Special thanks to our fiend Rick Marshall of POI for this background information and these theories.
Location
Oil Trough, Independence County, ARAddress: <private>
Latitude: 35°37'46" N
Longitude: 91°27'41" W
Section: 31
Township: 12N
Range: 4W
According to Homeowner: "My house is on <private> Street within the city limits. I am not sure about the time frame on the graveyard. But my house was built around 1969 but there was a house built there before that one. The first house was blown away buy the tornado in 1968 0r 69. So my guess for the first house would be around in the 50's. My dad’s great aunt was the first owner of the property after the grave stones were removed. So the property has been in my family since it was cleared for housing..."
News Snippets
On 5/15/1968, a category 4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 1.5 miles away from the Oil Trough city center killed 7 people and injured 24 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. MAY 15, 1968 8:36 pm More than half of the town of Oil Trough, Independence County was destroyed. http://www.city-data.com/city/Oil-Trough-Arkansas.htmlThis is the tornado that destroyed the original home on the property. A new house was built thereafter, in 1968, according to land records.
Relevant History
The first settlers in this section of Arkansas came from the Carolinas and Tennessee before 1830... Among the first settlers on the White River around Oil Trough were the Craigs, Kelleys and McGuiers.Ashley Hypotheses
Initially, there are several hypotheses that can be made to the nature of "Ashley"- - Ashley is an imaginary friend of her daughter. Details of Ashley were collaborated on by Homeowner's daughter and step-daughter. They continue to "play with Ashley" to this day.
- - Ashley is a residual haunting at that location
- - Ashley is a non-human spirit (for example, an Angel)
- - Ashley is a non-human, non-spirit (for example, a watcher or other construct)
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to that location (for example, someone buried in the graveyard)
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's daughter (for example, a spirit that 'met' Homeowner's daughter and follows her around)
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's family (for example, a passed relative)
- - Ashley is a human spirit, not tied to anything (a random spirit who chooses to be at this place at this time)
From these hypotheses, initial assumptions were made from some of the above data to exclude some of the above possibilities.
- - Ashley is assumed to not be an imaginary friend - the ages of the girls were too young to collaborate to that extent and over time descriptions and elements of the story would change.
- - Ashley is assumed to not be a residual haunting at that location -- due to the interaction between the girls and Ashley, "Ashley" is assumed to have an intelligence and certain extent of free will which is outside of the classification of Residual Haunting.
- - Ashley is assumed to not be an "angel" or other non-human spirit -- not much evidence for this assumption, however if this were true it would be nearly impossible to prove.
- - Ashley is assumed to not be a non-human, non-spirit (e.g. watcher, et al) -- due to the rareness of these situations and some of the extended requirements for this to be true.
That leaves us with four possibilities to investigate:
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to that location (for example, someone buried in the graveyard)
NOTES: To be tied to the location, the human spirit would likely have passed on the location, although it is possible according to some stories that the spirit could be tied to the graveyard. No one died in the Tornado here that we know of at this time. No one has passed in this house that we know of at this time. It is possible that someone passed on the land before the graveyard existed. In addition, note that Ashley is a relatively new name. We'll research other graveyard records during the approximate time periods to determine if there were Ashleys in this general area.
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's daughter (for example, a spirit that 'met' Homeowner's daughter and follows her around, an agent)
NOTES: Ashley first appeared when Homeowner's daughter was 2, but her step daughter had played with her before she turned 2. Could this mean that Ashley did not appear until her daughter was 2 or was it just not noticed that Ashley was around before this time?
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's family (for example, a passed relative)
NOTES: Would need more information from Homeowner in this area, but she did not mention anything like this in the recent past, aside from the mis-carriage that will be discussed below.
- - Ashley is a human spirit, not tied to anything (a random spirit who chooses to be at this place at this time)
NOTES: Almost impossible to test!
