Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts: Commemorativ...

A commemorative facsimile edition of the beloved and best-selling second book in famed national folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham’s southern ghosts series Jeffrey was the resident apparition in the Selma, Alabama, home of nationally-known folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham and the inspiration for Windham’s best-selling collection of macabre tales that reveal two hundred years of Alabama’s ghostly secrets, Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. One of the most popular books ever published in the state, generations of Alabama children and students have been thrilled and chilled by Windham’s spectral legends.   Following the overwhelming success of Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, Windham and Jeffrey began to journey across the South assembling a second collection of ghastly tales that repeat Windham’s winning combination of traditional folklore, Southern history and culture, and family-friendly story-telling. In Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts, Windham’s disembodied friend roams the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida to recall thirteen more timeless, spine-tingling tales of baneful and melancholy spirits that spook the most stoic heart.   Opening this volume is “The Girl Nobody Knew.” One midsummer night in the genteel Kentucky mineral spring resort of Harrodsburg, a beautiful lady arrived at the town’s grand hotel. The belle danced late into the night with the town’s smitten gallants only to expire suddenly with the notes of the last quadrille. The spooked residents of Harrodsburg guard a grave you can see to this day. Readers then visit the world-famous Bell Witch of Robinson County, Tennessee. Jeffrey also makes his first trip to old New Orleans to reveal a revenant in residence on Royal Street before continuing his ghostly progress across Dixie.   This new edition returns Jeffrey Introduces Thirteen More Southern Ghosts to its original format in jacketed cloth full of original, black-and-white illustrations in a handsome keepsake edition perfect for gift-giving and for families, folklorists of all ages, and libraries.

Paris Review

“In Windham’s tales . . . myth and fact intertwine to present a picture of the South that is as true as any textbook.”

