By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
In the woods near the small rural community of Battletown, in Meade County, many people say they have seen a ghost. The ghost, they claim, is Leah Smock keeping an eye on things around the place where she was burned as a witch in 1840.
She seems to be in full control these days, as her gravestone is hidden way off back in the woods, guarded by poisonous snakes. She occasionally appears majestically in her “white robe, dark eyes and long raven tresses,” says the story teller.
And whether one believes in witchcraft or not, such matters through history have moved people to act in response to their own fears on the issue, as author Gerald Fischer writes in his newest historical book offering, Battletown Witch: Leah Spock, the Evolution of Witchcraft, and the Last Witch Burning in America (Acclaim Press, 1916).
Not only does Fischer bring to remembrance the circumstances leading to the murder of Smock in the Kentucky frontier near the Ohio River, he surveys the societal emergence of such “early beliefs, superstitions, and cultures across the world, primarily in Europe, and how these beliefs influenced life in the early American colonies.”
Besides the Meade County account of Leah Smock’s death, Fischer reports on other events regarding witchcraft hysteria around America. In 1813, one happened in Kentucky’s Barren County, now part of Hart County. Mary Edwards was accused of witchcraft by people in her church and though she was acquitted and not physically harmed, the result of the proceedings divided the congregation after a long and contentious battle.
In Paducah, two women were found guilty of witchcraft in 1829. According to the account, both of them made it out of the fire intact but were soon put back into the inferno by the perpetrators. When again they exited the flames without being consumed, the crowd gathered called for the two people’s safety and they were saved.
Two years later, a woman from eastern Kentucky’s Letcher County was said to be a witch “who could charm guns, dogs, and other animals,” and who had a son who would “fire his gun at the sun, cursed, and blessed until the ground would tremble and shake and thunder began to peal.”
Though no year is mentioned in the 1800s, John A. Black, Rowan County, was believed capable of turning himself into any animal.
“Legend has it,” reported Fischer, “that John was killed by his youngest son, Willie, while John was in the form of a huge black dog that was chasing Willie’s horse.”
Fischer, who holds degrees in archaeology, anthropology, and history, also authored Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Kentucky and lives in Meade County.
Arbor Day has passed, but the annual recognition of trees and their importance again reminds me of my life-long interest in them.
Even in my primary school years, those little “helicopter seeds” coming off the large maple tree in front of Grant’s Lick Elementary fascinated me. I enjoyed throwing those brown winged things up in the air and watching them spin back to the earth. And for a short time, I actually entertained thoughts that I, Stevie Flairty, discovered this natural toy and needed to share what I found with the world—until I learned about them later while reading science books.
I recall sticking orange seeds, for curiosity’s sake, into potting soil with another of Mom’s household plants—then forgetting about them until nearly a month later, when I noticed the glossy green plant emerging. The little orange trees made a nice conversation piece around our Claryville home until I tried planting them outside, where life happened and they, well, didn’t make it.
As I got a few years older and into my teens, I remember looking for white dogwood trees in Homer and Betty Owens’ woods. My encyclopedia research (yes, before the Internet), plus talking to some old-timers and nursery people warned me that the dogwoods were a bit hard to transplant and raise successfully. Over the years, I found that to be true, but a few did survive on our small farm.
Strange that my semi-successful dogwood tree planting was a subject of some juvenile bragging rights, but I guess that’s better than driving a car on Highway 27 at 80 miles per hour, which I once did after I received my driver’s license.
Later, my first teaching job at Trapp, in Clark County, saw me involve some of my special education students in a tree project on ten acres of land I owned on Pine Ridge Road, near Trapp. As I remember it, I ordered 500 scotch and 100 pines at a cheap price from the state of Kentucky and took some of the kids out there to help me plant them.
A few years ago, I revisited the land I had long sense sold and found no evidence of the trees, even though it remained mostly undeveloped. Guess I should stick with other types of trees.
Most recently my tree passion reignited with the one acre lot my wife and I bought in Versailles last summer. The lot was stocked nicely with a dozen or so mature trees. Sadly, I had to put two ash trees and an Austrian pine, all sick, down shortly after moving there.
Since then, however, I’ve planted four dogwoods, two tulip poplars, a Kentucky coffeetree, a red bud, a red maple, and a Japanese maple. I take pride in knowing that all are Kentucky-like trees, except for the Japanese one.
Perhaps I might make the state connection for the Japanese maple by calling it “the Toyota tree.”
Regardless, I look forward to daily walks around God’s Little Acre and checking on my little forest. At some point when the emotions get really high, you might even catch me hugging one.
Please forgive me.
Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of six books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and five in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” was released in 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)
