Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 31, 2014 9:15:51 GMT -5
The Witch of Yazoo Still Haunts the Town She Burned
YAZOO CITY, Miss. – In Glenwood Cemetery, large, oval chain links surround a grave (the tall tombstone in the photo above). There’s no name associated with who’s buried there. She is simply known as “The Witch of Yazoo.”
“The witch is very much alive,” says K. K. Hill, director of the Triangle Cultural Center in Yazoo City. “The legend is like this big bellows that keeps blowing wind onto these flames and it keeps going.” Hill’s analogy is appropriate, as the broken tombstone in Glenwood Cemetery reads:
ACCORDING TO
LOCAL LEGEND ...
On May 25, 1904, the Witch
of Yazoo City broke out
of these curious chain
links surrounding her
grave and burned down
Yazoo City. Writer Willie
Morris's classic 'Good
Old Boy' brought national
renown to this vengeful
woman and her shameful
deed.
In Honor of
RAY ROGERS SR.
Sexton 21 Years
Jan. 7, 1994 to July 1, 1995
Glenwood Cemetery
Yazoo City, Mississippi
According to legend, the woman, whose name is not known, lived on the Yazoo River and would lure fishermen in from the river and torture, kill and, perhaps, eat them. The sheriff found some skeletons in the witch’s shed one day and wanted answers. The witch fled and a posse of deputies followed her into the swamp. When they caught up to her – on May 25, 1884 – she was sinking in quicksand and as she sunk to her death, she swore to return in 20 years and burn the town down to the ground.
She was buried in Glenwood Cemetery and a chain-link fence was placed around her grave to keep her from coming back. Nevertheless, 20 years to the day, a great fire destroyed the town, leveling 200 home and almost every business establishment in the downtown area. The fire is said to have started in the kitchen of a young woman preparing for her wedding, but many believed the vengeful force of the witch was also at play. Strange and fierce winds were blowing that fateful day, causing the flames to leap and spread as if by some supernatural force and when the people of the city made it to her grave, the chain links were broken.
Vay McGraw has played the witch on walking tours for 50 years. Her family also owns the funeral home that oversees Greenwood Cemetery. One of the most mysterious things about the witch is that nobody really knows who she was and McGraw refers to her as “the person who is buried there.” She adds: “The records burned in the 1904 fire and to be honest with you, there’s no proof of anything. No cemetery records. There’s no record, but there is someone buried there.”
According to Hill, the legend of the witch is something that has been handed down for generations, and that records aren’t needed to keep her memory alive. “When I was a child growing up here, it was something in my mother’s mind, she threatened me with it. It got to be vibrant in my mind,” he says. “My mother was born in 1912, so there you go, starting at the beginning of the last century, going on for a while. It filtered down to me.”
Now, he says, he still hears the children talking about the witch. “I found that the children, the little children now, where we referred to her as the Witch, they refer to her as ‘the Chain Lady.’” The Chain Lady has been silent for many years now, but she will always be a part of Yazoo City history that can’t be forgotten. Her grave in the cemetery and the historical reset that came with “her” fire will always stand as proof that she – whoever she was – had been there.
And the children remember. “They’ll say, ‘I’m not scared of the chain lady. I’m not scared of the chain lady,’” McGraw adds.
Source: Therese Apel, The Clarion-Ledger, October 29, 2014.
