Ghosts of the Southern Mountains and Appalachia

The Ghosts of Shut-In Creek

The Ghosts of Shut-In Creek Black Mountain, North Carolina There is a place near Hot Springs in Madison County, North Carolina, that's haunted, "been haunted since I was a boy," said the white-haired old man. "It may have started right after what happened to my uncle. He worked in a manganese mine up beyond Hot Springs at what they called Dry Branch. One mornin' they let my uncle down in the mine with the wooden box. He'd go down to the bottom, dig out manganese, and load it in the box until it was full and then they'd windlass the box back up. "When a man would fill the box full, he'd shake the rope, and they kept waitin' and waitin' for my 120 The Ghosts ofShut-In Creek 121 uncle to shake that rope but he never did. They began to holler down into the shaft and it was like a voice would holler up, but it was just their own calls comin' back at them. My uncle never did answer. "Finally, they put hooks on ropes and let themselves down, and after awhile they managed to bring him up. But he was dead. Nobody knew for sure, but some said gas must have formed down there the night before and that's what killed him. 122 Ghosts of the Southern Mountains and Appalachia Shut-In Creek. ''They brought him up to the little old log house on the side of the mountain where he lived and they laid him out, a corpse. There was a real crowd there that night. Some sat inside with the body. Others just stood around the outside the house. I took a turn sittin' inside. Always heard you ought to do that to keep the cats off the corpse, but the lamp in that room kept goin' out even after my aunt brought in a fresh cleaned one. That light goin' out began to work on me some, so I asked her The Ghosts of Shut-In Creek 123 to get someone else to take my chair and set a spell and I went on outdoors. "We were all standin' around talkin' when someone called out, 'Looky there, comin' right down the mountain!' I looked and saw this big light. Then it started to roll over and over and it was big as a barrel. It was just a-rollin' comin' down toward us. It rolled over and over and over and everybody began to holler. But not my uncle's brother, Ben, and it was comin' at him p'int-blank. "I don't know whether he'd been drinkin' or what, but he begun to curse that light with it rollin' off the hill toward him. And when he did, well, it hit him, knocked him down, and just kept on rollin' right down the side of the mountain and across the road. Some of them boys standin' nearby lit out runnin' and those of us that stayed 'cause we were too scared to move, we picked Ben up and took him inside. But he never did recover and he died later that night. "The home place is still there near Shut-In Creek, and it's been haunted ever since. Comin' along that road through there at night certain times of the year, certain nights, you could hear people talkin'. I was comin' through there one night-my, it was dark-and I heard some people talkin' and it sounded like there was a passel of them. It was right near my uncle's house. I kept walkin' expectin' to meet somebody, but I never did meet anybody. I told some folks about that later and a lot of people said, 'Why, I've heard that talkin' many a time.' "You go about four miles beyond Hot Springs and then you turn to the left. That's Shut-In Creek 124 Ghosts of the Southern Mountains and Appalachia and the haunted place is down aways about five miles. I wouldn't walk through there again at night, no matter what you gave me. They say the talkin' still goes on near that farm. You hear voices that seem like they move along the road right near you, but you never see a livin' soul." ...