The Face in the Courthouse Window (Ghost in the Garret), Pickens County Courthouse, Carrollton, Alabama

Carrollton, Pickens County, Alabama. Union forces burned the town's first courthouse on April 4, 1865, during Wilson's Raid. The second burned on November 16, 1876. Arson was suspected.

Suspicion fell on Henry Wells, a freedman, and Bill Buckhalter. Stolen merchandise was reported found in their homes. Meanwhile the cornerstone of a third courthouse, today's Pickens County Courthouse, was laid on July 4, 1877.

January 1878. Buckhalter was arrested, confessed to burglary and blamed Wells for the fire. On January 29 deputies took Wells and wounded him. The next day he gave a confession, signed with his mark. He could not read or write. On February 3, 1878, he died of his wounds in jail.

The legend tells it differently. Wells is held in the garret of the new courthouse while a mob gathers below. He presses his face to the glass. A thunderstorm passes over, and lightning etches his image into the pane. Dora Johnson, president of the Pickens County Courthouse Preservation Foundation, described the strike: "It hit one of the trees in front of the hotel and that ball of fire hit that tree and hopped up on the window and imprinted his face in that window." Some versions say the lightning killed him. Others say he was lynched.

The earliest dated report comes from a 1928 newspaper. A hailstorm on December 30, 1927 broke another pane in the same window. Carpenter J.E. Oglesby replaced it on January 6, 1928. Then another face appeared on the new pane. "And still the ghastly faces looked down on the crowd that quickly assembled." Oglesby said the picture disturbed him even in his sleep. Citizens had the glass washed with acid, then soap, gasoline and lye. The face remained.

It is still there. It is said to be visible only from outside, and clearer from some angles than others. Johnson said the pane is "thicker than your thumb and a different color than the other three." In 2011 Frank Daily of Marquette Law School stood beneath the tree where the mob is said to have gathered. "An anguished African-American face was indeed clearly visible on the window pane."

The documents complicate the story. Both Wells and Nathaniel Pierce died before the windows were installed. The garret windows went in weeks after Wells died. P.J. Gossett, writing in 2023, found that Wells was never lynched. He was shot during his arrest. The legend seems to merge his death with that of Pierce, a white man taken from the jail by an armed mob and lynched on September 26, 1877.

Engineers from the University of Alabama and Auburn reportedly tried solvents without success. No source names a physical cause. The face endures.

Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh popularised the story in 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey in 1969. Barry Bradford's play The Face in the Courthouse Window was staged inside the courthouse every year from April 2010. In 2001, as demolition loomed, the window was covered with plywood spray-painted with a smiley face. A public campaign followed. Today a sign and permanent binoculars across the street point the way, and a 2020 Pomeroy Foundation marker tells the legend.

The history around it is heavy. Pickens County saw 15 lynchings after Reconstruction. On September 14, 1893, a white mob shot five people dead in their cells in the Carrollton jail. The face in the garret still looks down on the town.