October 29, 2024 • 24 mins
Today I’d like to tell you the tale of a woman minding her own business in the woods. She became the town scapegoat, and eventually, the hysteria and ignorance of her neighbors took her life.
Meade County, Kentucky is a small hamlet that packs a massive supernatural punch. In terms of dark tourism, this county boasts everything from sightings of Bigfoot, giants, a headless horseman, mysterious runes, and of course, a witch whose ghost still haunts the woods.
SOURCES
Women as witches: past, present and future; By Dr Charlotte-Rose Millar
https://weirdmeadecounty6.wordpress.com/
The Battletown Witch; By Gerald Fischer
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/autumn-s-oddities--5307439/support.
Meade County, Kentucky is a small hamlet that packs a massive supernatural punch. In terms of dark tourism, this county boasts everything from sightings of Bigfoot, giants, a headless horseman, mysterious runes, and of course, a witch whose ghost still haunts the woods.
SOURCES
Women as witches: past, present and future; By Dr Charlotte-Rose Millar
https://weirdmeadecounty6.wordpress.com/
The Battletown Witch; By Gerald Fischer
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/autumn-s-oddities--5307439/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark Side of podcasting. Hey, hey,
welcome back to Autumn's Oddities. I'm Autumn.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Over the weekend I attended the Battle Town which festival
I set on the podcast panel. We ran a little
bit behind schedule, so I was not able to stay
and do a live recording. But my friends over at
Gray's tap Room podcast. They're also based out of Louisville.
I believe they took my spot for the live recording,
(01:04):
so I'm excited to hear that when it comes out.
It was a really good festival. It was out in
a beautiful It was in a YMCA campground and it
had little cabins, just isolated in the middle of nowhere.
I walked about twenty minutes from where I parked to
the festival, but it was beautiful. It was just like
a you know, black top road in the middle of
(01:27):
massive trees, all changing colors. The foliage, the colors purple, yellow, green, red.
I'm doing the monologue that Gene Hackman did in The
Bird Cage where he's telling a very boring story about
driving from the northeast to Miami. And if you haven't
(01:48):
seen that movie, please go see it. Immediately. Today, I
would like to tell you the tale of a woman
minding her own business in the woods, and you can
probably guess what happened. Became the town scapegoat, and eventually
the hysteria and ignorance of her neighbors took her life.
(02:09):
Meade County, Kentucky is a small hamlet that packs a
massive supernatural punch in terms of dark tourism. This county
boasts everything from sightings of bigfoot giants, a headless horseman,
mysterious ruins, and of course, a witch whose ghost still
haunts the woods. If you ask someone what they think
(02:32):
of when they hear the word witch, you know you're
you're probably going to get a similar image old haggard, ugly,
she's got a bent nose with some warts on it,
maybe she's got a broomstick, and above all female. But
how accurate is this stereotype? Witchcraft, as we know from
the episode that I did on witch Trials, was a
(02:54):
crime in Europe during what is generally referred to as
the early Modern period, that is the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries. Different countries enacted different laws to deal with witches,
but for the most part, by the mid sixteenth century,
witchcraft was a secular crime, one that could be punished
(03:16):
by imprisonment, pillory, or execution. During this period, approximately ninety
thousand people were formally accused of witchcraft, and about half
of this number were executed. So that's forty five thousand
people executed after being accused of witchcraft or being a witch.
(03:38):
So where do women come in, Well, it depends on
what country you were in, but on the whole, women
made up the vast majority of those accused and executed.
In England, it's estimated that women made up approximately ninety
percent of the accused. In the largely German speaking Holy
Roman Empire, this number was seventy six six percent, in
(04:01):
Hungary ninety percent. Again, in Switzerland, which you know is
supposed to be neutral, ninety five percent, and in parts
of France seventy six percent. There are exceptions to this trend,
though in Iceland women made up only eight percent of
the accused, and low figures can also be seen in
Russia thirty two percent and Estonia forty percent, so their
(04:24):
equal opportunity accusers. But for the most part, and especially
in Western Europe, women were far more likely to be
accused of witchcraft than men. Witches were generally defined as
people who made a pact with the devil in exchange
from magical power to commit evil acts. They were believed
(04:47):
to be in league with the devil, meeting with him
at nighttime. Sabbaths pledge homage, engage in lurid sex, kill children,
and mame pregnant women. They were also to make men impotent.
Is that what we're gonna blame it on in some
cases by actually stealing their genitals and like hanging them
(05:08):
on trees, dick some balls on trees. Can you think
of anything more horrifying? I can't. As we well know
from the Salem witch trials arguably the most famous witch
trials in the United States. Anyone, and I mean anyone
could be accused of witchcraft, and then the burden once
you were accused fell to that person to prove their innocence,
(05:31):
which was typically a double edged sword, a task designed
to fail. You know, they did the old water test.
