Often confused with nearby Click Culvert, Sensabaugh culvert in Mount Carmel off of Big Elm Road is said to be haunted by the spirit of an infant who was supposedly murdered inside by a cruel slave owner. Responding to a letter of inquiry about the culvert, retired ETSU Professor Dr. Nancy Hamblen Acuff with the Sullivan County Historical Preservation Association in Blountville, Tennessee documented the folklore. She wrote that long ago, slaves from Hawkins County would hide in the natural tunnel and wait for a ferryman to come down the Holston River and signal the all clear to come aboard with a lantern. One slave and mistress to a Hawkins County man escaped with their three children and was waiting in the tunnel when the slaveholder found them. He smashed one baby against the wall, killing it, and then shot the two other children and his mistress.There is another supposition that perhaps the haunting is the result of cataloged deaths: According to [Francisco] Anatolio, one morning during some blasting on the road bed, there was an accident, during which the resulting explosion killed seven men, all of which Anatolio knew and was friends with. The men died a horrible bloody death in This blurb can be verified by Emmett M. Essin’s book Appalachia: Family Traditions in Transition. She documented that “One explosion, for instance, at the Sensabaugh Tunnel near Kingsport, Tennessee, killed seven Italians”. (Essin, p. 85) However, this tragedy occurred while construction of the actual tunnel was being built, not the culvert.The haunting of Sensabaugh Culvert is probably abolitionist tale because according to James Baughn of Bridgehunter.com, this stretch of railroad was not laid by the Clinchfield Railroad until 1908, well after slavery had been eradicated.
