b&w etching color toned of man hanged at night in a tree

The Ghosts of Guyan

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Estimated reading time: 29 minutes

Found Among the Manuscripts of the Late Montmorency Sneerlip Snags, Esq.

Please welcome author Brandon Ray Kirk. Kirk is an author and associate professor of history located in southern West Virginia. His primary research and writing interests include historical crime in the U.S. South (particularly Appalachian feuds), old-time music, and timbering. He is the author of “Blood in West Virginia: Brumfield v. McCoy” (Pelican Publishing Company, 2014), which tells the story of the Lincoln County Feud. He has been featured in Smithsonian magazine and The New Yorker. Current projects include writing a book about the Brumfield-Conley Feud, developing a music heritage trail in southwestern West Virginia, and creating a podcast series about murder ballads.

The wind blew as if it had blown its last

     The rattling showers rose on the blast

The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed,

     Loud, deep and long the thunder bellowed.

That night, a child might understand,

     The Devil had business on his hand.

Tam o’Shanter (1790)

In the confines of one of the narrow bottoms which separate the steep slopes of West Virginia, at the gentle expansion of the river named for a French trader the Guyandotte, there lies a small fur-trading town, which is called Lawnsville, but which is more generally and properly known as Logan Court House. 

The former name was given, we are told, in tribute of an early fur and ginseng merchant named Anthony Lawson who essentially established the town two decades before his untimely demise of cholera while on a return trip from Philadelphia in 1847.

Anthony Lawson's 1841 survey.
Anthony Lawson’s 1841 survey.

The settlement, consisting of less than a hundred persons, several residences, four plank-lined dirt streets, a courthouse, two houses of entertainment, two mercantile stores, one tan-yard, one smith shop, one tailor shop, and one cobbler shop had been constructed over an old Indian burial ground. 

At the edge of town, on “the Island”, an Indian village had existed until the waning years of the War for Independence. It was nothing for residents of the locale, particularly those erecting cellars about their property, to unearth Native skeletons or relics. 

I recollect my first exploit to town, when just a lad, and my thrill to hear such stories as told by colorful old citizens who planted themselves for long hours at Col. Lawson’s general store. 

The wild tales, combined with the humming atmosphere of town life, such as the ring of a blacksmith’s metric hammer upon the anvil or the sight of inebriated men outside of a tavern, made an unforgettable impression. Even now, if I should consider a retreat from the monotonous life of farm work, and dream of fineries and prosperity, I consider no place more beguiling than this little town.

Long known as a place of haunts

From the old Indian tales, and the superstitious character of its inhabitants, barely removed by one generation from their Anglo forebears, this spot on the Guyan has long been known as a place of haunts, spells, and curses. An eerie fog seems to blanket this part of the valley, partly explaining the hallucinatory nature of its people, and a supernatural mood pervades its very atmosphere.

There were stories of a giant race of people who once occupied this strange place; occasionally, a town hand unearthed the skeletons of these mysterious leviathans while engaged in improving the condition of a street. 

From October 6, 1895 article in 'The World' about a 9-foot Indian mummy found in California.
From October 6, 1895 article in ‘The World’ about a 9-foot Indian mummy found in California.

Some say the place was cursed by Aracoma, daughter of the great Shawnee chief Cornstalk, whom residents of Montgomery had mortally wounded in a battle nearby at the Island during the War of ‘76; others, that Aracoma’s spirit haunted the lower end of town, disgruntled by her village’s demise, her separation from her white renegade husband Boling Baker, or the improper burial of her remains by her enemies. 

An unlimited number of tales link the region’s peculiar troubles to the brutal frontier skirmishes between early pioneers and Indian war parties. And what of the unnatural sightings and behaviors of such wild beasts as panthers and wolves? There seemed to be an unlimited number of hexes, spells, haunts, ghosts, and ghouls.

The prevailing spirit that lately haunts this hazy region is the figure of a Negro garbed in tattered clothing with bulging eyes and a broken neck. It is said to be the ghost of Bill Lawson, a slave accused of murdering his widowed master, Ann Lawson, in 1847, and who is now regularly seen by townsfolk in the dead of night standing in corners of homes or barns, peering inside of windows from outside, and lurking near the courthouse, town cemetery, or river. 

