The Ghost of David Sheely and the Cynthiana Courthouse

Happy October! It's time for spooky stories and frightening photographs, and I hope to share a selection over the next month. These will be in a slightly shorter format to allow for a few more posts during the spooky season. Here's the first in the series!

From the Suffolk News-Herald, June 20, 1934 is a fine "ghost photograph" of the old courthouse in Cynthiana, Kentucky. The pioneer-era structure is where David Sheely was wrongfully sentenced to death. (Content warning for the link, as the original source includes an uncensored photograph of a lynching.)

Not being familiar with this story as it's a bit outside my usual local history sphere, I looked into the case for more details. The tale begins when David was accused of murdering his wife Nancy in June of 1847. After a day of fishing, David and some friends returned to his cabin on Beaver Creek (or sometimes Crooked Creek) and demanded Nancy clean and prepare the fish they caught at 2 AM. She refused, and allegedly David and his friends all went to sleep - some in the cabin, and some in the yard. David as well as the fishing buddies were all intoxicated, and David is said to have passed out in bed next to Nancy.

In the morning, Nancy was dead, apparently strangled in the night. A neighbor came upon the scene later that day. Initially it seems David was nowhere to be found and all the friends had likewise scattered. Later, David was found hiding in a chimney, and as the most likely suspect, he was arrested and placed on trial for Nancy's murder. David maintained throughout the trial and until his execution that he did not murder her. He was executed by hanging in November of 1847, despite attempts to delay the sentence due to rising suspicions he may have been innocent.

Year later, a man in the fishing party signed a deathbed confession that he had killed Nancy, but never gave a reason why. This statement may be unsubstantiated, but it certainly did not quell the ghost story. If anything it introduced a new fear - they had executed an innocent man for a crime he did not commit.

The "ghost" of David Sheely at the Cynthiana courthouse, according to the Suffolk News-Herald.

The Suffolk News-Herald caption states "Sheely’s 'ghost' has discouraged both legalized and lynch executions in Cynthiana and vicinity for nearly a hundred years." That aspect of the story does not seem to have survived into more recent tellings, as seen in The Courier-Journal for February 9, 1973.

The origin for David Sheely's ghostly activity seems to be a collection written by Mrs. Lucinda Boyd, The Chronicles of Cynthiana. The ghost tales begin on page 128 of the linked book, starting with the first reported haunting near the Leesburg Pike ravine "near Mrs, Calhoun's house," then an encounter with a fiddler, and horseback riding escapades with a young man and a later one with a young woman (but this time dressed as a cavalier and with his own ghostly black horse). All feature the common visual motif of David Sheely dragging the noose around his neck. If the ghost ever spoke, he only seemed to say, "There's nobody here but you and me tonight."

By the time Boyd wrote her account in 1894, David Sheely's ghost was no longer stalking Harrison County. Another angle of this story provides the explanation. David's body had been exhumed for medical dissection a day after its burial, and the doctor kept the bones in his house. Around forty years later, after the doctor's death, David was finally buried for good this time - and supposedly his spirit is now at rest.

So why did this 1934 article claim the ghost was haunting the Harrison County Courthouse? It was likely meant in a metaphorical sense, as similar language appears in the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the building: "And the ghost of David Sheeley so haunts this courthouse that only two death sentences have been handed down from that day to this [1974]." This nomination is for the later, more impressive Greek Revival courthouse, built in 1851, well after David's trial and execution.

As for the building in the picture? It may indeed be the courthouse where David Sheely stood trial. While the building has been restored and this picture seems cropped on the left, it could be the one known now as the Old Log Court House. (And if you'd like a glimpse at how some of these oral tales can finally be verified through primary sources, this article detailing the confirmation of this building as a courthouse may be of similar interest.)

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