Located off State Highway 21 at Furman, this private
residence was built in the 1840s and
is arguably Wilcox County’s most well-known haunted location. An old well
behind the house is reportedly haunted by the spirit of a worker who died after
being accidentally buried by tons of dirt while digging the well. This house
has been mentioned in numerous books, including Kathryn Tucker Windham’s “13
Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey” and “Haunted Places: The National Directory” by
Dennis William Hauck.
I
found myself passing through Furman the other day and pulled over for a few
minutes in front of this old antebellum home. This home is one of the many
stops on the county’s “Listen and Learn” driving tour. Each stop on this tour
features a special sign that includes a phone number that you dial for a
recording with more information about the historical site where the sign is
posted.
As I stood there, listening to the recording on my phone, I
was reminded that the well incident occurred when Dr. John Harrod Purifoy lived
in the house. Born in September 1837, Purifoy died in November 1908 and is
buried in Purifoy Cemetery. That cemetery is located off Freedom Farm Road,
northwest of the main intersection at Furman.
Those of you who are familiar with the “ghost in the well”
story will remember that the name of the man who died in the well isn’t given
in the story. That story does say that the body was never recovered and that
some believed it was swept away by an underground water current. However, other
sources say that the man’s body was recovered, but those sources still don’t
give the man’s name.
Supposedly, if you go behind the house, you’ll find a round,
sunken area where the well was being dug. It’s said that no grass will grow on
this spot and that all manner of supernatural noises can be heard in this area.
Witnesses are said to have heard the sounds of a man crying while others
passing the house at night have heard a man saying, “Get me out of here. Please,
please get me out.”
As I stood there on the side of the road the other day, I
couldn’t see the depression behind the house, and I didn’t hear anything out of
the ordinary. Aside from the sounds of passing vehicles and a chainsaw running
somewhere off in the distance, all was quiet. One is left to wonder what I
would have done had I heard the unexpected cries of the “ghost in the well.”
In the end, if you decide to stop and listen to the recording at the Purifoy-Lipscomb House at Furman, respect the owner’s privacy and stay out of their yard. You don’t want to get in trouble for going where you don’t have permission. Besides, if you stray too close to the site of the old, haunted well, you might encounter something so out of the ordinary that it’ll make you wish that you’d stayed at home altogether.
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