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HYPOTHESIS #1: Ashley is a human spirit, tied to that location
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Without more information on who may have passed in this location, the next place to investigate is the graveyard itself. The first step to identify the cemetery was to reference genealogy research. The following cemeteries in the Oil Trough township were discovered and located through several sources:
Akron 35°39'55"N, 91°26'57"W -- too far N
Aydelott unknown location -- in Newton Co?
Foster (Ellison) 35°37'55"N, 91°29'54"W -- too far W?
McCullough unknown location
McGuire (Kelley) (Oil Trough) unknown location
Price Cemetery 35°36'01"N, 91°33'25"W -- too far SW
Next, to help identify the locations listed above for Homeowner's land, records were researched to discover the history of ownership. The plat of the land was then discovered, as listed above.
Then with confirmation and help from Homeowner, some genealogy research was done to investigate "Opal" and her husbands and their possible relationships, to determine how long that land had been in the family. I was able to locate her family and trace ownership back, but dead-ended right before the removal of the gravestones.
Next, original land grant records were searched with the above Section, Township, and Range to determine who was originally granted the land this was on. The following information was obtained:
Name Acres Date Land Description
Charles Kelly 153.58 12/1/1827 NW 5TH PM No 12N 04W 31
Charles Kelly 130.58 11/1/1830 SW 5TH PM Yes 12N 04W 3? S. of White River
William L McGuire 475.31 11/1/1856 SE 5TH PM No 12N 04W 31
NE 5TH PM No 12N 04W 31
SW 5TH PM Yes 12N 04W 31
This immediately struck a resonance with the "McGuire (Kelley)" cemetery listed above from other sources.
Finally, an additional reference book, "Cemetery Records of Independence County, Arkansas" listed the McGuire cemetery with "All stones removed; area is now residential."
Therefore, with reasonable certainty, the cemetery on Homeowner's land is the cemetery called The McGuire (Kelley) (Oil Trough) cemetery.
Note that no transcriptions of headstones have been found for McGuire cemetery. The only known burial I could discover was a Nancy (Burris) Coble who was buried there in 1866. According to a source Homeowner interviewed, however, during times when the White River is low, you can see the stones in the water and possibly even read information off of them.
Homeowner has been able to follow up with older neighbors to corroborate some of this data.
CONCLUSIONS: This hypothesis is UNDETERMINED. Without transcriptions and some more genealogy research, we cannot investigate the names of those buried in the McGuire cemetery to determine if any would be a young girl named something like "Ashley". With more research, we may be able to change this hypothesis to LIKELY, POSSIBLE, UNLIKELY, or FALSE.
More information on any deaths on the land, which is even more difficult prior to living memory, could also change this hypothesis to LIKELY, POSSIBLE, UNLIKELY, or FALSE.
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HYPOTHESIS #2: Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's daughter
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According to Homeowner, her daughter that plays with Ashley has only lived in the current house. So for a spirit to be tied to Homeowner's daughter, the spirit would have to have 'met' Homeowner's daughter somewhere. To speculate, that spirit would possibly have recently passed and was looking for someone to play with. As it turns out, Homeowner's daughter spent time in Children's Hospital.
CONCLUSIONS: This hypothesis is POSSIBLE. Children's Hospital does have children who pass while in the hospital's care. A child who passed could have "attached" itself to Homeowner's daughter for comfort and companionship. Almost assuredly, there are Ashleys who have passed at that hospital.
The only research that could be done to strengthen this hypothesis would be to determine if any Ashleys passed at the hospital around the time that Homeowner's daughter was there. At best, after determining what that Ashley looked like, we could possibly get a LIKELY conclusion.
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HYPOTHESIS #3: Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's family
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Homeowner has not mentioned any Ashleys in her family or young girls who passed that were related to her or her daughters.
