beavers. When we first bought the house, Mrs. Brock [a resident of Cuba] was waiting for us in the hall, Linda said. Mrs. Brock bought the piano with the intention of giving it back to whoever bought the house, and that’s how we got Stacey’s piano. It came from a bar in Kansas City, the town where she worked as a music therapist. The piano was involved in the most dramatic supernatural incident inside the Beavers House.

The first really scary event happened about twenty-five years ago [1991], Linda said. My son was not born yet, and my daughter was little. I was working at the hospice at the time, and I had been dealing with a really difficult family. The patients were wonderful. It was always the families that gave me the problems. It was a very difficult time. I had been driving night after night from Cuba to Livingston. I was exhausted, and I had promised my daughter that I would have a Halloween party for her. Our friends had children the same age as our child, so we always had family parties: adults and children. Whenever someone came over, they would want to go upstairs. There used to be a belvedere on the top of the house, but now it’s just a wall. We had taken a couple up there to see the sky. My husband and I used to watch the stars. A friend of ours from Columbus [Mississippi], Eric Loftis, was playing honkytonk music on the piano while we were walking upstairs. Suddenly, we heard what sounded like a gunshot. We ran back down the stairs, and Eric was standing there with a shocked look on his face. We checked over the house to make sure that none of the children were hurt. Then we noticed that the armoire had fallen over, right next to the piano. We up-righted it and were surprised to discover that none of the glass on the armoire was broken. I took my daughter upstairs to put her to bed. Five minutes later, I went downstairs, and no one was there except Charlie. I asked Charlie, ‘Where is everybody?’ Charlie said, ‘Gone.’ Linda suspects that the armoire fell over because of Stacey Beavers’ dislike of honkytonk music.

Stacey Beavers may have expressed her disapproval of changes made in the house during a New Year’s Eve party in 2000. We had a really bad termite infestation, Linda said. The carpenter working in the kitchen was having to tear out walls and replace sheetrock and the ceiling in the kitchen. He had nailed the boards up and was getting ready to leave just before the party guests arrived. Eric had come from Columbus and had sat down to play piano. When he started, the boards just collapsed onto the kitchen floor! The carpenter said there was no reason for them to fall because they were nailed securely.

During another party, Stacey Beavers may have expressed her displeasure at remarks made by her great-niece. We sat at the drop-down table, Linda said, and it had the ends raised up. The subject of Stacey Beavers came up, and her great-niece said, ‘Everyone talks about how wonderful Stacey was, but she wasn’t perfect.’ She went on to talk about disagreements she had had with her great-aunt. Well, after a while, I got up and went to the bathroom, and she went into the kitchen. All of a sudden, the end of the table fell down, and everything that was on it—plates, silverware—fell to the floor. That had never happened before, and it hasn’t happened since.

Linda Munoz’s nephew, Ed Snodgrass, is an experimental psychologist at the University of West Alabama. He had an experience inside the old house that came into direct conflict with his scientific view of the world. My family and I were living in Meridian [Mississippi] in a house we restored, Ed told me. We added a child. The place had one bathroom. We had to sell it in 2008. We sold the house, did well, and about that time, my aunt Linda told me that she and my uncle Charlie were going to move up to the Mentone area, where they had a house. Supposedly, they were going to live there for a while, certainly for a year, and she wondered if we would be interested in housesitting her house on Old Livingston Road—the Beavers House. I’ve always loved that house.

Ed and his wife, Michelle, moved in and had a great year there. Several months after moving in, they discovered they were going to have their third baby. Cuba is miles from hospitals, and it would have complicated their life somewhat to reside out there. Later, Linda and Charlie decided to return because Linda’s mother, living near Cuba, was aging and needed some assistance. So Ed and Michelle chose to move back to Meridian, to a different house.

Toward the end of that summer, they started packing up. They had bought a house, and they were moving in, Linda said. Sometimes they stayed at the Beavers House, and sometimes they stayed in town. They kept the dogs in a fenced-in area in Cuba.

