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Southern Mysteries Podcast

Southern Mysteries Podcast

By: Shannon Ballard
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 Unearthing the forgotten, the mysterious, and the legendary—one Southern story at a time. Hosted by Shannon Ballard, Southern Mysteries explores the rich and often untold history of the American South through a captivating mix of folklore, legends, unexplained mysteries, and true crime. Each episode uncovers a compelling tale from a Southern state, blending history with intrigue to reveal the fascinating stories that time left behind. While some episodes delve into chilling crimes, others spotlight legendary figures, ghostly lore, or baffling events.Sometimes the mystery is: why haven’t you heard the story?Copyright 2017 . All rights reserved. Social Sciences True Crime World
Episodes
  • Episode 177 Witch Legends of the South

    Episode 177 Witch Legends of the South
    Oct 27 2025
    Across the South, the word witch has been used to explain what people fear and cannot control. For generations, healers, midwives, conjurers and root workers carried knowledge their communities needed, yet often faced suspicion when tragedy struck. In this episode of Southern Mysteries, we explore the real lives and southern legends behind those branded as witches. From colonial courts to mountain cabins and coastal swamps, these stories reveal how the line between healing and haunting has always been thin and how fear can turn ordinary people into figures of folklore. Join the Community on Patreon: Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries 🎧 Explore More Southern Mysteries Visit SouthernMysteries.com for more episodes and source lists. 📱 Follow on Social Media: Facebook: Southern Mysteries Podcast TikTok @southernmysteries Instagram: @southernmysteries Email: southernmysteriespodcast@gmail.com Episode Sources Anderson, Jeffery E. Conjure in African American Society. Louisiana State University Press, 2005.American Folklife Center, Library of Congress — regional oral history collections on conjure, hoodoo, and midwifery.Anniston Hot Blast and Birmingham Age-Herald (Alabama newspapers), 1880s witchcraft coverage.Deep South Magazine. “Julia ‘Aunt Julie’ Brown: Debunking Her Voodoo Priestess Mythos.”Encyclopedia of Louisiana. “Marie Laveau.” Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.Encyclopedia Virginia. “Sherwood, Grace (ca. 1660–1740).”Federal Writers’ Project. South Carolina Slave Narratives. Library of Congress, 1938.Ferry Plantation House Museum archives, Virginia Beach, Virginia. Fett, Sharla M. Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.Foxfire 2: Houses and Appalachian Traditions. Edited by Eliot Wigginton. Anchor Books, 1973.Historic New Orleans Collection. “Julia Brown: Hoodoo, Hurricanes, and a Storm-Swamped Ruddock.”L’Observateur (St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana). “Voodoo Queen and Forces Unseen.”Library of Virginia. “The Case of Grace Sherwood, 1706.” Princess Anne County Court Records.Louisiana State Museum archives, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans, Louisiana.Long, Carolyn Morrow. A New Orleans Voudou Priestess: The Legend and Reality of Marie Laveau. University Press of Florida, 2006.Martha Ward. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.McTeer, J.E. Fifty Years as a Low Country Witch Doctor. University of South Carolina Press, 1971.Mental Floss. “The Legend and Truth of the Voodoo Priestess Who Haunts a Louisiana Swamp.”Milnes, Gerald. Signs, Cures, and Witchery: German Appalachian Folklore. University of Tennessee Press, 2007.National Park Service. “Marie Laveau’s Tomb – St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.”Norton, Mary Beth. In the Devil’s Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692. Vintage Books, 2003.Princess Anne County Order Book, 1695–1709. Virginia State Library microfilm collection.Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. “Granny Women: Healers of the Southern Appalachians.”South Carolina Encyclopedia. “Dr. Buzzard.”South Magazine. “Lowcountry Root Doctors.”The State (Columbia, South Carolina). “In the mid-20th century, even the county sheriff was a witch doctor.”Swannanoa Valley Museum. “Mary Stepp Burnette Hayden: Midwife and Healer of Western North Carolina.”The St. John the Baptist Pioneer, October 1915, hurricane coverage.The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), October 1–3, 1915, storm and casualty reports; obituary, June 17, 1881.Virginia Memory, Library of Virginia. “Good Witch or Bad Witch? The Grace Sherwood Trial and Pardon.”Ward, Martha. Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. University Press of Mississippi, 2004.Western Carolina University Digital Humanities Project. “Midwives and the Medicalization of Birth in Appalachia.”Wikipedia (used for verification of geography and storm data): “Frenier, Louisiana” and “1915 New Orleans Hurricane.”Wigginton, Eliot, ed. Foxfire 2: Houses and Appalachian Traditions. Anchor Books, 1973. Episode Music Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.
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    31 mins
  • Episode 176 The Mystery of the Surrency Poltergeist

