A state highway marker west of Lewisburg (in nearby Greenbrier County) commemorates the "only known case in which testimony from [a] ghost helped convict a murderer....Interred in a nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition's account.

In October, 2006, the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO) took a field trip to Pocahontas County, resulting in an exciting encounter. BFRO says of itself:

As a result of the education and experience of its members and the quality of their efforts, the BFRO is widely considered as the most credible and respected investigative network involved in the study of this subject.

Burl Hammons tells this story to accompany his own version of "Turkey in the Straw" on "The Hammons Family: Traditions of a West Virginia Family and Friends." I think it says a lot about Burl's childhood view of playing the fiddle. Music is terrifying and wonderful. The folklorist authors of the pamphlet cite many stories about the Devil appearing as a fiddler, but to me this is more personal than folkloric.

Well, I was--where we lived, we lived down on the Williams River, when the--when I saw this thing, and so--. And we always went to bed pretty early, my dad did, and--about eight, nine o'clock we always went to bed--and I laid down and I, didn't seem like I could go to sleep. And I laid there a while and just directly I heard the click, open come the door, and in walked this skeleton of a man. And he was the tallest man, Lord, I've--he was really tall, a-must've been six or seven feet tall or looked like that.

Burl Hammons tells this story in "The Hammons Family: Traditions of a West Virginia Family and Friends." This photo shows Burl's father, Paris (center) and his brothers Pete (left) and Neal (right). Their father, Jesse, was born in the early 1830's, and these three brothers were born between 1856 and 1864. Their youngest brother, Edn Hammons was a well-known Pocahontas County fiddler.

The stories I am presenting here share the perspective of my other Pocahontas County tales: "I'm not afraid of the unknown, but I saw something. Wondering what it was, Maggie's dad, Paris Hammons, told her this story.

That was over on Clover Creek. [My dad] while he was a-sangin'...they was two old women a-pickin' berries. And she asked him where he was camped at...an old log camp...."Why," she said, "that place is hanted, everybody that's ever stayed there...." He said, "What do you call a hant?" She said, "You'll find out," she said, "they hear something there." She said, "Are you not afraid?" "No sir," he said, "I always try to find out what anything is when I hear a noise...."

And so he said along in the night....he was a-sitting there smoking...he heard a wagon a-comin'....he said it kept getting closter and closter, closter and closter. And finally at last he said he stepped--stepped out on the outside, for he could hear it and he said he heard it was a-comin' right down the creek.

If you're interested in traditional Appalachian string band music, you may have heard of Pocahontas County's Hammons family. Folklorists have collected a number of unique tunes and tune versions from the musical family members. In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Carl Fleischauer and Alan Jabbour of the Library of Congress put together a 120-page booklet and record collection which is currently available on CD, as "The Hammons Family: Traditions of a West Virginia Family and Friends." Brothers Burl and Sherman Hammons and their sister Maggie Hammons Parker are recorded telling stories and riddles, singing songs and playing fiddle and banjo. These published recordings include a number of stories with a supernatural component.

Here's another Pocahontas County ghost story I found on the Internet. I've never heard this from a county native, so consider its source, the West Virginia Division of Tourism.

Fence Row Stand-Up Man
Seebert - Pocahontas County

Visitors to nearby Watoga State Park report seeing an exceptionally tall bald-headed man suddenly spring up along the fencerow next to a cornfield. The tall, glowing figure appears on especially foggy nights about midnight and stares intensely, moving only his head and not his body as cars pass.

The man doesn't stand up, as one would from a lying position, but rather springs straight up, without bending his knees in a perfect arch. The figure is at least 6-1/2 feet tall, bald and has an eerie halo-like glow around his entire body that almost illuminates the fog.

The Droop Mountain area near Seebert was home to the state's largest Civil War battle, so it is possible this ghost is related to the violent events there. Or is it something else?

Another Pocahontas locality recorded as "haunted" is the old Denmar State Hospital. A lot of the older people here on Droop Mountain and Caesar Mountain worked there at one time or another. It is just a short distance away, on the Greenbrier River. I've heard stories about places in the hospital where no one wanted to go alone. One floor in particular made people uncomfortable, and there are stories of inexplicable voices and footsteps. The structure is now a prison. I visited there once, and found the bars slamming shut behind me disturbing enough to drive away thoughts of paranormal phenomena. Here's the WVghosts.com report:

Here's the WVghost.com entry for Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park.

In 2000, I took this picture of the east end of my house, the pear tree, and the cat. I used color print film, and I scanned this print to make a jpeg file. When I looked at the image using my computer, I was surprised to see a figure standing in the full-length window (indicated by the arrow in the small image at left). There was no one else at home, and the figure is definitely not my reflection. There are quite a few photographs with "unexplained" bright spots, hazy shapes, and clouds, which some interpret as material manifestations of spiritual presence. I think the lady in my window looks more substantial than most of these photos.

I'm not prepared to argue that the figure is "really" a ghostly manifestation. As I child, I was tormented by the faces I saw looking out at me from wallpaper, woodgrain, and shadows from the coal stove. The human mind is predisposed to recognize faces, and will interpret faces where none are present. I don't know what's going on here, but I keep showing people the lady who appeared in my window. They see her too.