For generations ghosts have been said to haunt Dent County’s hills and hollows. Many say the spirits are those left from untimely departed souls, who tragically lost their lives to wrath or accident. Salem boasts a frightening history of many such notorious incidents.
Downtown Salem’s cursed corner
W.P. Elmer reports through several volumes of his History of Dent County that a number of murders and deaths by freak accidents occurred all within a few square blocks of downtown Salem:
• Elmer reports in the 45th installment, “In front of the Odd Fellows building and the Salem Hotel (today’s downtown Bank of Salem), in the street, occurred one of the most noted killings in Dent County history. Simms killed George Tripp with a knife. Simms was operator of the Salem Hotel and had employed a niece of Tripp as a waitress. Tripp was an iron miner and lived at Simmons Hill. Ill feeling developed and they met in the street and George began an altercation with Simms that soon was a fight. Simms was no match for George physically, so he stabbed George in the heart, killing him on the spot. Excitement was high. W.A. Young was a witness to the killing and he promptly called it ‘first degree murder.’ His influence in the town was great. W.P. Williams (Rep.), another big citizen, constantly paraded the streets against Simms, talking mob violence. Many others joined and the situation was dangerous. Simms was on bail, but he was in danger. I have never heard so much talk of mobs since. But there was no mobs.
“Judge L.B. Woodside and L. Judson, the big lawyers of the day, defended Simms and one of the biggest trials in Dent County took place. Judge C.C. Bland presided. The jury hung. The cause was submitted to the court and he found Simms guilty of manslaughter in the fourth degree and sentenced him to $100 fine and three months in jail. … It was not over 150 feet from this killing where Rathbone previously killed Burright.”
• Elmer reports in the 39th installment “It (the old First National Bank Building, near today’s Vandivort Drug) was first occupied in 1898 by Harry Nelson and John H. Gleason as a restaurant. It was in this building Dec. 24, 1898, John Gleason shot and killed Harry Nelson. Harry was a cook and well-liked and respected in Salem. He had several children. He was sociable and met a crowd well. John was a stickler for quiet and order. On this Christmas Eve he thought the crowd was drunk, and many were, and were unruly and boisterous. They were in there to eat, drink and be merry. John could not understand such conduct. A few were downright destructive. John ordered them to be quiet but they laughed at him, and Harry joined in the fun and drinking. That did not suit John, who didn’t drink. He thought the crowd was going to tear up his place of business.
“John went across the street and complained of the rioting and borrowed a pistol to command peace and quiet. He went back behind a partition from the confectionary and with the pistol in his hand ordered the crowd to quiet down. Just as John came in with the gun, Harry came from the kitchen with an order. John had remonstrated with him about the noise but Harry was used to such crowds. He came right in confronting the gun in John’s hand and he thought John was after him. The platter fell to the floor and Harry hurriedly grabbed a big restaurant cup and threw it against John’s head. It was a heavy blow and staggered him. He instantly pulled the trigger of the pistol and a bullet went through Harry Nelson’s heart.”
• Elmer reports in the 44th installment, “A tragic accident happened on 3rd St. not far off Main (today’s Third Street/Washington intersection), many years ago and is still fresh in my mind on account of my acquaintanceship with the victim. I think it was close to Christmas time and a number of men, mostly young ones, were in the wagon starting home. Among them was John Flatt, about 25, standing in the back end of the wagon with a loaded gun in his hands. The team started suddenly and John fell backwards over the end gate and the hammer of the gun caught as he went down and both barrels were discharge into his abdomen.”
• Elmer reports in the 16th installment, “The first parachute descent I ever saw was at the M.W.A. picnic in 1906 at the site just east of the Elmer Park on Carl Spencer’s land. It was a fine spectacle, before the biggest crowd ever in Salem. The last one was at the Taylor Grove Addition on the Fourth of July celebration about 1920. The poor balloonist, half drunk, down and out and sick, persisted in making the ascension. The committee objected. He got his balloon 2/3 inflated and cut loose. It did not go up but dragged him against trees and killed him. He was buried here.”
