Most Haunted House 3

The Most Haunted House

in Carrollton, Alabama

by Tom Woodard

Chapter 3
The story ends.

At some point along the journey, we realized that we did not have the money to restore the house, largely due to the cost of removing the Queen Anne roof, second floor, and alterations and replacing the original hipped roof on the first floor. I cannot recall exactly when we reached this point, but up to that time I used to periodically assure the ghosts, out loud, that we were going to restore the house. After that, of course, I ceased doing this and it seemed as tho the ghosts immediately knew that things had changed, because they ceased to make themselves known, at least to my knowledge.

When we took the house down, we salvaged everything that we could, from lumber to beams to bricks. We even dug down into the ground, to the bottom of the piers, to retrieve every last brick. Very little was in such poor shape that it could not be salvaged, and what little there was we burned on the site. On the night of the last day of clean-up of the unsalvagable debris, we lit the last fire, made sure it was secure, and went home. After we left, two of the ladies of Carrollton happened to ride by the site and, looking out toward the fire, distinctly saw a lady, in long 19th Century black mourning dress, with hands clasped at her waist and head bowed, standing by that fire. To my knowledge, this was the last anyone has seen or heard from the ghosts of the Stewart-Hill-Foster House. I almost wish I did not know this last story, because every time I think of it, I immediately become profoundly sad, as I am even now, relating it to you.

So the story ends. I have related every detail to you as I experienced it or had it told to me by the first person witnesses who had the experiences told here. Nothing is fabricated or embellished. If there ever was a more haunted house in the old town of Carrollton, Alabama, I do not know of it.

If I can find my papers (stored away somewhere) I will someday come back to this story and tell you a little more of the history of Dr. S.H. Hill and his three wives and 13 children. I will tell you this much now: He was never divorced, as his first two wives each died in childbirth, both after giving Dr. S.H. many children, and the third, Miss Ida (who may have been one of our ghosts - some in Carrollton claimed so), outlived him by many years. She was the mother of Mrs. Foster, who was the last resident of the old mansion and the youngest of the doctor's children.

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