 |
| Pickens County Courthouse in Carrollton, Ala. |
I have seen and witnessed many strange happenings in my lifetime. Today, I once again saw with my own eyes one of life’s strangest phenomena. I have been here many times, but each time I return, the mystery of the ghostly face in the window grows in magnitude and wonder.
Today in Sunday, March 5, 1995. I, along with my wife and two good friends of ours, have just returned from Carrollton, the county seat of Pickens County. The courthouse building that stands today was built in 1877, shortly after the end of the dreaded Civil War.
The courthouse that served Pickens County until 1876 mysteriously burned to the ground on Nov. 16 that same year. No one knew who might have had a reason to commit such an act of arson to the courthouse building. The construction of a new courthouse got underway at once. But the hunt for the one who had caused the destruction of the old building continued. Someone had to be guilty of this tragic crime. The arsonist would be found and punished. That was a promise.
In January 1878, a freed slave, or freedman as they were referred to at that time in history, was arrested and held in confinement. He was locked up in the garret of the new courthouse to await trial for arson of the old courthouse.
The county officials turned a deaf ear to the plea of Henry Wells, as he swore that he did not commit the crime. He pleaded his innocence, as he begged to be set free. Time and time again, this accused man begged for his freedom, but to no avail.
Determined that justice would be done, the officials of Pickens County sentenced Henry Wells to death by hanging. The condemned man continued to claim his innocence. The date for the hanging spread around the county like wildfire.
Outside the small county courthouse a crowd gathered to see the accused man pay for his crime. The sheriff and a deputy went up the narrow stairway, up into the garret to bring down the man who was to die within a few minutes on the gallows nearby. Once again, Henry Wells begged his innocence. Again, his begging for mercy fell on deaf ears.
The time had come. Henry Wells begged one last request. He asked that he be allowed to pray to his God before he was taken outside to the gallows a short distance away. The sheriff, probably feeling a bit sorry for this doomed man, granted his last wish.
Henry Wells turned toward the window of the garret and fell to his knees. As he arose from his kneeling position on the floor, he raised his arms toward the ceiling of the small room and shouted in a loud voice, “To prove that I am innocent, the reflection of my face will forever be seen in the glass of this window.”
Within a few short minutes, Henry Wells died at the end of a hangman’s noose before a large crowd of local onlookers.
The hanging over, the sheriff decided to return to the garret window. He did not believe he would find the reflection of the doomed man’s face, but his curiosity gained the upper hand. Anyone who is about to die might say such silly and foolish things, especially a man who claimed time after time that he was innocent.
As the sheriff made his way across the floor of the garret, to his amazement and surprise, there was the face of Henry Wells, looking out the window toward the courtyard and gallows below.
A loud scream was heard from the upstairs of the courthouse. Everyone rushed up the narrow stairway to see what was happening there. There stood the county sheriff, deathly white in color, pointing to the reflection of the face of Henry Wells in the glass of the courthouse window.
No one knew how the face of this doomed man came to be seen in the garret window. Much speculation and talk centered around this phenomena that stared down from its place in the upstairs window. The county officials decided that a new window would correct their problem with this unexplained reflection of a hanged man’s face. A new window was installed. Within minutes after the installation of the new window glass, the face could be seen as before.
Several times during the next few years, the window glass was again replaced. Each time as before, within minutes after the glass was exchanged, the face of Henry Wells could be seen. Sometimes after the period of several glass replacements, someone decided to cover the window with wooden boards. Surely, this would end the unexplained appearance of the face in the window.
By the time the boards were in place, the face again could be seen as though painted on the boards that now covered the window.
As time passed, the glass was again and again replaced in the garret window. Each time, the reflection of the face of Henry Wells reappeared as before. The news of the face in the window spread throughout the country and the world.
“Ripley’s Believe It or Not” writers came and saw for themselves that what they had heard was true. Even today, visitors from all over the country and the world come and stand there in the courtyard and look up at the image of the face that has no explanation as to how it came to be there in the window.
As I stood there today, 117 years later and looked up at this phenomena in the glass window high above the street, I knew within my mind that there has to be another dimension or something that parallels this life, of which we know so little or almost nothing about.
Perhaps someday we will know. But as of now, the answer lies within the parallels of the distant horizons, in a land that seems ever so far, yet only a heartbeat away.
(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He also helped organize the Monroe County Museum and Historical Society and was also a past president of that organization. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)
No comments:
Post a Comment