OLD KNOWBY CABIN
Location: The tiny cabin is located within a nearly inaccessible area in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Wadesboro, North Carolina, beyond a rural road off Highway 109 leading to a one-lane steel bridge over the Peedee River in in Anson County. Over the years, the location has become especially more difficult to reach with trees blocking the driveway into the mountains and the collapse of the bridge in 1993.
Description of Place: Surrounded by acres of woodland and mountainous terrain, the structure is a large four-room wood cabin with a combination root cellar and basement and stone chimney in a partial clearing surrounded by over a hundred acres of woods. The area is so remote that electricity is generated by a gas generator and water piped from a nearby well.
Ghostly Manifestations: In 1983, a small team of young filmmakers ventured deep into the woods to film a horror movie at this desolate location. Rumor had it the site had been the scene of a gruesome murder, and remoteness and setting of the cabin added to the atmosphere of the film. Incorporating elements from the story of the murder into the film confused the haunted location with aspects of its fictional counterpart, and made the location a cult shrine for horror movie buffs. If it was not placed so remotely, the structure might have been vandalized straight to the ground.
From 1965 to 1983, the cabin was the summer retreat of Professor Samuel Knowby from Queens Cottage in Charlotte. As an archaeologist, he chose the cabin to be the perfect retreat to decipher ancient Gaelic writings from Britain in abject seclusion without being distracted, but in reading the obscure texts aloud, he soon realized he was deciphering pagan spells which invoked ancient dark entities. While no one is exactly sure what happened next, Knowby was blamed for the murder of his wife, Henrietta, who was later found buried and dismembered in the dirt floor of the root cellar, before he vanished into the woods. He was never found, but the surrounding woods were combed by a combination search teams and witnesses. To echo the Blair Witch a decade later, the film crew incorporated possibly genuine paranormal audio effects into their film and passed it off as fake.
Ash Campbell, a college student who stayed at the cabin one weekend in 1983, described what is pretty much the bulk of the haunt. He and his best friend with their girlfriends had headed up to the cabin after hearing about it from Knowby's daughter, Anna Knowby, but when she turned up there looking for her father, she found Ash had been deserted from his friends, left huddled in the fetal position in a corner and suffering from malnutrition and a state of shock. Campbell later testified to experiencing animalistic screams, constant scratching noises, intense poundings and furniture that moved itself. Doors locked and slammed shut by themselves and shadowy specters lurked just out of view in the woods. When he managed to sleep, his undead friends mocked and tore away at his sanity.
Anna Knowby refused to believe Ash's claims, but while staying in the cabin, the ghost of her father seemingly appeared to her from a glowing mass of fog in the bedroom begging for forgiveness. Thinking it had been a dream, she later started hearing her mother's disembodied voice from over her head. She later fled the cabin after an anamorphous form from the root cellar attempted to beckon her down into the bowels of the cabin.
To date, no one has been known to have returned to the cabin. Although it serves as as its own modern urban legend, the remoteness and inaccessibility of the area make it nearly impossible to locate without intimate knowledge of the area.
History: Originally built as a private retreat in 1945, the cabin has had several owners, the most recent being Professor Samuel Knowby. The current cabin is owned by by his daughter and is considered private property.
Identity of Ghosts: In parapsychology, sprits and entities without previous physical incarnations are considered demonic energies. Technically, the Knowby Cabin is not a haunted structure, but an infested location. It is not known what names Professor Knowby chanted from the Gaelic texts, and some attempts at an exorcism have been made, but as yet, no one knows for sure what is haunting the desolate structure.
Source/Comments: The Evil Dead (1983/1987/1993) - Phenomenon loosely based on the movie and the Ervin House in Standish, Wisconsin.