The Legend of Nancy's Mountain

Finally, there's a crispness to the air here in south Alabama and it feels like fall, just in time for Halloween!

And with the spookiest night of the year just around the corner, I wrote an article for RootsRated.Com about some fascinating, and eerie, haunted hikes in Alabama. I also wrote about a personal experience I had on one trail in particular for my book, Hiking through History Alabama, one that left me, and my big rescue lab Archer, a bit spooked. So in the spirit (pun intended) of the season, a little tale from the book about Nancy's Mountain....

You may have heard this story before. Every town, city, and village across the country has something similar. It’s a story as old as history itself, the story of lost love and a never ending search.

The Nancy's Mountain Trail at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Haines Island Park is, on its own, a beautiful walk in the woods. The path is lined with Christmas fern, American beech, water oak, and yellow poplar trees. Snowy white dogwoods flower here in the spring. In the fall the hardwoods flame brightly with orange, red, and yellow color.

But there is a story here on this mountain. It’s a story that’s part history and part legend. It’s the story of Nancy.

From all accounts Nancy was a strikingly beautiful woman. She was known to have dressed in white gowns of the antebellum period. Nancy, her husband, and son all lived on the top of this double hump mountain on a bend in the Alabama River.

It was sometime during the Civil War that Nancy’s son decided to head off and enlist in the Confederate army to fight for the Southern cause. It wasn’t long that, as was the case in many families both North and South, word came that her boy had died in battle but a body was never ever found.

In shock and disbelief Nancy would walk day after day down the mountain to the river where there was a steamboat landing. She carried a pail of water with her in case her son would someday return on one of the boats.

Overwhelmed by his wife’s grief, as well as his own, Nancy’s husband took matters into his own hands and made it his mission to locate his son either dead or alive.

No one knows how long her husband was gone but eventually word arrived at Nancy’s doorstep that her husband was found dead, frozen to death near the grave of an unknown soldier near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

Soon after Nancy disappeared from the mountain and was never seen again. No one knows where she went. Her house fell into ruin and was reclaimed by nature. But not long after her disappearance locals began reporting seeing a woman walking the mountain in the dark. Her beauty indescribable, her dress a white antebellum gown of the period. In her hand she carried a lantern as she glided silently to the riverbank where the old steamboat landing was and the current Davis Ferry paddles back and forth.

To this day many people say they have seen this ghostly figure and all agree it must be Nancy waiting the return of her husband and son. Rangers with the Corps of Engineers will tell you stories about people camping on the mountain only to be found running down the hillside white as ghosts claiming to have seen her.

Arrive early in the morning just as the sun is rising, a light mist rolling in off of the river, and see what you think. Walking the trail, as I did in these conditions, will make you wonder. You will find yourself looking around, the goosebumps will rise on your arms. Is it because you have just heard the story or is Nancy really there? 

I will tell you this, my black Labrador Archer usually leads the way on my hikes. This is the only hike we have ever taken where he had to be coaxed into hiking the trail, whimpered all the way,and darted back for the car when we made the turn-around. Spooky!