Huntsville Times

“Almost every town has its own ghostly legends. It’s separating fact from fiction and fantasy that requires someone of Mrs. Windham's expertise.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Jeffrey Introduces 13 More Southern GhostsCommemorative EditionBy Kathryn Tucker WindhamThe University of Alabama PressCopyright © 2014 University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8173-1873-4ContentsForeword to the Original 1971 Edition, The Girl Nobody Knew, A Ghost Who Threw Things, The Farmer Who Vanished, Harpist of the Gulf, Ghosts of Annandale, A Glow in the Dungeon, Disappearing Hounds, Our Family Trouble, The Spirit of the Spindles, The Ghost of the Barefoot Slave, A Ghost Who Inspired Poetry, The Defiant Tombstone, An Eternal Embrace, A Final Note The Strode Publishers, Afterword to the Commemorative Edition Dilcy Windham Hilley and Ben Windham, CHAPTER 1The Girl Nobody KnewJEFFREY INTRODUCES: KENTUCKYAt the edge of the city park in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, a white picket fence encloses a single grave. The metal marker above the concrete slab is inscribed,"UNKNOWN — Hallowed and Hushed Be the Place of the Dead. Step Softly ... Bow Head."Here is buried a girl, young and beautiful, whose name no one knows, whose story can only be pieced together with sketchy recollections, suppositions, and speculation.Today the city of Harrodsburg cares for her grave, just as it has for more than one hundred and twenty-five years. And today children playing in the park pause beside the fence, read the flaking inscription and ask, "Whose grave is this? Who is buried here?" just as children for generations have asked. If these inquiring children are persistent in their questioning, this is the story they will hear:Back during the 1840's, Harrodsburg was famous as a resort for fashionable summer visitors who came to drink the water from its mineral springs. From May until October, hundreds of visitors came to vacation in this middle Kentucky town: some came hoping to be benefited by the waters while others were attracted by the social life — the parties, banquets, plays, horse races, concerts, gambling, dances, and masquerade balls.On a tree-shaded hill near the edge of town stood an imposing brick hotel, The Harrodsburg Springs Hotel. Dr. and Mrs. C. C. Graham, owners of the establishment, had spent a fortune developing their hotel into one of the finest in the entire country. Winding paths, bordered by shrubs and flowers, led to the mineral springs where guests could sit on curved benches inside the latticed spring houses as they shared conversations and drank the healing waters.The hotel's ballroom was so large and so elegant and so famous that the simple remark, "I attended the ball at Harrodsburg Springs," was enough to establish a social reputation. The dining room was nationally known for its splendid meals, and service throughout the hostelry was unsurpassed.But it was its ballroom which brought Harrodsburg Springs Hotel its greatest fame. Even during the daylight hours when the room was quiet and empty, its very size gave visitors a sense of grandeur and awe. And at night, when the mirrored walls reflected the graceful images of the bowing, gliding, whirling dancers, there was not a more colorful spectacle in all Kentucky.Servants lighted the ballroom's crystal chandeliers and the lamps, more than one hundred of them, each night after supper. Then by the time the guests had changed into their evening finery, the Negro musicians, trained by Dr. Graham and outfitted by him in splendid uniforms, were at their places on the raised platform ready for the dancing to begin.As the dancers took their places on the ballroom floor (many a romance flowered at Harrodsburg Springs), spectators sat in chairs along the walls or paused in doorways to watch the graceful kaleidoscope of rhythm and, perhaps, to whisper about who was flirting with whom.It was on such a scene of carefree pleasure that the heroine of Kentucky's story of mystery made her brief appearance.Her story, as pieced together by recollections of people who were there and then handed down from one generation to the next, began late one summer afternoon, shortly before supper time. Many of the hotel's guests were seated in rocking chairs on the wide gallery exchanging bits of gossip and enjoying the easterly breeze that had just sprung up. They ceased their rocking and their talking when a carriage stopped at the entrance and out of it stepped a girl so lovely that afterwards the people who saw her arrive could never adequately describe her appearance."She had a glow about her, an ethereal quality," they would say. Or, "Her hair — it was piled on top of her head, and ringlets hung down around her shoulders, and it glistened with a golden sheen in the late sunlight." Or, "Such a smile she had — a smile of pure joy as though she wanted to share her love of life with everyone she saw."Later nobody quite agreed on what color her hair really was or what kind of eyes she had or even how tall she was, but they all agreed that she was the loveliest young girl they had ever seen.They noticed that she arrived alone, which was unusual in those days when ladies never traveled without an escort, and that she had only one piece of luggage, a small trunk which the carriageman took into the hotel before he drove away.She registered, some observers recalled, as Miss Mary Virginia Stafford of Louisville, and she explained to the desk clerk that her parents, Judge and Mrs. Stafford, would arrive later in the evening. They, she added, would bring the rest of her luggage. She had come early so she would have time to rest before dressing for the ball, she said."I love to dance," she confided in a voice so sweet and enticing that a dozen or more young men in the lobby surged around her to beg for the privilege of being her escort for the ball.She thanked each one graciously but declined their invitations. "I will save a dance for each of you," she promised as she turned from the lobby and went toward her room.She did not come down to supper, and when she did not appear in the ballroom for the grand