Many who have seen the specter are certain that it is indeed Bill Lawson because they personally knew him and witnessed his hanging in the public square. Few remember any details about his burial but it is said that he was dumped into a hole like a dog, and that his spirit cannot rest as a result. 

Such is the belief of locals, who continue to report sightings of the ghost, dubbed Black Bill or Bloody Bill, and recount his awful deed by their evening firesides. The ghoul proved to be inescapable in this wild weird land, whether by personal experience or by story, and no resident was immune, whether old or new.

People and culture remain unchanged

I mention this peculiar region with fondness and admiration, for it is in such places, nestled in the mountains of western Virginia, that people and culture remain unchanged, while the torrent of progress transforming other parts of this country passes by them unobserved. ‘Twas a place of truth, sobriety, virtue, and honor. 

Though a great many years have passed since I trod Aracoma’s dirt streets among the other loafers or sat among business houses where I witnessed men sitting around whittling, throwing peanut hulls onto the floor, and spitting tobacco juice on a hot stove adding a sweet perfume while telling spooky yarns, I feel certain that if I returned to that little place I would find the same streets, buildings, and families inhabiting its dreamy confines.

Thomas Dunn English
Thomas Dunn English

In this strange land there abode, in the years before the late war, some forty years ago, a handsome and impressive figure named Thomas Dunn English, who sojourned into the Guyan country for the purpose of earning a fortune in timber and coal prospects.

He was a native of Philadelphia, a city which supplies the Union with capitalists and intellectuals, and sends forth yearly legions of both into the hinterlands. 

The appearance of English was such: He was not exceedingly tall, was well-proportioned in his build, and dressed exceptionally well. His head was well-shaped, crowned by thick, dark hair, which he wore parted to one side and just a bit bushy at the nape of his neck, with well-positioned ears, piercing blue eyes, and a pointed nose. 

He projected a seriousness and determination, and he appeared every bit the gentleman, although he could be uncouth and scurrilous and was considered by some to be dubious in character.

He wore his clothing loosely and carelessly on a frame that showed the wear and tear of a busy life. To see him strolling along Jefferson Avenue or meandering among the county’s numerous hollows on prospecting journeys, such was the manner of his dress and overall appearance, one might have presumed he was a wealthy merchant.

Thomas Dunn English a man of many talents

Instead, he was a doctor, phrenologist, lawyer, occasional Bohemian, poet, journalist, novelist, editor, satirist, publisher, politician, failed Congressional candidate, numismatist, postmaster, geologic explorer, and mayor, having successfully petitioned to incorporate the town of Lawnsville in 1853 but renaming it Aracoma because the name appealed to his poetic senses and his desire to commemorate the locality’s history.

His residence, erected by himself on Guyandotte Avenue (also known as Main Street), was a frame structure of four rooms, solidly constructed of plank boards with windows arranged neatly on all sides. Aside from himself, the little nest was occupied by his wife Annie and four daughters. The entire scene had been memorialized in a yet-unpublished composition tentatively titled “Guyandotte Musings”:

My dear wife sits beside me,

Her hand is in my own;

I see her downcast lashes,

I hear her voice’s tone—

The distant bells of silver

Have not so sweet a tone

Our Alice sings a ditty,

And wots not that we hear;

Sad Mary hears the fancies

That whisper in her ear—

She sits and hears the stories

They whisper in her ear.

The sextet occupied a spot near the courthouse, useful to his profession as an attorney, and within sight of a crop of large elm trees along the riverbank where he often wrote lines of poetry when not in the bosom of family. From the estate might be heard on a spring or summer day genial conversations held at a picket fence and front porch, or giggles and playful sounds of daughters in the yard. Few intelligent men could pass by without enjoying some of the master’s wit.

The mayor was an eccentric fellow, a person who possessed, in the minds of locals, a brilliant brain; he was regarded as a high intellectual and a mixer in numerous subjects. He was the subject of local gossip, of course. 

He had originally come to the settlement as a bachelor, then disappeared to Tazewell or some other place and returned with a woman who he claimed to have married as a widow, along with two children. 

