The first sighting of Leah’s ghost was seen by her mother. According to the old legend, Leah’s mother watched the smokehouse burn with her daughter inside. The next day, she confirmed all those rumors and spoke unafraid to Leah’s ghost. Floating over the smoldering ruins Leah emerged. Margaret asked her daughter’s spirit why she did not use her powers to free herself.

Now we have stated many times before that Leah was not one to suffer fools in life, why would that change in death. Her legend recounts that the neighbors responsible for her ghost were those who now saw Leah’s ghost. She bore a stare of knowing in their direction.

You see this smokehouse was made well and made sturdy, after all her father was a Cooper by trade. Everyone knew that Leah was inside and she was long gone, but they had to wait days for the fire to die to retrieve her. Once they safely could bury her, she was placed in a coffin and a wagon carried her to what would late be known as the Betsy Daily Cemetery. She was the unlucky first grave in that cemetery because no churchyard would welcome a witch. Her father interred her on his land for her to stay until time ends.

The people of Staples imagined they had buried their dirty deeds with Leah and began to carry on. Some word-of-mouth stories even state that they laughed about her murder, proud of themselves. That was until a week after her death. The neighbors no longer saw her over the smokehouse they rejoiced that they had “burned the witch” until two hunters were out a week later. The unnamed hunters were near John Smock’s land and close to the newly formed cemetery. It has been lost to time what they saw, but it was enough. A group of men was once again determined to hold Leah down. Whispers state that they were the same men that ended her life. They were frightened of what they had unleashed and hauled two wagon loads of pure, white sandstone rocks to cover her grave. It was a tradition in the old countries to use these stones to keep a spirit from rising. They took the purest white stones, said to convey protection, and buried Leah again. But their effort was futile, Leah belonged now to the trees and nature that she loved so much. no grave No grave could hold her body down. Leah was one with the land and she was now free to roam those 300 acres until the sun stopped shining and the earth stopped turning.

Leah at first was seen around her grave. First-hand accounts show her in a white gown still bound with black ties at each wrist and a long black tie at her waist.

As time went on Leah became more legend than person. Her details got fuzzy outside of Battletown. In 1970 this is how she is described in the Meade County Messenger “There are stories that there was a witch’s grave in the Betse-Daily Cemetery. Her name is Mrs. Smock. She comes out of her grave wearing a compete black outfit and walks around the cemetery.” This is odd, because if you read the first and second-hand accounts in Kay Hamilton’s book “Burned as a Witch: the Legend of Leah Smock” she has 100 years of accounts of Leah sightings and her appearance never waivers from the white gown and long black hair. These also include the more modern sightings of her in the now closed Battletown Elementary School.

Leah’s story is as amazing and interesting as she was in life. There are several modern tropes associated with her that we attribute to movie myths. Stick with us for a moment and listen to an account of a Halloween night in the 1980s. It became a rite of passage to visit the “witch’s grave” on Halloween night in Meade County. In a story recounted in Gerald W. Fischer’s book “Battletown Witch: Leah Smock, the Evolution of Witchcraft, and the Last Witch Burning in America” he recounts as story that would be oddly similar to the Blair Witch Project almost 20 years later. The book states:

“A group of students took their dates to the cemetery on one such Halloween. The witching hour of midnight had come and gone, and nothing happened. Being a November eve and chilly, the girls wanted to return to the cars, a long walk either way to get back; however, it’s one way in and the same way out. The boys had flashlights and began walking toward the cars. They walked and walked, for what seemed to be long enough to get back, before one of the boys said, ‘I see something up ahead.’ The boys trained their lights on the object and found it was Leah’s tombstone. They were back where they started. Shaken a little but undaunted, another boy said, ‘I’ll lead up back.’ Once again they walked for longer than they needed to arrive at the cars and came right back to Leah’s grave. This was repeated until nearly dawn, when they finally found their cars and went home.” Fischer does go on to say, “I have heard many variations on this story.”

The most documented case of supernatural phenomenon happening by or around Leah would be on Oct. 31, 1991. The local NBC affiliate decided to bring a television news crew and do a remote broadcast that night. Cameraperson Janine White and reporter Ezra Marcus checked the batteries on their equipment and walked the mile in with a group of 15 people. When they arrived at the grave their equipment was malfunctioning, and all their batteries were dead. They managed to record by had to use the groups flashlights, but strangest of all, when they arrived back at the van all their equipment was in perfect working order.

When we look back on the story of Leah Smock I ask you to take two things with you. Firstly, never judge someone by what others perceive them to be. History has taught us that nothing good comes from making assumptions about others. Secondly, we hope that you can look upon people that are different than you with kindness. Leah attended church and said her prayers every night. She was a Christian and practiced the faith, but she was also a healer, a nature spirit, and chose to be different than those around her. All these things did not stop her from being branded a witch and put to death for that perceived crime.

As time passes this writer hopes that Leah is more than the Battletown Witch, more than a ghost in a white gown, more than a rite of passage on Halloween. We hope that she has become as much of the forests that she loves so as the trees, the animals, and the sandstones that created that part of the world eons ago. But above all else, this writer hopes that she has moved beyond how she passed and has found some kind of peace.