by Frank Baugh

Created on: August 17, 2009

Ghosts. Do I believe in ghosts? I was raised with ghosts, or at least the possibility of ghosts. Even the disciples had heard of ghosts (see Matthew 14:26 and Mark 6:49), so ghosts are nothing new.

I've never seen a ghost (that I know of). I've certainly looked for them. I have been on several ghost hunts at purportedly haunted spots. I've encountered little in the way of seeing ghosts. Not that I am a skeptic, though, mind you. I still believe that they are possible.

Now, I have had one ghostly encounter at my ancient Masonic Lodge building (built in 1823) in Franklin, Tennessee. It was while I was Master of the Hiram Lodge Number Seven in 1990. One day in the middle of the day I went into the Lodge building to retrieve some of my notes from a meeting. I unlocked the door and went to the second floor of the three story building. I was getting my notes when I heard some one go stomping across the third floor above me and out in the stairway. I thought immediately that someone was trying to scare me and that they would shortly appear on the stair, but it dawned on me that I had unlocked the door to let myself into the Lodge building - there could be no one else in there but me! At that realization every hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I bolted for the stair case, the only way, other than the fire escape, out of the building. I darted down the stair to the first floor and out the front door as quick as a wink. Only when I was safely in the street did I turn around to see if anyone or anything was pursuing me. There was no one.

I was virtually raised on ghost stories. That came about because I grew up on a large farm and the field hands were full of scary stories that I simply absorbed like a sponge. The greatest ghost story teller was Hardy Britton, and his greatest ghost story was the Natchez Trace ghost. Hardy passed it off to be the honest truth, and I believe him, because whenever he told the story, every detail was always the same over a period of several years.

The Natchez Trace ghost story starts out in the 1950's when Hardy and his first wife were given a tenant farmer's house to live on Temple Road just up a little piece from its intersection with Old Natchez Trace Road. Old Natchez Trace Road follows the path of the original Natchez Trace through a portion of Williamson County, Tennessee. The Old Natchez Trace Road winds along the Harpeth River from Old Hillsboro Road past Temple Road, then

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>