Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainA deep water hole on Green's Creek in Erath County where Jenny Papworth and her infant disappeared in the 1860s, documented in 1930s newspaper accounts — and where a translucent woman holding a baby has been reported near the water for over 140 years.
CR 520 at Green's Creek, off Hwy 6, Alexander, TX 76430
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Private property; no trespassing. Accessible as a roadside view only from CR 520 near the railroad crossing. Do not cross onto private land.
Access
Limited Access
Rural unpaved county road, railroad crossing, creek bottom terrain; no maintained path to the water hole
Equipment
Photos OK
Documented Texas Frontier Ghost Legend · Newspaper-Sourced Oral History (1934) · Erath County Folklore
Charlie Papworth and his wife Jenny arrived at Green's Creek in Erath County around 1860. The McDow family owned land along the creek, and the Papworths lived in a cabin near the water hole that bore the family's name. Around 1867, while Charlie was away attending to family business following the deaths of his parents, Jenny and their infant disappeared. Their five-year-old son Temple was found traumatized under a bed; the older children were away. The McDow family investigated the following day and found evidence of a struggle and a trail of blood leading toward the creek.
Suspicion fell on a neighbor, W.P. Brownlow. In 1867, Brownlow led a vigilante group that hanged Charlie Papworth and six other men from a pecan tree near the hole — a move that, in retrospect, some accounts interpret as an attempt to eliminate the most obvious witness to his own guilt. According to the oral tradition later documented by Fitzgerald, Brownlow confessed on his deathbed around 1885 to strangling Jenny and her infant and throwing their bodies into the shallow seep hole, covering them with rocks and earth. Their remains were never found.
Joe E. Fitzgerald, a nurseryman born in 1876 in the same Erath County area, collected local accounts of the ghost story and published them in the Nolan County News on June 17, 1934, and the Paris News on September 9, 1942. Fitzgerald claimed personal sightings and compiled witness testimonies dating to the 1870s. Historical records do not independently verify the Papworth name in Erath County documents, though other families named in the accounts (the McDows, the Keiths) are documented.
Sources
The accounts collected by Joe Fitzgerald and continued by later researchers span more than 140 years of reported sightings at the same geographic location — the water hole on Green's Creek at the edge of the old Papworth property. The consistent description across accounts involves a translucent or pale woman in period dress, sometimes holding an infant, standing or floating near the water. Multiple witnesses over the decades have described the figure appearing and then vanishing without trace.
When the railroad ran through the area, the apparition was reportedly seen from passing trains — passengers and crew describing a woman standing at the tracks near the hole, sometimes holding a baby. One of Jenny's most documented appearances, according to Fitzgerald's written accounts, occurred at the deathbed of W.P. Brownlow around 1885, where witnesses claimed she appeared at the moment of his confession.
A young boy fishing at the hole in the late nineteenth century was reportedly confronted by the figure, an account that Fitzgerald recorded. Other reports from the twentieth century describe cold air, an unexplained chill at the water's edge, and scratching sounds near the creek at night. The site remains on private property, and no formal investigation or documentation beyond the printed historical accounts has been conducted.
Notable Entities
The McDow Hole is a deep water hole on Green's Creek, visible from CR 520 near the railroad crossing approximately one mile off Highway 6 between Dublin and Alexander. The site is private property; visitors may view from the road. The location is about 150 yards east of the road through the trees.
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