Laura Wright 
Bell Witch
As the Bell Witch haunting progressed, the entity associated with the Bell family seemed to grow increasingly powerful.
Its abilities expanded. Its personality became more complicated. It developed likes and dislikes, displayed jealousy, became angry when challenged, and sometimes appeared to sulk when investigators refused to be frightened.
Despite its extraordinary abilities, however, there was something strangely immature about the Bell Witch.
In both attitude and behavior, the entity sometimes seemed trapped in a state of perpetual adolescence.
A Spirit That Had to Learn
The Bell Witch implied that it was a spirit, but its behavior sometimes suggested something considerably more complicated.
When the phenomena began, the entity apparently had to learn how to interact with the physical world.
It learned to move.
It learned to make simple noises within the house.
It learned to communicate.
Eventually, it learned to speak.
As people began investigating the phenomena, the spirit also learned how to discourage them from discovering too much about it.
Perhaps strangest of all, it had to create explanations for its own origins.
Those explanations were inconsistent.
The entity would tell one story about itself and later contradict it.
Omnipotent and Omnipresent?
The Bell Witch made extraordinary claims about its abilities.
It claimed to be omnipotent.
That claim was eventually disproved.
It also claimed to be omnipresent, although the events surrounding the haunting make that assertion debatable as well.
For something supposedly possessing almost unlimited supernatural abilities, the Bell Witch displayed some remarkably human limitations.
The Witch’s Temperament
As its personality developed, so did its moods.
The Bell Witch could be unpredictable and sullen.
It displayed what appeared to be a very human sense of jealousy concerning Betsy Bell.
Its reaction to investigators was equally revealing.
If someone appeared frightened, the spirit harassed the person relentlessly. When confronted by investigators who refused to be intimidated, however, the entity sometimes seemed to pout or withdraw.
It wanted attention.
It wanted control.
And it apparently disliked people who refused to play by its rules.
The Witch’s Obsession With Betsy Bell
Although John Bell eventually became the entity’s primary target, its early attention focused heavily upon Betsy.
Then something changed.
The attacks against Betsy largely stopped unless she spent time with Joshua Gardner.
The spirit’s message was unmistakable:
“Don’t marry Joshua Gardner.”
As long as Betsy complied with its wishes, she was generally left alone.
If she attempted to speak with Joshua or continue their relationship, the attacks resumed.
The pattern makes the spirit’s behavior particularly curious.
It wasn’t simply tormenting Betsy.
It appeared to be attempting to control her.
Old Jack, Old Luce, and Ol’ Sugarmouth
Even as the Bell Witch developed remarkable abilities, it still couldn’t provide a consistent explanation for where it came from or why it hated John Bell.
Instead, it developed nicknames for several of the adults around the family.
John Bell became “Old Jack.”
Lucy Bell became “Old Luce.”
James Johnson became “Ol’ Sugarmouth.”
The nicknames further contributed to the entity’s strangely human personality.
This was not a solemn apparition delivering messages from beyond the grave.
The Bell Witch teased people, insulted them, developed favorites, held grudges, and apparently enjoyed giving people names.
The Helpful Bell Witch
The entity couldn’t seem to decide whether it wanted to help the Bell family or destroy them.
At times, it became surprisingly useful.
It helped the family locate missing items, supplies, and materials.
At other times, it became vicious.
This contradiction appeared repeatedly throughout the haunting.
The same entity capable of assisting the household could turn around and torment one of its occupants.
Secrets From Across the Community
The Bell Witch’s apparent knowledge was among its most impressive abilities.
It debated scripture with accomplished ministers.
It discussed history with scholars.
It seemed capable of detecting wrongdoing throughout the community and frequently announced people’s most carefully guarded secrets.
According to the story, people around Adams became unusually careful about their behavior while the witch was active.
Nobody wanted to become its next subject.
Even more remarkably, the entity supposedly reported events occurring far from the Bell household while those events were happening.
