DBC 7: Witch in the Wood
FLORIDA MAN: [sad] Howdy folks, and welcome to Dashboard Chats!
CHEESEHEAD: [also sad] Where we are recording mini segments from our dashboard on the drive between our main interviews to discuss the tales and urban legends that aren’t quite fit for the mic.
FM: You folks at home may be wondering why we sound so sad.
CH: We assure you that it has nothing to do with us driving all the way to Alabama’s Northeasternmost corner in hopes of finding the infamous Witch in the Woods, only to have our trail go cold.
FM: Yep yep, nothin’ to do with that. But in the meantime, we'll do something equally as interestin’: talking about the Witch in the Wood as we idly drive.
CH: We should probably snap out of it for the sake of our listeners.
FM: Oooohkay.
CH: [Deep breath] so, after driving all through the Appalachian wilderness, we come to you from Huntsville as we cut back down to 1-10. Do you like your pristine wilderness with a dash of NASA flight centers? Because, if so, this is the town for you.
FM: You… actually made Huntsville sound pretty cool.
CH: Would be a lot cooler if there was a Witch in the friggin’ Woods!
FM: Ain’t arguin.
CH: But yah, overall, Huntsville is pretty cool I guess. Second largest city to Mobile, which is where we are heading next unless Granny’s dowsing pendulum sends us on another wildgoose chase.
FM: To be fair, the crystal sent us to Huggin’ Molly who, by the way, was a genuine sweetheart. We stubbornly decided to look for the Witch in Wood on our own accord.
CH: We just haven’t met a bonafide witch yet. I was really looking forward to it. So much so, I ended up wasting valuable driving time in search of this one.
FM: One might say you were...on a witch hunt.
CH: Hush before we get hexed. Interestingly enough, the city of Huntsville originally stood opposed to seceding from the Union during the Civil War, quite unlike most of its neighboring areas. Even served as a Union base during the war, which ultimately spared it from burning to crisp during Reconstruction.
FM: Hat’s off to ya, Huntsville. What else you got?
CH: As I mentioned, Huntsville is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and has garnished the nickname, “The Rocket City.”
FM: That’s a really cool nickname. My nicknames were always based on movie and TV characters like “Harrison Ford, Dirty Harry, Harry Potter…”
CH: A far cry kinder than most people’s nicknames. [insert your own if you have any!]
FM: As famed essayist and philosopher, William Hazlitt, once said, “A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man.“ Hm, guess that’s something you can take to the bank.
CH: Speaking of banks, one urban legend in Huntsville is that legendary outlaw, Jesse James, robbed its First National Bank!
FM: You serious?
CH: Upon further inspection, I couldn’t find anything beyond hearsay that this is actually true, and in fact the same urban legend exists in several other cities, so it probably didn’t happen.
FM: Ah, too good to be true.
CH: Hoooowever, his brother, Frank James, is in fact part of Huntsville history. Frank was brought here to stand trial for charges including robbing $5000 off a US Army paymaster and kidnapping. His stay here though was nothing short of fantastic. He was basically an A-list celebrity to these people. Hell, locals were even allowed day-rentals to check him out of jail. People sang his praises and cheered at his every appearance. Should be no surprise that, probably in part to his infectious popularity, he was acquitted and free to leave Calhoun House, where court was held.
FM: Shit, that’s wild!
CH: His story sure is wicked, er no?
FM: Not as wicked as the woman which we drove out all this way for.
CH: The Witch in the Woods?
FM: The Witch in the Woods, baby! Story goes that, just south of here, in Gadsden, out in the woods by Hinds Road, lurks a witch who sold her very soul to the Devil himself!
CH: Ah, maybe we should just ask Dev about her then. Get the inside scoop.
FM: Damn, didn’t even think about that. He’s probably got a record on her soul somewhere in his files. Anyway, local legend states her seedy little soul still bedevils those who happen too close to her shack.
CH: She lives in a shack? You’d think she’s have requested a finer house than some backwoods shack in exchange for her entire soul.
FM: Maybe she’s just a downhome, simple gal.
CH: Yea, you keep thinking that. So we’re pulling up now to the end of our Huntsville tour before we drive like maniacs back to I-10 to make up for lost time.
FM: Maple Hill Cemetery.
CH: Indeed. Home to more than one spooky tale. Let us begin with the Legend of Mary Bibb. Long ago, Mary Bibb met her fate at a very young age.
FM: How young is young? Like a kid?
