Spooky haint hand knocks on door

History and Haints Abound!!

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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

2021 headshot of Deborah Michael

Please welcome guest author Deborah Hampton Michael. Retired IT and HR Executive, Deborah now resides in NW North Carolina and spends her time researching her genealogy and other historic topics, reading, gardening and teaching part-time.

Treacherous English Lords. Murderous American doctors.  Haints rapping loudly.  My grandmother, Lelia Jane Grubb Musser told tales of these things, and so much more.  She was a lifelong resident of Southwest Virginia and a product of Scots Irish and German ancestry.  She attended St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.  Although she died in December, 1959, her marvelous stories and tales of life in this corner of Virginia still play vividly in my memory.

Lelia Jane Grubb Musser
Lelia Jane Grubb Musser

During my years visiting my grandmother, 1953 – 1959, preparing for Christmas feasting did not mean whipping down to the grocery store and buying processed ingredients.  Rather, those walnuts for the fruitcake all had to be shelled by hand.  The candied fruits, laid away in the summer, had to be readied.  This was the epitome of scratch cooking.

During those beautiful days, as she toiled in the kitchen, I stayed with her in rapt attention as she unfurled her delicious tales.

Perched in front of the warm stove, I listened as Nana told me about our ancestors, William and Deborah Cooper, who came to America as political exiles in 1798, from a place called Antrim, Ireland.  In this far away place, they could see clothes drying on the line in another place called Scotland.

William had been sought by the English for “the wearing of the green.”

They set sail, crossing the Atlantic in a harrowing storm.  Deborah, who was pregnant, gave birth to their son, Alexander, during the storm.  She must have impressed him with accounts of his birth, because as an adult, whenever there was a storm, he would go outside and fall on his knees to pray for the sailors at sea.

Decades later, I was privileged to visit Ireland.  Honestly, I had discounted elements of these stories.  For example, “wearing of the green” was suspicious to me because in all my family research, I have not identified members of the Catholic religion, but I certainly understood the implications of “wearing the green”, politically, in Ireland.  Also, never having been to Ireland, I doubted that I would be able to see Scotland either.

But, my friends, I was so wrong.  As I drove into County Antrim, and looked to my right, there was Scotland, clear as day.  And, had there been any laundry on the line, I would have easily seen it.

The town of Cushendun, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Scotland seen on left horizon, 15 miles across the bay.
The town of Cushendun, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. Scotland seen on left horizon, 15 miles across the bay.

In conversations while in Antrim, I learned that in 1798, in the face of American and French revolutions, the English Lords in Northern Ireland began the practice of arresting tenants just as they were preparing for harvest, leaving the wives and children to bring in the year’s crops or lose the ensuring revenue to the English Lords.

A group formed, the Society of United Irishmen.  Whenever word of these arrests reached the Society, members would don green scarves or bandanas.  They would proceed together to the fields that were in jeopardy and complete the needed work.  This practice was known as the “wearing of the green”.

As it happens, this was one of Ireland’s more successful rebellions.  Although approximately 10,000 Irishmen were killed in battles or executed, many, like William and Deborah Cooper, departed for America.

Lyrics for Wearin’ of the Green

By 19th century Irish Actor Dion Boucicault

Oh, Paddy dear and did you hear the news that’s goin’ round?

The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground

Saint Patrick’s Day no more we’ll keep his colours can’t be seen

For they’re hangin’ men and women for the wearin’ of the green

I met with Napper Tandy and he took me by the hand

He said: “How’s dear old Ireland and how does she stand?

