Investigation report coming soon!
ARTICLE FROM THE BARDSTOWN RECORD – MAY 21, 1909
Spirits Said to Hover About the Nelson County Bastile.
The Nelson county jail is haunted. At least that is the
verdict of many of those people who have from time to time been incarcerated
therein. Though a comparatively new structure, having been erected in 1874, a
number of grewsome occurrences have transpired within its wall.
Here it was George Murrell, the notorious outlaw, after
being fatally shot by Marshall Hunter, lingered and died in the most awful
agony. Harvey Pash, a negro murderer, and Phil Evans, a negro rapist, spent
their last months upon earth within the gloomy edifices and were finally led
forth to die upon the scaffold which still stands, a forbidding looking object,
close to the walls of the building.
Martin Hill, a wife murderer, died in a cell of the jail of
a consuming fever, after weeks of lingering torture, and thereby cheated the
gallows. It is said by those in the position to know that it is the spirit of
this last named who haunts the jail, and surely his crime was horrible enough
and his death of such agony as to cause his miserable spirit to know no rest.
In the early part of 1885 Marin Hill walked into a neighbor’s house, where his
wife had fled to escape his brutal treatment, and shot the defenseless woman
down without a word of warning.
Hill’s reputation had always been unsavory and though he
came of a good family, his career had been thoroughly wicked. His last and
crowning criminal act the inhuman murder of his wife, aroused the deepest
indignation and the women of his neighborhood swore that if he was not brought
to be hanged, they would themselves tear down the court house stone by stone.
However, before he could be brought to final trial, he was smitten by fever,
which resulted in his death.
Citizens, who attended him in his last illness, avow that
his sufferings were the most terrible ever witnessed, and that during his
moments of delirium his ravings and blasphemies were awful to hear. Prisoners
who have since been confined in the jail where he died, he is heard, it is
alleged, pacing up and down, as was his wont, during his confinement. He is
also heard to groan and toss restlessly upon his bunk, and, as a climax to the
whole, the blood curdling scream he omitted while struggling in the throes of
death, rings again through the stone corridors, with thrilling distinctness.
These and many other manifestations are spoken of, and he is considered a brave
man, indeed, who will willingly venture near the haunted cell after night.
Within a few yard of the haunted structure is situated the
original old stone prison, built near the close of the last century by “Old
Stone Hammer” Metcalfe, afterwards Governor of Kentucky, John Fitch, the
inventor of the steamboat, died in the old jail. He was not a prisoner,
however, but was boarding with the jailer, Alexander McCown, who was his
dearest friend. Many noted criminals have looked through the bars of this old
prison house, among them Watson, the murderer of two men, who was the first
white man legally executed in Nelson County. Three negro slave, who
assassinated their master, James G. Maxwell and Samuel H. Calhoun, a Federal
soldier, who murdered William Sutherland, a prominent citizen, were led to the
gallows from this old jail.
ParaHunt Slept Here - This cottage was built in 1849 as a slave/cooking quarters to the main house - Magnolia Manor. Originally there was a conveyor belt from the cottage to the main house. 
Investigation report coming soon!
Gearing up for tonight's investigation at the Backus Mill Heritage Village with a gristmill that was built in 1798. It contains one of the few mills not burned down during the War of 1812. The mill was operational until 1957 and is now a national historic site. Joining us tonight will be Shannon, a spirit medium, and Kiersten, a reporter from the Port Dover Maple Leaf newspaper. 
Field report coming soon.