    Episode 176 The Mystery of the Surrency Poltergeist
    Oct 20 2025
    In 1872, the quiet Georgia town of Surrency became the center of one of America’s strangest mysteries. Inside the home of Allen Powell Surrency, glass shattered, clocks ran backward, and furniture moved without a hand touching it. The events drew scientists, skeptics, and spiritualists, including one from Salem, Massachusetts. Was it a hoax, hysteria, or something that defied explanation? In this episode of Southern Mysteries, uncover the story of the Surrency family and the haunting that shook a town, blurred the line between faith and fear, and became one of the most documented poltergeist cases in U.S. history. Join the Community on Patreon: Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries 🎧 Explore More Southern Mysteries Visit SouthernMysteries.com for more episodes and source lists. 📱 Follow on Social Media: Facebook: Southern Mysteries Podcast TikTok @southernmysteries Instagram: @southernmysteries Email: southernmysteriespodcast@gmail.com Episode Sources The Savannah Morning News (Oct–Dec 1872) – Coverage of the Surrency disturbancesThe Atlanta Constitution (Nov 1872–Jan 1873) – Reports on the “Surrency Mystery”The Augusta Chronicle (Oct 1872) – Editorial accounts of the Surrency hauntingThe New York Times (Dec 4 1872) – “Spiritual Manifestations in Georgia”The Albany Patriot – Reprinted witness letters and commentary, 1872The Philadelphia Inquirer (1872–1873) – Syndicated reports on the hauntingHarper’s Weekly (1873) – “Poltergeists and the Marvels of Surrency”John W. Truesdell, The Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism (1873)The Boston Globe (1872–1873) – Reports on Charles H. FosterGeorgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 47 (1963) – “The Surrency Ghost: A Georgia Poltergeist Reexamined”The Georgia Encyclopedia – Entry on Surrency, Appling CountyAlan Brown, Haunted Georgia: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Peach State (2008)Charles Elliott, Strange Tales of the South: Haunted Houses and Ghost Legends (1974)Dennis William Hauck, Haunted Places: The National Directory (2002)Jim Miles, Haunted South Georgia (2017)J. Michael Norman, Spirits of the Southeast (2010)Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, 3rd Ed. (2007)Tiya Miles, Phantoms of the Past: The American South and the Supernatural (2021)Alan Gauld & A.D. Cornell, Psychical Research and the Poltergeist (1979)Michael Norman & Beth Scott, Haunted America (1988)Nancy Roberts, Haunted Houses: Tales from the American South (1972)Jim Miles, Haunted Georgia: Ghosts and Legends of the Peach State (2010)Randy Russell & Janet Barnett, Spirits of the South: Ghost Stories of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi (2000)Alan Dundes, Dictionary of American Folklore (1993)William G. Roll, The Poltergeist Phenomenon (2012)Nancy Roberts, Haunted Houses: Where Ghosts Still Roam (1979)Kathryn Tucker Windham, Southern Spirits: Tales of the Supernatural from the Deep South (1983)Ann Braude, The American Spiritualist Movement, 1848–1920 (2001)Muriel V. Murphree, Mysteries and Legends of Georgia (2009)Georgia Public Broadcasting (2021) – “The Surrency Poltergeist: Georgia’s Most Documented Haunting”Georgia Archives – Appling County records and land grants, Allen P. Surrency estate (1870s–1880s)U.S. Census Records – Appling County, Georgia (1870–1880)Library of Congress Chronicling America – Digitized newspaper archives, 1872–1873Frank Podmore, The Poltergeist in History (1896)American Hauntings Podcast, Season 4, Episode 14 – “The Surrency Ghost”Beast of Bladenboro – “The Surrency Haunting: Georgia’s Most Infamous Poltergeist”Otherworldly Oracle – “The Surrency Ghosts: True Terrifying Tales of Haunted Georgia”PANICd.com – “ParaPedia: The Surrency Family Poltergeist”US Ghost Adventures – “The Poltergeist of Phelps Mansion”Paranormal Research Society of New England – “Phelps Mansion”American Hauntings Ink – “The Stratford Poltergeist” Episode Music Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.
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    29 mins
  • Episode 175 Haunted Battlefields and Forts of the South

