Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. Well, welcome back. Hello.
What you got there? Banana. Banana. Yeah, you know, just having my mid-day snack.
Yeah, I'm not a banana fan. I know, I was gonna offer you one and turn me down. I know, I just don't love them. I think it's a texture thing.
I don't love a banana. They're organic. That's nice. No, I know.
Yeah, um, because I don't really change your money. It will so much. Wow, she pays 20 cents more. I found definitely she go for that.
No, you just gotta go self-check out and select the melorcanic one. That's terrible too. I mean, who doesn't do that? So what you do with the apples too?
You put them back and hush and they're actually the honey crisp. Yeah, I mean, it's fine. And then you're like, oh, I'm so stupid. God.
I will tell you accidentally stole from the Aldi. That's terrible. I did. I was doing the little self-checkout and I was checking out all my stuff, put it in my bag, don't know how I missed it, miss the tortillas.
Got to the car and went, oh, the tortillas. And then we who we, the cops came and I was with my mother and she's like, what do you want to do? You want to go back in? I'm like, no, I don't want to go back in.
It's like $1.50 for these tortillas. They'll be okay. I've donated at least that many quarters. It's true to the Aldi buggies.
Exactly. So I love Aldi. Say recently. So years ago, they had this red wine cabbage with apple that was delicious, obsessed.
And then they didn't have it for years and I got a little sad and it's back. And I love it. It's so good. I really like they have a Mexican corn dip.
Throw it on the table. Oh, well, the Mexican corn dip. That's so good. I was just telling a friend of mine, Mexican street corn is probably one of my favorite things ever.
It's so good. And they have a crema in dip form at Aldi. We should have brought that today. We should just eat.
I know it's so good. Aldi or Aldi, whichever you pronounce it, is my favorite. I love it. I love it.
If you don't have an Aldi where you live, you're missing out. Mm-hmm. Because it's like discounted. Kind of.
I don't know how it's so much cheaper. They don't have the overhead because they have fewer employees and you basically wrench your cart. So they don't have to spend money because those carts cost a lot of money. Yeah.
So regular grocery stores, they have to pay someone to go and get all the carts and do the stuff. And then Aldi, you do a lot of it yourself. You bag yourself. Yeah.
So they don't have the overhead. The one that I go to, I think they only have one lane to check out. And there's four, six self-checks. It's a pretty small store.
And that's another thing is they don't have the power bill. They don't have all that kind of stuff. And it's one of those like, I can find everything I need. Usually there's only one type of what I'm looking for.
Like, you know, when you go to like a big grocery store, there's like eight different versions of peanut butter. Aldi, you got one. Exactly. Which I kind of like.
I do two. It's just one choice. Yeah. Go in for peanut butter.
That's the one I'm getting. The cool thing about Aldi is that you find things that you normally wouldn't find somewhere else. Right. That you're like, oh my gosh, I love that.
Like, specialized German food or other ethnicities. They always have, it's like a rotating one where I'm at. They usually have a bunch of like Mexican style food or Asian. Do you know what my new favorite thing to eat is?
Domas. Do you know what my favorite thing to eat is? What? Domas.
Oh, wow. So they are grape leaves that are rolled and inside of it, they can have anything. They can have meat. They can have, in this case, minor like couscous or rice.
And you roll them up and they are so good. So a friend of mine brought them over and we had them in a salad and they are so good. I was like, I was all like, I think about it. I was a domas.
And she caught them at Trader Joe's, which is like the cousin of Aldi. But more expensive cousin, but oh my gosh, they're so good. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The only downside to the Aldi is sometimes you'll find something that you're like, oh, I love this. This is so good. Never see it again.
And it's gone the next day. Yep. Because it's just a rotating like, never, sometimes you'll never find a saving choice. Back in the fall of 2018, they had these like caramel covered apples that were incredible.
Never see them since. I'm afraid they might have been street corn dips going to go away at some point and I'm going to be devastated. It will come fall because they switch out like they also have a mango salsa that is amazing. But that goes out when it comes fall.
So. Well, now I'm gonna stop by all the only home. I'm just gonna say, sorry y'all. Gonna have to go by the Aldi.
Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to hop on over to Johnson City, Tennessee. Let's do this.
We talked about Johnson City a little bit in my soray to the closed fish place. But we're actually gonna go there and I want you to take me to that furniture store. It's such a good time. Discount furniture?
I'm a little bit. That's a warehouse discounted. I don't really need any furniture, but I do like furniture. It's a good time.
All right. So we're going to talk about the Tipton Hanyons House. Okay. It's a historic site.
So we're going to do a little bit of the history first and then we're going to talk about the ghosts. Oh, nice. Okay. All right.
So the site was purchased in 1784 by Colonel John Tipton who lived from 1730 to 1813. We've been back in time a lot. We have been. He moved from the Shenandoah County in Virginia to settle in what was then Washington County, North Carolina.
So this is before our borders. Before there was a North and South Carolina. When it was just Carolina. Or Tennessee really.
Yeah. So I mean, there's no real real borders going here. For the next four years, the formation and decline of the state of Franklin became a really important issue for the area in the life of Colonel Tipton who stayed loyal to North Carolina. So if you don't know, between North Carolina and Tennessee, there used to be this random state of Franklin.
Interesting. You look on old maps. You can see it. I obviously didn't hold.
Right. And it just kind of got absorbed into both. Because there's a Franklin, Tennessee and a Franklin, North Carolina. So there's a this is kind of the this very interesting history of it.
It's kind of a little blip. Funny enough though, Frank's and Tennessee is near Nashville. Yeah, they're not all think those are related. Okay.
Oh, okay. Okay. Got you. Not related.
In February of 1788, the Battle of the State of Franklin turned the peaceful home of Colonel Tipton into a battleground for Franklin independence. Colonel Tipton would later help with the development of Tennessee becoming the 16th state of the Union before retiring from public life. I understand. Yeah.
So he did a lot. He did do a lot. He deserves to sit on the porch in Rockin Rockin chair. Say to Franklin fell and help with Tennessee.
Wow. So that's that's it. After his father's death, John Tipton Jr. inherited the property before moving to Washington County.
John Tipton Jr. was already a successful state legislator and a wealthy landowner in Blountville, Tennessee. He expanded his father's cabin in the 1820s making it a federal style farmhouse. Wow.
So he probably did a lot of expanding a lot of work on the house. That kind of thing. While attending the 19th general assembly, he died in Nashville. Pumber.
So yeah, come with them. And all of this information you can find on the Tipton Haynes historic site. I've got all this historic information from them. So if you want to look at it in really fun font at Aldi, it's there.
We'll do the former Tipton home into how it looks today. Haynes is best known for being a Confederate senator, but also was a state legislator, politician, farmer, newspaper editor, Methodist minister, and attorney. Good Lord. He was busy.
I would say hey. All the things. And he spayed your animals on weekends. Just you know, did what he needed to.
He lost the home during the Civil War and moved to and lived the rest of his life in Memphis, Tennessee. The site would eventually return to the Haynes family when on May 1st, 1882, Sarah L. Gifford similarly purchased the property. And Sarah was the niece of Landon Porter Haynes.
Another question. You can't answer this. But why did people always have these multiple names? Like we've talked about this in other episodes, but it's like Sarah Gifford Rhodes, you know, Hayley Smith-Smith.
Remember that was my name? Holly Tambrelin-Smith. I can't remember what it was, but yeah. I don't understand that.
Does it make you more distinguished? Probably. Okay. Yeah.
Probably. Hayley-Cambreli-Smith. Yeah. That's not even a name.
No, it's not. So I think we can't really talk about the Confederate South without talking about the slaves who were imprisoned on the property. I was going to say he had to have slaves. He did.
So we're going to talk a little bit about them. There were slaves who were imprisoned on the land. Their history is not super well recorded, but I do want to include what pieces I was able to find on there. You know, up until 1860 that slaves weren't even, they were seen as property.
So essentially on a census record, they weren't named. It would just be like, you know, slave, male, age 33, you know? Yeah. So there is, there was some interesting information which we'll include in here because it's kind of difficult to explain.
But on records, the, or the slaves of these landowners would have their first name and then the landowners' last name. It's just very common. So it's hard to track them through last names because they were virtually erased. So this is, I mean, obviously we're going to talk a lot about slavery and people being treated as property.
