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There are folks who aren’t afraid to wander into spooky places at night. It doesn’t seem to bother them that there may be ghosts walking about. Of course, there are those of us who would rather read about these adventures than set out through a dark field. We are not that happy when we hear voices that do not belong to a body, or have the hair on the back of our necks start to prickle because we can feel that we are being watched, and not by something alive.

When researching cotton fields, I found that it was believed that cotton had power over evil spirits. Therefore, if you were in high cotton and knew the rules, you were safe. However, there were also fields where there was nowhere to hide from evil.

I believe that it is best to read about these things in the light of day. Let’s get a comfortable lawn chair and set under the shade of an old oak tree. Since we had several ghost stories in October, I thought that one more would do no harm. We can have water or a CoCola if you like. However, I think having a sturdy piece of lumber next to us, for protection, is a good idea.

We can start back in the days of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Not only was cotton a vital part of the farmer’s economy, it was also considered to be an important part of a conjure. This is a type of medicine that protects folks from the evil spirits that are believed to live on earth. Cotton was also thought to have many medicinal purposes and was often the basic ingredient in making a poultice or a salve.

For instance, young couples had many ceremonies that they would perform to keep away evil and ensure a happy life and these included cotton. The precautions would start right after they were married. First, they would tuck away, in a safe place, several cotton bolls. Then, after waiting a year, they would bring them out. If the bolls had turned white, the marriage would be successful. However, if they had turned a creamy color or rotted, the couple was doomed to unhappiness and would eventually separate. If they wanted to protect themselves against financial problems, they had to sleep on a mattress stuffed with cotton.

It was also believed that the cotton plant had incredible powers of attraction. For instance, if you met someone in the cotton fields and fell in love, you would have endless good luck as a couple. However, if you dreamt that you were alone, lying in a cotton field, someone was deceiving you.

When you were planting cotton, there were certain circumstances that you needed to be aware of. For one, it was bad luck to plow your cotton when your horse was going at a fast pace. Also, never skip a row when planting because, for every row not in place, there would be a death in the family, or you would lose a friend.

As for cotton’s medicinal purposes, it was thought that certain diseases would sneak inside and inhabited a person’s body. When the person was most vulnerable, this illness would over power them and strike at their weakest point. The best defense here was to chew cotton. In this way, you could block out the weak point and keep the germs from settling there. If you needed more strength and energy, you would take a cotton root and some bark, then pound them into a powder. Now, you would take and eat it. In this way you would stimulate your body to perform at its peak to help fight off evil. Also, if you slept on a mattress stuffed with cotton, you would gain strength.

By wearing a belt of cotton bolls around your waist, you would cure, and also keep away, stomach cramps. A cure for hiccups was to cross two large branches from a cotton plant and hold them above your head until the hiccupping stopped.

  Rheumatism was cured by mixing together earthworms, water and cotton bolls. Now bring this stew to a boil and when thick and bubbly, rub it on the affected areas. If you tied a string made from raw cotton around your littlest finger, you could stop bleeding anywhere on your body. To cure a boil, place a poultice of raw cotton, cow dung, alder bark, bread and milk on it.

A cotton boll dipped in warm milk, then put in an ear, will cure an earache. If that didn’t work, you could take a bit of cotton and put black pepper on it, then dip it in warm oil, and put this into your ear. Wrap your head with flannel to keep the ear warm. Cotton could also help if you had a toothache, too. For temporary relief, take a piece of cotton and soak it with clove oil and pack in into the cavity in the tooth. This would make it feel better until you could get to a dentist.

However, uses in conjures and as medicines are not the only legends that included cotton. It also has had a part in hauntings. There are many stories of haunted cotton fields told here in southwest Georgia. Handed down through generations, the legends of these suffering spirits come alive. The idea of cotton fields being inhabited by spirits probably started way back in time with the early Egyptians. They believed that when a person died in or near a cotton field, their spirit entered into an unripen boll. Then, as the bolls matured and the cotton opened, it released the spirit to wander and try to find another resting place.

A particularly popular haunting of a southern Georgia cotton field centers around a house built in the middle of a Decatur County cotton field in 1884. The resident ghost was a girl, the youngest of five daughters. Born the last in the family, she was supposed to wait until all of the sisters before her had married. Then, she would be free to live her life with the one that she loved.

As things often are, they did not follow this time frame. She met the man of her dreams before any of her sisters had met theirs. Her young beau went to her father and asked for her hand in marriage. Her father was a firm believer in the old rules and refused the request.

