America has no shortage of ghost stories, but few have the documented pedigree of the Bell Witch. Unlike most hauntings, the Bell Witch was witnessed by hundreds of people and investigated by a future president of the United States.

The haunting began around 1817 on the farm of John Bell, a prosperous farmer and devout Baptist who had settled his family on 320 acres along the Red River in Robertson County. At first, the disturbances were subtle: strange knockings on the walls of the farmhouse, chains dragging across the floor in the dead of night, the sound of stones being hurled against the exterior. John Bell initially kept the occurrences to himself, fearing ridicule, but the entity soon made that impossible. It began pulling the bedcovers off his children as they slept. It slapped his daughter Betsy hard enough to leave marks on her face. It whispered, then spoke, then sang hymns.

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