When we bought this land 20+ years ago. There was just nothing here. No homes, No people, No neighbors. No utilities, at all. Even by rural standards we are WAY out.
Exploring and deciding what we would do here we found an old log cabin on the place. Oh, sez Big Wrek I’ll make a deer camp here.
This little cabin was in great disrepair, but I loved it. It had character and good bones. My Daddy’s youngest brother is a contractor. I had him come look at it. He said I was crazy but it could be fixed up. It wasn’t gonna tumble down any minute. He wouldn’t take it on but he knew folks who would.
From that little seed ol’Beck grew a big tree.
Mr.Wrekker was skeptical but said go ahead.
I had BIG plans. I’m building a new log cabin around the old one. To live in. Heck with a deer camp.
And so, the story goes on and were deep in restoration and adding new construction. Electric poles were bought and set. The Elec.Co-op wasn’t gonna allow us to be completely off-grid like I wanted.
Water wells were dug. Took 2 to get one good one.
I learned really quick the guy I had hired as contractor hated me. I wasn’t terrible to him, but looking back I was in his hair alot. Like everyday. I wasnt fixin’ to let this house go up w/o input. The only way I knew to do that was to be here before mistakes were made and get someone, namely Bill the contractor, on it. He REALLY hated me before the build and restoration were done. I think he may have had a ‘hit’ out on me for awhile.
I did all the purchasing for the build. Bill hated that too. It my running around getting what was needed I started hearing tales about these woods. The little old cabin was, it seems kinda famous in these parts.
It was known as a place where a family of people with the last name French had gambling and carousing every weekend. Old man ‘Frenchy’ was a notorious moonshiner. And generally in a pickle with the law. I’ve thought about it alot, (there’s no proof of all this) it must’ve been in the 1920s - 30s.
He was killed somewhere on the land. We don’t know where exactly. But he was killed by his irate wife when she caught him out here with another woman. We’ve never found out how he was killed.
But, the more interesting story is about Frenchys widowed Mother and his imbecile sister who lived in this very cabin I was spending the big $$$ to restore.
Mother and daughter lived here alone. No men. Frenchy came and went.
Well, he comes out here on the behest of some town folk who usually gave his Ma rides for eggs and and produce. Apparently she hadn’t been seen in a few weeks. So he comes out to find his handicapped sister alone, nearly starved. He cannot make out what has happened to his Ma. The sister can barely speak. The county took his sister to a home for adults with her disorders. She rarely spoke. No one knew what happened.
A few weeks later Frenchy was on the place and an old dog comes up. Obviously a stray the dog follows him around as he did chores and such. He’s looking for something he could use to fix the backdoor when the dog comes up with a bone in his mouth. Frenchy looks closer the bone looks odd, he takes it away from dog and throws it down quick. It’s a human foot bone. He follows the dog and finds a cache of human bones some skin and hair still attached to bits and pieces. He’s mortified. He knows it his Ma.
He gets to the sheriff. They come out and gather all they could find of the old woman. There’s no way to tell how she died in those days. Speculation is the daughter may have pushed her down or hit her hard enough to kill her. And animal predation had dismembered her.
The girl had anger issues as well as mental deficiency.
The weird thing is they never found the old lady’s head.
Now bump ahead to the early 2000s and ol’Beck owns this place. The ‘icky’ factor is all consuming. I have children that don’t need to hear this. We’ll never have a peaceful nights sleep if they do. Not to mention Mr.Wrekker works out of state for most of his career. I’ll be here alone with kids, alot.
Early days I’m seeing and hearing ghosts and spooks everywhere. Strange goings on at night. I cannot even look out a window after dark. I walk the floors at night. Watching and waiting for who knows what?
Somehow I get through the early months and nothing ever really happens. I’m calmer and less afraid. I’ve gotten busy with kids in school and all their things they do. I have a toddler running around. No time to be freaked out, anymore.
Or so I think…
More at another time…