So if that's not your jam, let's get ahead. We'll talk about ghosting. So in 1860, there were nearly 15,000 people that lived in Washington County to the sea and this included about a thousand slaves. Three of those slaves belonged to Landon Carter Haines.
Charlotte, two was about 60 years old. George, who was 35, and Cornelia, who was about nine years old. So I don't know if they're related, but there were three slaves living on the property, which are in prison on the property. Yeah, so hard to think a nine-year-old.
Yeah. When Landon Carter Haines attended Washington College, George accompanied him and became his personal slave while there. While at the college though, George did learn to read and write, even though slaves were not supposed to be allowed to learn such things. And I'm not going to say this was out of the kindness of Landon's heart because zoning people is gross.
But I'm sure George found a way to, you know, learn how to read and write and that's good. I'm sure served him well. Maybe he was like, I don't need to do my homework for me or something. Yeah, I'm sorry.
I got it. 1851, Landon Carter Haines mortgaged the slave, George, to Lawson Gifford. So really talking about people as property here. Yeah.
He mortgaged George to Lawson Gifford to secure the payment of personal debts. Oh, wonderful. So he and cure debts and sold his slave for him. So he sold the human being for that.
Wonderful. If the debts were not paid in two years, Gifford was obligated to sell George at the door of the County Courthouse in Jonesboro to the highest bidder. So like this article says, it clearly demonstrates the dual nature of a slave in the antebellum south. A slave was a human being, but at the same time a slave was personal property that could be bought or sold.
But I mean, these people, they didn't even consider them people. I mean, these were property to them, which is disgusting. Yeah. During the Civil War, the whereabouts of George, Charlotte and Cornelia are unknown.
The only document stating George is whereabouts is an 1863 letter from Landon C Haines to a George Williams in the letter Landon asked Mr. Williams to watch over his house and property and to have George cultivate the land in Timothy and Corn. So it sounds like they were still George and Cornelia and Charlotte were still living on the property during that time. Also, during Civil War Haines, bought a 17 year old male slave named John in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1862 from a John Baxter.
Baxter was a Knoxville lawyer and slaveholder who sympathized with the South but opposed succession. I'm confused. If he didn't have money, how was he buying another? I know.
I guess he figured it out because he didn't, George ended up coming back. That's true. I guess he paid off his debt and he was back in business but still makes no sense. No.
Okay. After the war, the former slaves of Landon Carter Haines disappeared from record books so they're no longer part of or were freed. Emancipated. Emancipated.
It is not known if any of his slaves continued to live with him or if they created new lives somewhere else. George's son, Habakuk, grew up in Northeast Tennessee and George's descendants still live in the area. So they were able to track him a little bit. That's the real story here is these slaves who built this house and kept the land and did all of the hard work.
That makes sense why he was able to do all of these jobs because he wasn't having to do anything else. I literally didn't care about everything else. This house is a historic site. I don't love the idea of memorializing slave owners.
If you visit the house, I would definitely encourage you to ask about the enslaved people who lived there and they seem to do a decent job of portraying that. So that's a plus. And you can go there and tours? They have tours as well.
We're going to talk a little bit about the ghosts real quick here. The land that the Tipton Haines estates on was originally native land of course. I mean all of America was native land. So this was native land.
And one of this location stories involves its earliest documents. So in springtime in Hainesville, there is a civil war reenactment that's done. People dress up in costumes and reenact battles and it's a whole thing that people get into. One of the reenactors was waking up early in the morning and noticed that there was a fog coming across the field.
The appearance of fog isn't unexpected during that time. East Tennessee, it's foggy. It just is. It made its way across the grounds many times before.
What was surprising though, which is this reenactor, was the large group of Native Americans in Florida, that were riding on horseback through the mist towards a nearby cave. I mean that is unusual. There is a cave at the bottom of the hill that dates back to prehistoric times. So it's been there forever.
And they do know that the cave was used by Native people as like a hunting station. They come and stay there. So it's highly possible that these, this is kind of just an apparition or kind of one of those loop spirit things. It comes around every so often.
