As a Geocacher and Waymarker that is interested in Adventure Lab caches and WIG, Ghost Walk Tours are another interest of mine. Not haunted attractions, but places where paranormal activity is claimed to happen.
I researched Greeneville, Tennessee and it's part in the Civil War, and how it changed hands several times during the War and came here for a self guided ghost walk Waymarking tour. Their Courthouse has Civil War monuments on the lawn in memory of Union soldiers from Greene County and a monument to a Confederate General, John Hunt Morgan who was killed in a Union raid on September 4, 1864 about 420 feet from his memorial there on the courthouse lawn. It's said that John Hunt Morgan is one of the haunts of this downtown historic district area around the courthouse and olde gaol.
Here is some history of the olde gaol.
Built in 1804 - 1805. The rear of the jail nearly touched Richland Creek. The jail was moved stone-by-stone to its present location.
This jail was commissioned by the Greene County Court and has been on this site since 1806. The present structure was built by Turner and Lane in 1882 using limestone and wrought iron from the previous jail built with slaves' labor. This followed the original log jail, replete with stocks, dating from 1794.
This gaol was built using limestone and wrought iron from original one-story building constructed during 1804-05 in the middle of now Depot Street near the Andrew Johnson Tailor Shop. It was dismantled and relocated to the present site in 1838. A red brick second story was added by the firm Turner and Lane in 1882.
I started my self-guided ghost walk tour at the Dickson-Williams Mansion where General Morgan spent his last night alive, and found a marker dedicated to him there in the garden where he fell when shot in the back by a Union soldier Pvt. Andrew J. Campbell who ordered him to halt, and when Morgan failed to obey the order, Campbell shot and killed him.
Here is some information I found about this site it is claimed that Morgan haunts.
Per the Civil War Discovery Trail website:
"This mansion, built between 1815 and 1821, hosted many notables: Marquis de Lafayette, Henry Clay, and Presidents Jackson and Polk. During the war it served as headquarters for both Union and Confederate officers while they were in Greeneville. It was in this house that Gen. John Hunt Morgan, the "Rebel Raider," spent his last night, before he was killed in the garden on September 4, 1864. The room where General Morgan slept contains the original furniture that was there when he occupied the room."
And the nearby TN Historical Marker 1C76:
"Designed and constructed (1815-21) by Irish craftsmen Thomas Battersby and John Hoy, this house was built by Greeneville's first postmaster, William Dickson, for his daughter, Catharine (Mrs. Alexander Williams). Marquis de LaFayette, Presidents Jackson and Polk, Henry Clay, David Crockett, and Francess Hodgsen Burnett were visitors. It served as headquarters for both Confederate and Union officers. Confederate General John Hunt Morgan spent his last night here before being killed in the garden on September 4, 1864."
So I walk down to the main street to Cumberland Presbyterian Church, about two hundred yards from the mansion and garden where Morgan was killed, and there is this cannon ball still stuck in the wall from that September 4, 1864 raid!
I imagine they shelled the mansion from the Harmony Graveyard as it would have been a choice direct line of fire to the mansion and easily defended from that hill above the Big Spring.
This burying ground, established in 1791 in connection with Harmony Presbyterian Church, contains the graves of the Scotch-Irish Covenanters who established Greeneville in 1783.
The olde gaol is not far from Harmony Cemetery, and I walked around the police department there and spoke with a officer there and told him I was in Greeneville for a ghost walk tour and had been hiking on the AT and had some things I needed to mail back home by fedex. I asked about the old goal and if it was okay to visit and take pictures for my ghost walk tour. I also asked if it was haunted, and just got a look and smile that I was unsure about. So by now this police guy knows I'm strange, but just a no concern tourist. Now I can sleep a few hours in a park nearby. Kinda like checking in to a new town for a couple of days.
So turns out there is a fedex and other mailing service dropboxes up at the courthouse where the Civil War monuments are. There was a big tent there on the lawn, something about COVID, but I checked out the John Hunt Morgan monument and photographed it. I read another monument for him was recently removed in Kentucky, which is common today that CSA memorials and statues are being torn down during the Civil Unrest or whatever we are calling it. It make me nervous. I've been to Asheville, NC recently where protests turned to a riot and the police used tear gas.
There was a geocache final just down the street and I stopped by there and logged a DNF, and so far some interesting history, but a DNF on any paranormal activity, but it's not dark yet.
So now I cross the street and see the olde gaol, and it is way cool! Creepy? Oh, yes! Way, way, creepy. And that is just from the outside around the historical marker there! And the door was open to the public for self guided tours. One cell downstairs with two bunks was clean enough to roll out my bag and sleep for about three hours. I woke up smelling cigarette smoke and peeked out a window and saw a smoke pole and smoking area behind the courthouse, so likely just an employee taking a smoke break.
I had already checked out the building and all the cells before my nap, and on my second walk around the downstairs I saw one cell that had two depressions in the floor, like a shower where water would pond up with no drain and there was a barrier to hold water back. Like a shower in a campground, with no drain. Then it came to me. This is the drunk holding cell. No toilet like the others. Maybe they gave you a bucket, after they dumped the cold water out of it on you. Unless you were thirsty and then they give you a dry bucket.
So I went upstairs where there were I believe five more holding cells and a general population holding area. I was looking out the windows when I started hearing cell doors downstairs screeching and creeking, then SLAM! I thought someone was downstairs where I had left my pack in the cell under the bunk. Everything was exactly the same. I rolled up my bag and headed out to see President Andrew Johnson over in the National Cemetery, they say he haunts over there sometimes and there is this multi cache that starts there but I already found the answers here on the Waymarking site.
I guess the haunts here at the olde gaol know I'm just another inmate passing through the system here, and did not manifest before me today other than slamming a door shut, and that just means we are here from the spirit world. I left a painted rock I found on the AT up in Carver's Gap that seemed to bring me luck and moved on along Historic Greeneville's Walking Tour.
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