Rumors around Aracoma chimney corners had it that the versatile gentleman had added that of wife stealing to his numerous other accomplishments. Perhaps to guard the secret, whatever it was, he did not allow his wife-partner to visit or receive but a few friends; neighbors observed that she always carried a look of apprehension. It was known with certainty by some insiders that he had the surnames of her children changed to his own by act of the general assembly.

When work hours were over, he occasionally rambled to Dr. Bryan’s tavern at the upper end of town, where he imbibed beer and ale, recited passages from his famous poem-turned-song “Ben Bolt” (which he regarded as twaddle), and offered pro-slavery views to a mostly-concurring audience, though few attendants were wealthy enough to own a single slave. 

A quarrel with Edgar Allan Poe

Poe & hand punching

A popular tale involved his quarrel with the late Edgar Allan Poe, a one-time friend-turned-rival. Indeed, the two well-known literary figures had enjoyed at least one scuffle in which English had cut Poe’s face by punching him while wearing a heavy seal ring. Early in the tale, much to the delight of listeners in the grog shop, English always held up his hand to show the ring that had nicked Poe’s face. 

There was more to the story, of course, which English omitted due to its less sensational nature. After the flogging, Poe had satirized him in a series of papers called “The Literati of New York” in Godey’s Lady’s Book.

English replied in the Evening Mirror, accusing Poe of forgery; the latter subsequently won a libel lawsuit in 1846. The feud continued a bit further, when English parodied Poe as Marmaduke Hammerhead in The Power of the S.F., referencing the author of “The Black Crow”, who he described as a drunkard, liar, and abuser who used such phrases as “Nevermore.”

The poet, while viewed suspiciously by a certain number of less-refined country bumpkins, is generally a man of some importance in a small mountain town, being considered a kind of scholar of vastly superior taste and accomplishments. 

His appearance is apt to trigger a stir at village cottages, outlying shanties and cabins, and remote farmhouses. Our man of accomplishments was generally esteemed and admired by many of the regional swains. While making his way around town, he would recite poetry, speak of urban splendor, offer literary criticisms, debate political matters, and speak of upcoming publications with small congregations of neighbors; most had the good sense to know when to be silent and hold back so as to appreciate his offerings. 

He knew plenty about countless topics and carried his talents and vast knowledge from house to house, offering stories and information to a largely illiterate populace and in a place generally absent of books. He had written books after all, and was the author of the immensely popular “Ben Bolt,” which even the lowest classes knew had inspired the naming of a ship, steamboat, and racehorse.

Ben Bolt. Winner of the 1886 Caulfield Cup. Drawing by Samuel Calvert
Ben Bolt. Winner of the 1886 Caulfield Cup.

He was, of course, enthralled by regional tales of spirits, which were common in this spell-bound place. No story was too macabre or terrifying. It was often his delight, after concluding the day’s work, to gather narratives from locals, whether from men at the store or mill or tavern, or from widows and spinsters and old maids who sat by their fires in the evening.

Giants, plagues, panthers and wolves

From these locations came anecdotes about a race of giants, plagues, Aracoma’s curse, man-eating panthers and wolves, locust infestations (the last in ’49), unearthed Indian bones and relics, Anthony Lawson’s grim death of cholera, and Ann Lawson’s brutal murder at the hands of Black Bill.

He would in turn delight locals with ghost stories from his native land, mostly relating to the Germantown battle in the great War of Independence. Having a loose belief in the possibility of haunts and spirits, he could imagine that many of the regional tales were in fact true.

Making his way home, which usually meant a short jaunt along the street but occasionally a ride by horseback from a country hollow, he, being an artist and not a mystic, was often overcome by every shadow and sound with the prospect of witnessing the notorious ghost of Bloody Bill!

The ghastly and frightful sketches offered by local superstition afforded a great deal of literary inspiration and entertainment, as well as served as a source of fright and chills, yet did not deter his primary purpose in migrating to Guyan country, and that was—to make a fortune in coal and timber. 

Among the more important political and social contacts who had been earned was William Straton, a neighbor and occupant of two county offices.

Straton possessed important connections

William Straton
William Straton

Straton, the hot-tempered grandson of an Irish immigrant, possessed important connections to the governor’s office and assisted friends in the acquisition of land deemed valuable in timber and minerals. 

