Gypsy Heart
Gold Member
December of 1864, when word was received that Colonel Joseph Sanders and his army of bandits, misfits, and deserters was on its way to attack the village of Newton in Dale County, three of the towns leading citizens were selected to bury the box of gold coins in the courthouse which constituted the public treasury. Sanders attacked and was repulsed by the vigilant Newtonians, reportedly with only four fatalities being sustained by the townsfolk. Unfortunately, three of the four were the very ones who had hidden the box of gold, and the public treasury was never recovered.
NOTE* After I researched this story a little...I could not find three people who had died on the same day buried in the Newton Cemetary...I found three people died in 1864,but two were women.....So not sure how much truth is to the above.....
"Choctawhatchee River Bridge-Newton, Alabama: A shallow hole near the bank of this river is haunted. Locals say that even is the hole is filled with dirt during the day, by morning it will be empty and clean-swept. Highway workers once filled up the hole with dirt and pitched their tent directly on top of it, but the next morning the haunted hole was completely dug out again. The ghost of Bill Sketoe, former pastor of the Methodist Church, seems the likely cause. He was hanged on December 3, 1864, from an old tree that stood on the spot. A group of vigilantes accused Sketoe of being a traitor to the Confederacy. In fact, Sketoe was totally innocent. At the lynching, the tree limb holding Sketoe's body bent enough so that his toes touched the ground, and the men had to hastily dig a hole beneath his feet as the rope slowly strangled him to death. The six men soon started telling stories of meeting the innocent pastor's ghost, and eventually they all died violent deaths. For many years locals reported seeing Sketoe's vengeful phantom.
(Newton is in the southeast corner of Alabama, northwest of Dothan on Highway 123. The oak tree was located where the old bridge crossed the Choctawhatchee River on the road from Newton. The hole is still there, next to the new concrete bridge. It is about thirty inches wide and eight inches deep. Bill Sketoe's grave is in the Mount Carmel Cemetery.)"
NOTE* After I researched this story a little...I could not find three people who had died on the same day buried in the Newton Cemetary...I found three people died in 1864,but two were women.....So not sure how much truth is to the above.....
"Choctawhatchee River Bridge-Newton, Alabama: A shallow hole near the bank of this river is haunted. Locals say that even is the hole is filled with dirt during the day, by morning it will be empty and clean-swept. Highway workers once filled up the hole with dirt and pitched their tent directly on top of it, but the next morning the haunted hole was completely dug out again. The ghost of Bill Sketoe, former pastor of the Methodist Church, seems the likely cause. He was hanged on December 3, 1864, from an old tree that stood on the spot. A group of vigilantes accused Sketoe of being a traitor to the Confederacy. In fact, Sketoe was totally innocent. At the lynching, the tree limb holding Sketoe's body bent enough so that his toes touched the ground, and the men had to hastily dig a hole beneath his feet as the rope slowly strangled him to death. The six men soon started telling stories of meeting the innocent pastor's ghost, and eventually they all died violent deaths. For many years locals reported seeing Sketoe's vengeful phantom.
(Newton is in the southeast corner of Alabama, northwest of Dothan on Highway 123. The oak tree was located where the old bridge crossed the Choctawhatchee River on the road from Newton. The hole is still there, next to the new concrete bridge. It is about thirty inches wide and eight inches deep. Bill Sketoe's grave is in the Mount Carmel Cemetery.)"
