A Powdersville Ghost. Story?
Is Powdersville Haunted?
...a ghost story that I heard from an old timer...
The “Goomb” is a ghost story that I heard from an old timer several decades ago and I will retell it here to let Powdersville know about one of our resident ghosts.
Just off to the side of a little used and a very rural road in Powdersville stands what appears to be a grave marker but isn’t exactly what it seems.
It recollects a one room school house where the pre-Civil War Powdersville citizens sent their kids for “schoolin’”.
Back in those days the Powdersville High School Patriots weren’t even a thought.
Well, that is all the marker says but the legend tells us a more tragic tale.
One year in the distant past, just before school let out for kids to help with the spring planting, the morning lessons started. The crisp late winter day had started well like many other but wouldn’t stay that way.
The pot belly stove that heated the school was really starting to throw out heat, it went unnoticed that the older boy who had been tasked with lighting the morning fire, had left the stove door unlatched. As class went on the fire burned away and the slabs of wood inside became a bit unstable.
As legend has it, the teacher, Mary Robbinson, took some younger students out to the school’s outhouse mid morning while the rest remained inside. The outhouse was placed far away from the schoolhouse for reasons you probably understand. (cont…)
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The rest of the story...
With young boys being what they are, they all took the opportunity go outside and stretch their legs and proceeded to run around the woods a bit. This left some younger students unattended inside the schoolhouse warmed by the now roaring fire.
From what was told by the survivors and would be recuers, this is how the rest of the story goes…
Apparently, the slabs of wood shifted inside the wood stove and a few pieces fell against the unlatched door of the stove and out onto the wooden floor. The burning pieces lent their flames to the pine wood floor of the school house.
The fire spread quickly inside the older wooden structure and a few of the what would now be elementary students ran out. This left a few “younguns” inside the now burning building.
By the time she got to the school she saw flames building though the one glass window (the other two “windows” had no glass as it was expensive and the were covered with wood shutters that were latched shut to keep out the cold).
As Mary and her group returned from the outhouse visit, she spotted smoke billowing from the school. She broke into a run as best she could in petticoats and an ankle length dress.
Mary then ran around to the front of the building and was confronted by growing flames in the doorway and the screams of the few children inside.
She had few choices.
She yelled for the older kids to run to the closest farmstead (almost two miles away) for help.
One of those kids reported later that the last they saw of Mary, she was bolting up the steps of the school house into the conflagration.
When the farmer and two of his farm hands from the not so near by farm finally got back to the horrific scene, they found the building totally engulfed in flame and the roof collapsing.
There were four of the youngest children being tended to by the rest. The four had varying degrees of burns and were crying and hurt but mostly ok.
They remaining kids told of Mary running into the building 3 times. Each time bringing out two kids. Except the last time.
She never returned from the last foray into the inferno. She and the two remaining children perished in a horrible, excruciating way.
Fast forward to today.
Now if you happen to be in these woods early on a cold morning, it is said that is very likely that you will hear crying in the morning mist and don’t be surprised if you see a faint apparition. It is Mary forever looking to rescue her students. Still trying to save them from the terrible fire.
Mary seems to be driven by her failure to save the children she loved as her own and may well come right up to you pleading for help to save them. Then she will run away toward the long gone school house slowly fading away as she rushes toward sound of the cries..
It is said that a small group of Cherokee Indian that still lived in the area at the time reported seeing an apparition in that area regularly and referred to it as “Goomb”’. It is not known where they came up with the name as it doesn’t translate into Cherokee. It is most likely a bad translation that was handed down person to person.
There you have it. Is it history or fiction?
We may never know but there are those that swear that they have heard the morning cries and have seen the frantic wraith in the Powdersville forest.
Do you have any local Powdersville or surrounding area “haint” stories?
Let us know in the comments!
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