Читать книгу Nashville Haunted Handbook - Jeff Morris - Страница 25

directions

Take I-40 West to I-440 East. Follow I-440 East for a little more than a mile to Exit 1A, US 70 South/TN 1 West. Follow this road for a little more than 3.5 miles. The Belle Meade Plantation will be on your left.

history

Early in the plantation’s history, several modest buildings served as living quarters before the mansion was completed in 1853. In 1848, the nine-month-old daughter of the plantation’s owner, William Harding, fell ill inside one of these buildings. Despite all the care that the doting parents attempted to shower upon the ailing child, the baby died.

Despite the death of the child, the plantation itself prospered until war came to the area in the early 1860s. Fighting during the Civil War actually occurred in the front yard of the mansion. Today, evidence of this fighting is still visible in the bullet holes that riddle the home’s front columns.

In 1953, the mansion was given to the Association for the Preservation of Tennessee Antiquities and has operated as a museum ever since.

ghost story

Hints of the tragedies that have occurred throughout this plantation’s many years seem to still exist throughout the property. Many people have heard what sounds like a child crying in the building even when there are no children anywhere nearby. The crying sounds distant. Those who hear it aren’t entirely sure they actually heard anything at all. They think that maybe it is a trick of the mind until the people that they are with report hearing the exact same thing.

There are motion sensors throughout the building that often go off for supernatural reasons. For a week in 1987, the motion sensors went off five of seven nights at almost the exact same time, between 3:40 and 3:47 a.m. When the authorities showed up to confront the trespassers, the building was secure and there was absolutely no one or nothing inside.

Other witnesses to the paranormal will hear footsteps in the hallways and sometimes what sounds like a woman giggling. Despite the fact that some have died here in the building, someone or something seems to be living on.

visiting

The only way for a visitor to experience the ghosts here at Belle Meade is to take a tour of the mansion during its regular hours. The mansion is open for tours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, and admission is $16. The building is an excellent example of a Nashville plantation from the mid-1800s and is well worth visiting, especially since there is a chance you may meet one of the resident ghosts. If you don’t want to pay the money for the tour but still want to see the building, you are out of luck. They actually charge you to walk the grounds of the mansion as well. If you want to get a glimpse of a ghost here, be prepared to pay.