The young woman became very angry. From then on, she and her father quarreled constantly. The girl also made life very miserable for her mother and sisters, too. Since during this time, families often ate together for evening meals, the young girl began to eat hers in front of the fireplace, so she could avoid being near her father and the rest of the family. This way she would not have to speak to them and they would know she was still very angry. One day, while eating dinner and glaring at her family, a stray ember set her dress on fire and she burned to death, setting right there, in front of the fireplace and in view of her family.

Now, there is a flourishing cotton field where the house once stood. Workers in the field tell stories of the appearance of the ghost house. Then, through the open door a spectral girl can be seen setting in front of the fireplace eating her meal. This apparition always appears at eight o’clock in the evening, the same time as the dinner hour and the same time that the fire started.

Some cotton plantation homes are haunted by whole families. Such is the case of an antebellum home in Miller County. In this apparition, the owner sets in the parlor and is smoking his pipe. His wife constantly walks up and down the front stairs while the children, all ten of them, haunt the hallways and bedrooms.

It seems that this particular house had been the scene of many tragedies. The legend goes that two of the children died while still infants. Another child, only lived to be about five years old because she was bitten by a snake. Measles took four of the children when they were almost in their teens. Another child, age twelve, died from a gunshot wound when he was out hunting with his father. Two others died from falling down the stairs. After all of these tragedies, the wife had a breakdown and committed suicide by throwing herself off of the upstairs balcony.

The house is gone now and the cotton field has been reclaimed by nature. However, the house does reappear ten times during the year, on the dates which are carved on the children’s tombstones commemorating their deaths. The mother is always on the upstairs balcony, standing by the railing and the father is always in the parlor. You will hear an eerie type of laughter, intense sobbing and a thump before the mother disappears. With this sound, the apparition is gone.

This story of a cotton field death comes down to us from north Georgia. It is the legend of a Confederate soldier whose mission was to try to mediate a truce between the Union and Confederate Armies, so that the women and children of the town could go to safety before the fighting started.

The Confederate Army was camped in a cotton field eagerly awaiting news about the truce. When the soldier did not return from his mission, a search party was sent out to find him. However, they were not successful. Not knowing what had happened, and no one else came to negotiate a truce, the town was raided and many innocent lives were lost in the battle.

The night after the fighting, a grotesque specter appeared in the cotton field where the Confederate soldiers were once again camped. It was the ghost of a soldier dripping with water. Some of the men followed it. There, in a shallow pond, they found the missing soldier’s mutilated body. They knew for sure that this was their fallen comrade. He had been cruelly murdered and his body thrown in the water.

It is said, that to this day, his body roams the nearby cotton fields. He will stop and tell his story to anyone who will listen as he is still trying to negotiate a truce to save lives.

Some cotton field stories, are short like this one about the woman, who is dressed in a golden gown. The legend says that she visits cotton fields all over southwest Georgia, at any time of the day or night. However, when she is seen, it means that a field worker is about to die. They say she floats around the fields, gracefully going through the cotton plants till she finds who will be the next victim to join her in death.

I have one last cotton field haunting to tell you about. This one takes place near where Decatur County and Seminole County come together. A well thought of and hardworking farmer named Price, told this curious story sometime during the 1940s. It is about a ghost that haunts his cotton field and plows it by moonlight.

He said that he first saw this apparition while setting up with his sick child. Around midnight, he happened to look out the window on to the field and was amazed when he saw the figure of a man, hunched over, guiding a team of oxen over the ground in the cotton field. The man was dressed for farming, in a denim shirt and a large, broad brimmed hat which completely concealed his features. The man seemed very intent upon his work and never raised his head. Then, when he cracked the whip he carried over the backs of the oxen, there was no noise. However, Price could see the animals, the plow and the man plain as if it were daylight, but the rest of the field was in a dusky type of gloom.

Shaking his head and not knowing what to make of this sight, he called to his eldest son to go and see who the stranger was. The boy went out and as his father watched, it seemed as if the son walked through the plow and the man, just as if nothing was there. When the boy returned, he told his father that he hadn’t seen anybody in the field and there was no sign of anyone being around either. He asked his father if perhaps it was a deer that he saw.

However, Price was convinced about what he had seen and decided to go out and check for himself. When he got there, he found no trace of the man nor of the team of oxen. Nevertheless, when he returned to the house and went up to the room and looked out the window, the man and the animals were there, just as plain as day.

Since this time, Price says he has repeatedly seen the phantom plowman and has called in neighbors to see it with him. No one else has seen this apparition. Each time, Price goes out into the field looking for evidence, he finds nothing. The neighbors believe that the figure is that of the farmer who owned the plantation before Price. Early one morning, this man was found with his oxen grazing nearby, having died in this field. Some say he had committed suicide but a reason was never found.

My guess is that most folks love a good ghost story for it is through legends, and tragedies from the past, we are able to keep our heritage alive. I hope you have enjoyed these.