According to the official website for the Bell Witch, a malevolent entity attacked a pioneer family, the Bells, in Tennessee between 1817 and 1821. Here are the basics of what happened:
- In the early 1800s, the Bell family moved to Tennessee. One day in 1817, John Bell, the patriarch of the Bell family, came across a terrifying creature in his cornfield. Unsettled by the strange animal, which was said to have "the body of a dog and the head of a rabbit," he fired at it, causing it to vanish immediately.
- The Bell children began to complain of nighttime terrors; they heard rats gnawing at their bedposts, and their bedcovers were frequently yanked from their bodies.
- The entity would often speak in a whispering voice but grew over time to a loud, booming noise. It began to antagonize the youngest Bell daughter, Betsy, with slaps and hair pulling. She would often have welts and handprints after an encounter.
- After John Bell's death, the entity's presence was practically nonexistent, but the tales of its haunting lived on.
