The Haunted Mansion

Jill and Betty carried the old ledger down to the copy room and the clerk made the copies. They weren’t very good. The paper was old and yellowed, and the ink was faded. Some of the writing on the original was almost unreadable. Jill patiently traced over the letters with a ball-point pen, while the clerk stood by impatiently waiting for them to finish.

"There! All finished," Jill said, as the last word was finally finished.

"Young ladies,. it’s almost closing time and I have dinner to fix, for a hungry husband and two kids. So if that will be all." The clerk stated, rather sternly.

"You wouldn’t have any history on the place, would you?" Jill asked.

"Well, that’s a new one. Most people just want to know how much the taxes would be, and how much the property is assessed at. Why so curious."

"History paper for my senior year." Jill answered.

"Why didn’t you say so!" The clerk exclaimed. "Come right this way. We had an elderly gentleman who worked for the county for fifty years. He kept up with things like that, and wrote up interesting facts about some of the more notorious families who lived in the area. Now you mention it, Kimball is a familiar name," she concluded, as she unlocked a dusty room.

The hinges squealed in protest as she pushed the door open.

"Geez!" Betty said, looking around as the clerk searched for, and finally found a light switch.

The room wasn’t large. Twelve by fifteen, with an old style window. The type that opened at the top as well as bottom, for ventilation during the hot southern summers.

"Don’t guess there’s been anyone in here in thirty years," the clerk commented.

"Sure doesn’t look like it." Jill agreed.

"I believe this is what you’re looking for," the clerk said, as she pulled down a large ledger, marked with a large K.

"You can sign this out and take it with you, if you can show me a valid picture ID."

Both girls had their drivers license, and Jill presented hers, while Betty leafed through the large ledger. Jill signed for the book and they were off to spend the weekend digging through it to see what they could find.

CHAPTER 3

Notes From Ledger.

Ronald Kimball and his wife Hope, settled in Georgia in 1793. Ronald received a land grant, and set about clearing land. The property was covered with tall straight oak and hickory, with an occasional grove of black walnut, mixed with pine.

Most of the people who received land grants from the government, burned off the timber to make room for pasture, farm land, to raise livestock, and plant tobacco, corn, and cotton.

Ronald came from a long line of mariners, and knew that wood for ships timbers was hard to find. He bought a dozen indentured slaves from Europe, and set them to cutting and preparing logs to be shipped to the ship builders in England and Holland. He soon built a fortune, supplying the ship builders fine oak and hickory timber from the virgin forests that covered his land.

Hope came from British nobility. Hence Ronald’s land grant. She gave him six strong sons, and three lovely daughters, and gave her life in an attempt to deliver a tenth child. Ronald soon followed her. Some say he died of grief. Others say his eldest son Gregory, poisoned him.

Gregory Kimball was a cruel man. Unlike his father, who had been a gentle giant.