Duwall Manor - The Oak Tree

Duwall Manor sits in the deep country of Mississippi, the property backing right up to the Delta National Forest. Like many of the stately manor houses built in the early 1800's, it has a long history, with several prominent families residing within its walls.

The current owners are unlisted, leaving the property likely bank-owned after a forclosure. Why it remains off the market in that case is a puzzle, but many of the people who live near the building whisper that it was actually abandoned, by both owners and bank. The home and land left to rot and hopefully be reclaimed by the wilderness with the prayer that nature might bury the property's history.

In spite of this, every so often someone finds the land and insists on trying to claim it as their own, so the building remains in fairly good condition. The roof, for example, was redone as recently as 2011.

The owners never last, however. Most abandon the property altogether after a few years, a few have even willingly gone into bankruptcy than live there or try to sell it. None of them answer the singular question that is always asked of them.

"Why?" 

While more recent activity remains shrouded, much more is available with a simple trip to the county library, where the property has its own file of newspaper clippings and property maps. 

The earliest clipping dates back to 1824, only a year after the house was first completed, then owned by the Duwall family, headed by Abraham Duwall.  

The local sheriff was told to visit the property after no word had been heard from the family in weeks. 

When he arrived, the family's horses were feeding in the front yard, untethered. 

At the front door, nobody answered. He found the door unlocked and went in. The house was immaculate. Beds were made, everything was clean, everything was as it should have been. The only thing amiss was the large meal which had been laid out on the table and now sat there rotting, covered in flies, mold, and maggots. 

Something out the back window from the dining room caught the sheriff's eye and when he went to investigate, he found himself standing before a massive oak tree on the backside of the house. 

Dozens of nooses hung from its thick branches as different heights. The highest was easily thirty feet off the ground. All of them sat empty, only swaying from a slight breeze that blew up from the woods further back on the property. The sheriff circled the tree, and finally counted 43 nooses. Enough for the entire Duwall family and all their servants. 

Then the sheriff found what was left of them. To the left side of the oak was a hollow in the base of the tree. It was stuffed full of skulls. 

The sheriff came back later with help and excavated the hollow. All they found were skulls, picked clean of any flesh at all. While they couldn't be sure the remains were the Duwall family and their servants, the numbers matched. The sizes matched too, between adults and children. 

The remains were buried in a corner of the property, though any markers designating their graves have been long lost to the present day. 

What happened to the Duwall family was never solved. 

-attached to the back of the news clipping is a memo. 

"If you go out to the tree on a foggy night, you can still see the outlines of the nooses hanging from it. If the fog is thick enough, with a bright moon, you might even see the silhouettes of the bodies."