Does a 'hant' haunt the dark hollows of the Buena Vista community?

Old Buena Vista Store.

I was up riding around in the northern part of the county on Friday morning and found myself passing through the old village of Buena Vista. Located on County Road 56, about 23 miles from downtown Monroeville, Buena Vista was once a sizeable community, but little remains today from the village’s heyday.

Best that I could remember, it had been many months since I’d passed through Buena Vista, so I pulled over for a few minutes for a closer look at the old Buena Vista Store, which has been closed for many years. This old store served as the community’s post office until 1976 and it was in 2016 that The Mobile Press-Register named this old store the “most unusual historic structure” in Monroe County.

All the while I was there, not a single vehicle passed on the road. The sun shone down hotly, and unseen cicadas trilled creepily in the wood line. It was then that I remembered Buena Vista’s best known ghost story.

The best version of this spooky tale can be found in The Journal’s 1966 Centennial Edition. The story, written by longtime Journal columnist Sue Turner, appeared under the headline, “Hants, Superstitions Retold In Stories of Buena Vista.”

As many readers will know, the word “hant” is nothing more than another word for ghost. Believed to be a variation of the word “haunt,” the term is now considered part of the regional dialect of the Southern United States. One dictionary that I checked said the word comes from the old Middle English word “haunten” or from the Old French word “hanter.”

The Buena Vista hant story took place over a hundred years ago and centers around a man named Sam, who was tall, heavy-set, reliable and responsible. He lived with his pretty wife, Rosie, and their children in a house just south of Buena Vista. It was a mile by road to their house from Buena Vista, but a shortcut through a supposedly haunted hollow would cut the trip in half.  

As things go, Sam had to work late one Saturday and before going home he had to stop by the village store for groceries. He put his purchases in a croker sack, tied a knot in one end and swung it over his shoulder. When he stepped out of the store, it was dusk dark.

He knew that Rosie and the children were waiting on him, so he decided to brave the shadowed shortcut. He took the path that crossed an open pasture and eventually came to a dense stand of dark pines. Before entering the woods, he picked up a lightwood knot and struck it ablaze for a makeshift torch.

As he entered the mirky woods, the land dropped off suddenly into a swamp filled with ferns, bogs and hooting owls. Inside the pines, the brush grew thick around him, and the mucky ground sucked at his feet. Sam raised his torch and shifted his sack to his left shoulder.

Sam knew the strange stories about these woods. He’d heard folks say that the hant that inhabited these woods would ride on the traveler’s right shoulder. The hant would bear down on them heavily, sapping away their strength as they crossed the haunted hollow.

Sam heard his heart pounding, and his ears strained for the faintest noise. A vine caught his foot, causing him to trip. “Lord, have mercy!” he cried.

It was then that he felt it, a rush of cold air. This blast of air circled him, chilling his sweaty body. His torch went out.

Suddenly and without warning, a terrible weight settled on his right shoulder, heavier than the sack on his left. “Lord, save me!” he cried, wanting to run, but unable to do so. He stooped, trudged forward step by slow step, panting for breath.

Just when he was on the verge of collapse, a hound bayed in the distance, and he saw a glimmer of light through the trees. “Thank you, Lord,” Sam murmured. It was his hound he’d heard, and the light was his home in the distance. A moment later, he heard Rosie call to him, “Shake him off, Sam, we’re waiting.”