Haunted Arkansas Mountain

Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery

On a gentle. wooded ridge of the Ozarks overlooking the town of Fayetteville,  Arkansas is the Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery, the final resting place for hundreds of men who gave their lives during Civil War battles in the northwest part of the state. Officially listed as East Mountain, the locals call the ridge Ghost Mountain. Not as famous as other battle sites like Gettysburg, Manassas, or Vicksburg, this was nonetheless one of the most violent and desperately contested sites of the war.  

The men's original burial places were where they fell when after the battle, soldiers of the victorious side or civilians from the area hurriedly interred the bodies in shallow, makeshift graves trying to prevent disease and the stench of decay. In 1878, the Southern Memorial Association of Washington County established the cemetery and began the process of exhuming the bodies from the area. The Confederates were buried here and the fallen Union soldiers were interred in the Fayetteville National Cemetery.

There are a number of homes just down the hill from the cemetery and the residents often report seeing unusual lights floating along the ridge. There are also numerous reports by residents and visitors alike of strange anomalies showing up in photographs taken within the cemetery. Even more famous though, is the legend of the Burning Bride of Ghost Hollow.

Directly across the slender dirt road from the Confederate cemetery is a much smaller cemetery, The Walker Cemetery is a family burial plot of land much smaller than its neighbor. Here lies the body of David Walker. In the 1860s, he was an Arkansas state senator, three times a state supreme court justice, one of the founders of the University of Arkansas, and served as a colonel in the Confederate army during the war. He was married to Jane Lewis Washington, a third-cousin of George Washington. Buried here next to him are his parents and a few of his close relatives.  

In 1872, Judge Walker had a large, 2-story brick house built for his daughter and her husband as a wedding present. It still stands just a little ways away from the family cemetery. Soon after the happy couple moved in though, strange things began to happen. Mostly small things, items disappearing then reappearing several days later, unexplained "moaning" noises, doors slamming closed for no reason. Then the couple became aware they could no longer find hired help. When the last housemaid quit,  they inquired to learn why nobody would work for them. They learned the African-American community considered the home haunted because of a horrible accident that happened there years before. 

Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865, a man and his fiancé moved to Fayetteville from Fort Smith trying to start a new life after his hard service in the Confederate army.  They constructed a small home on the exact same spot of land as the Walker-built house. They were married in the house one cold winter evening and after the guests left, the bride of one hour, still wearing her wedding dress, leaned over the fireplace to stir the fire. A spark popped onto her dress and set it ablaze. Running and screaming hysterically out of the house, she ran down the ridge and, having ran through the grounds which would later become the Walker and Confederate cemeteries, she fell down and died in agony. From that day on, there have been reports of people seeing her apparition running through both cemeteries and hearing her screams as she over and over, relives her tragic wedding night.

Unfortunately, more tragedy plagued Ghost Mountain. In 1932, a family lived in a small log cabin located near the cemeteries. One night, the husband came home very drunk to his wife who was caring for a sick infant. The baby cried incessantly no matter what the mother tried and the husband, incensed that he couldn't sleep because of it, suddenly grabbed the baby, stumbled outside and threw the baby down the water well. The wife went into hysterics, grabbed the well rope and jumped into the well to save the child. The drunken father picked up a nearby ax and chopped the rope, leaving his wife and child in the well to die. It was several days later when his employer came to investigate why he had not been to work. Seeing the dangling, chopped well rope, he looked down and saw in the dim light, the floating bodies. It is assumed the husband fled the area as he has never been found. 

Some say the stories are just myths, there's nothing strange about East Mountain. Others insist the stories are not myths. One thing that is for certain, to this day, the stories remain a source of fear for those living on and around Ghost Mountain.

Unsettled Souls of Fort Smith Cemetery

The Fort Smith National Cemetery in Sebastian County, Arkansas played an important role in the western expansion of the United States. By the early 1800s, white settlers were moving into the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1805. As the settlers moved onto land inhabited by the Indians, tensions naturally began to rise. The U.S. Army began building military posts to protect the settlers. Fort Smith was the first and most western of these forts. As a wild and lawless town grew around the fort, it became the last “civilized” place for outlaws, bandits, and renegades to acquire supplies before entering Indian Territory.

