02/20/2022
“THE LEGEND OF AUNT JENNY JOHNSON”
Around the 1860’s around Haleyville, AL in Bankhead National Forest began the legend and story of Aunt Jenny Johnson. It’s had a massive effect on the local area. Almost everyone in the county of Winston has heard it at least once. Like all legends the stories change and switch over time. Around this area has always been a good place for a scare on a night out or to do for Halloween. Even myself has gone multiple times.
The legend goes people would park their cars at her old home which no longer stands and is now taken over by nature once again. She supposedly comes up to the car set in neutral and move you from her property to the grave yard down the road. Some say she’s the opposite and threatens them. Others like myself believe she’s actually a protector from the other spirits that haunt the land in the surrounding area. People have said to of seen green lights and foot steps all around the property. Me, myself have experienced some odd unexplainable events that’s happened at the graveyard near her property. I’ve never had any experiences at the property only at the graveyard. I’ve seen shadows, heard echoing laughter, even footsteps right behind me. Our car pulling into the graveyard started acting out with all the lights and the sensors on the dash. The energy is heavy. You can feel it as soon as stepping onto the land, but don’t take my word if skeptic. Seek it yourself to prove otherwise.
I will now go on to her story during her time in the physical. Jenny and her husband raised 10 children all while running a tavern and a inn. Her husband gave aid to several union men and confederate deserters who would hide throughout the surrounding forest and hills. The Home Guard Patrol approached their home either to draft their son for the war or to punish her husband for these traitorous acts. The guard lynched Jenny’s husband to a tree and while he was hanging there, their oldest son rushed up to stop his father’s death and was shot by the Home Guard. They then hanged and shot his father and rode away on their horses. Legend has it that Jenny made all of her children join her in taking a blood oath with their own father’s blood pledging not to rest until every one of the eight members of the Home Guard that murdered her husband and oldest son were killed. It is said that she first shot the leader of the Home Guard and made a soap dish out of his skull, then trained her children to shoot proficiently and set out in her revenge. Her sons hunted down several of the men, but eventually all of her sons died of a bullet wound from seeking out their father’s revenge. Aunt Jenny Johnston had a wooden cane in which she cut a notch with every death of the posse members her sons brought back to her. Seven of the eight men of the Home Guard were killed and the last one disappeared when he got word Jenny and her sons were after his life. She died at the age of 98, outliving all but one of her children. On her deathbed she told how proud she was of her sons for dying like men.