It's like, if we throw you in the water and
you don't drown, you're a witch. So we're gonna kill
you because you're a witch. But if we throw you
in the water and you do drown, then you are innocent,
but you're also dead. So again it's a task that
(05:52):
is designed to fail. And in Salem they also did.
I believe it was the reading of Bible versus. If
a witch read a Bible verse, there would be some
sort of physical pain or something visible on her body
that would happen for you know, her hubris in reading
the Holy Bible. Anyone could accuse their neighbor of being
(06:13):
a witch, and the accused were guilty until proven innocent,
that is, of course, if you made it to any
sort of trial before you were killed. And that was
the very unfortunate fate of a beautiful, intelligent, gentle twenty
two year old woman from Meade County, Kentucky, in August
of eighteen forty. In eighteen eighteen, Leah Smock was born
(06:37):
near Battletown, and according to legend, her natural abilities could
be used to cure the sick and see the future.
She was said to be a beautiful and intelligent woman
with dark hair and eyes, and many believed she had
the second sight. And the only reason I'm commenting on
her looks is I believe that made her more of
a target during the eighteen High and Dred's of course,
(07:00):
being beautiful and intelligent was already a threat, but add
a strong intuition and that made her a triple threat
to those around her. And of course the W word
started flying around. They're like, oh, she's a witch. That
combined with her alleged ability to see the future and
natural herbal healing, you know, put them together, and what
(07:22):
do you got? A burning Battletown in Mead County has
nothing to do with war, as the name might imply,
and instead refers to quote an afternoon, long and.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Inconclusive fistfight between two residents happens every day that was
either about the name of the post office or maybe
a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Lapland in Mead County boasts a rich and haunting history
that reaches back to seven thousand BC when it was
inhabited by Native Americans. In Mead County, there were no
indigenous inhabitants, though instead old sacred significance as a hunting
ground and burial site. The land was deeply revered and
(08:06):
its care was a matter of great importance. In the
heart of the county stood a sacred oak tree, its
colossal branches reaching towards the heavens. This tree was said
to be the dwelling place of the spirits and a
portal to another realm. It was beneath the shade of
the tree that the Cherokee gathered to share their stories
(08:26):
and pass on their timeless wisdom, and it was on
this sacred land that Leah's family made their home. The
oldest of three children, Leah finished school early because she
had already surpassed her teacher's knowledge. The teachers like, I
can't teach you nothing else. Get on out of here.
You're making me feel stupid. She went on to learn
from her own environment, which included ways in which livestock
(08:49):
and other animals could die from eating poisonous plants, and
she tried to warn the people around her, but of
course they refused to listen. They were like, you're a woman.
They're like, why are all of our cows dying? We
don't know. Despite the town being suspicious of Leah, she
did have some close friends, and it was even rumored
that she was in love. In the later summer of
(09:12):
eighteen forty, Leah spent her days wandering the dark Lapland
woods in what is now Meade County. Like I said,
she had a native American friend named Indian Joe. Don't
love that? Who made her a walking stick with the
head of a snake coming out of the top which
will come up again later. Some believe Joe taught her
(09:32):
which plants had healing properties, as was taught by the
Cherokee that remained in the area after the Indian Removal
Act of eighteen thirty. Wow, what a lovely whitewashing of
a fucking genocide. I mean, that's what that was. They
marched Indigenous people to random places in the middle of nowhere,
(09:54):
stole their ancestral and sacred land, and they're like, let's
just call it the Indian Removal Act, Okay, cool, nice
sterilization of it. In a strange series of incidents, her
father was involved in a land dispute with one of
the neighbors. Some man, some big wig from the city
came over and sold the land that Leah's family owned,
(10:14):
not once, but twice, just with fake deeds and whatnot.
You know, there was really no way to check back
then you could go to city hall and check I
guess if they had one. With the town's attention already
on the Smock family's land, troubles words spread throughout town
that Leah was casting spells on people and animals. One day,
Leah was said to have been told that she was
(10:36):
not allowed to hold a baby, and the next day
the baby died. Something similar happened when she was forbidden
to pet a horse. She went ahead and petted the
horse anyway, and it ended up dying later. But there
are two versions of those stories. One said that Leah
cursed the baby and the horse out of spite, and
the other claims that she felt something was wrong with
(10:59):
them and wanted to help heal them. Other legends suggest
that Leah controlled area crops give me a break, and
those who weren't on her good side would not have
a plentiful harvest. All of that to say, the town
decided to use Leah as a scapegoat for each and
every hardship they faced, even though they could be very
(11:21):
easily explained by things like I don't know, lack of
medical care and you know, lack of any knowledge of
local flora and fauna poisoning livestock. It's understandable, you know,
to want to blame someone or something for the death
of a child, but the infant mortality rate at the
time was extremely high, so we can probably chalk it
(11:43):
up to that. It seems that grief clouded the minds
of the townsfolk, though. On August twenty first, eighteen forty,
when Leah was twenty two years old, her parents John
and Margaret Ann Smock left to visit the nearby town
of Staples, and they took two of their three children
with them. Leah stayed behind. This was the last time
(12:04):
the family would ever see Leah Smock alive. Later that day,
some neighboring men dragged Leah from her house, bound her
arms and legs because they're tough shit, and carried her
out to the family smokehouse. The men reportedly felt justified
in their actions as they struck a match and set
(12:26):
the smokehouse on fire with Leah inside it. She is
the only person known to have been burnt as a
witch in the United States. Salem witches were hanged or
stoned to death. They were not burned. That's a misconception.