We had pretty much moved out, Ed said. There were just a few items left in the house that belonged to us. I went back late one night after everyone had gone to sleep. I drove into Cuba around nine or ten at night. I had never had any fears about the place. I was used to it. I had lived there for a year and visited there as a child. Nothing was on my mind. I didn’t feel any insecurity going into the house at all. I was going to gather up some Internet equipment. The house was designed to have a major hallway that crisscrosses. You go in and to the right at the end of that hallway is a staircase that leads upstairs to the attic, and beyond the attic is a staircase that leads up to the roof, where the dental office used to be on top. Now, it’s a widow’s walk. Anyway, I was walking down the hallway, unplugging wires and equipment from underneath a desk, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt an incredible chill come over me that I had never had before, and I have never experienced it since. Anytime I talk about it, the chill bumps rise up. He showed me the goosebumps on his arm. This experience of chills quickly turned into an experience of fear. And just two seconds after feeling that, the dogs outside began to bark incessantly. They had been quiet. So immediately, I jumped up and left. I didn’t look back. I felt like maybe something was watching me. I got in the van and went home, and that was that. I told my wife about it, and she thought that was a curious experience for me because I don’t tend to have those experiences. I consider myself a scientist. I still don’t have any supernatural beliefs.

Since then, Ed has tried to come up with reasonable explanations, to no avail. The dogs heard it, and we both had that experience, but that seems pretty implausible, he said. I will say this. The room my two daughters stayed in was in that hallway by the staircase. They told us that it was frightening over there. It is a little bit dark. There was dark woodwork around the stairs. I never felt that way. I always liked that part of the house. I always thought it was one of the most interesting parts of the house.

Despite all of the unsettling occurrences inside the Beavers House, Linda and Charlie have never been afraid to stay in it. We have a sense that we were supposed to be here, Linda said. I never felt scared, even when all this stuff happened. Actually, I think it’s kind of cool.

Bluff Hall

Demopolis

Francis Strother Lyon (1800-82), the first owner of Bluff Hall, was a prominent lawyer and politician in West Alabama. He was a member of one of the most illustrious families in the state at the time. Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines and Col. George Strother Gaines were his uncles. In 1817, Francis came to live with Colonel Gaines, who was the Indian agent in St. Stephens. Following his admission to the bar in 1821, Francis married Sarah Serena Glover of Demopolis. In 1832, her parents, Allen and Sarah (Norwood) Glover, built Bluff Hall at 405 North Commissioners Avenue for their daughter and her husband. Francis and Sarah went on to become the parents of six girls and one boy. Because the Lyons owned a number of outlying plantations, they used Bluff Hall as a townhouse. It remained in the Lyon family until October 30, 1907, when A. R. Smith became the new owner. Bluff Hall continued to be used as a single residence until 1948, when it was converted into apartments. The Marengo County Historical Society bought the antebellum home on March 22, 1967, restored it, and opened it to the public as a museum. In 1970, Bluff Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1978, it was included in the Alabama Tapestry of Historic Places.

Bluff Hall is one of the region’s grandest homes. The brick exterior of the two-story house was covered with stucco. Six two-story brick columns were set on the front portico. Wrought-iron brackets supported a balcony. In the 1840s, the Federal-style home was remodeled in the Greek Revival style through the addition of a large front wing, a louvered gallery on a rear wing, a colonnaded portico, and white paint. The kitchen and dining room were located on the first floor of the rear wing; the second floor contained two bedrooms. The interior of Bluff Hall is equally impressive. The two columns that grace the double parlor were presented to the Lyons as anniversary gifts from Gen. Nathan B. Whitfield and his family, who owned Gaineswood in Demopolis. The house museum also contains Empire and Victorian furniture, antique kitchen utensils, period clothing, a display on local history, a gift shop, and, some say, the ghost of a little boy.

On October 30, 2003, Kathy Leverett, the Demopolis Chamber of Commerce president, her daughter, and some friends spent the night at Bluff Hall. No one had spent the night there since 1967 when it became a museum. As they were getting ready for bed, they heard some noise upstairs. It sounded like a child jumping rope. It went on for a while, and then it would stop. A few minutes after the girls had fallen asleep, it started up again, so Kathy decided she would investigate. As she was walking up the stairs, she felt as if someone was standing next to her. She looked down and was surprised to see a seven- or eight-year-old boy standing on the step. He had long hair and was wearing a nightshirt. Instead of being scared, Kathy was concerned. She sensed that the little boy was looking for his mother. She turned around and walked down the stairs. When she got to the bottom, the mysterious little stranger was gone.

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The ghost of an eight-year-old boy has been seen on the stairs inside Bluff Hall. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

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