Est. 1850 · Rural cemetery with graves dating to the early 1800s · Resting place of Confederate-era veterans · Associated abandoned church burned in February 2015 · Subject of regional newspaper coverage of Alabama folklore
Consolation Church Cemetery sits along a rural road near Red Level, in Covington County, in the southern part of Alabama close to the Florida line. The graveyard contains markers dating back to the early 1800s and is the resting place of several men who served in the Confederate army, reflecting the rural, agrarian character of the region in the 19th century.
The small church that once stood beside the cemetery had been abandoned for years before it burned to the ground in February 2015. The cemetery itself was not damaged by the fire and remains accessible. (Local accounts sometimes conflate this site with the National Register-listed Oakey Streak Methodist Church in neighboring Butler County; that is a separate, still-distinct historic property, and the Confederate-era graves and ghost legends described here are associated with the Red Level cemetery in Covington County.)
The site became locally famous less for its documented history than for the volume of ghost stories attached to it, which have been collected by regional haunted-place catalogs and covered in 2012 by the Greenville Advocate newspaper under the headline 'church haunted by tall tales.' That coverage is notable for its skepticism: long-time residents and former church members quoted in it dismissed the stories as 'pure hogwash,' framing the legends as entertainment passed down through generations rather than fact.
Sources
- https://www.alabamahauntedhouses.com/real-haunt/consolation-church.html
- https://digitalalabama.com/alabama-ghosts-and-haunted-places/consolation-church-cemetery-red-level-al/5755
- https://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/consolation-church/
Sounds of Confederate soldiers marchingA wailing 'banshee' heard at the former churchApparitions of a small boy and a little girlReports of hellhounds and a phantom black truck
The Consolation Church legends are among the most elaborate in rural south Alabama. According to regional haunted-place accounts, visitors who sat inside the old churchyard gates reported hearing Confederate soldiers marching, while a shrieking, wailing 'banshee' was said to sob from inside the abandoned building before it burned. Apparitions of a small boy with a ball and a little girl skipping on the road feature in the tales, along with claims of hellhounds with glowing eyes and a 1960s black Ford truck that supposedly speeds down the approach road (AlabamaHauntedHouses.com; DigitalAlabama; HauntedPlaces.org).
These stories should be read as folklore. The 2012 Greenville Advocate article that covered the site quoted long-time residents and former church members who dismissed the tales as 'pure hogwash,' describing them as urban legends passed down to entertain listeners. We present the legends as a documented local tradition rather than as verified paranormal events, and none of the specific dramatic claims (the locking outhouse, the death-omen ball, the phantom truck) are supported by any primary record. The verifiable facts are the rural cemetery, its early-1800s and Confederate-era graves, and the 2015 fire that destroyed the church.
Notable Entities
The BansheeThe Boy with the BallThe Skipping Girl
Media Appearances
- Greenville Advocate, 2012
Aerial survey · USDA NAIP
