Burrelson

I know a ghost legend about the McIntire House that I have heard all of my life. But here’s the whole problem. I sort of have the impression that a member [of the McIntire family] fabricated it. The way the story goes is that it’s supposed to be the ghost of a young Union soldier. There was only one time that an incident like this happened, and it was in November of 1864. The story goes that the Union soldiers were being hard-pressed to leave Decatur, and a young soldier was mortally wounded and brought into the house, which served as a hospital at the time. They couldn’t give him a proper burial because sharpshooters from atop of the old State Branch Bank were shooting down at them, so they took up some floorboards in the parlor floor and placed his body there.

Now when I was a kid, I used to frequently go to the McIntire House and talk to Mrs. McIntire, and she showed me where the old boards were (of course, new boards had replaced them years before). She aid they put his body under the floor. When hood left across the Tennessee River, there were southern troops harassing them from atop of the Old State Branch Bank, and this is when the young man was shot. After Hood retreated across the Tennessee River into Iuca, MS, Union troops came back to Decatur and reconstructed the fort and gave the boy’s body a proper burial. But his mother grieved herself to death over the loss of their son. Mrs. McIntire said that the ghost in the house is hers, not her son’s.

When I was a kid, we’d sit on the curb and wait for the ghost to appear. And I remember one night, this upper room was facing this side of the street, and a light in one of the rooms was on. All of a sudden, the silhouette of this woman goes by, and man—everyone was gone. We had seen the ghost! Actually, it was Mrs. McIntire walking through the house.

Last updated 07/24/01

Burrelson/McIntire House By Robert Parham

Burrelson/McIntire House
By Robert Parham