For years and years the story was told in hushed tones about the old tree on the Lafayette land grant in Tallahassee.
The house near the tree had been abandoned and seemed almost ‘hainted,’ particularly with the added eerie effect of this old oak tree. On certain nights ghosts were seen all around the tree and no one could imagine why they should come to that special tree. Everyone was afraid to go near the tree, especially at night.
“Then one day there was a terrible thunderstorm and a bolt of lighting struck that tree. In the middle of the tree was found a very distinguishable human skeleton.”
“Hainted” is southern slang for “haunted.”
Folk tale source: Orlando resident Wilda Larson. She was born in 1912 and lived in Tallahassee during the 1940s and 1950s, where she heard many legends of the city and taught English classes in Tallahassee public schools.
Citation: Reaver, J. (1987). Florida folktales. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida University of Florida Press.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
