The Witches Grave

Growing up in Lynchburg, you get to hear and experience a lot of unusual things. I personally have never seen a ghost, or anything I have ever perceived to be a ghost. My older brother on the other hand, has seen a lot of strange things on several occasions, like the shadowy figure that floated through the bedroom and closed the door on him at my grandmother’s house. Someone once told me that certain people are more in tune to see these kinds of things. I do believe in ghosts, and for most of my adolescent life I had heard of one in particular in the neighboring town of Tullahoma. Off of Highway 55, behind the National Guard Armory lies People’s Cemetery.


It is here that the “Witches Grave” is supposed lie. All of my friends in Middle and High School would tell me how they would go there and walk around grave and chant her name and crazy things would happen. I’ve heard of cars starting on their own, crazy lights and orbs chasing people from the area, the wind swirling up and blowing so hard that people could stay standing. Once again, I’ve never seen any of things and I had never actually seen the witch’s grave until my third year of college. It was this year that I was writing for the school paper and decided to write an article about ghosts and legends across the state. Of course, being the good little anthropology student that I was, I had to do some research. So one weekend, while I was home from school I decided to visit the witch’s grave.

I knew I had found it immediately. It was a three foot tall stone pillar with two smaller grave stones on each side. Candles had been burned on the grave stones and it was obvious lots of people had visited the site due to the amount of wear around the area. I spent about an hour at the location waiting for something to happen, but of course I got nothing. So like the true man of science I am, I decided to go to the local library and see if I could dig up any information on both the legend and the facts of the witch’s grave.

I learned legend said that the grave belonged to a woman named Kitty Kathy, and she was said to be a witch who lived near Normandy in an old shack. It was said she was responsible for a string of missing children that plagued the area in the 1960s. When she died, she was buried at People’s Cemetery and her old shack was torn down. The grave draws a cult following of pagans and wiccans who are said to perform séances on the grave.

The only facts I was able to gather showed the set of stones belonged to a Romanian Family who moved to the area in the 1890s. The person known as Kitty Kathy, her grave is actually one of the smaller stones and there is no evidence that anyone buried there was ever a witch. However, I did find strong evidence that they may have been gypsies that immigrated to the area before the turn of the century to avoid persecution.

So no proof either way... I have been to the grave site once since, a couple of years ago and the large pillar has been torn down and stolen or thrown away. The used candles and coins were still there, telling me that the witch’s grave appears to still be business as usual. For me, if I were in Tullahoma, I would travel a bit further down Highway 55 to Concord Cemetery to visit the grave site of Sadie Baker, whose ghost is one of the state's oldest known, and has been seen on many occasions sitting at her headstone playing with her dolls. Until next time…

JLP