English had a genuine fondness for his contemporary but even more so after he realized the important role played by the clerk in local machinations. Not much happened in the county in terms of politics or property that did not involve Straton’s steady hand and watchful eye. 

The well-positioned gentleman lived in a recently-constructed home situated at the mouth of a hollow named for him at the upper end of town. With Straton’s assistance, the poet had accumulated thousands of acres in outlying areas such as Ugly Creek and Jennys Creek, most of which he transferred at a profit to the peculiarly named non-locals Samuel K. Zook and Donald Mann.

On a dreary autumn afternoon, English sat starry-eyed in his office chamber, peering out through a window across the river toward Island Creek. 

On the desk before him were deeds, maps, photographs, and papers relating to poetry, regional history, and politics. His thoughts floated dreamily between profits yet unrealized, town improvements, lyrical rhymes, and railroad prospects.

On one sheet of paper he had scribbled: “We do not half appreciate the country we live in. Surrounded, as we are, by as fair a land as the sun ever shone upon, rich in mineral wealth, fertile fields, and vast forests of timber, teeming with a busy, industrious population, and we lack but little to be rich and great. Wait til the magic wand of development touches us, and our hills and valleys will blossom as the rose.”

The entire affair was interrupted by the clumsy appearance of James Nighbert, a clerk and salesman in the Lawson general store, who traveled by foot. The young would-be entrepreneur entered the yard and stepped up onto the porch with an invitation for English to attend a frolic to be held that evening at William Straton’s residence; then, having delivered the message, he scurried away down the street.

Time to attend a frolic

Ben France, fiddler for the evening's frolic, was the most famous fiddler in the Guyandotte Valley during the 1850s.
Ben France, fiddler for the evening’s frolic, was the most famous fiddler in the Guyandotte Valley during the 1850s.

All things unrelated to coal and timber were now lost in the poet’s chamber. Literary books and papers were shoved aside, unfinished verses were left unfinished, political contemplations were temporarily forgotten, and family affairs dissipated.

Recollections of former coal ventures which he had aptly named—Methcomah and Otetiana cannel coal companies—flooded his memory and newer prospects came to the front in his mind.

The remarkable author thereafter devoted an unusual amount of time preparing for the frolic. That he might appear before the well-connected host in the true style of an eastern capitalist, he chose one of his finest suits of clothing.

It was toward evening that English arrived at the comfortable home of William Straton, which he found populated with the more noteworthy residents of town and country. He moved around the place with good cheer, eating and drinking with nearly all, demonstrating his popularity as the town’s mayor. 

The feast was unimaginable, consisting of nearly every conceivable crop and beast of the farm, perfectly prepared and spread generously in dishes placed on large tables. Village men had added to the feast with wild game from the forest—grouse, venison, squirrel—which their womenfolk had prepared in top form.

And now the sound of music from the common room summoned all to the dance. The musician was young Ben France, a talented and determined fiddler originating in the lower section of Guyan country.

He commanded dancers to the floor, beginning with a tune called “Shelvin’ Rock” and continuing with such regional favorites as “The Grand Spy”, “Pharaoh’s Dream”, and “Greasy String”. The fiddler, initially trained on a gourd, played his now reputable instrument with great ease; he could reputedly bow all night without repeating a single tune. Every so often, much to the delight of the dancers, he sang:

I had a dog and his name was Rover.

When he had fleas, he had ‘em all over.

When the dance was at an end, English found himself gathered with several long-established residents of the town, who, along with William Straton, gossiped over former times, particularly relishing the pioneer tales.

Tales remained fresh in memory

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those places which abound with stories of great men. The pioneer era had barely faded and the tales remained fresh in the memories of the sons whose fathers had vanquished the Indians and carved a town from the wilderness. 

The stories were mostly true. Chief among them were well-spun tales about Peter Huff, Thomas Caine, James Crawley, Richard Hewett, and James Hart—all killed by Natives before the end of the last century and subsequently memorialized through the naming of area streams.

The neighborhood is rich in legendary tales of giant races of men, Indian curses, and more recently in ghost sightings. The immediate cause of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts was doubtless the murder of Aracoma and her tribe in 1780 and subsequent erection of the town over a Shawnee burial ground. 

Knowledge of that fact seemed to contaminate the very air of the town, infecting all who visited the locale. Several attendants of Straton’s frolic were familiar with the old stories and did their part to remind listeners of the legends.