Sermons and Predictions
The Bell Witch reportedly repeated sermons only hours after ministers delivered them in churches elsewhere.
It also predicted events involving family members in North Carolina with dependable accuracy.
These abilities helped establish the entity’s reputation as something capable of knowing events beyond the immediate Bell property.
Yet its knowledge was not unlimited.
For all its extraordinary claims, the witch could still be caught in contradictions.
The Witch’s Treatment of the Bell Family’s Enslaved Workers
One of the ugliest aspects of the entity’s personality was its treatment of the Bell family’s enslaved workers.
The Bell Witch was viciously racist.
It mocked them, subjected them to degrading names, spat upon them, and physically attacked them.
One enslaved boy was slapped repeatedly.
An enslaved girl was reportedly shoved down the steps.
The cruelty was deliberate and persistent.
Whatever the Bell Witch was, the personality attributed to it reflected some of the worst prejudices of the world in which the haunting occurred.
The Witch Hated Investigators
The Bell Witch reserved another particular hatred for people attempting to investigate it.
Witch doctors, conjurers, self-described wizards, and other curious visitors came to the Bell household hoping to expose, defeat, or understand the phenomenon.
The entity reacted aggressively.
For those who believe a human being was involved in the haunting, this behavior has always been suggestive.
An actual supernatural entity might reasonably expect people to investigate something so extraordinary.
The Bell Witch, however, appeared genuinely infuriated whenever anyone tried to discover its origin or purpose.
Shaking Hands With the Bell Witch
One evening, several visitors were gathered at the Bell household when the spirit decided to provide physical evidence of its presence.
It allowed people to shake its hand.
Witnesses described the hand as soft and delicate.
One man was not satisfied with simply touching it.
He grabbed the hand as tightly as he could and called for someone to bring a brighter light.
The entity became furious.
Afterward, it refused to acknowledge him.
Once again, the reaction seems almost childishly human.
The witch was willing to demonstrate its power.
It was considerably less enthusiastic about being examined.
Witch Doctors, Conjurers, and Wizards
The same pattern occurred when people claiming supernatural knowledge visited the Bells.
Witch doctors and conjurers came hoping to defeat the entity.
One was Dr. Mize, described as a wizard from Simpson County, Kentucky.
Rather than being intimidated by him, the Bell Witch humiliated Mize and drove him away.
The entity appeared to relish encounters in which it could embarrass people who claimed they understood supernatural forces.
One Witch Becomes Four
Eventually, the haunting became stranger still.
The single entity apparently divided into four distinct personalities.
They called themselves:
Black Dog
Mathematics
Cypocryphy
Jerusalem
These entities did not simply torment human beings.
They apparently argued and fought among themselves.
The Bell Witch had somehow transformed from an unidentified presence into an entire invisible cast of characters.
The Bell Witch Gets Drunk
One of the strangest incidents occurred after the spirit had become a familiar presence in the household.
The Bell Witch became intoxicated.
One night, it entered the house and began overturning furniture.
Its speech was slurred.
The smell of whiskey filled the house.
The entity claimed it had obtained the liquor from John Gardner’s still house.
It began using obscenities the Bell family claimed never to have heard before.
The voices argued among themselves.
In other words, the supposedly incorporeal entity behaved exactly like a drunken human being.
Old Luce Was a Good Woman
The witch’s treatment of Lucy Bell could hardly have been more different from its treatment of her husband.
It adored her.
The spirit repeatedly declared that “Old Luce” was a good woman.
When Lucy developed pleurisy and became seriously ill, the witch became attentive and compassionate.
It asked Lucy what she wanted.
When Lucy became tired of its conversation and told it to be quiet, it obeyed.
The entity sang to her.
It brought her grapes.
It cracked hazelnuts for her.
These weren’t isolated incidents.
The witch demonstrated these abilities several times, including while a group of women was visiting Lucy.
The Apparitions in the Trees
Betsy Bell once visited her older sister Esther, who lived nearby with her family.
While there, the sisters noticed something extraordinary beyond the yard.