I am including this next part because Homeowner has already talked about it in a public forum and she has given permission:
I asked Homeowner about the possibility of any miscarriages, and she not only responded that there had been miscarriage(s), but "I have always felt that she is part of the family even from the very start. I kind of thought that she was the daughter that I lost right before my youngest was conceived. I always thought the child crying for her daddy was her and that it was my child crying because my first husband (the Father) always denied that she was a girl that I lost. He always tried to say that I lost our "boy". Even though the test they ran said the baby was female. Anyway just what I always thought." The daughter was 2 months along when the miscarriage happened.
A medium told her that Ashley was not her child.
According to Homeowner, there is a second girl spirit and Ashley is the second girl's sister and there was another miscarriage. This is speculation as there is not much data on this second spirit.
CONCLUSIONS: This hypothesis is POSSIBLE. The name "Ashley" used by Homeowner's daughters is different from the 2 month old daughter's planned name, but I do not feel that this discounts this possibility. At this time, there is no known additional research that could be done to move this hypothesis to a LIKELY stage. Similarly, nothing comes to mind to drop the hypothesis to UNLIKELY or FALSE.
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HYPOTHESIS #4: Ashley is a human spirit, not tied to anything
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This is very difficult to test. However, I did do research on "Ashley" in the general vicinity and came up with the following data:
Ashley Township is located north of Batesville
Dugger Cemetery (on Macedonia Rd a few miles outside of Newark)
- John W. Ashley Oct 20, 1859/Mar 05, 1939
- Zora Travis Ashley Feb 18, 1882/Dec 02, 1939 wife of John Ashley
- Infant Girl Ashley Jan 02, 1918/Jan 02, 1918
- Infant Lucille Bice May 19, 1920
Akron Cemetery
- Ashby, Betty b. 1898 d. 1953
- Ashby, Cherise b. 1900 d. 1964
- Ashby, Gerald b. 1900 d. 1968
- Ashby, Rachel b. 1872 d. 1924
- Ashby, Roy b. 1896 d. 1933
Federal Land Records, Independence Co., Arkansas
L Name F Name MI Sec T R Acres Date Warrant Name Remarks
ASHLEY WILLIAM C 24 13N 5W 80 1886/08/10
In addition, Homeowner did research years ago: "I always wondered about the name Ashley myself because I didn’t think that name was right with the time frame of the cemetery. I tried to search death records for the county and such a few years ago but didn’t come up with an Ashley."
CONCLUSIONS: This hypothesis is UNDETERMINED. More research could be one here on more Ashleys in the area, but again, without some sort of link this would be very difficult to classify as LIKELY, POSSIBLE, UNLIKELY or FALSE.
Overall Conclusions
If our assumptions above are valid, the four most likely explanations for "Ashley" are:- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to that location
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's daughter
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's family
- - Ashley is a human spirit, not tied to anything
From the research done, the most likely explanations at this point are:
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's daughter == POSSIBLE
Homeowner's daughter could have 'met' her friend at the Children's Hospital, where the probability of a passed Ashley is higher than other locations. If it could be found that an Ashley or little girl passed at the time that Homeowner's daughter was there, this hypothesis could be moved to LIKELY, especially if that little girl matched Ashley's description.
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to Homeowner's family == POSSIBLE
Ashley could be the spirit of the 2 month old daughter who was miscarried. This of course raises questions like: Can spirits age? How does the whole spirit/soul infusion into a zygote work? etc. There is no known further research that could move the conclusion to a LIKELY status.
The least likely explanations, with the current data, are:
- - Ashley is a human spirit, tied to that location == UNDETERMINED
At this time, no known Ashleys or little girls died on the property. At this time, no known Ashleys or little girls are buried at the cemetery. With more research, if these data elements are found, this hypothesis could move to POSSIBLE or even LIKELY. If research is done and those data elements are found not to exist, this hypothesis could move to UNLIKELY.
- - Ashley is a human spirit, not tied to anything == UNDETERMINED
There are Ashley surnames who lived in the area of Oil Trough and of course one runs into Ashleys all the time in daily life. This is nearly impossible to test. This hypothesis will likely always be UNDETERMINED.