***Paranormal Metrou***(imported post) Alabamas Ghost in the Window An Alabama Ghost Story The story of the Face in the Window is memorialized by a historical marker on the grounds. The South is filled with ghost stories, but so far as is known, only the Face in the Window in Carrollton, Alabama, can be seen any time day or night. One of the states most bizarre stories of the supernatural, the tale of the face in a window of the old Pickens County Courthouse was immortalized by writer Kathryn Tucker Windham in her popular book, 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. The window itself is one of the most mysterious and treasured historic sites in Alabama. The story revolves around Henry Wells, a former slave freed at the end of the Civil War. Legend holds that he was accused of burning the Pickens County Courthouse to the ground. The countys original courthouse had been burned by during Wilsons Raid through Alabama and Georgia in 1865. It was replaced after the war, but on November 16, 1876, the new courthouse burned to the ground under suspicious circumstances. It was not long, the tale continues, before the blame was focused on Henry Wells. Arrested but pursued by a lynch mob, Wells is said to have fled into the attic or garret of the third courthouse, which was by then being completed. As the mob searched for him below, Wells peered out a window to watch. To his shock, however, lightning suddenly struck the window and forever etched his image into its glass. It is widely believed to this day that the ghostly face of Henry Wells continues to peer down from the courthouse window. Like most ghost stories, the legend of the Face in the Window has its skeptics. The basics of the story, however, do have a foundation in truth. The courthouse did burn exactly as the story relates and the Daily Inquirer, a Georgia newspaper, reported on February 6, 1878 that, Henry Wells, a notorious colored outlaw, has been captured and confesses to burning the Court House at Carrollton. Skeptics note that the windows of the courthouse were not installed until February of 1878 and that Wells was shot at the time of his capture in January of that year and died a few days later. The county court records for Pickens County, however, indicate that Wells actually died in February, the same month that the windows were being installed. The timing is close. Close enough that the legend could very well be true. The other question, however, is whether lightning could really etch a photograph of a living person on a glass window. Scientists say it appears to be impossible, but who can really judge the true power of such massive bursts of electricity? In fact, there was another case of a photograph being caused by lightning from the same decade. In around 1873, Mrs. Norborne B. Powell was standing at the window of a home at Chennuggee Ridge, Alabama, when the glass was struck by a bold of lightning. Her image appeared on the glass, right down to a hat and cameo pin she was wearing. The Chennuggee Ridge photograph wound up in the hands of Mrs. Powells grandson, Dr. Edward H. Cary who at one time served as president of the American Medical Association. Believing it to be a priceless artifact of Alabama history, he sent it to the Department of Archives in Montgomery in 1920. Someone there, however, dropped the photograph and it was shattered. The Pickens County Courthouse is located in Carrollton, Alabama, which is 35 miles west of Tuscaloosa. The historic building is being restored and a large arrow points to the window and the mysterious lightning portrait
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:26:39 +0000