New York, to hear or see her. The Springfield floor knocking occurred at the residence of John W. Nuckolls, a prominent physician. Nuckolls was recently married to Laura Hopkins Jones, a union opposed by her family. The phenomenon created a domestic disturbance between the couple, as a local carpenter, Gill Walling, accused Laura Nuckolls of creating the noise with an iron ball attached to a rubber belt hidden under her clothes. Robertson County historian Yolanda Reid states, "they came to the conclusion that the wife was tying it into the bottom of her skirt to make the sounds, nobody ever proved it." The couple separated in May, 1880. That August, John Nuckolls retrieved his infant child from his wife, running through town with his estranged wife following in anguish. Afterward the child was returned to Laura Nuckolls who was living with her father, Asa Hopkins. John Nuckolls, in February 1882, confronted Laura's father, over his desire to see the child, and threatened his father-in-law's life. During the argument, the subject of 'ghosts' between the men was reported by an eyewitness as Nuckolls attempted to shoot Hopkins but was restrained. The next day, as a result of this confrontation, Nuckoll's brother-in-law, S. B. Hopkins, traveled from Nashville and shot John W. Nuckolls with a double-barreled shotgun, causing his death. The circumstances of the shooting were contested and S. B. Hopkins was acquitted of murder. The journal Studies in Philology, in 1919, published a study of witchcraft in North Carolina by folklorist Tom Peete Cross. Cross cites a column from the Nashville Banner where it mentions the paper had sent a reporter to Robertson County in the 1880s, John C. Cooke, to investigate reports of the possible reemergence of the Bell Witch phenomenon. Nashville Centennial Exposition A several page account of the Bell Witch legend was included in a sketch of Robertson County and was reportedly written for Nashville's Centennial Exposition in 1880. The sketch was published in 1900 by the Tennessee Historical Society. The author of the sketch is unknown and the article is undated. Dates in the sketch end at 1880. The writer stated the source of the first portion of the narrative from "F. R. Miles, William Pride, W. J. Gooch, Ben. B. Batts, and many others." The author identified the burial disturbance as skull bones previously located in a "mound nearby on the river bluff." The return of