October 20, 2025

Episode 176 The Mystery of the Surrency Poltergeist

29 minutes

In 1872, the quiet Georgia town of Surrency became the center of one of America’s strangest mysteries. Inside the home of Allen Powell Surrency, glass shattered, clocks ran backward, and furniture moved without a hand touching it. The events drew scientists, skeptics, and spiritualists, including one from Salem, Massachusetts. Was it a hoax, hysteria, or something that defied explanation? In this episode of Southern Mysteries, uncover the story of the Surrency family and the haunting that shook a town, blurred the line between faith and fear, and became one of the most documented poltergeist cases in U.S. history.

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Episode Sources

The Savannah Morning News (Oct–Dec 1872) – Coverage of the Surrency disturbances

The Atlanta Constitution (Nov 1872–Jan 1873) – Reports on the “Surrency Mystery”

The Augusta Chronicle (Oct 1872) – Editorial accounts of the Surrency haunting

The New York Times (Dec 4 1872) – “Spiritual Manifestations in Georgia”

The Albany Patriot – Reprinted witness letters and commentary, 1872

The Philadelphia Inquirer (1872–1873) – Syndicated reports on the haunting

Harper’s Weekly (1873) – “Poltergeists and the Marvels of Surrency”

John W. Truesdell, The Bottom Facts Concerning the Science of Spiritualism (1873)

The Boston Globe (1872–1873) – Reports on Charles H. Foster

Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 47 (1963) – “The Surrency Ghost: A Georgia Poltergeist Reexamined”

The Georgia Encyclopedia – Entry on Surrency, Appling County

Alan Brown, Haunted Georgia: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Peach State (2008)

Charles Elliott, Strange Tales of the South: Haunted Houses and Ghost Legends (1974)

Dennis William Hauck, Haunted Places: The National Directory (2002)

Jim Miles, Haunted South Georgia (2017)

J. Michael Norman, Spirits of the Southeast (2010)

Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits, 3rd Ed. (2007)

Tiya Miles, Phantoms of the Past: The American South and the Supernatural (2021)

Alan Gauld & A.D. Cornell, Psychical Research and the Poltergeist (1979)

Michael Norman & Beth Scott, Haunted America (1988)

Nancy Roberts, Haunted Houses: Tales from the American South (1972)

Jim Miles, Haunted Georgia: Ghosts and Legends of the Peach State (2010)

Randy Russell & Janet Barnett, Spirits of the South: Ghost Stories of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi (2000)

Alan Dundes, Dictionary of American Folklore (1993)

William G. Roll, The Poltergeist Phenomenon (2012)

Nancy Roberts, Haunted Houses: Where Ghosts Still Roam (1979)

Kathryn Tucker Windham, Southern Spirits: Tales of the Supernatural from the Deep South (1983)

Ann Braude, The American Spiritualist Movement, 1848–1920 (2001)

Muriel V. Murphree, Mysteries and Legends of Georgia (2009)

Georgia Public Broadcasting (2021) – “The Surrency Poltergeist: Georgia’s Most Documented Haunting”

Georgia Archives – Appling County records and land grants, Allen P. Surrency estate (1870s–1880s)

U.S. Census Records – Appling County, Georgia (1870–1880)

Library of Congress Chronicling America – Digitized newspaper archives, 1872–1873

Frank Podmore, The Poltergeist in History (1896)

American Hauntings Podcast, Season 4, Episode 14 – “The Surrency Ghost”

Beast of Bladenboro – “The Surrency Haunting: Georgia’s Most Infamous Poltergeist”

Otherworldly Oracle – “The Surrency Ghosts: True Terrifying Tales of Haunted Georgia”

PANICd.com – “ParaPedia: The Surrency Family Poltergeist”

US Ghost Adventures – “The Poltergeist of Phelps Mansion”

Paranormal Research Society of New England – “Phelps Mansion”

American Hauntings Ink – “The Stratford Poltergeist”

Episode Music

Out of the Mines, courtesy of Ross Gentry, Asheville, North Carolina.

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By Shannon Ballard

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