    Episode 175 Haunted Battlefields and Forts of the South
    Oct 13 2025

    Across the South, battlefields and forts still bear the weight of the wars fought upon them. In this episode of Southern Mysteries, explore the haunting history of places like Shiloh, Franklin, Vicksburg, and Fort Morgan. From phantom soldiers and restless spirits to the families forever changed by the fighting, these are the stories where Southern history and haunting meet, and where the echoes of war still move through the land.

    Join the Community on Patreon:

    Want more Southern Mysteries? You can hear the Southern Mysteries show archive of 60+ episodes along with Patron exclusive podcast, Audacious: Tales of American Crime and more when you become a patron of the show. You can immediately access exclusive content now at patreon.com/southernmysteries

    🎧 Explore More Southern Mysteries

    Visit SouthernMysteries.com for more episodes and source lists.

    📱 Follow on Social Media:

    Facebook: Southern Mysteries Podcast Instagram: @southernmysteries Email: southernmysteriespodcast@gmail.com

    Episode Sources

    • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs – Bivouac of the Dead poem and history
    • Emerging Civil War – “Bivouacs of the Dead” and its legacy on battlefields
    • Wikipedia – Theodore O’Hara biography and authorship of Bivouac of the Dead
    • National Park Service – Shiloh National Military Park history and visitor resources
    • American Battlefield Trust – Battle of Shiloh Overview
    • National Park Service – Battle of Stones River history and maps
    • Murfreesboro Historical Association – Legends of the Headless Horseman of Stones River
    • Find a Grave / Military Memorials – Lt. Col. Julius Peter Garesché burial and biographical record
    • National Park Service – Battle of Franklin: Carter House and Lotz House history
    • Battle of Franklin Trust – Carnton Plantation and the McGavock Confederate Cemetery
    • Tennessee Encyclopedia – Carrie McGavock, “Widow of the South”
    • American Battlefield Trust – Battle of Franklin Overview
    • National Park Service – Vicksburg National Military Park history
    • National Park Service – The Shirley House and the Siege of Vicksburg
    • Library of Congress – Civil War Diaries: Emma Balfour of Vicksburg
    • American Battlefield Trust – Battle of Vicksburg Summary
    • Encyclopedia of Alabama – Fort Morgan: History and Civil War significance
    • Alabama Historical Commission – Fort Morgan Historic Site visitor and preservation info
    • Legends of America – Ghosts of Fort Morgan, Alabama
    • Alabama News Center – Fort Morgan’s haunted reputation and legends
    • National Park Service – Fort Monroe National Monument history
    • Encyclopedia Virginia – Fort Monroe during the Civil War and the “Contraband Decision”
    • Fort Monroe Authority – Historic resources and preservation efforts
    • American Battlefield Trust – Fort Monroe overview and historical context
    • Virginia Department of Historic Resources – Fort Monroe National Historic Landmark documentation

    Episode Music

    Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.
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    30 mins
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