Haunted Hill rises on private property about three miles east of Moody, overlooking the lush and rolling Stampede Valley near a point where McLennan, Coryell and Bell counties meet.
This is a rich and verdant landscape but Haunted Hill is as barren as a moonscape. In lieu of vegetation, the slopes of Haunted Hill are thick with sparkling crystals, or isinglass as it is commonly called.
Folklorist D.B. Smith once described the hill as “standing out in bold relief, being black, often covered with fog while the other nearby hills show up green.”
An investigation of the hill by Baylor University geologist O.T. Hayward in the late 1960s put a scientific face on many of the myths and legends, generations of people in the valley have grown up with, many of the supernatural variety.
Frank Simmons, who died in 1966 at the age of 85, wrote in 1934 about seeing the hill when he was a boy.
“On bright sunny days those crystals would sparkle and gleam in the sunlight, like some great monarch’s diadem until they could be seen for miles,” he wrote. “On gloomy dark nights, strange dim lights are said to have appeared numerous times.”
In a letter to late Temple attorney Jim Bowmer, Hayward reported an abundance of pyrite which, when exposed to air, weathers to an iron rust and produces sulfuric acid. The red-colored rocks so plentiful on the hill are cakes of iron rust limonite, which the Indians used for paint.
Despite the presence of clinker ash, which is commonly associated with volcanoes, Hayward found no evidence of volcanic activity. The ash found on Haunted Hill, he said, was probably coal clinkers created when the hill was drilled for oil in 1901. (The drillers hit water but not oil.)
In 1937, Baylor archaeologists uncovered an ancient Indian camp buried for generations under three feet of black prairie soil. Not far from the site was a mesquite tree riddled with bullet holes. An outlaw was hung there, the story goes, but it happened a long time ago and no one knows for sure.
The Alexander family owned the land for several generations beginning in 1871 when Civil War veteran John Newton Alexander settled his family there.
Like the Indians, Mr. Alexander was a firm believer in the spirits on Haunted Hill. He once said, “I don’t know anybody else that saw any haints (spirits) up there, but me and my sister were always seeing them, and it wasn’t make-believe either.”
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The bridge and cemetery near Maxdale in southwestern Bell County is a hotbed of ghost stories and legends. The cemetery is said to be haunted by an old man with a limp, presumably a previous caretaker, and mysterious lights are said to appear there from time to time.
The bridge, located near the cemetery, is supposedly even more haunted than the cemetery.
One of the stories you hear about this otherwise picturesque 1916 steel truss bridge is that it is haunted by a man who hanged himself when he could not save the life of his girlfriend, who had drowned in the river.
Other stories center on children who are said to have drowned there in a school bus accident.
Also, a phantom truck is believed to suddenly appear on the road to Oakalla - also known as “The Ozone” - and that phantom truck is said to run people off the road. The truck driver is believed to have committed suicide by driving off the bridge.
To see the hangman, it is said you have to drive onto the bridge (which you can’t do anymore because it’s closed to traffic) and turn your headlights off and then back on. Do that and you are supposed to see the man hanging from the noose.
Another version says you will see a woman hanging from the noose.
Back when you could drive on the bridge, it was said that if you stopped in the middle of the bridge and put the car in neutral that you would hear the cries of the children who died in the school bus accident. Tiny, ghostly hands would then try to push your car across the bridge.
People have put talcum powder on the back of their car and they swear that there were tiny handprints all over the car when they left the bridge.
We’ve been to the bridge at night and nothing out of the ordinary happened. No hangman. No ghostly handprints on the car. No cries for help. No phantom truck. Nothing.
Still, the bridge is a place that, at least at night, makes you anxious to leave.
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On the east side of Donahoe Road a few miles from Bartlett, not far past the Donahoe historical marker is a single grave protected by an iron-wrought fence. This is the final resting-place of Sarah Herndon, who drowned in Donahoe Creek in 1863. Old folk legends have it that sometimes at night you can still hear her screaming for help.
Donahoe was a thriving community in its day but relics from the town - guns, blacksmith tools, horseshoes and silverware - is all buried somewhere under the Blackland gumbo.
So is poor Sarah Herndon.
The story passed down for the last 144 years tells how Herndon left her home in Donahoe one day in 1863, bound for the McKay home. On the way she lost her footing along the muddy banks of Donahoe Creek and became mired in quicksand. A few days later her body resurfaced in the quicksand along the banks of the creek.
A grave was dug close to where she was found. Protected by the iron-wrought fence, the grave has survived for all these years. The headstone reads: “Mrs. Sarah Herndon - Born 1800 - Died 1863.” An index finger pointing heavenward is chiseled near the top of the stone.
Somebody makes sure the grave is kept clean and free of brush and weeds.
Flowers - sometimes fresh, sometimes artificial - are always present at her grave.
No one knows who keeps the site cleaned and trimmed, or who brings the flowers but somebody has been taking care of the grave for all these years.
The most likely suspects -family members - turns out to be not so likely. Her family has not lived in the area for more than 100 years.
