Despite popular opinion, cemeteries and graveyards are not often haunted. However, in The Granny Curse and Other Ghosts and Legends from East Tennessee, authors Randy Russell and Janet Barnett recount a rare graveyard ghost in Surgoinsville.
Reverends Charles Cummings and Samuel Doak built the two-story New Providence Presbyterian Church in 1852. It also doubled as a school. When the congregation grew too large, they built the current church across the street, in 1870, and the old building was used exclusively as a school. It was named after Captain George Maxwell, who served under Isaac Shelby and fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain and is buried in the graveyard. It seems George Maxwell is to blame for the phantom footsteps that are said to stalk late night visitors to the graveyard.
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