In 1823, out of the 200 troops stationed there, 51 died and the first official cemetery was created and dedicated on the site just outside the stockade where there had already been 3 burials. In 1824, Fort Gibson was constructed and Fort Smith was closed. Between 1824 and 1838, when the army returned to re-open Fort Smith, a number of men, most of whom died due to the lawlessness of the town, were haphazardly buried there. The army rehabilitated the cemetery and began overseeing internments.

When the Civil War began, Confederate forces took over the fort. When the Union forces recaptured it in late 1863, over 475 Rebel soldiers, most of them men who had fallen in battle, had been buried in the expanded cemetery.

The war ended in 1865 and by 1867, the bodies of so many fallen Confederate soldiers had been removed from hasty graves dug on battlefields and reburied in the Fort Smith cemetery that it was increased in size to over 5 acres. It was officially made a National Cemetery in late 1867 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Over the years, the cemetery has been expanded to cover over 33 acres and include almost 14,000 burials. Probably the most famous person buried here is Isaac Parker, the “Hanging Judge.” During his 21 years in Fort Smith, he sentenced 160 men and women to die with a noose around their necks. 79 of those 160 actually met their fate on the gallows.

During the 1860s, as the bodies of more and more soldiers who had suffered horrible deaths during battles were being dug up from their resting places and reburied in the cemetery, stories began circulating of strange sounds emanating from the graveyard at night; cries of anguish, sometimes a painful scream, and a persistent rumor of hearing what sounded like a young man crying out for his momma. Sometimes strange, bobbing lights would appear, float around the headstones and then vanish. Soldiers who were assigned night duty of standing guard at the cemetery’s gate refused to do it alone and would not enter the grounds.

By the early 1900s, it seems things in the cemetery began to settle down. Although still spooky after dark, stories of the unexplained sounds and lights virtually ceased. In the late 1990s however, for some unknown reason, it seems the forever occupants of the Fort Smith cemetery became uneasy. Once again, strange lights began to be seen floating around in the dark. Cemetery caretakers began reporting tools left amongst the graves overnight would be moved when they reported back to work the next morning. Sometimes the tools would simply be moved from one side of a grave marker to the other side of the same marker and other times a rake or shovel would be moved several graves away from where it had been left.

In 1998, on a cold December night, one of the groundskeepers had been performing maintenance work around Isaac Parker’s grave. He had left a spade and clippers next to the grave when he had been called away to help on another task. It was dark when he returned alone to retrieve his tools and put them away in a shed. After gathering up the tools, he turned away heading toward the shed when he heard something behind him. Thinking it was just a leaf being blown along the grass, he didn’t think anything of it. A few steps later though, he realized the noise had not gone away; in fact, it seemed now like it was the footsteps of someone following him. He pulled a flashlight from his tool belt and turned it on as he quickly turned around. Illuminated by the flashlight stood an old man with white hair and a white beard, wearing an old-fashioned black suit. The man was just standing there looking at him. The groundskeeper asked him what he wanted and the man began moving his lips as if he was talking, but there was no sound. It was then the groundskeeper realized that in the beam of his flashlight, he could see right through the man to the headstones directly behind him! Dropping the flashlight and the tools he had retrieved, the groundskeeper ran directly to his car without looking back and sped home.

Having worked and been in the Fort Smith Museum and having seen the pictures of Isaac Parker numerous times, the groundskeeper had no doubt the eerie apparition had been the Hanging Judge himself. The story goes that when the groundskeeper came in the next day, his salt-and-pepper-colored hair had turned completely white. He told his supervisor of his encounter and then, with trembling hands, gave him his letter of resignation and walked out.

Mount Holly Cemetery

Cemeteries speak to the living. The rows upon rows of graves marked by headstones, monuments and effigies remind us that we will follow. Sooner or later, we will follow. 

The word "cemetery" comes from a Greek word meaning "sleeping chamber." The term "graveyard" is  considered coarse terminology for where the dead are buried. Death sounds so final and permanent when "graveyard" is used, but a "sleeping chamber" is comforting and soft. In a cemetery, when the body is lowered into the ground, you can comfort yourself with the thought that the dearly departed is merely sleeping until you meet again.  Resembling a calm, restful park with cut grass, shade trees and walkways, some cemeteries seem to welcome us to drop by and visit before we come to stay.