One familiar farmer, clad in his best attire, retold the story of Breckenridge’s retaliatory raid upon Aracoma’s plague-ridden village at the Island. Not a single white man was killed and only two slightly wounded, he bragged, while six Indians were killed and some ten or twelve wounded, including Aracoma. The wounded had been quickly disposed of, he said, because no one wanted to be bothered with a captive Indian.

Indian warrior kneels beside a pool of blood

And what of the village? The raiders looted the village of whatever could be carried away and burned the lodges. That evening, at the end of the awful ordeal, Aracoma—whose children had already perished in a plague—herself died. 

Her final words, well-remembered by any true son of Logan, directed her killers to dispose of her earthly remains in this way: “A great number of my people lay buried just above the bend in the river. Bury me with them with my face toward the setting sun, that I may see them in their march to the happy hunting grounds.” Her body was buried according to her request.

They were very careful of their dead

Or was it? The Shawnee recognized a Supreme Being, and a host of spirits, good and evil, and believed in a future state of existence. They were very careful of their dead, burying their remains in moss-lined graves with stones around their heads, and placing in the graves food and implements for use in the afterlife.

The heads of the dead were placed to the east, in order that they might look to the west, where they expected to return. They selected high ground for their burial places, near the bank of a running stream and a ditch was dug about a foot deeper than the graves in order to carry off the water and prevent it from rising over their dead.

Speaking of the old burials, William Straton told of inadvertently unearthing eleven human skeletons while excavating for a cellar on Main Street.

All were buried with their heads toward the east and had a flat stone placed under, over, and on both sides of their head. Three were over seven feet in length. The heads were of immense size and the lower jawbones were extraordinarily large for the size of the head. Giants! 

He also located an elk’s horn, an Indian bead, an arrowhead, a wolf and bear’s jawbone, a turtle shell, and a smooth polished stone about four inches in length and a half-inch in diameter. In digging a nearby ditch, he unearthed five additional skeletons, along with a corn cob pipe and cane stem. 

Cane and corncob pipe

Others, such as Anthony Lawson, Jr., who had sold property to the poet in 1853, spoke of finding kneecaps, pieces of pottery, and strings of buckhorn beads.

Pursued down the Guyandotte

Not to be outdone, John Dingess, a well-entrenched citizen of nearby Dingess Run, told a story of his grandfather’s pursuit of Indians down the Guyandotte in June of 1792, and the subsequent killing of three Indians about two miles below town.

Captain Henry Farley’s journey was well-known, his descendants numerous in the region. William Dingess, a giant in strength and uncle to John who had accompanied Capt. Farley on his mission, cut the skin from the forearm of an Indian killed further downriver at the Falls…and made a razor strop of it. He became the first permanent settler of the present-day town. 

Later that summer, said another attendant who had heard the story from a man named Lusk, Indians had killed and scalped Joseph Gilbert after a furious battle at the Twisted Gun miles upriver, his body thereafter being buried in an unknown location. Gilbert’s party, led by Captain Crockett in pursuit of his killers, had subsequently camped at the present site of town before returning east to the settlements.

The most popular story, which some regarded as inappropriate due to the attendance of family members of the deceased, involved the murder of Ann Lawson by her slave, Black Bill. Anthony Lawson, merchant-husband of Ann, had acquired Bill and another slave named Lewis when they were small boys and subsequently raised them in his household. 

Following her beloved’s unexpected death of cholera in the summer of 1847, Ann remained at home with the two slaves, now grown. In late December of ’47, mere months after the passing of the ill-fated colonel, Bill and Lewis, inebriated by egg nog, brandy, and other holiday liquor and desirous to rob Lawson and earn their freedom, used an iron poker to beat her head mercilessly while all of the family were attending a Christmas party elsewhere in town. 

At the time of the attack, Ann mended a shirt for her two slaves before they were to go into town and fetch supplies. Black Bill, it was said, was the lone attacker of the poor woman. 

Lawson residence in Logan, WV.
Lawson residence in Logan, WV.

Afterwards, he used the poker to pry open a locked drawer in a bureau where Ann kept her money. Both slaves then fled. Not long thereafter, some of the family returned to the Lawson home and found the woman lying in a pool of her own blood. She lived long enough to reveal the identity of her killer, and both slaves were subsequently caught. 

