A Short Horror Story About A Cannibal Farmer who fled to Bennettsville, Maryland.
“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” – Stephen King
Short Fright Story About A Cannibal Farmer
In the old town of Bennettsville, there is a legend of an unstable farmer known to the locals for eating the bodies of his victims. George Henry was a strange old fellow; he was raised in the Mountains of Tennessee and later ventured north to Maryland as a teenager.
The story goes like this – while growing up in Tennessee as a youngster, he was known to wander the woods now known as the Cherokee National Forest and consort with unseen things there.
His parents said they would sometimes not see him for days as he had built a small fort he considered his second home. Many people would call George “odd” compared to others in the area.
Most kids his age went to school and church, but not George. It has been stated that George refused even to step foot on the local church’s grounds. One time when his parents tried to take him into the church forcefully, George ended up biting a chunk of his father’s arm off.
The locals referred to George as a monster and perhaps a child of the Devil as they saw it. No wonder the locals chased George and his family out of town around 1870 after several women and children went missing over time.
The scene was something you have probably read about or seen in movies.
The locals came to Henry’s family farmhouse with pitchforks and torches and demanded they leave town. The Henrys were frightened by their son and the outrage of the townspeople, and they had no choice.
They packed up what they could that night, took off in their wagon, and headed for Northern Virginia, where George’s father, Gideon, had some relatives. No one knows what happened on the trip, but Gideon, Lydia (George’s mom), and George never made it to Northern Virginia.
Gideon’s cousin Clara had received a telegraph from Gideon stating they would arrive in Alexandria sometime around May 5th.
Guess what? They didn’t show up, and Clara didn’t know what had happened until later.
George Meet’s A Stranger In His Travels
While passing through Virginia, George met a man headed to Maryland to get a job on a Bennettsville farm. George ended up in Bennettsville, Maryland, around July – August 1870. Being a lone teenager, the locals didn’t take kindly to him showing up there.
While riding together on the road, George decided the man would not make it to Bennettsville.
George did something to his traveling friend that is almost unspeakable. While camped out for the night, George asked his travel companion if he believed in the Devil. He replied, “Well, yes, I do, George.”
That’s when George pulled out his hunting knife and stuck it in the man’s gut. That wasn’t it, though.
George hung the man from a tree and drained his blood, collecting it in a tub on the ground. Later, George carved the man up like a deer and ate him over a hot campfire.
George had to bury the body parts he didn’t consume for concern that someone might find out if he could take them on his journey. Instead of heading to West Virginia, George originally planned to go to Maryland.
For only being sixteen, George was a big kid for his age. He stood over six feet four inches, weighed nearly 300 pounds, and was a sight to behold.
Big, strong, and as mean as they come. Even though the locals felt uncertain about this enormous man, it didn’t stop Clay Wallace from hiring him on his farm that summer.
Not only did Clay hire him, but he also rented him a room above the barn. Being so big and robust, George was a big help to Clay. So much so, eventually, Clay ended up selling George over 100 acres of land across the ridge on his property.
George was now in his twenties and owned 100 acres of land. George ran a profitable business and did pretty well for himself. He eventually built a modest farmhouse on the property with about 50 workers.
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George: The Spawn Of Satan
But there was still one problem. George was the spawn of Satan himself.
It wasn’t long until people went missing in the town of Bennettsville. No one knew that it was George who was to blame.
When someone went missing, the local folk usually presumed that they headed out West to search for gold, or they just got tired of the Country life and moved downtown to Baltimore City, where all the action and money were.
Most of George’s victims were passersbys looking to make a few bucks before heading on. There were many local taverns in the area, where George told the owners to send anyone looking for work to his farm.
William was the first to escape from George’s farm, still alive. The story goes that one day William was working the farm late that night when he stumbled upon something that frightened him.
While relieving himself behind one of the work sheds, he saw what appeared to be a bone. Upon further examination, this was not an animal’s bone but a man’s.
It was late October and a bit chilly outside. Feeling leery, William was ready to return to the Black Horse Tavern, where he spent the night. William dropped the bone and told George he was done for the day.
When William knocked on the farmhouse door, he was startled to see that George was walking from the same direction as William had just come.
William instantly noticed that George was carrying the femur bone in his hand while walking towards William’s house on the front porch.
George walked up to William and cracked him over the left side of his head, knocking him unconscious. William later woke up, his hands were tied with a piece of rope, and he felt a bit dizzy and confused, with the left side of his head gushing blood.
William wasn’t sure where he was at first but later realized he was in the cellar of George’s house.
George was just out of William’s sight, but he could distinctly make out the sound of a grinding machine. William noticed the grinding machine stop and heard the loud footsteps of George coming near him.
William pretended to be still unconscious because he knew he couldn’t outmuscle George in his condition.
George picked up William from the damp cold floor of the cellar like a sack of potatoes – and hung him on a meat hook hanging from the floor joists using the rope tied around his hands. George was about to slice his jugular vein of William when there was a knock on the door.
He went upstairs to see who was at the door, and a friend of William’s named Milton was staying with him at the Black Horse Tavern.
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The Confrontation
Milton asked George if he had seen William, and George said, “He ain’t here,” and slammed the door in Milton’s face. While George returned downstairs, William freed himself from the meat hook and prepared for the basement window.
George climbed up the shelf used for storing canned goods and reached for the window to open it. He opened the latch and swung his body from the canning shelf to the right of the window.
He pulled himself up and through the window when George came down and reached out for Williams’ leg, but he was too late. William just left the window and headed for the long path to the main road.
William headed for the first house he found and began banging on the door. Mr. Thomas shockingly answered the door as he saw William’s face was covered with blood. He hurried William in and asked him what had happened to his head.
In a panicked state, William told Mr. Thomas the whole story, and then he immediately passed out on the sitting chair in Mr. Thomas’s living room. It was around 10:00 at night, and it was too late to do anything about it.
But the following day, Mr. Thomas told several of his neighbors what had happened at George Henry’s farm. The neighbors all agreed that something had to be done, for they certainly couldn’t have a murderer among them.
They planned to catch George while he was asleep, take him down to the old well, and drop him there where he couldn’t escape. The old well was about a quarter-mile from George’s farm and hadn’t been used for over fifty years.
Mr. Thomas and a dozen other men marched towards Georges’ farmhouse that night and circled the house. It was about 25 feet deep, and they knew that George, a big man, would never be able to get out. They wanted to be sure that he didn’t escape.
Six men entered the house, while six men waited outside the home. George surprisingly didn’t lock his door, so the men had no problem gaining access inside.
They crept in the front door and headed for the stairs that led upstairs to George’s bedroom. He was asleep in bed, still wearing his overalls and snoring like a banshee.
One of the men hit George over his head with a club while the other men tied him up and began carrying him downstairs.
Four men took George to the wagon and headed for the old well. Once there, they carried George over to the well and tossed him in, where he would never be able to harm anyone again.
The men left the old well that night, disturbed by what they had just done, even though they believed it was right. The next day, Mr. Thomas woke up earlier than usual and went to the well to give George food and drink.
As Mr. Thomas walked to the well, he felt something wrong in his gut.
Sometime during the night, George escaped. He peered over the edge of the well and expected to see George there. Instead, what he saw was an empty well.
Mr. Thomas immediately gathered the men who were with him that night. They thought they better go to George’s farmhouse and see if he was there. They carefully went up to the front porch and let themselves in.
They checked every room in the house, and George wasn’t there. One thing they did notice was that George’s horse was missing. Perhaps he took off for another town that night, Perhaps yours.
FYI: Some of the ideas in this story were inspired by one of my favorite horror movies as a kid Madman.
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