Published in the Enterprise Ledger on October 31, 1997
Legend of headless horseman lives on
Move over "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - Enterprise, Alabama, has its own tale to lose your head over!
By Shelley Walton
Note: Marion Brunson passed away in 2007. His stories live on in his books and the memories of many.
Legend holds that a headless horseman roams these parts desperately seeking his lost head and the Southern belle he loves.
The tale dates back more than a century, and the story comes to its ghastly conclusion on Headless Horseman Road.
Local author and former Coffee County Probate Judge Marion Brunson of Elba, Alabama, said he's heard the story all his life, and he included it in his book "Pea River Reflections."
The events took place on what today is known as Coffee County Road 704, which is also called Headless Horseman Road. It's located off of Rucker Boulevard in Enterprise just past Quail Hollow Driving Range.
The curvy road actually crosses into Dale County, and that's where legend has it that fatal events forever separated the horseman from his head and his lady love. Brunson said the story took place during the Civil War, or, as he refers to it, the War Between the States.
During that time, a handsome young stranger appeared in the Clay Bank Creek area of Dale County. Locals believed the man to be a Yankee soldier who either deserted or was separated from his unit.
"He was very handsome, and all the girls were warned by their parents to stay away from that man," Brunson said.
Not all the girls heeded this advice.
"Pretty soon he and the most beautiful girl in the community had fallen madly in love with each other and were seeing each other secretly," he said.
Knowing the community wouldn't accept a Southern belle marrying a Yankee, the two planned to elope. The young girl confided this secret only to her best friend. The friend couldn't keep the secret, however, and soon the whole community knew. The problem was that the two young lovers had no idea everyone else knew of their plans.
The night the two planned to elope, the young belle snuck out of her parents' house, traveling bag in hand. Her Yankee lover was anxiously waiting in bushes nearby, mounted atop a white horse.
"When she got almost to him, the men of the community were waiting on their horses, hidden, and they sprang off in pursuit of him," Brunson said.
The young man fled off into the night, followed by the angry posse. He could hear the frantic screams of the girl, and he planned to outrun his pursuers and return for his bride-to-be.
His plan was never to be. As he crossed Cow Pen Creek in Gerald, a small community between what is now Daleville and Enterprise, the group of angry men caught up to him.
There are two versions of what happens next. One says the posse fired their muskets at close range and hit the young man in the neck, causing his head to fall off into the creek.
The other version is that his head was cut off by the sword of one of his pursuers. "The legend goes that he continued to ride and was going to come back and pick up his head," Brunson said.
It's said the tragedy occurred in the area where today the railroad trestle crosses Cow Pen Creek not far from Mt. Zion Memorial Cemetery. The site of the decapitation was just off of what became known as Headless Horseman Road. In recent years the curvy road was re-directed so that the legendary site now is located just off a road that adjoins with Headless Horseman Road.
Now the site can be found by turning right off of Headless Horseman Road onto a street where railroad tracks cross the road.
The tragic love story happened long ago, but legend says the Headless Horseman still rides through the night seeking his lost head. It's said he can usually be seen at midnight on All Hallow's Eve.
"They say if you'll go down there and climb on the railroad track, you'll see his head alight down there in the creek looking for his body so he can go get his lady love and ride away somewhere and live happily ever after," Brunson said.