Yep. And he saw the three nactors saw the remnants of their energies going across the field to the cave. I don't want to see the remnants of your energy. No, it could be pretty aggressive.
It could be aggressive. It could be aggressive. Table falls over and I'm like, damn it, Haley. It was me.
It was pretty aggressive. It was pretty aggressive. For me, Poultry, I see. A hundred and a hundred.
All right. So the next one is the Phantom Patriarch of the home. Okay. So Mr.
Tipton or Mr. Haynes. We're actually going to talk about Samuel Simmerly. Okay, that's different.
Who I think was the we talked about the the niece that bought the house. Where was her name? Sarah Simmerly. Yeah.
So I'm going to assume that this was her husband. Okay. Maybe. It doesn't really say.
But Samuel Simmerly lived and died in the home and spends much of his time in contact with the living through kind of descriptions of everyday life. I got up this morning. I put on my boots. I had a smoke.
So all the investigators that come, they use this paranormal investigator has been all over the place. Yeah. So they use this little box called like the spirit box and it's. Shows how much activity?
Well, it flips through like different frequencies, like radio stations, almost. And the theory is that spiritual energy can communicate through those different catamases and you'll hear weird voices and come through this box. So my name is Haley. So Samuel ends up talking a lot about his operations at the home, working on the farm.
It just kind of depends on his mood. Yep. His mood. Where your questions go is kind of how he interests seem.
So Samuel and other spirits of the house have let a Mr. Fari who is kind of a care taker of the house who was interviewed for an article and so he's talked a lot about the ghosts and everything. He's experienced a lot of experience. So he has said that, you know, the ghosts will let him know when he could be doing a better job in the house of like, whatever.
So Mr. Fari opened a whole. You suck, Fari. He opened up a hole in the wall to inspect some water damage in the house.
So there was like a pipe that was leaking or something. So you have to open the wall and check it out. There's no mold. Yeah.
And apparently an unidentified spirit filed a complaint during the investigation. There was a paranormal group that was in there and asked, you know, do you like what happened to the house? You know, now that it's not in your hands anymore. Apparently the spirit said no.
And when they asked why a word came through the box that just said hole, be the whole alone. So he wanted the whole close up in the house. When investigators asked specifically if the spirit liked what Mr. Fari had done to the house, the entity reportedly laughed through the spirit box that was playing some white noise.
So, you know what I would say? I would say things like, you know, I don't know, cock the stairwell or I would say y'all. That would be my thing. Something like that.
Yeah. But that's a true love of this house that they just like can't leave it. Yeah. So the last one we're going to talk about is more in the political realm of ghosts.
A political ghost? Like a ghost. For me. I'm dead.
So this ghost has a crush. I'll shut you. That's a crush. So Landon Carter Haines and Andrew Johnson had a pretty rough relationship.
Okay. They were political rivals, wartime enemies, Haines and Johnson. They were never friends, didn't like each other. They had run for the same office, times aligned themselves on opposite sides of the war.
Johnson eventually became the president of the victorious United States and reluctantly pardoned Haines, a southern senator, due to his strong connections in the Confederacy. So, you know, they kind of had this kind of like, I think, frenemies kind of relationship to me. When his rival's old work desk was donated to the museum and moved into the former home, Landon wasn't too happy about that. It wasn't his decision here.
So the relationship was quite tumultuous. There's a lot of energy that surrounds the desk, according to Mr. Fry. They said they always have to be careful when talking to Landon because he'll get mad when you talk about the desk.
The desk in question, it's rather plain looking. It was removed from Andrew Johnson's greenville at Taylor shop and gifted to the site. It sat on the house a second floor until Landon Haines made his demands loud and clear over a spirit box to quote, pitch it is what came through. He wanted it pitched out of the house to pitch it.
That's funny. So the desk now sits in the site's visitor center where it can be better preserved. Really funny. Mr.
Fry says that Landon doesn't make a fuss about it in the house now, but if he stumbles across listeners in the museum, he'll still express his disdain for the piece of furniture. Do the visitors ever run into him or this is just audio that they've come across because they have their special? There's special boxes. Yeah.
So Mr. Fry said that the energy really just shifted from the house to the museum along with the desk. The attitude is still there, still surrounds the desk. It just doesn't have a strong of a pull in the house now.
