Forty-five years ago a writer for the Selma Times-Journal named Kathryn Tucker Windham published a book of old ghost stories entitled 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. This book spawned six additional volumes of ghost stories which have served to inspire the curiosity, and perhaps haunt the dreams, of schoolchildren in the South for decades. This series of nightcaches is inspired by the 13 Alabama Ghosts.
Sturdivant Hall, also known as the Watts-Parkman-Gillman Home, is a historic Greek Revival mansion and house museum in Selma, Alabama. Completed in 1856, it was designed by Thomas Helm Lee for Colonel Edward T. Watts.[
John McGee Parkman lived in Sturdivant Hall for only three years, between 1864 and 1866, but they were three of the happiest of his life. Parkman was president of the First National Bank of Selma, had a charming wife and two young daughters, and occupied a place of esteem and a beautiful home. Then it all came crashing down.
The 29-year-old bank president invested heavily in cotton. When the price dropped by fifty percent, Parkman's bank lacked the funds to cover the losses from his speculation. Because federal money was deposited in the bank, General Wager Swayne, commanding officer of Union troops in the Selma district, moved in quickly, closed the bank, and arrested Parkman. The disgraced banker was taken to Castle Morgan, a prison at Cahaba that had only recently held federal soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Confededracy.
Stoires differ on the details, but all agree that Parkman escaped Castle Morgan, but was spotted climbing the wall. He was shot, or drowned in the river, or was killed under the paddlewheel of the steamboat that was waiting for him, but all sources agree that his ghost returned soon afterward. Servants in the home began reporting that Parkman could be seen wandering the back lot near the scuppernong arbor where his body had been secretly buried. Others saw him on the side portico, leaning against the iron railing. Still others claimed they had seen him gazing out of the cupola atop the house. All agreed that his troubled ghost still roamed the grounds of the home he loved, restlessly wandering its grounds.