Their side of the story

The story told by Bill was that he and Lewis had been drunk and were asleep in front of a fire when Ann had entered their darkened room to instruct one of them to carry out a chore. 

Bill, arising from a drunken slumber and not recognizing his master, grabbed a coal shovel and struck her across the head before he realized what he had done. No one believed the tale.

The Lawsons, being a level-headed family, did not punish the slaves directly; instead, they allowed the court to decide their fate.

Bill, the slave who had murdered the woman, was hanged from an elm tree at the courthouse square. Lewis, who had not helped in the murder, was sent away to new owners downriver. The Lawson matriarch had been buried at the town cemetery, her grave surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and marked by a large thin headstone that told of her demise: “cruelly murdered on the night of 27 December 1847 by two of our own negroes.”

All of these tales sank deep in the mind of English, who had lived locally long enough to know the locations for most of the described events. Some of the local lore appeared in his poetry, usually in a whimsical manner, such as his penning of “Found Dead in Bed,” the true story of a long-lost son’s return home to parents who did recognize him—and his demise in his own bed that very night.

Dead in his bed thar, Miss Moser,

That’s whar they found him today:

Kerried away without warnin’—

Took in a snap you mought say.

Smilin’ as if he war sleepin’,

Both of his arms order his head:

That was the Kurriner’s varcick—

“Stranger—found dead in his bed.”

He repaid the tellers of these local stories with large extracts from his vast knowledge of literary tales of horror, and added marvelous events that had taken place in his native Pennsylvania, and fearful sights which he had imagined in his nightly jaunts about the town and countryside.

The revel gradually ends

The revel now gradually broke up. The old townspeople and farmers gathered up their families and departed, some on foot and some by horse or wagon. English tarried ‘til the end, continuing to propagate new business prospects with the host, finally departing, and convinced based on recent conversation that he would yet achieve a high degree of financial success.

It was the very witching time of night that English, well-fed and a bit groggy, made his way down the plank sidewalk toward home. On one side of town, to his left, the Guyandotte flowed steadily past, while on the opposite side, situated on the hill behind a row of houses, obscured by the darkness but visible in his memory, existed the cemetery containing Ann Lawson’s final resting place. 

Ann Lawson gravesite.
Ann Lawson gravesite.

The cemetery, often referred to by locals as a “city of the dead,” was neglected, the poet knew from his afternoon strolls; briars and brush were allowed to grow up over most of the graves, many of which remained unmarked, and its fence was in a deplorable condition. Here and there along the way, as he made his walk toward home, stood a cow, because residents allowed their livestock to remain at large at night. No signs of life otherwise occurred near him, excepting the creaking of a board beneath his shoes or the blowing gust of a crisp fall wind.

All the tales of giants, Indian curses, massacred scouts, and Negro spirits that he had heard earlier in the night now came crowding upon his recollection.

The town was uncharacteristically dark, the moon sank deeper behind clouds, and stars seemed absent altogether. Residents of the neighborhood were long asleep, the glow of their lantern lights no longer spilling through windows out toward the streets. 

He had seldom felt so affrighted and faint-hearted. He was, likewise, approaching the courthouse square, specifically the elm tree which had snapped the neck of Black Bill in retribution for Ann Lawson’s murder.

It was a magnificent tree, which covered one corner of the square, and if for no reason other than nostalgia enjoyed a sort of reverence by village residents. Its canopy nearly reached the boundaries of the street. Once a tree where county residents enjoyed respite on a hot day, it was now connected for all time with the awful death of Bloody Bill. Locals regarded it with a mixture of admiration and awe, partly out of fear of its final power, and partly from the tales of strange sights concerning it.

New perils lay before him

As English approached this stately tree, which stood before the frame courthouse, he recounted verses in his memory. 

Who at danger never laughed,

Let him ride upon a raft

Down Guyan, when from the drains

Pours the flood of many rains,

And a stream no plummet gauges

In a furious freshet rages.

With a strange and rapturous fear,

Rushing water, he will hear;

Woods and cliff-sides darting by,

These shall terribly glad his eye.

