And in keeping with the spirit of the season, here’s some spookiness associated with one of the stories in the book.

At midnight on Feb. 26, 1888 a reporter for the Nashville American dropped by the county jail on Front Street (now 1st Ave.). John R. Grimes, the night turnkey, met him at the door, shaking and in a sweat, and stated, “I’m mighty glad to see you!” And thereby hung a strange tale.

Grimes said he’d been on his nightly rounds, lantern in hand, when he paced down “Murderer’s Row,” where those held for capital crimes were incarcerated. The cells of the row were vacant save one, which was occupied by N.B. Lester, who was sentenced to death for the murder of J.T. Lane at Lebanon. (He was hanged that spring).

Grimes was thinking about Lester and his upcoming execution, when all at once his lantern (which had just been filled and the wick trimmed) went out without explanation, leaving him standing in “total darkness” outside the last cell on the row, which had most recently been occupied by Ben Brown.

Ben was a Civil War veteran who had been convicted of murdering his neighbor Frank Arnold in a gruesome crime that became known as the “Headless Horror.” Brown had spent his final days in that cell, piously reading his bible while the attorneys fought for his life. On Apr. 15, 1887, after his last appeal ran out, he was hanged in the yard of the jail before a small crowd of witnesses.

As Grimes’ eyes adjusted to the darkness, he focused on the door of Brown’s old cell. And then he got the shock of his life. “On my honor as a man,” he told the skeptical reporter, he saw Ben Brown, dressed in his familiar long black coat, his little bible clutched in his hand, just as he’d appeared in life. The ghost stood at the bars, glaring out at Grimes, muttering something that the jailer couldn’t make out, “just as he did the night before he was hung.” Grimes confessed he was frozen in fear, unable to run or shout for help.

Just then he heard the bell ring upstairs announcing the arrival of the reporter, and the spell seemed to break. Grimes ran upstairs to answer it and stammered out his story to a rather puzzled and bemused pressman.

However, there was at least one other witness on his side. An African-American man who was housed in the cell next door to Brown’s during and after the execution later made a surprising statement. He said that he too had seen Ben Brown several times…both before and after he’d hanged.

Presumably, Ben’s ghost was evicted when the jail was torn down the following year. However, if you go strolling along First Avenue today, keep your eyes peeled: that night-owl you see in the long black coat with the black hat on his head and the bible in his hand may not be all that he appears to be at first glance…

Happy Halloween!