I honestly I thought that too. I knew they were
hanged and stoned, but I was like, oh, there's got
to be burning in there too. Apparently not. Leah also
(12:48):
had the dubious honor of being the first witch burned
in Kentucky, but her story doesn't in there. And I
say the first witch, there were a couple of other
purported urban legends. I couldn't find any documentary on the
people actually existing. But there are some urban legends about
other women in Kentucky being witches and being burned. Couldn't
find the documentation, so I'm not going to put that
(13:10):
in there. Soon after her murder, word began to spread
that Leah had returned. Her ghost had been spotted in
the Lapland Woods, but the first person who was reported
to see her ghost was her own mother, Margaret, and
Smock is believed to have watched the smokehouse burn with
her daughter inside and confirmed the rumors of her ghost
(13:33):
being sited. The next day, Margaret said her daughter's ghost
was floating above the charred ruins of the smokehouse, and
she asked why she didn't use her powers to save herself,
but Leah didn't answer, and maybe because she wasn't actually
a witch. Her remains were transported to the newly established
(13:53):
Elizabeth Daly Cemetery because no churchyard would allow a witch
to be buried on their land. A few weeks after
her death, the same men who were responsible for it
grew afraid of what they had set loose in their town.
As reports of her ghost continued, the murderous men covered
her grave with two wagons full of pure white sandstone
(14:15):
in an attempt to bind Leah to her grave. And
all I gotta say to that is you maybe didn't
burn a witch, but you did murder someone. So yeah,
I should hope that her ghost haunts you and fucks
with you. That is what you deserve. It's said that
when those responsible for her death saw her ghost, Leah
(14:36):
cast them a knowing glare. At first, she was really
only seen around her grave, but as time went by,
she was seen more frequently roaming the woods that she
loved in life. She is still seen wearing a white
gown surrounded by a purple haze, with ropes tied around
her waist, neck and wrists. Leah's ghost has been seen
(15:05):
many times, and people who visit her grave sometimes become
confused and cannot find the way back to their cars.
The walk to the cemetery is a long and hard
one of about a mile or more, and really it's
almost as if you know those who buried her wanted
to make it difficult to find her grave. Beyond seeing
(15:25):
Leah's specter, there are other signs that her spirit remains.
Visitors had reported finding Cooper's tools on her grave because
you see, her father made barrels and she would help
him using you guessed it, Cooper's tools. Leah is also
said to protect the woods near her grave. She really
loved animals. Also, the area seemed to be unable to
(15:48):
hit game and sometimes see her again. Leah had a
love of animals and away with them, she could supposedly
control them, causing even the gentless dogs to bite, and
it was said that her love of animals also cause
and still causes hunters to miss their marks. She seems
to be in full control these days, as her gravestone
(16:10):
is hidden way off back in the woods, guarded by
poisonous snakes. You remember the walking stick with the head
of the snake. She occasionally appears majestically in her white
robe with dark eyes and long raven tresses, surrounded by
that purple haze. The town of Brandenburg and Meade County
hosts an annual Battletown Witch Festival that celebrates the complicated
(16:35):
and tragic life of Leah Smock on the last Saturday
of October, which I did attend. So what can we
learn from this tragedy. Well, for one, don't fall prey
to mass hysteria. If bad things happen around you, there
are probably explanations for them that aren't supernatural, many of
(16:57):
which she was trying to warn her about. And they're like,
what a reasonable explanation for these things? Which do I
personally think that Leah Smock was a witch? Well, it
depends on your definition of a witch. A great deal
of women who were accused of witchcraft were herbalists and midwives.
(17:18):
I did the Appellachian Granny magic or Granny Witch episodes.