CH: Hell, I don’t know. Well no, because her given maiden name was Mary Chambers. She actually married into Bibbs in 1835 where she was apparently poisoned and fell deathly ill. So I guess she was a young woman not like...not like a young child.
FM: Ah, that clears it up. Wait, she was poisoned?
CH: Yah, but like, it doesn’t appear to have been premeditated. Either she had an allergic reaction to a substance or maybe misprescribed the wrong medicine. Details are sketchy in all of my sources. Anyway, Mary Bibbs was a real fighter, and lived for several more weeks beyond expectancy but inevitably yielded to the poison and passing on to the heartbreak of the Chambers and Bibbs. To honor her memory, Maple Hill’s first Mausoleum was erected just for her, and in it was placed Mary’s body sat in her favorite rocking chair.
FM: How many rocking chairs do you gotta have to pick favorites? Dang.
CH: Presumably, Mary Bibb was born into a household of many rocking chairs. I don’t know?
FM: Kinda sweet in a super morbid sorta way.
CH: Oh and all the more morbid still, for if you go a’knocking on her mausoleum walls at night you can hear the creaking sounds of her rocking chair stirring within its cold, frigid interior.
FM: Well then, let’s go a’knockin then.
[walks]
FM: Magical, look at all them lightning bugs out?
CH: You mean fireflies?
FM: We call ’em lightnin’ bugs down here.
CH: I’m just trying to imagine an epic space western directed by Joss Wheton called “Lightning Bug.” Lightning Bug...see? Doesn’t fit.
FM: Potato, tomato.
CH: The heck? That’s not even--wait, I think this is it. Mary Bibb’s mausoleum! Okay, so how are we doing this?
FM: Kinda small.
CH: Yah, I read something about that. Hopefully it won’t matter. Ready when you are, Florida Man.
FM: Aight. One...two...three...knock?
CH: Gotcha. Okay then, on the count of three.
FM: One...two...three…
[knocks on stone; waits but no response.]
FM: Uh… should we try again?
CH: Yea, maybe she’s just asleep. One...Two...Three…
[knocks on stone; waits but no response.]
CH: Hm
FM: Uh...Miss Bibbs? Ma’am, you in there?
[Crickets]
CH: The article was right then. So, according to my sources, despite centuries of speculation of the rocking ghost, the dimensions of the structure and mortuary practices of 1835 don’t add up.
FM: How’d ya mean?
CH: Well, for one, it was said to take upwards of half a year to complete a structure like this here mausoleum. Secondly, it would have been impossible to preserve her corpse that long without it decaying beyond the point of posing in an upright position.
FM: Reckon you’re right on that.
CH: Finally, this mausoleum I just too darn small to fit a full grown woman in a chair with space to rock. Despite this fantastic urban legend, it just isn’t plausible.
CHILD: [Disembodied voice] want to play?
CH: At this time of night? I most certainly do not.
FM: Do not what?
CH: Want to play.
FM: To play what? Where on earth could you even play this time of night way on out here?
CH: There’s an adjoining playground just over there. I just thought you were being funny.
FM: That playground there is said to be super haunted.
CH: A playground in a cemetery? Who woulda thunk?
FM: Well Maple Hill Cemetery was founded way on back in 1822. This here playground weren’t around til much later.
[Rusty swing sound]
FM: Cheesehead, get off the swings, we got too much ground to cover.
CH: What are you talking about? I’m walking right behind you. Look, the swing sets are completely motionless.
FM: But I coulda sworn…
[child giggles]
CH: Whats so funny?
FM: I didn’t laugh at nothin’.
CH: Well I sure as heck wasn’t laughing.
[Swing set sound again]
FM: Let’s get the truck.
CH: You don’t gotta tell me twice!
[Running sound, enters truck, shuts door]
CH: Phew, glad that’s over.
CHILDREN: [whispers] Come back and play with usss…
CH: Nope nope nope
[Peels out]
FM: Welp, looks like we ain’t gettin out of the truck again til the next pit stop for sure.
CH: No need. Pretty sure I just went.
FM: Yikes. I’ll just stick to my empty gatorades. Anyway, thanks folks for joining us for this edition of Dashboard Chats. We’ll try to do one each week in between Talegate interviews, so be sure to tune in.
CH: If you have any information about these or any other ghost stories, feel free to email ‘em to us at thetalegatepodcast@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram @TheTalegatePodcast for photos, cast info, updates and more!
CH: Oh, and Witch in the Woods, if you’re somehow hearing this, feel free to hit us up when you get back to your old shack there, so we can interview ya!
FM: See you later, Talegators!
CH: Sayonara!