He shall find his life-blood leaping

Faster with the current’s sweeping.

He passed the tree in safety, even walking a bit out of his way past his own residence in an attempt to regain his courage, but new perils lay before him.

At the lower end of town, just outside of village limits, near Henry P. Clark’s tannery and Uriah Van Buskirk’s shoe shop, a two-story frame dwelling painted white and surrounded by a picket fence served as the formidable Lawson residence. It was at this site that Black Bill had committed the murder. This has ever since been considered a cursed patch of land, and in the minds of those familiar with the giants and Aracoma’s curse it always had been so.

As he approached the Lawson property, his heart began to beat harder and faster. He conjured his courage, however, and made his way forward with quieter steps. 

He imagined the woman’s final state: a battered skull, clumps of hair and bone scattered on a blood-soaked floor… Peering toward an upstairs window, he could almost ascertain the shape of the old woman sitting by the curtain and looking out over the town, still unsatisfied by her demise.

It was an illusion, of course; in fact, he had not even known her. Just at this moment, a rattling noise drew his attention to the lower front corner of the home. In the dark recess of the yard, he beheld something lurking, stout and able, at the edge of the picket fence. It moved not, but appeared assembled in the blackness, like some menacing shadow ready to drift toward him.

Logan, WV in 1885.
Logan, WV in 1885.

The arms of the anxious poet were instantly bespeckled with little bumps of terror. What could he do? To run was now too late; besides, what chance was there of escaping ghoul or spirit, if such it was? Summoning a show of courage, he commanded in a strong voice, “Who are you?” No reply was given. He repeated his demand; still, no answer. Just then, the shadowy object of alarm lumbered forward and with each earnest step became more visible. It appeared to be a male apparition of adult-size, although unnatural in form.

The haunt seemed to quicken

English, who had no relish for this ghastly and cursed companion, quickened his steps toward home in hopes of abandoning the thing. The haunt seemed to quicken at an equal pace. 

His spirits sagging, he was no longer able to recall any of his verses. At one juncture, the moon appeared from behind clouds and fully revealed his consort: a Negro apparition, barely dressed, with a broken neck! Reaching the gate at his yard, looking behind him, the spirit was gone.

Inside of his comfortable abode, the poet slipped into his bed and, burying himself under a layer of heavy quilts, stared for a time about the familiar room before blowing out a candle planted on his bed stand and drifting off to sleep. 

There was a moment during the night when, either barely awake or perhaps dreaming, he spied a figure standing in the corner of his chamber, illuminated by moonlight spilling through a window. A gaunt-faced, bulging-eyed Negro stood silently observing him, its intention completely unknown.

The poet lay frozen, afraid to move, and then when he imagined that his fright could not possibly become any worse, the spirit’s lips began to form inaudible words or sounds. For some time, English lay paralyzed and, courtesy of the moon’s glow, observed the figure’s ghastly appearance and its manner of staring toward him. 

Somehow, through sorcery, the thing managed to conjure for the bed-ridden poet the visible sight of his cruel hanging some years before. Eventually, English found his courage to jar himself awake—had he even been asleep?—relight his bedside candle, and extinguish the ghoul from the room.

He rose from his slumber and reluctantly seated himself at a writing desk in one corner of the room where he jotted a short composition, which remained incomplete for some time.

Struck down by memory’s fatal ban,

He passes from your thrall away;

You doomed to death a living man;

This is a form of lifeless clay.

Within a short time, English departed Aracoma for the Garden State, abandoning his property and residence and leaving behind the bulk of the furnishings. Most importantly, his dream for a coal empire was over. Before departing the town that he had named, he barely said goodbye to his neighbors, and he told no one of his encounter with the spirit.

His sudden and unexplained exodus generated much speculation among townspeople. For a good spell, small groups of gazers and gossips collected outside of his former residence and near the elm trees, debating the reasons for his swift retreat. The stories of the Indian curse, the murder of Ann Lawson, and the hanging of Black Bill were called to mind, and when they considered them all, they concluded that English had indeed been scared away—but by whom?

More WV ghost stories:

Treason, Murder, and Ghostly Lights(Opens in a new browser tab)

The Greenbrier Ghost(Opens in a new browser tab)

The Wizzard Clip(Opens in a new browser tab)

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