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Was Penn Yonge murdered by Indians? By a Slave? Shot? Stabbed? Chopped with an Ax?

Oh my! The stories that have been told for 100 years now about the horrific death of Penn Yonge by Boy and Girl Scouts camping in their eaarly youth, for the first time, at night, in the dark, with older scouts telling ghost stories in a creaky old wooden house.

Warning: Former Scouts may need to seek therapy or guidance after reading the rest of this page.  It could destroy their childhood, or something.

Some of the first Scout camps were built in Spring Villa in 1926. By 1927 it was opened up to a 10 county group from all over East Alabama.

The first ghost stories appeared in the paper in 1936.

By 1938 there was a murder on the 13th step.

By 1959 kids adults and teens are dressing up for the 

In 1965 when I went with the Cub Scouts, an older boy dressed up in a sheet and scared us pretending to be the ghost of the person who stabbed Penn Yonge with a knife on the 13th step.

In 1974 even Penn's granddaughter gets in the murder act.

In 1978 its called a Haunted House.

In 2000 Penn was murdered by a slave.

In 2003 at a Auburn High reunion, former girl scouts reminisced that they were told ghost stories that someone had been murdered on the 13th step of the staircase where a dark red spot was, and they would never step on the 13th step.

In 2005 the Opelika paper amped up the horror saying former Opelika Mayor Edwards kids drowned at Spring Villa 1865 (they drowned at his nearby farm called Edwards Mill)

What is a person to believe after all of that history and telling of tales.

We Dont Even Know When He Died, Really
His grave marker only says that he died in 1878. It does not give an exact date.

After digging through dusty old books, sperlunking through the library, and finnaly reviwing old newspapers, I discovered that he died Oct 26 1878.

The Truth about How Penn Yonge Died that We Have All Been Waiting For

So Whodunnit. And How?

Let's start with Indians.  There were no Indians in Opelika in 1878. Well, maybe a few peaceful ones.

Now, what about a vengeful slave?  Come on, that coulda happened, right?  Of course not. Congress abolished slavery in 1865.  Plus, Penn Yonge doesn't appear to have owned any slaves (none in 1850 or 1860 census).

Surely someone murdered him, right? Give us the gory details. Now.

Before Scouts ever set foot on Spring Villa people around town were well aware that old man Penn Yonge died of consumption.  Aha! That must mean murder, or something sinister.

He died of a slow agonising death, over a period of a year. Consumption was an old word for Tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is a disease that affects the lungs but can also affect the other parts of the body. It is caused by the bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis(TB) which affects the lungs. It is spread from one person to the next through the air.

It is a debilitating disease characterised by the breakdown of tissues, such as your muscles. So literally the consumption of your body. Usually, that is even the cause of death of this disease, not the coughing that is characteristic of tuberculosis.

Every year, 10 million people worldwide get the disease, of whom 1.6 million people die from its effects. Remarkable detail: it is estimated that 2 billion people are carriers of the bacterium but without any symptoms.