Return to familiar haunt in Wilcox County brings peace

George 'Buster' Singleton

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Return to familiar haunt in Wilcox County brings peace,” was originally published in the Feb. 2, 1995 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

The bright sunshine and the nearly 70-degree temperature on Jan. 26 caused my vagabond blood pressure to reach an all-time high. There were so many places I thought I needed to go until I couldn’t decide where to visit.

Turning northeast on Highway 21 at the square, I decided to make the decision somewhere up the road. This might sound foolish, but I had done this many, many times during my travels in and throughout the area.

As I passed through Tunnel Springs, the thought flashed through my mind of a certain place within the high hills of Wilcox County. I had been there not too long ago and had written an earlier article about this place, so, without further ado, I headed my iron horse down Faulkenberry Hill and on toward Beatrice.

The excitement of what I just might see atop a certain high hill not too far from the county line caused me to kinda take the bridle off my steed and race toward my destination.

Turning off the pavement I slowly made my way up a narrow trail toward the top of the hill. As I climbed upward, I examined the ground for any fresh signs that might given an indication that someone had passed this way since the last rain. But there were none; I felt assured that I would have the area all to myself.

After going as far as I could on my motorcycle, I slowly made my way up the steep, now narrow, trail on foot. As I reached the top of the hill, the view was almost overwhelming.

Then I realized why I had to come to this place and proceeded over to the small cemetery nestled on the peak of the high hill. Again, I examined the small burial plot very close, looking for any signs that might indicate that someone had come here earlier. But, again, there were none. The tall dead weeds gave no evidence of anyone or any animal having passed through the small burial ground. None of the dead weeds seemed to have been disturbed, except those that were bent from previous winds that blew across the hill.

As I paused and looked at the tallest marker in the small burial ground, I remembered the story told to me by a friend who had brought me here. The grave of Elizabeth Dixon Smith had not changed since I was here last, except that the tall grass and dead weeds had been pulled up from around her tombstone and cast away from the grave. The grass along the grave had carefully been broken off at ground level, and the wilting blades had just begun to turn brown in the winter sun.

Viewing the evidence before me, I knew that the grave of this young lady had been visited once again by the ghost of her lover. The ghost of the unknown Confederate soldier had returned as it had in the past to pull the weeds and tall grass around the final resting place of the girl he loved and had planned to marry.

Kneeling there beside the grave and viewing the evidence before me, I remembered the story related to me by my friend who had brought me here. I recalled that this young lady received word that her lover and husband-to-be had fallen in battle during the bitter fighting of the Civil War, somewhere in the state of Tennessee. Brokenhearted and desperate, she took her own life by hanging herself in her upstairs bedroom.

But the news of his death had been false. He would return home from the war to go marry the young lady he loved. But he would find out the gruesome story of how she had taken her own life after she had received word that he had fallen in battle. The story relates of how he had placed this marker at the grave of his beloved, then returned to the bitter fighting of the war.

Before leaving, he vowed that he would return to this place to care for and watch over the final resting place of the woman he loved; but, he never returned. This time, the story was true; he had given his life for the cause that he had believed in and had fought so fiercely to defend.

Total silence blanketed the high hill and the small burial place around me. Standing there, I wondered how many others, as the one before me, now slept in the may forgotten cemeteries across the South – those who had given up the ones they loved for a cause they thought was just.

Standing there in the total silence around me, I knew that here atop this lonely hill, time had no meaning. A hundred years to those who slept here was no more than a moment’s passing. Only those who came here, like myself, measured the passing of the seasons, when the beauty of spring would give way to the cold winds of the winter as they swept from the north and across this high hilltop.

Looking down at the freshly pulled grass, I knew that somewhere beyond the shadows of life, the Rebel soldier had kept his promise. From time to time, in the early hours of the rising sun, the ghost of Elizabeth Dixon Smith’s lover returned here to fulfill a promise made many years ago. And, whatever the circumstances, I know that his spirit will return again and again across the pages of time, in the keeping of a vow made so long ago.

Looking across the vastness before me, I realized that I was glad that I had come to this small burial ground here on the high hilltop. Perhaps, somewhere beyond my ability to reason or know, my visit to this place, atop this lonely hill had been preplanned – planned by someone, or a spirit from another time or another dimension. Never would I know for sure, one can only speculate.

But, here on this lonely hill, the spirit of Elizabeth Dixon Smith waits. It waits for a time when distance and time have no meaning; a time when all shall gather by that river that flows with eternal life; a place where time is measured not in months nor years, but only in forevers.

(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 on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County. 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.)