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This is the legend of the Witch's Grave. 

Out in an unincorporated area in northern Chilton County called the 'Fire Lanes,' there's a small family cemetery, the Campbell Family Cemetery, that's locally infamous. This legend has been shared with me by several locals in the area, all of whom assure me it is absolute fact.

It's been 25 years since the last time I visited the site. Back then it was a test of courage among teens: "Are you too scared to go up to the Witch's Grave?" The area's been logged out and it doesn't seem quite as haunting as it did then, but if you know the story, if you understand even a little bit of what happened, the tragic tale of the people buried here, then you'll still feel the weight of the place as you walk up the rise and see the peak of that first tombstone ahead of you.

The roads are all different now, so I had to stop and ask directions from several locals. Three times I stopped when I was within a couple of miles of the cemetery, asking for directions to the 'old Campbell Cemetery,' and each time, the locals would point the way, and then ask me if I knew the story of Easter Campbell, the witch. I'd nod, but they'd still give me some little bit of the story, shaking their heads at the horror of it all.

Before you get to the legend of the Witch's Grave, though, there is some hard evidence of oddness that you see in the tombstones themselves. As you approach the site, up a slow incline, you'll first notice the father's tombstone, rising dull gray from the top of the rise. As it comes into view, you'll begin to see the smaller tombstones that surround it. The effect of the appearance as you walk up the path is nothing less than chilling.

The curiosities–some of them tragic–of this small family plot are numerous:

• There are two J.B. Campbell's buried here.
• The two J.B.'s were born three years apart, and one much longer lived than the other.
• J.B. Campbell–or at least one of them–is the patriarch of this family plot, but his wife A.L. Campbell is not buried here.
• Easter Campbell is the wife of A.J. Campbell, whose grave is not in this plot.
• And perhaps oddest of all, and definitely most tragic: There are four children's graves here (their names and dates are listed below). Most of these children lived less than a year; only one survived to be older than a year.
• The four children in these graves are all boys. A small circumstance, but significant when considering the overall picture…

So, they are all Campbells, but all of their own families aren't buried with them. The circumstances are unknown, but the situation appears tragic. Why was Easter's husband not buried here? Neither J.B.'s wife, mother of all these poor short-lived children? Was Easter the mother of them all? And why did they all have to die so soon? It is true that mortality rates were high in those days, but these numbers of deaths make it seem as though something awful transpired here. I have it on good authority from a local octogenarian (among many others) that Easter Campbell was the cause of much of the strife the people of this area endured during these troubled years.

The legend is that Easter Campbell was a witch, and that to kill her the people who lived here carved a representation of her heart on a tree, then took a ten penny nail and drove it into the heart, hitting it only once per day, and that on the day the nail was driven all the way home, Easter died. (Using witchcraft to kill a witch, some would say…)

And what had Easter done that was so terrible? Some say that when the man she loved died (possibly the younger J.B. Campbell) she went mad with grief and discovered some arcane method for reanimating a corpse. She did so, and gave the body to the ghost of her dead lover, but when his body continued to decompose after reanimation Easter realized that this was a ritual she would have to repeat indefinitely in order to keep him "alive." So she terrorized the people of this small community, stealing babies away in the night so she could kill them and then reanimate their bodies with her dead lover's soul.

The symbol atop Easter's marker is supposed to be a device for keeping the dead from rising. This is no fairy tale meant to keep children in their beds at night; no Jason or Blair Witch Project, this is a true-to-life horror story, and the proof is right here for anyone to see. Will you risk a visit to the Witch's Grave?

The children's markers read: Orval Lee Campbell Born Dec. 7, 1904, Died July 30 1905
Virtte Hairison Born April 25, 1908, Died Aug 10 1909
James Robbert Campbell Born Nov. 13, 1910, Died Mar. 23, 1911
(illegible) Campbell Born Nov. 13, 1910, Died Apr. 2, 1911