Cedar Grove’s first grave
Elmer writes in his 14th Installment: “The first new body to be interred in Cedar Grove was said to be that of a little boy who was frozen to death on Christmas Eve about 1874. He and a playmate living at the Round House of the railroad started out to hunt Santa Claus. When they were missed, the mother set out an alarm. It began to get cold and snow to fall. Frantic parents and neighbors searched the dense woods around the section house and soon the population of Salem was helping. All night long by lanterns and torches the search went on. Every foot of land was covered for a mile. Spring Creek was carefully dragged. Hundreds were in the search.
“The next morning a gun was fired as a signal; they had been found within 200 yards of home. And there they were, frozen to death. They pulled off their shoes and hung their stockings on a bush for Santa Claus to fill – their little coats folded for pillows and clasped in each other’s arms.”
The disturbed graves of downtown Salem
According to Elmer’s 12th Installment an old cemetery existed in downtown Salem where the public library and First Christian Church are now.
“Tradition has it an Irishman who got drunk and froze to death on Block 26 was the first one to be buried there. It was far out of town in those days as the main inhabited part of the town was around the Bonebrake, then the Salem Springs. … Later an Episcopalian Church was built on the east side of this block and was later supplanted by the (old) Methodist Church (where today’s Salem Public Library sits). The removal of bodies was made to people who would consent. Many refused to allow the removal.”
In the 15th Installment, Elmer reports many bodies were discovered still buried underneath the buildings years later.
“When excavation was made for the Methodist Church and the basement dug under the Christian Church on Block 26, a few graves were found where the bodies had not been removed and the bones were carefully taken out and placed in Cedar Grove Cemetery.”
Local ghost stories
The following are ghosts stories compiled from area residents. The names have been removed at the request of the storytellers:
• An old Dent County man was in failing health and asked his daughter to arrange a visit with his friend and old physician Dr. Thompson in Columbia. Dr. Thompson had given her father his private number which connected to his hospital office. When she called the number Dr. Thompson answered with his distinctive voice and she could hear his trademark unlit pipe clang between his teeth during the conversation. After explaining her father’s situation, Dr. Thompson told the two to drive up to Columbia immediately and he would admit them.
Once at the Columbia hospital, the daughter brought her father to the admitting desk and explained why they were there. A nurse asked who the admitting doctor was and she responded it was Dr. Thompson. The nurse asked them to wait a moment while she left the desk, she returned shortly thereafter with the hospital administrator. The administrator asked her again who the admitting doctor was, and the daughter once again said Dr. Thompson. The administrator then asked what number she’d called, and the daughter produced Dr. Thompson’s number.
The Administrator paused and agreed that was his private number. She then took her to Dr. Thompson’s office and said he’d died two years previous. The office was still empty and his private number had been retired and disconnected for more than a year.
• A Dent County woman was sleeping at her home on Round Pond Road when she felt an energy rise up from below the bed, pass through her body, throw the sheets off of the bed and manifest itself in her husband’s closet. She said she saw a white light separating the clothes and shoving them from side-to-side, and then passed through the closet wall into the bathroom. Thereafter she would see the ghost of a small boy that looked very sad. The ghost would touch her on the back often while she lay in bed. Her daughter also started feeling the presence of the boy sleeping in her bed and could see the impression of his body on her sheets at night.
• A Dent County woman said a lifetime of haunting began one night while sleeping at her grandmother’s house. During the night, she awoke to see a black entity emerge from an open toy box and float towards her. She said she immediately yelled for her grandmother and the dark being fled back into the toy box.
• Sometime in the 1940s, neighbors were disturbed one evening in West Fork in Reynolds County when a local veteran began firing his rifle into the darkness of night and declaring for all to hear that he’d shot four ghosts. The next morning the town awoke to find four white hogs shot dead and lying in the middle of the road.
