Growing up in Louisa – Spooky!
Weekly feature . . . by Mike Coburn
Granny first told me the stories when I was only around seven or eight years old. I’m sure my eyes were wide and the shivers hung about me for a time even after the telling. Granny had lived in the vicinity of the area where the story was based. I don’t know if that gives it more or less legitimacy, but she seemed to think it did. I think she believed it and because the witness seemed creditable to my young mind, it was feasible. To complicate matters my mother was sitting next to me nodding to confirm the truth of the matter. By even this early age I knew my mother to be superstitious and fearful of many things, but in this case she seemed to want me to hear the story as a warning of things unseen, or perhaps defying explanation.
Granny lived in Whitehouse, Peach Orchard, Richardson, and Torchlight. These are places that I would not see until a little more than three years ago. Even then, I was lost between Paintsville and Louisa. I was late for a gathering, but made note of the local communities named on signs. I would ride for what seemed hours near the Tug fork. All I remember was the railroad line, but that in itself supported the tales Granny would spin.
Tales of strange events poured out of my Granny’s mouth, beginning in her bedroom where we’d been called. Electricity was off for one reason or another and she had lit a hurricane lamp. The flickering light threw long shadows on the wallpaper and left dark corners that seemed ripe for dreaded apparitions to seep soundlessly from their lair onto the scene. The first was a story of a kind stranger that had happened by on horseback and had taken the evening meal at her parent’s home. Even though an offer of hospitality was made to stay in the guest room, the stranger expressed a desire to ride upriver in hopes of seeing his family.
It was two days later when Grandfather returned on the train with a story of a strange man caught on a mountain near Louisa. He was accused of stealing the horse from a local farmer. The vigilantes rushed to hang him from a nearby tree, but in the process the rope cut through his neck separating the man’s head causing both his head and body to fall to the ground. The men saw it as an omen of evil and ran without taking time to bury the separated parts.
Granny wondered if it was the same man. If so, he hadn’t stolen the horse because he wasn’t in that area. That night while lying in bed both Grandfather, and Granny heard the ‘clippity-clop’ of a horse passing by their house. Granny ran to the window and saw a figure riding by, but the figure had no head. Since that time others have heard a lonely horse retracing his fateful ride, some suggest he is looking for his head. As I grew older, still in grade school, I was required to read Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It told of a poor school master, Ichabod Crane, who saw a headless horseman. I saw a similarity that made me wonder.
Even while I was shaking from hearing the first story Granny reminded me that her first husband was a conductor on the C&O railroad. Each time he came home from taking a train up or down the line he would report to Granny whether he saw her this time. The story goes that a young lady had visited some friends down the tracks and had overstayed. She insisted she could follow the tracks in the dark and get home just fine. Her friends insisted she take a lantern, so with that and a shawl to keep off the chill, she started for home. She was never seen again.
Whether it was an animal or a man that did her in, no one ever knew. She could have easily tripped, but it was reasoned that someone would have found her bones by now. On calm nights just down the track from Torchlight you can sometimes see a lantern coming up the tracks at a distance. Some have reported it got close enough you could see the figure of a young lady in a long white dress wearing a shawl, and carrying a lantern. People have tried to expose what they thought was a hoax, but were never able to approach the apparition. In the end they figured if someone was faking this then they were very good.
I imagine that I’m not the only one to have heard these stories, but I expect they are early editions of what surely has been expanded upon by now. Nature seems to dictate that these things grow with each telling. In any case, these were a small part of my growing up and something I remember from my Great Grandmother. I revisited them with Granny several times as they came to mind, but I felt no desire to go out on my own to prove them either true or false. I know that mom believed them, but as I have grown older I no longer accept them, but then again, who knows? These kinds of stories were common in my day.
I heard other stories about haunted houses, and gruesome murders, and dismembered bodies. Stories around the campfires were designed to energize imaginations of kids. Many times I sat in fear of what may be watching just out of sight in the darkness. Any noises would set us screaming and looking for a safe haven. I think there’s less of this now days, but I note that the movies are full of zombies. I guess it’s the Dark Side trying to vey for attention.
Maybe someone in your family told you these very stories, or maybe others of the same type? If so, it’s certain you will remember the experience.