march, curiosity about her identity and her actions became intense. Some guests from Louisville stated that they had never seen the young lady at any social functions there, not even at church (they were Episcopalians and thought she had the unmistakable quality look of an Episcopalian), nor had they ever known a Judge Stafford in Louisville. They wondered if - - -Before the questions grew into insinuations and the insinuations into gossip, Miss Stafford (if indeed that was her name) walked into the ballroom. Walked is hardly the proper word to use, for she seemed to float in, caught up in the happy excitement of the music, the lights, the crowd, and the dancing.Immediately she was surrounded by young men who reminded her of her promise to dance with them, and she danced with partner after partner.Everyone at the ball watched her, and she was the chief topic of conversation. Even the people who were most skeptical about her background and most envious of her popularity admitted that they had never seen a young lady more beautiful, more graceful, more gracious, or more completely charming than she."I don't know whose daughter she is, but I wish she were mine," one matriarch remarked. And all around her heads bobbed in agreement.At intermission the girl, accompanied by a covey of young gallants, strolled out into the summer night. She was silent as they walked through the shadows of the tall trees into splotches of moonlight. It was not the silence of rudeness or of weariness but rather a quietness sometimes induced by those rare times of total happiness when there is no need for words.The night was heavy with the sweetness of honeysuckle and of late blooming four-o-clocks. Somewhere nearby a mockingbird sang. At the first notes of the bird's clear song, the girl stood still and lifted her hand for silence. As the song ended, she murmured softly,"Oh, I am so happy! I wish I could stay right here always. Forever and ever - - -"Then she laughed, caught the hand of the young man nearest her, and urged, "Come on! Let's hurry back to the hotel. I hear the music — I don't want to miss a single dance!"Her companions recalled that her merriment increased as the night grew longer, and several of her partners heard her exclaim, "I wish the music would never stop, that the dancing could go on and on and on!"Finally, despite those wishes, the hotel manager announced, "This will be the final dance of the evening. We hope you have had a pleasant time."The girl glided onto the floor with her final partner. Then as the music neared its end, she suddenly collapsed in the young man's arms.She was dead.The death of anyone so young and so lovely would naturally have caused grief, but her sudden passage from life into death had a peculiarly poignant sadness for she, apparently, had no family or friends. The name she had used to register at the hotel was fictitious as was the other information she had provided the desk clerk. Her personal belongings gave no clue as to who she was. Hotel officials hoped to find something in her small trunk to help them establish her identity, but when they forced the lock, they found the trunk empty.Newspapers carried accounts of the "girl who danced herself to death" and asked the help of readers in learning who she was. Hundreds of people came to Harrodsburg to view the body, still supremely beautiful in death, but no one knew her.So, despairing of finding her family, guests at the hotel joined with the management in preparing for her funeral. The young men remembered how she had said, "I wish I could stay here always," and they chose as her burial place the spot where she had stood to listen to the mockingbird.Her dancing partners served as her pallbearers, and the Negro musicians from the hotel played a funeral dirge. Roses twined with honeysuckle covered her casket.After the funeral, the search continued for someone who knew the girl. Weeks, months, years passed, and her identity remained as deep a mystery as it was the night she died. And now, a century and a quarter later, her remains still lie in a grave marked "UNKNOWN."The Harrodsburg Springs Hotel burned years ago, leaving few reminders of its former elegance or its historic past. But residents of that Kentucky city still report seeing sometimes, late at night, a young girl in an old-fashioned ball gown wandering around near the hotel site. She seems confused and distressed, people who have encountered her say, and she appears to be trying to talk, but no words are audible.One of the last reported encounters with the lovely ghost came one night when a nurse, a resident of the area, was taking a midnight walk in the park. Her brother, a deaf mute, was ill, and she had been at his bedside for many hours. Other members of the family helped with the nursing chores, but since she was the only one who had learned to read lips, she was needed almost constantly.While he was sleeping that night, she slipped out for a peaceful walk in the park. Near the springhouse, she saw a figure in white approaching her. As the figure came closer, she recognized it as the ghost she had heard about so often, the ghost of the "girl who danced herself to death." The figure appeared to be confused and distressed, just as she had heard from others who had encountered the wraith, and seemed to be trying to talk. The nurse stood in the arc of light cast by an overhead street lamp until the figure came close enough for her to read its lips."I'm lost. Please help me. I was attending a ball at the hotel, but now I can't find my way back," the figure said, not making a sound."My dear," the nurse replied, "the hotel burned more than fifty years ago."The specter threw her hands over her face and rushed, sobbing, into the springhouse where she vanished completely.CHAPTER 2A Ghost Who Threw ThingsJEFFREY INTRODUCES: GEORGIAThe train ride from Macon to Surrency, a distance of some one hundred and twenty five miles, had seemed longer than usual to Allen Surrency. He was eager to get back home.The conductor moved down the aisle of the swaying coach calling, "Baxley! Baxley! Next stop Baxley, Georgia!"He paused by Allen Surrency's seat and said, "Better warn