She’s the most distressful country that you have ever seen

For they’re hangin’ men and women for the wearin’ of the green”

For the wearin’ of the green

For the wearin’ of the green

They’re hangin’ men and women

For the wearin’ of the green

Then since the colour we must wear is England’s cruel red

Sure Ireland’s sons will ne’er forget the blood that they have shed

You may take the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod

But ’twill take root and flourish there though underfoot ’tis trod

My father loved his country and sleeps within its breast

While I that would have died for her must never so be blessed

Those tears my mother shed for me how bitter they had been

If I had proved a traitor to the wearin’ of the green

For the wearin’ of the green

For the wearin’ of the green

They’re hangin’ men and women

For the wearin’ of the green

But if at last our colours should be torn from Ireland’s heart

Her sons with shame and sorrow from the dear old isle will part

I’ve heard a whisper of a land that lies beyond the sea

Where rich and poor stand equal in the light of Freedom’s Day

Oh Ireland must we leave you driven by a tyrant’s hand

And seek a mother’s blessing from a strange and distant land

Where the cruel cross of England shall never more be seen

And in that land we’ll live and die still wearing Ireland’s green

For the wearin’ ot the green

For the wearin’ of the green

They’re hangin’ men and women

For the wearin’ of the green

For the wearin’ of the green

For the wearin’ of the green

They’re hangin’ men and women

For the wearin’ of the green

Another favorite tale was of Dr. Straw (Stroh). On the rare occasion, Nana  would admonish me with, “You don’t want to end up like Dr. Staw”.

There is a long line of Dr. Straws from Black Lick/Rural Retreat, VA.  This particular one, John Brown Straw,  lived in the mid-to-late 1800’s.  While, I am sure there are many positive stories about his healing, it seems he had a darker side.

Following the Civil War, many Confederate soldiers had lost their property.  A depression ensued and some soldiers became hobos, constantly traveling on the railroad system and begging for food along the way.  

It was known that, for several of these ill-fated men, a stop at Dr. John B. Straw’s could be fatal.  

At first, Dr. Straw would welcome the beggars warmly and invite them in to share a meal.  Frequently, near starvation, they would eat hastily.  Just as the men were feeling sated, Dr. Straw would produce a butcher knife and order the men to keep eating.  They would eat “until their eyes bulged”, and then have their throats slit.

Dr. Straw further placed an ad in London to offer farmland for sale.  Through an exchange of letters, an Englishman indeed agreed to purchase the land.  He left for America with the agreed upon price in cash.  It is believed that the English gentlemen’s visit to Dr. Straw was ill-fated.  His family never heard from him again.  The story was that Dr. Straw murdered and robbed the Englishman.

Page One news item from Richmond Dispatch, April 10, 1858.
Page One news item from Richmond Dispatch, April 10, 1858.

Dr. Straw’s mental health continued to decline until 1858 when he attempted suicide by cutting his own throat.  While he recovered from that incident, his mental health continued to decline and as his life ebbed away in1891, he said he saw the devil dancing a the foot of his deathbed, waiting to take his soul.

After Dr. Straw passed, the horses pulling his hearse were almost uncontrollable, bucking and fighting the harness on the way to the cemetery.

But Nana’s most impactful story was at Thanksgiving, 1959.  The family was settled in the sitting room after dinner.  We heard a rapping in the wall.

My grandmother said that she had been hearing that noise for several weeks.  She told us that rapping was a premonition of death in the house.  She said we could test this premise by saying, “If you’re a haint, rap louder”.

My mother, not easily frightened by these things, leaned back in her seat, and said loudly, “If you’re a haint, rap louder.”  With that, it seemed to me that the entire wall shook.  Rattled, everyone excused themselves and went to bed.

A month later, my beloved Lelia was dead.

More Virginia oral histories:

“I’d always been a tomboy and I’d always carried a knife”(Opens in a new browser tab)

I thought she was going to come after me(Opens in a new browser tab)

We had just as good as no law at all in Buchanan County(Opens in a new browser tab)

3 comments

  1. Reading about this brought back many memories , of tales and Haints I heard about in my childhood! One Grandmother was a witch , and made strange healing potions. I loved to listen to these tales!!!!!!!!!

  2. Anne Foster Melton, Tom Dooley’s lover who escaped the gallows, also saw the devil dancing at her deathbed in 1873/4

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