Netherland Inn Road

In Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee, author Charles Edwin Price says that the ghost of Hugh Hamblen is said to haunt Netherland Inn Road, waving his lantern to warn motorists of fog coming off of the Holston River.

Hugh was hit by a car after leaving Riverview Hospital where he had been visiting his son Charlie Hamblen who was ironically in a car accident. The Kingsport News article "Car Crashes Into Rotherwood Bridge Killing J. S. Bachman and Ben Duff - - Others Injured" on 11/20/2010 explained that at 8:15 PM on the 17th, a seven young men were returning from Rogersville to their homes in Horse Creek when driver Ben Duff was blinded by the lights of an oncoming car. He swerved into the southern end of Rotherwood Bridge. Ben and J. S. Bachman, both sitting in the front of the car, died on-scene. Another passenger, Guy S. Pierce, passed away in the hospital a few days later from injuries.

The next day at 4:00 PM, 48-year-old Hugh Hamblen was killed by a first-time driver in front of the hospital. According to The Kingsport Times article "Hamblen Run Down By Car When Here Visiting His Injured Son” from the same day. Robert Carter and two high school girls from Hilton’s Station, Virginia were headed to Kingsport. He generously offered to teach one of the girls how to drive. Miss Quillen was understandably nervous. When the car was in front of the hospital, she overcorrected so as not to hit a parked car and hit Hugh, knocking him over the bank closest to the river. Onlookers carried him inside, but his injuries were too severe and he passed away. His son Charlie left the next day.

Could the strange light once often reported be the watchful Hugh Hamblen, or a completely natural yet still mysterious phenomenon? Triboluminescence is an optical illusion where balls of light are created when fault lines of any size are placed under seismic tension. Neighboring Hawkins County is a spider web of fault lines. Who is to say some of these lines do not extend near Netherland Inn Road?

Bibliography:

"Car Crashes Into Rotherwood Bridge Killing J. S. Bachman and Ben Duff - - Others Injured." The Kingsport Times [Kingsport, Tennessee] 11/20/1923. Page: 1. Courtesy www.newspaperarchive.com.

"Hamblen Run Down By Car When Here Visiting His Injured Son." The Kingsport Times [Kingsport, Tennessee] 11/20/1923. Page: 1. Courtesy www.newspaperarchive.com.

"Hugh Hamblen Passed Away Tuesday Night; Death of Guy Pierce Was Early Wednesday." The Kingsport Times [Kingsport, Tennessee] 11/23/1923. Page: 1. Courtesy www.newspaperarchive.com.

Price, Charles Edwin. Haints, Witches, and Boogers: Tales from Upper East Tennessee. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1992. Pages: 75 - 78