That's a lot what it was about. And those traditions
were passed down by Cherokee people just like they were
passed to Leah. Like I said, I did that in
depth analysis of which is in a previous episode if
you want to check it out. But I think Leah
fell into the category of a curious woman who was smart,
(17:40):
who was open to learning about other cultures and ways
of thinking. Being an intelligent woman back then was not
a good thing, you know. It intimidated the small minded
locals and it gave them a reason to target her,
and I think that's certainly what happened to Leah. And
I'm sure having a Native American friend was another st
(18:00):
against her, because most people thought tribes held some sort
of mystical or evil powers. You know, Cherokee people knew
how to use the local floora and faun it to
their advantage for medicine and healing and things of that nature,
and Joe taught Leah how to do that. She tried
to warn the town about sick animals and children, but
(18:20):
that backfired in the worst possible way. And I think
if she were a witch, she'd she'd be more of
a like a wickan, like a naturalist, and not like
a stereotypical devil worshiping baby eating witch. So if she
was a witch, I don't think she was like putting
a label on herself like I'm a witch, I'm in
league with the devil, YadA, YadA. She was like, I
have a friend who, through his culture, practices you know,
(18:45):
ancient herbal healing methods, and I would like to learn
them potentially to be Maybe she was thinking about being
a midwife. Who knows, But again we know that in
a lot of witch trials. Midwives were burned or killed,
executed or accused of witchcraft because they were putting doctors,
(19:06):
who were, of course men out of business. They knew more,
What the hell did a man know about delivering a
baby in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, barely even
twentieth centuries, Really, what did they know about it? They
didn't know a one damn thing. How could they? Like,
(19:26):
women have only been here, I'm gonna start now. I'm
not gonna get on a patriarchy rant. We're not gonna
do this today. I do this every day. I don't
want to run myself up. But all that to say,
it was very clear that a lot of women who
were midwives and herbalists and healers were executed as witches
or accused of witchcraft because they threatened the money the
(19:50):
money making of male doctors, because of course, a woman
couldn't be a doctor back in those days and even
still were like woman doctor, female male doctor. Never just
like doctor and not specify not gender a fucking occupation,
like female attorney. Do you ever say male attorney? WNBA? Well, okay, MNBA,
(20:17):
Men's NBA, Women's NBA like, why, I understand that the
NBA started first, but why do we need to label
it the WNBA. Can you just call it also the
NBA and it's women playing. I don't know. I got
a lot of issues with things like that. And it's
strange to me that the year is twenty twenty four
and we're still talking about these things. I feel like
(20:39):
we're just a like a hop skip and a jump
away from being right back into the witchcraft accusation times
and you know, smart women being rounded up. I'm not
saying it's going to get to that, but hopefully it
doesn't because I'll have to start pretending to be real stupid.
A lot of us will all of that to say,
I think this woman was just straight up murdered. She
(21:00):
was murdered, no matter how you slice it. There was
no trial, there was no formal accusation, there was nothing.
These cowards waited until her parents left the house, dragged
her out, a big group of Oh you're tough, big
group of them, dragged her out, tied her up, and
burned her in her family's own smokehouse. I'm sorry, why
(21:23):
didn't these men face consequences? They murdered someone, so if
I feel like murdering someone. Do I say they're a
witch and then set them on fire and I get
off scot free? Is that how it works? And I
know you're gonna say, like different times. It was the
eighteen hundreds, well late eighteen well, excuse me, mid late
eighteen hundreds. This wasn't you know, the sixteen hundreds, of
(21:45):
seventeen hundreds. This is close to the twentieth century. And
these men faced nothing, nothing whatsoever. They just burned her
and got away with it. They murdered someone and got
away with it. Again due process of the law. What's
a thing back then it existed. They bypassed that completely,
(22:05):
made themselves judged jury and literal executioner. Just because a
woman like knew that a horse and a baby were ill,
and that's it, that's all. She knew a horse and
a baby were ill. They did die. She tried to
warn them something was wrong with them, and they were like, oh,
well she caused it, and she controls the crop too,
(22:28):
And that syphilis. I think she cursed me with it. No,
I didn't cheat on you, Charlene. Is that witch? She
cursed me with this itchy disease? I don't know what
syphilis does drives you insane. I know if it doesn't
get treated, but I don't know like the regular symptoms
for it, because I don't I don't sit around studying
old timey STIs or STDs. All that to say. All
(22:54):
of that to say, I went off on a tangent.
