Please welcome guest author John VanArsdall. VanArsdall is an old-time musician, promoter and historian of Appalachian mountain music, teacher and storyteller. He has lectured at ETSU in Johnson City, TN and Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, VA. John has also presented programs on Appalachian instruments and music at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, TN. He has appeared on the “Little Pickers” stage and on the “Americana” stage at MerleFest, in Wilkesboro, NC. 

For the past twenty eight years John L. VanArsdall has lived in the now 169 year old  Smith Haven Manor, located in Blountville, Tennessee, experiencing  many encounters on the property that, to many, would seem to be of paranormal encounters, though none have been especially terrifying or disturbing to John.

Strange bumps and thumps often occur in the beautiful antebellum farmhouse, particularly late at night, and occasionally an odd smoky “wisp” will  appear to float by in the dim light of night, past a downstairs doorway to the lower bedroom where John stays, but these occurrences have never caused John any feeling of threat.

Some emotionally sensitive human visitors have, nevertheless, felt most uneasy entering or staying on the premises. A few have actually run out of the house screaming and refusing to re-enter, but that always has seemed, to John, to be over reaction to their own personal fears.   

Smith Haven Manor’s beginnings

Smith Haven Manor was built in the year 1851 by Maj. William Smith, who served in the Mexican-American War. Maj. William Smith and three of his adult sons were brick masons by trade, so they built the two story Colonial style, folk design farmhouse after that war as Maj. Smith’s retirement home, with the entire lower level exterior walls, as well as all of the interior lower level room walls, two brick layers thick. The home originally sat on 352 acres. The upper level of this solidly constructed house is wood framed, and the property, minus much of its original surrounding land acreage, was purchased in 1993 by the current owner. and writer of this true story. 

Maj. William Smith had ten children, in total, and several of his then adult children lived on the property with him and their mother, Elizabeth, after it was constructed.

During his final eight remaining years, he and his family farmed the property in their little East Tennessee community, and due at the time to it being the finest home in the community, it was also used as the local “wake house” for family, neighbors, and friends whenever anyone of the area died. Back then, there were no official funeral homes, so in order to accommodate viewings of the deceased, it was common for larger, private homes be used in that manner. 

Major Smith was killed in November of 1859 when he was thrown by his horse while traveling to town (Blountville). He was crossing Evan’s Creek less than a mile west of his estate when a flock of geese startled his horse, and though his immediate injury caused his death, he lived for another 24 hours, long enough to handwrite his last will and testament, leaving his land property, Smith Haven Manor,  and personal chattel divided among his children; the house went to his oldest daughter, Louisa Smith Anderson.

A lawsuit between siblings

Less than two years after Maj. Smith had passed, the American Civil War, the “War Between the States”, officially began in the month of April, in the year 1861. By the time of that historic event’s beginning, a lawsuit between Louisa and Smith’s oldest son, Elbert, had been filed by Elbert suing his sister, claiming the property as belonging to him. During the war’s “Battle of Blountville”, September 22, 1863, Union forces under the command of Gen Ambrose Burnside, USA, burned most of the town of Blountville to the ground, including the county’s courthouse, losing all the court records in the fire, except for the county land records which had been removed (illegally) before the battle, by the county court clerk. 

Smith Haven Manor to this day is located due east of the town of Blountville by 2.2 miles, and was in the direct route by the retreating Confederate forces being pursued by the Union army, following the heat of that four hour battle.

Some local lore tells that Smith Haven Manor was temporarily used immediately after that battle as a makeshift hospital for civilian casualties, but no record of civilian deaths due that major skirmish exist.

After the war’s end, 1865, local records indicate that Maj. Smith’s son, Elbert Smith, apparently won the lawsuit with his sister, and became owner of the house. The property was kept in the Smith family for several generations, eventually passing down to one of Maj. Smith’s granddaughters, Mary Alice Smith Humphreys (1880-1949).

The house passes out of the Smith family

Mary Alice married a George W. Humphreys, and together they had one daughter, Beulah, who eventually married Wesley Garland of Elizabethton, TN in 1923, and Smith Haven Manor then became theirs to own and live in after their marriage.

Beulah and Wes Garland had twin sons born soon after, but by the fourth birthday of the twins, one died in the house due a childhood virus. The remaining twin, Lawrence eventually sold the house in 1987, and then it sold, again, in 1993, purchased by John and Paula. 

One day, while John was in the hand-dug-out dirt cellar below the house, he found a very faded photograph of a woman holding in her arms two babies. Upon his inquiries to locals, he discovered the history of the aforementioned one twin who had died at the age of four, in the house.

Screams, crying, furniture moving mysteriously

Soon after John and Paula moved in, many strange happenings occurred within the house that gave the feeling that the house is haunted, but not seemingly haunted in a very scary way.

Paula, though, said she could hear noises at night that concerned her, and out of curiosity, she placed a sound activated cassette tape recorder in an upstairs bedroom over one whole night. When the tape was played back, and with the tape slowed down, it revealed the distinct sound of small children crying. 

On a different date, again soon after moving in, John and Paula had family come to visit. The same upper bedroom mentioned had not yet had the furniture placed in exact arrangement, but the bed had been assembled for use, and their then four year old niece, Jenny, slept in that bed.

Late that night, screams from that room coming from little Jenny woke the house, and the reason was that Jenny heard noises in the dark. When the lights were flipped on, a heavy dresser that had been on one side of the room was discovered to be sitting in the middle of the room; no explanation as to how it got moved. 

Get out of my room!

A few months after little Jenny’s experience, John’s parents stayed in that same room. The morning after, John’s father related that he had experienced a strange “dream”. In the dream, he said that a big, nearly bald-headed man who had a cigar stogie hanging in his mouth, and who had on overalls, appeared at the foot of the bed and commanded that John’s dad, “get out” of that room.

John’s dad, a gun owner, said he then picked up his handgun from the bedside table, pointed it at the intruder and, suddenly, the apparition disappeared. Later, John related that dream story to another local, who then said, “Do you know who you’ve just described?”

“No,” was John’s reply, and that person then revealed that the description of that apparition was a perfect match for that of the former homeowner, Wes Garland, who had died in a farm tractor accident in the year 1969. Turned out, too, that the same bedroom had actually been formerly occupied by Wes Garland prior to his tragic death. Before this revelation by the local, there had been no knowledge by John, or his dad, of either Wes Garland’s physical appearance, nor the circumstances of his death.

Not all ghosts are malevolent

With additional related stories, and more locals who confirm associated deaths to the property, other episodes of strange experiences continue to happen, but John, though, has one special “ghost” in the house that keeps watch over him.

In the early spring of 1995, just a couple of years after he and his wife, Paula, moved in to Smith Haven, she died at the age of 39 from kidney cancer, and in the same bedroom that John still sleeps.

If it’s truly she that comes to visit on occasion, her spirit comforts John, rather than horrifies. Her spirit presence, too, has also been encountered by a couple of her old friends who have visited.

One close friend of hers who stayed one weekend, just a few years ago, awoke in the room she’d been sleeping feeling as if someone was gently brushing fingers through her hair. That encounter did scare her, a bit, but she felt certain that it had to have been Paula … Apparently, not all “ghosts” come to haunt. ~  John L. VanArsdall 

More articles on ghosts in houses:

The Moon Ghost(Opens in a new browser tab)

No one will live there now: it is believed that the house is hainted(Opens in a new browser tab)

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