Woman in pink casket said to haunt Flat Creek near Rikard's Mill in Monroe County, Alabama

Visitors talk with 'World's Greatest Flintknapper'

Last Saturday morning, I rode up to the Rikard’s Mill Historical Park for the annual Cane Syrup Makin’ Day event. My son James is in Monroeville’s Scout troop, and the Scouts always go to the event to assist with the cane-grinding and syrup-making operation. The cane press cranked up around eight o’clock that morning, and James put in a solid four hours of work with the Scouts before we cut out around noon.

I’ve been to Rikard’s Mill many times before and while there on Saturday, I could not help but think about the time some friends and I spent the night there as part of a ghost hunt. That was on a cold Friday night way back in October 2011, and I was accompanied by The Monroe Journal’s Josh Dewberry and paranormal researcher John Higginbotham. We’d heard many tales about the supposedly-haunted mill, and we wanted to see if there was anything to it.

One of the most unusual stories about the mill that we’d heard involved a woman in a pink casket. The story goes that many years ago, several young siblings were fishing on a Sunday in Flat Creek just down from the old mill. They were just enjoying their day when a woman in a pink casket came floating down the creek. The children, shocked by the sight of the woman in the casket, vowed to never fish on Sunday again.

With that said, I have to admit that the spookiest things that we experienced on that October night in 2011 was the eerie sound of a hoot owl and the loud bang of a heavy nut, falling from a tree and striking the mill’s roof unexpectedly. 

Also at Rikard’s Mill on Saturday, I ran into Mr. John Reed, who has deep roots in the south end of Monroe County. I always enjoy talking with John, and on Saturday he spent a few minutes telling me a couple of ghost stories from the Narrow Gap community, located just northeast of Uriah. This community is said to be the site of tales about huge balls of light that travel along roadways and up the trunks of large trees.

The mysterious Narrow Gap light is said to favor a large oak tree that’s about 150 yards from the Qualls Cemetery on George Williams Road. Longtime residents of this community also claim to have seen the ghost of a woman in a long dress and wearing a bonnet. This ghostly woman is said to always be seen walking toward the cemetery, and some theorize that she is the long dead wife of Andrew Jackson Qualls.

In the end, let me hear from you if you have a local ghost story to share. I’m sure that many of you were told spooky tales by older relatives when you were little, and I’d like to hear them. It would be a shame not to pass these stories along or to let them become lost to time and memory.