And that is the end of the episode, and I
hope you enjoyed it. And I got to cook up
another one for Halloween, so I'm gonna shut up and
get to getting. If you like what you hear, you
can hear more. Episodes released every Tuesday and Friday. Released
on all podcast platforms. I'm on all the social media's
(23:14):
except for ex Shitterbird, not on that anymore, but I
am on Instagram at Autumn Zodcast. You can find that
my Halloween costume posted and some pictures that I took
in the woods at the Battletown which festival. Eventually I'll
release the live panel episode once I get that from
the festival organizers. And I'm also on threads at autumns Podcast,
(23:39):
Patreon at Autumn's Oddities. I've heard that a lot of
my Patreon members have gotten their Halloween cards. I hope
you enjoy them. And the little goodies inside. For some
of my overseas listeners, like those of you in New Zealand,
I have a feeling it's probably gonna take a little
longer to get to you. I hope it gets there
by Halloween, though. Either way, I did send them they
(24:01):
are coming, and I put several Forever stamps on them,
even though I don't think they needed that many, just
in case. As always, I appreciate you listening, and remember,
if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.
Dark Cast Network. Welcome to the dark Side of podcasting. Hey, hey,
welcome back to Autumn's Oddities. I'm Autumn.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Over the weekend I attended the Battle Town which festival
I set on the podcast panel. We ran a little
bit behind schedule, so I was not able to stay
and do a live recording. But my friends over at
Gray's tap Room podcast. They're also based out of Louisville.
I believe they took my spot for the live recording,
(01:04):
so I'm excited to hear that when it comes out.
It was a really good festival. It was out in
a beautiful It was in a YMCA campground and it
had little cabins, just isolated in the middle of nowhere.
I walked about twenty minutes from where I parked to
the festival, but it was beautiful. It was just like
a you know, black top road in the middle of
(01:27):
massive trees, all changing colors. The foliage, the colors purple, yellow, green, red.
I'm doing the monologue that Gene Hackman did in The
Bird Cage where he's telling a very boring story about
driving from the northeast to Miami. And if you haven't
(01:48):
seen that movie, please go see it. Immediately. Today, I
would like to tell you the tale of a woman
minding her own business in the woods, and you can
probably guess what happened. Became the town scapegoat, and eventually
the hysteria and ignorance of her neighbors took her life.
(02:09):
Meade County, Kentucky is a small hamlet that packs a
massive supernatural punch in terms of dark tourism. This county
boasts everything from sightings of bigfoot giants, a headless horseman,
mysterious ruins, and of course, a witch whose ghost still
haunts the woods. If you ask someone what they think
(02:32):
of when they hear the word witch, you know you're
you're probably going to get a similar image old haggard, ugly,
she's got a bent nose with some warts on it,
maybe she's got a broomstick, and above all female. But
how accurate is this stereotype? Witchcraft, as we know from
the episode that I did on witch Trials, was a
(02:54):
crime in Europe during what is generally referred to as
the early Modern period, that is the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries. Different countries enacted different laws to deal with witches,
but for the most part, by the mid sixteenth century,
witchcraft was a secular crime, one that could be punished
(03:16):
by imprisonment, pillory, or execution. During this period, approximately ninety
thousand people were formally accused of witchcraft, and about half
of this number were executed. So that's forty five thousand
people executed after being accused of witchcraft or being a witch.
(03:38):
So where do women come in, Well, it depends on
what country you were in, but on the whole, women
made up the vast majority of those accused and executed.
In England, it's estimated that women made up approximately ninety
percent of the accused. In the largely German speaking Holy
Roman Empire, this number was seventy six six percent, in
(04:01):
Hungary ninety percent. Again, in Switzerland, which you know is
supposed to be neutral, ninety five percent, and in parts
of France seventy six percent. There are exceptions to this trend,
though in Iceland women made up only eight percent of
the accused, and low figures can also be seen in
Russia thirty two percent and Estonia forty percent, so their
(04:24):
equal opportunity accusers. But for the most part, and especially
in Western Europe, women were far more likely to be
accused of witchcraft than men. Witches were generally defined as
people who made a pact with the devil in exchange
from magical power to commit evil acts. They were believed
(04:47):
to be in league with the devil, meeting with him
at nighttime. Sabbaths pledge homage, engage in lurid sex, kill children,
and mame pregnant women. They were also to make men impotent.
Is that what we're gonna blame it on in some
cases by actually stealing their genitals and like hanging them
(05:08):
on trees, dick some balls on trees. Can you think
of anything more horrifying? I can't. As we well know
from the Salem witch trials arguably the most famous witch
trials in the United States. Anyone, and I mean anyone
could be accused of witchcraft, and then the burden once
you were accused fell to that person to prove their innocence,
(05:31):
which was typically a double edged sword, a task designed
to fail. You know, they did the old water test.
It's like, if we throw you in the water and
you don't drown, you're a witch. So we're gonna kill
you because you're a witch. But if we throw you
in the water and you do drown, then you are innocent,
but you're also dead. So again it's a task that
(05:52):
is designed to fail. And in Salem they also did.