Four figures appeared among the trees.
They looked human.
The figures bent young saplings toward the ground and rode upon them.
Betsy and Esther apparently had little doubt about what they were seeing.
Betsy’s brother-in-law, Bennett Porter, came outside carrying a gun.
He fired at the figures.
They disappeared.
Later that night, Black Dog announced that Porter had broken Jerusalem’s leg.
The incident presents another problem with the Bell Witch’s claim that it was following John Bell.
John wasn’t the person it had followed.
Betsy was.
The Witch Dog
Another witness, Dean, continued reporting unusual experiences as the haunting progressed.
He saw mysterious lights moving around the Bell home.
He also encountered the witch dog.
The animal appeared in several forms.
Sometimes it had two heads.
Sometimes it had no head at all.
The creature even followed Dean when he returned home to his wife.
By this point, the phenomena had expanded far beyond mysterious knocking inside the Bell residence.
John Bell’s Final Attack
After approximately two years of the witch’s presence, John Bell suffered his last major physical attack.
While walking through the woods, something tripped him.
He fell.
Whatever had attacked him then beat him until he suffered a seizure.
Bell managed to return home and went to bed.
He would never go outside again.
The Bell Witch responded to his declining health by laughing at him.
The Mysterious Vial
A doctor was called to examine John.
During this period, the family discovered a strange glass vial concealed in the chimney flue.
When questioned about it, the Bell Witch claimed the substance inside was intended to kill John Bell.
The doctor immediately took the bottle and left.
Bell remained seriously ill.
Then another bottle appeared.
The Death of John Bell
One morning in December, the witch laughed continually while the family ate breakfast.
It announced that it had poisoned John with the substance from the vial in the medicine cabinet.
The family investigated.
Bell’s normal medicines had disappeared.
In their place was another dark bottle containing a strange liquid, apparently similar to the vial the doctor had already removed.
The substance was never identified.
According to the account, several neighbors tested a single drop on a cat.
The animal died within minutes.
John Bell died the following morning.
The Witch at the Funeral
The entity made no attempt to conceal its satisfaction.
As John Bell was buried and dirt was shoveled over his coffin, the witch reportedly laughed and sang.
If its objective had truly been the destruction of “Old Jack,” it had apparently succeeded.
But the haunting did not immediately end.
Betsy and Joshua Again
The spirit remained for several weeks after John’s death.
Yet once again, it did not manifest indiscriminately.
Its activity centered upon Betsy whenever she was around Joshua Gardner.
Approximately a year later, members of the community gathered for a fishing party beside the Red River.
Betsy attended.
So did Joshua.
Suddenly, fish began jumping from the water.
Fishing poles bent.
Then Betsy heard the familiar whisper.
She should not marry Joshua Gardner.
Fearing that the haunting was beginning again, Betsy permanently ended the engagement.
The Promised Return
The Bell Witch claimed that it would return every seven years.
It didn’t keep that promise.
One account stated that the entity returned for several weeks in February 1828.
Afterward, it disappeared.
Following Lucy Bell’s death, the Bell house and surrounding buildings were eventually dismantled, and their materials were repurposed elsewhere.
Incorporeal Adolescence
The Bell Witch became extraordinarily powerful during the course of the haunting.
It could supposedly report distant events.
It debated ministers and scholars.
It revealed secrets.
It produced physical manifestations.
It brought food.
It attacked people.
It appeared in multiple forms.
It even claimed responsibility for the death of John Bell.
Yet for all those extraordinary abilities, its personality remained remarkably immature.
It lied.
It contradicted itself.
It bragged.
It assigned people nicknames.
It became jealous.
It bullied those it could frighten.
It sulked when someone challenged it.
It resented investigators.
It became drunk.
It fought with its own alternate personalities.
And above all, it became strangely obsessed with the romantic decisions of a young woman.
That contradiction is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Bell Witch story.
The entity claimed powers far beyond those of an ordinary human being.
But remarkably often, it behaved like one.
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