Mount Holly Cemetery is Little Rock, Arkansas's oldest graveyard and the final resting place for many of the state's past leaders, governors, mayors, and Supreme Court Justices. Civil War generals, an Indian Princess, a spy who was hung and other souls from all walks of life are all in their final rest here. But for some, "rest" doesn't appear to be anything they are interested in doing.

While within the 20 acres of the fenced and walled cemetery, visitors have reported hearing flute music, drumbeats, and horse hooves with the sound fading away as it proceeds between the rows of headstones.  They often report a feeling of being watched even though they can see there there is no one else there. After the sun goes down, the massive obelisks, ornate mausoleums, gated plots and narrow carriage-rutted lanes make it almost impossible for the mind to not see movement where there shouldn't be, shadows flitting around and ghostly figures slowly drifting in the ground fog. What is even more disturbing though, all these things sometimes happen in broad daylight also. Almost from the very beginning of its existence in 1843, there have been reports of odd things happening there - too many unrelated individuals, too many independent reports of things not easily explained to simply dismiss them all as pure imagination.

Residents in nearby apartments have reported seeing gravestones appear in their yards only to disappear into thin air even as they watch. One lady and her husband moved from out of state into one of the apartments across the street from Mount Holly. The couple had no previous knowledge of anything related to the cemetery. Just 1 week after moving in, the lady went to call in her cat from outside before going to bed for the night. When she opened her front door, she was shocked to see a huge, seemingly very solid 12-foot high grave marker standing upright just 3 feet from her steps. Thinking it must be a prank being pulled by local teenagers, she ran back inside to get her husband. They both returned to the door not 60 seconds later and as they watched in confusion, the marker slowly disappeared as a very cold draft of air wafted over them. They then noticed their kitty was standing at the edge of the porch facing the now vanished marker, its fur up, hissing. The next morning, they made their way around the cemetery and found the marker on the old grave of a wealthy business man. It was made of limestone 1-foot thick and estimated to weigh over 1,800 pounds.

David Dodd grave marker and area of most
paranormal activity in the graveyard

In 1864, The Union Army which was in control of Little Rock, hung a 17-year-old suspected Confederate spy, David O. Dodd. The area around his Mount Holly grave has long been reported as the most frequent place where visitors walk into cold spots even on a hot summer day, where often is felt an overwhelming sense of despair and sadness, and even in the bright light of day, moaning and choking sounds can be heard. You see, when David was hung on that cold winter day, the rope was new and therefore it stretched, the condemned was slight in stature, and the distance from the bed of the wagon to the ground wasn't far enough. Instead of breaking his neck and a quick, merciful death, the condemned's tiptoes touched the dirt and he slowly strangled, struggling and jerking for almost 5 minutes. Women observers and a few men became sick and at least one battle-hardened soldier fainted. Finally, two of the enemy soldiers took pity or maybe they just couldn't stand to watch the spectacle any more themselves and each grabbed one of the hanging legs and pulled down, adding weight to hasten his death. Is it any wonder that David's soul cannot rest?

Also in 1864, the bodies of 640 Confederate soldiers who had been killed in battles were dug up and, along with their headstones, moved to a different cemetery across town. Disturbing the dead by moving their bodies has long been believed to be a reason for ghostly activities. It seems to upset them, to confuse them. Even those souls who are apparently resting in peace after accepting their new home where they are buried appear to be confused and angry when their bodies are moved. Relocating 640 of them was like kicking a fire ant nest - a frenzy of paranormal activity was started which has yet to cease.

Go for a visit yourself. Walk the quiet, shaded paths and read history in the headstones and markers of the dead. Don't be afraid. Unexplainable things usually don't happen in the daylight hours. Not much anyway. I wouldn't tarry when the sun begins to set though. Mount Holly, you see, is one of those weird, unsettling places where the dividing line between the land of the living and the realm of the dead blurs. And who knows what might cross over that line?