I believe it was the reading of Bible versus. If
a witch read a Bible verse, there would be some
sort of physical pain or something visible on her body
that would happen for you know, her hubris in reading
the Holy Bible. Anyone could accuse their neighbor of being
(06:13):
a witch, and the accused were guilty until proven innocent,
that is, of course, if you made it to any
sort of trial before you were killed. And that was
the very unfortunate fate of a beautiful, intelligent, gentle twenty
two year old woman from Meade County, Kentucky, in August
of eighteen forty. In eighteen eighteen, Leah Smock was born
(06:37):
near Battletown, and according to legend, her natural abilities could
be used to cure the sick and see the future.
She was said to be a beautiful and intelligent woman
with dark hair and eyes, and many believed she had
the second sight. And the only reason I'm commenting on
her looks is I believe that made her more of
a target during the eighteen High and Dred's of course,
(07:00):
being beautiful and intelligent was already a threat, but add
a strong intuition and that made her a triple threat
to those around her. And of course the W word
started flying around. They're like, oh, she's a witch. That
combined with her alleged ability to see the future and
natural herbal healing, you know, put them together, and what
(07:22):
do you got? A burning Battletown in Mead County has
nothing to do with war, as the name might imply,
and instead refers to quote an afternoon, long and.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Inconclusive fistfight between two residents happens every day that was
either about the name of the post office or maybe
a woman.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Lapland in Mead County boasts a rich and haunting history
that reaches back to seven thousand BC when it was
inhabited by Native Americans. In Mead County, there were no
indigenous inhabitants, though instead old sacred significance as a hunting
ground and burial site. The land was deeply revered and
(08:06):
its care was a matter of great importance. In the
heart of the county stood a sacred oak tree, its
colossal branches reaching towards the heavens. This tree was said
to be the dwelling place of the spirits and a
portal to another realm. It was beneath the shade of
the tree that the Cherokee gathered to share their stories
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and pass on their timeless wisdom, and it was on
this sacred land that Leah's family made their home. The
oldest of three children, Leah finished school early because she
had already surpassed her teacher's knowledge. The teachers like, I
can't teach you nothing else. Get on out of here.
You're making me feel stupid. She went on to learn
from her own environment, which included ways in which livestock
(08:49):
and other animals could die from eating poisonous plants, and
she tried to warn the people around her, but of
course they refused to listen. They were like, you're a woman.
They're like, why are all of our cows dying? We
don't know. Despite the town being suspicious of Leah, she
did have some close friends, and it was even rumored
that she was in love. In the later summer of
(09:12):
eighteen forty, Leah spent her days wandering the dark Lapland
woods in what is now Meade County. Like I said,
she had a native American friend named Indian Joe. Don't
love that? Who made her a walking stick with the
head of a snake coming out of the top which
will come up again later. Some believe Joe taught her
(09:32):
which plants had healing properties, as was taught by the
Cherokee that remained in the area after the Indian Removal
Act of eighteen thirty. Wow, what a lovely whitewashing of
a fucking genocide. I mean, that's what that was. They
marched Indigenous people to random places in the middle of nowhere,
(09:54):
stole their ancestral and sacred land, and they're like, let's
just call it the Indian Removal Act, Okay, cool, nice
sterilization of it. In a strange series of incidents, her
father was involved in a land dispute with one of
the neighbors. Some man, some big wig from the city
came over and sold the land that Leah's family owned,
(10:14):
not once, but twice, just with fake deeds and whatnot.
You know, there was really no way to check back
then you could go to city hall and check I
guess if they had one. With the town's attention already
on the Smock family's land, troubles words spread throughout town
that Leah was casting spells on people and animals. One day,
Leah was said to have been told that she was
(10:36):
not allowed to hold a baby, and the next day
the baby died. Something similar happened when she was forbidden
to pet a horse. She went ahead and petted the
horse anyway, and it ended up dying later. But there
are two versions of those stories. One said that Leah
cursed the baby and the horse out of spite, and
the other claims that she felt something was wrong with
(10:59):
them and wanted to help heal them. Other legends suggest
that Leah controlled area crops give me a break, and
those who weren't on her good side would not have
a plentiful harvest. All of that to say, the town
decided to use Leah as a scapegoat for each and
every hardship they faced, even though they could be very
(11:21):
easily explained by things like I don't know, lack of
medical care and you know, lack of any knowledge of
local flora and fauna poisoning livestock. It's understandable, you know,
to want to blame someone or something for the death
of a child, but the infant mortality rate at the
time was extremely high, so we can probably chalk it
(11:43):
up to that. It seems that grief clouded the minds
of the townsfolk, though. On August twenty first, eighteen forty,
when Leah was twenty two years old, her parents John
and Margaret Ann Smock left to visit the nearby town
of Staples, and they took two of their three children
with them. Leah stayed behind. This was the last time
(12:04):
the family would ever see Leah Smock alive. Later that day,
some neighboring men dragged Leah from her house, bound her
arms and legs because they're tough shit, and carried her
out to the family smokehouse. The men reportedly felt justified
in their actions as they struck a match and set
(12:26):
the smokehouse on fire with Leah inside it. She is
the only person known to have been burnt as a
witch in the United States. Salem witches were hanged or
stoned to death. They were not burned. That's a misconception.