your cook that I'll be stopping at your place for breakfast day after tomorrow — tell her to cook a big pan of biscuits for me!"The two men laughed and spent a few minutes talking about cotton and the price of naval stores and politics before the conductor moved on through the train.Allen Surrency knew all the train crews on the Macon to Brunswick run. His big house in Surrency, the town named for his family, served as a hotel and restaurant for the railroad men and for other visitors, and he had many friends among them.When the train neared Surrency, Mr. Surrency put away the ledger in which he had been figuring receipts from his sawmill and general store, and he looked again in his brown valise to make sure he had not forgotten the presents for his children. His wife, Welthier, accused him of spoiling the children — and perhaps he did.The conductor came through the coach again calling, "Surrency! Surrency! Surrency, Georgia!"Mr. Surrency stood up, brushed the cinders off his coat and trousers and picked up his valise and the bundles he had brought from Macon. He glanced out the window to see which of his children had walked across to the station to meet him — he was almost sure his daughter Clementine would be there — and was surprised to see a large and apparently excited crowd of people gathered along the railroad siding."What do you suppose has happened?" he asked the conductor, and together they rushed down the aisle to the exit.As Mr. Surrency stepped from the train, his storekeeper greeted him with, "Hurry home, Mr. Surrency. Awful things are happening at your house — a ghost has taken over the place!"Thus Allen Surrency learned of the ghost which was to torment members of his household for more than five years.At first Mr. Surrency refused to believe the stories neighbors told him as they hurried together across the tracks and through the oak grove to his home. A ghost disrupting his household? Impossible!Even when his wife, placid Welthier, burst into tears and his children clung to him in fright, he tried to reject the idea that a supernatural being had caused their upset. Surely, he reasoned, there was a logical explanation for the weird events he was hearing about.He entered his house, still listening in startled disbelief to the tales being told him, to put away a bag of hardware (nails, hinges, bolts, etc.) he had bought in Macon. Then he walked back out on the porch to try to find someone who could give a sensible account of the events that had occurred during his absence. As he stepped onto the porch, the nails, bolts, and hinges that he had just put away showered down upon him and clattered to rest in a circle around his feet.Allen Surrency never doubted again!Now, a century after the still unexplained events which bedeviled the Surrency household and which brought thousands of curiosity-seekers to the town, it is difficult to determine just how the strange hauntings began.Some accounts say Mrs. Surrency, Welthier, was the first member of the family to be annoyed by the supernatural visitor. She was sitting alone in her room, this version says, sewing and planning menus for the next day when her handwork jerked away from her and swirled in circles and arcs around the room.As she gazed in amazement, her spools of thread, thimble, and scissors leapt from her lap and joined in the aerial acrobatics.Mrs. Surrency ran from the room in terror. Behind her she heard the noise of shattering china as her bowl and pitcher set jumped from her wash stand and crashed to the floor.Other accounts say the strangeness began when the Surrencys' daughter, Clementine, was bombarded by a shower of hot bricks as she skipped up the front steps of her home.Yet another version says the boys in the family were the ghost's first victims. According to this narration, the boys were sitting in the living room talking with a visiting minister (their mother had instructed them to entertain the guest while she finished dressing) when a blazing log flew out of the fireplace and whirled around the room. As if waiting for their cue, the andirons began to do an awkward, noisy dance as the tongs beat a rhythm on the stone hearth.The minister, it is reported, cut short his visit and rushed off to see other parishioners.However it began, the weeks and months and years that followed marked a time of terror for Allen Surrency and his family. From 1872 until the ghost departed some five years later, life for the Surrencys was never normal.The ghost broke everything in the house that was breakable: bowls and pitchers, mirrors, windowpanes, vases, dishes, flower pots, glasses, pictures, jars were all flung upon the floor or against the walls with such force that they shattered into smitherines.At first Mr. Surrency brought plates and glasses from his general store to replace the broken crockery, but after the breakage continued, the family finally resorted to using tin plates and cups. Yet apparently the ghost enjoyed rattling tin as much as he delighted in crashing china: when the family gathered for a meal, the tin plates swirled off the table and clattered to the floor — or they sailed through a window out into the yard! (Continues...)Excerpted from Jeffrey Introduces 13 More Southern Ghosts by Kathryn Tucker Windham. Copyright © 2014 University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

About the Author

Kathryn Tucker Windham grew up in Thomasville, Alabama, the youngest child in a large family of storytellers. For many years a Selma resident, Windham was a freelance writer, collected folklore, and photographed the changing scenes of her native South. A nationally recognized storyteller and a regular fixture on Alabama Public Radio, her commentaries were also featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” Her other books include Thirteen Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, Jeffrey's Latest Thirteen: More Alabama Ghosts, Thirteen Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey, Thirteen Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey, and Thirteen Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey.

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