It's pitched it. Yeah, it's pitched it. There were several local phenomena that seemed to have been opinion on the desk. Fry said a former employee from the 40s has been contacted before and expressed frustration that a work desk had been moved out of the house.
So people really, these ghosts are passionate about this desk. Oh my gosh. Mr. Fry said that each thing we do, we watch.
When we move things around, we always ask the question, what goes with it? Or who goes with it? That's why it's always a chance when you buy antiques. Sometimes antiques can come with their own energy and then you put it into your house and things start happening.
Remember when we had Reverend Dr. Onwanda? Yes. Yes.
And she talked about a painting that she had bought that kind of had its own energy and you know, cost some ruckus in the house. That's how I feel. I think you've got to be real careful. I think so too.
I've definitely been in some antique places or we have a pretty neat habitat for humanity, like restore about 30 minutes from where I live. I was in there one day and a box came in that had been donated and there was this crazy looking statue thing. We were standing up at the counter and my dad was with me and the guy pulled out of the box and all of us took that back from it. It just had it had there's a bad vibes.
Bad vibes on somebody knew that. They were like donate. Yeah, it was like a face coming out of like a it was really weird. I was like, I'll put it in my house and just to see what happens.
Nope. I was all about it, but he was like, I got a price set. I got to figure out, you know, like how much is worth and all that sort of stuff. So it was not available for purchase that day.
Or I would have taken it home. There was definitely some some weird energy coming off of that thing. No, you've got to be careful with this stuff. Well, my house right now that I live in is not haunted, but I've lived in an apartment before.
So I feel like I'm missing a little something in my house right now. I had a haunted dorm room in college. We talked about that in an episode, but I like I said, I don't want a house that's haunted. Like I want to make sure that everything's good in this house is good.
Yeah, this house is good. Yeah, my house right now is not haunted. I'm surprised because it's an older house that I live in. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, mine has like a nice energy and it's sunny and it feels warm and yeah, all the things. No ghosties. Back on wood. Back on couch.
There you go. Oh, there's a ghost. Hello. Welcome.
That's it. If I were a ghost, Haley, I don't know if I would give them the play by play of like my day, like I woke up. You know, I mean like, I don't know. Yeah, pitch the team.
I think I would just just throw things around. I could see that. Yeah. Knock things off and I would be apologizing for her move things around.
I'm really sorry. Haley's just a little angry today. She hasn't had her fiber. It's in a bad mood today.
Tomorrow maybe better. Tomorrow after she has fiber, she'll be good. Yeah, I'll be fine. Yeah.
Yeah. But that's it. Wow, that's crazy story. I want to go there.
Yeah, it sounds. Is it on one of those episodes of, you know, like hauntings or one of those shows? Probably. Where they're able to like you're hearing the audio.
Yeah, I want to hear that. Like there's as many paranormal investigators that have been there, I'm sure. I'm going to have to go down. Don't worry.
You know, I'll be on it. I'll be on it. Record it. Get out.
Yeah, or stuff like, you know, just throwing stuff. Yep. Pitched that desk. Haley.
Pitched it. And she would? No, it would. She'd throw it across the room.
Yeah, just for you. Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you. Well, that's the Tipton Haines house.
That's amazing. Yeah. That is amazing. If you have been there, or want to share your experiences, you want to go there, maybe you bought some kind of piece of antique furniture and it has its own life and you want to share it, please do.
You can do so by emailing Haley at mountainmysteries.applelatchin at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at MountainMysteries. Tales from Appalachia. Find us on Instagram at mountainmysteries.applelatchin and for bonus content, find us on patreon.
patreon.com slash mountainmysteries. Haley, do you have a shout out? Yeah, I do. Let's do.
I can't pronounce it. Let's say. Hansel-er-dique. Is that Holland?
Oh, I love it. Yeah, I love it. Thank you, Holland. Yeah, thanks so much.
We are not just so, you know, this is not all what America's like. A lot of it's a lot better than what we're showing you know. I'm sorry. Or worse.
Or will could be. I don't know. I mean, it can be pretty low right here. So, uh, until next time.
See you then. Bye.