I honestly I thought that too. I knew they were
hanged and stoned, but I was like, oh, there's got
to be burning in there too. Apparently not. Leah also
(12:48):
had the dubious honor of being the first witch burned
in Kentucky, but her story doesn't in there. And I
say the first witch, there were a couple of other
purported urban legends. I couldn't find any documentary on the
people actually existing. But there are some urban legends about
other women in Kentucky being witches and being burned. Couldn't
find the documentation, so I'm not going to put that
(13:10):
in there. Soon after her murder, word began to spread
that Leah had returned. Her ghost had been spotted in
the Lapland Woods, but the first person who was reported
to see her ghost was her own mother, Margaret, and
Smock is believed to have watched the smokehouse burn with
her daughter inside and confirmed the rumors of her ghost
(13:33):
being sited. The next day, Margaret said her daughter's ghost
was floating above the charred ruins of the smokehouse, and
she asked why she didn't use her powers to save herself,
but Leah didn't answer, and maybe because she wasn't actually
a witch. Her remains were transported to the newly established
(13:53):
Elizabeth Daly Cemetery because no churchyard would allow a witch
to be buried on their land. A few weeks after
her death, the same men who were responsible for it
grew afraid of what they had set loose in their town.
As reports of her ghost continued, the murderous men covered
her grave with two wagons full of pure white sandstone
(14:15):
in an attempt to bind Leah to her grave. And
all I gotta say to that is you maybe didn't
burn a witch, but you did murder someone. So yeah,
I should hope that her ghost haunts you and fucks
with you. That is what you deserve. It's said that
when those responsible for her death saw her ghost, Leah
(14:36):
cast them a knowing glare. At first, she was really
only seen around her grave, but as time went by,
she was seen more frequently roaming the woods that she
loved in life. She is still seen wearing a white
gown surrounded by a purple haze, with ropes tied around
her waist, neck and wrists. Leah's ghost has been seen
(15:05):
many times, and people who visit her grave sometimes become
confused and cannot find the way back to their cars.
The walk to the cemetery is a long and hard
one of about a mile or more, and really it's
almost as if you know those who buried her wanted
to make it difficult to find her grave. Beyond seeing
(15:25):
Leah's specter, there are other signs that her spirit remains.
Visitors had reported finding Cooper's tools on her grave because
you see, her father made barrels and she would help
him using you guessed it, Cooper's tools. Leah is also
said to protect the woods near her grave. She really
loved animals. Also, the area seemed to be unable to
(15:48):
hit game and sometimes see her again. Leah had a
love of animals and away with them, she could supposedly
control them, causing even the gentless dogs to bite, and
it was said that her love of animals also cause
and still causes hunters to miss their marks. She seems
to be in full control these days, as her gravestone
(16:10):
is hidden way off back in the woods, guarded by
poisonous snakes. You remember the walking stick with the head
of the snake. She occasionally appears majestically in her white
robe with dark eyes and long raven tresses, surrounded by
that purple haze. The town of Brandenburg and Meade County
hosts an annual Battletown Witch Festival that celebrates the complicated
(16:35):
and tragic life of Leah Smock on the last Saturday
of October, which I did attend. So what can we
learn from this tragedy. Well, for one, don't fall prey
to mass hysteria. If bad things happen around you, there
are probably explanations for them that aren't supernatural, many of
(16:57):
which she was trying to warn her about. And they're like,
what a reasonable explanation for these things? Which do I
personally think that Leah Smock was a witch? Well, it
depends on your definition of a witch. A great deal
of women who were accused of witchcraft were herbalists and midwives.
(17:18):
I did the Appellachian Granny magic or Granny Witch episodes.
That's a lot what it was about. And those traditions
were passed down by Cherokee people just like they were
passed to Leah. Like I said, I did that in
depth analysis of which is in a previous episode if
you want to check it out. But I think Leah
fell into the category of a curious woman who was smart,
(17:40):
who was open to learning about other cultures and ways
of thinking. Being an intelligent woman back then was not
a good thing, you know. It intimidated the small minded
locals and it gave them a reason to target her,
and I think that's certainly what happened to Leah. And
I'm sure having a Native American friend was another st
(18:00):
against her, because most people thought tribes held some sort
of mystical or evil powers. You know, Cherokee people knew
how to use the local floora and faun it to
their advantage for medicine and healing and things of that nature,
and Joe taught Leah how to do that. She tried
to warn the town about sick animals and children, but
(18:20):
that backfired in the worst possible way. And I think
if she were a witch, she'd she'd be more of
a like a wickan, like a naturalist, and not like
a stereotypical devil worshiping baby eating witch. So if she
was a witch, I don't think she was like putting
a label on herself like I'm a witch, I'm in
league with the devil, YadA, YadA. She was like, I
have a friend who, through his culture, practices you know,
(18:45):
ancient herbal healing methods, and I would like to learn
them potentially to be Maybe she was thinking about being
a midwife. Who knows, But again we know that in
a lot of witch trials. Midwives were burned or killed,
executed or accused of witchcraft because they were putting doctors,
(19:06):
who were, of course men out of business. They knew more,
What the hell did a man know about delivering a
baby in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, barely even
twentieth centuries, Really, what did they know about it? They
didn't know a one damn thing. How could they? Like,
(19:26):
women have only been here, I'm gonna start now. I'm
not gonna get on a patriarchy rant. We're not gonna
do this today. I do this every day. I don't
want to run myself up. But all that to say,
it was very clear that a lot of women who
were midwives and herbalists and healers were executed as witches
or accused of witchcraft because they threatened the money the
(19:50):
money making of male doctors, because of course, a woman
couldn't be a doctor back in those days and even
still were like woman doctor, female male doctor. Never just
like doctor and not specify not gender a fucking occupation,
like female attorney. Do you ever say male attorney? WNBA? Well, okay, MNBA,
(20:17):
Men's NBA, Women's NBA like, why, I understand that the
NBA started first, but why do we need to label
it the WNBA. Can you just call it also the
NBA and it's women playing. I don't know. I got
a lot of issues with things like that. And it's
strange to me that the year is twenty twenty four
and we're still talking about these things. I feel like
(20:39):
we're just a like a hop skip and a jump
away from being right back into the witchcraft accusation times
and you know, smart women being rounded up. I'm not
saying it's going to get to that, but hopefully it
doesn't because I'll have to start pretending to be real stupid.
A lot of us will all of that to say,
I think this woman was just straight up murdered. She
(21:00):
was murdered, no matter how you slice it. There was
no trial, there was no formal accusation, there was nothing.
These cowards waited until her parents left the house, dragged
her out, a big group of Oh you're tough, big
group of them, dragged her out, tied her up, and
burned her in her family's own smokehouse. I'm sorry, why
(21:23):
didn't these men face consequences? They murdered someone, so if
I feel like murdering someone. Do I say they're a
witch and then set them on fire and I get
off scot free? Is that how it works? And I
know you're gonna say, like different times. It was the
eighteen hundreds, well late eighteen well, excuse me, mid late
eighteen hundreds. This wasn't you know, the sixteen hundreds, of
(21:45):
seventeen hundreds. This is close to the twentieth century. And
these men faced nothing, nothing whatsoever. They just burned her
and got away with it. They murdered someone and got
away with it. Again due process of the law. What's
a thing back then it existed. They bypassed that completely,
(22:05):
made themselves judged jury and literal executioner. Just because a
woman like knew that a horse and a baby were ill,
and that's it, that's all. She knew a horse and
a baby were ill. They did die. She tried to
warn them something was wrong with them, and they were like, oh,
well she caused it, and she controls the crop too,
(22:28):
And that syphilis. I think she cursed me with it. No,
I didn't cheat on you, Charlene. Is that witch? She
cursed me with this itchy disease? I don't know what
syphilis does drives you insane. I know if it doesn't
get treated, but I don't know like the regular symptoms
for it, because I don't I don't sit around studying
old timey STIs or STDs. All that to say. All
(22:54):
of that to say, I went off on a tangent.
And that is the end of the episode, and I
hope you enjoyed it. And I got to cook up
another one for Halloween, so I'm gonna shut up and
get to getting. If you like what you hear, you
can hear more. Episodes released every Tuesday and Friday. Released
on all podcast platforms. I'm on all the social media's
(23:14):
except for ex Shitterbird, not on that anymore, but I
am on Instagram at Autumn Zodcast. You can find that
my Halloween costume posted and some pictures that I took
in the woods at the Battletown which festival. Eventually I'll
release the live panel episode once I get that from
the festival organizers. And I'm also on threads at autumns Podcast,
(23:39):
Patreon at Autumn's Oddities. I've heard that a lot of
my Patreon members have gotten their Halloween cards. I hope
you enjoy them. And the little goodies inside. For some
of my overseas listeners, like those of you in New Zealand,
I have a feeling it's probably gonna take a little
longer to get to you. I hope it gets there
by Halloween, though. Either way, I did send them they
(24:01):
are coming, and I put several Forever stamps on them,
even though I don't think they needed that many, just
in case. As always, I appreciate you listening, and remember,
if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.
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