Benton Agricultural High School is one of the oldest public schools still in operation in the state of Mississippi. And if rumors are to be believed it's also supposed to be one of the most haunted. With no fewer than a dozen or so ghost laying claim to the school. One of the most famous and these stories is certain to a certain girl who is reported to have haunted the nurses office on the third floor of the school. She also reported to roam the hallways between classes.
Benton Agricultural High School first opened its doors in 1904 as part of an overall building program that was sponsored by the elite from Boston, Memphis, and New Orleans. The goal of this program was to slowly improve the standard of living in the Yazoo Delta through higher education and the teaching of Christina Morales. If the program failed or succeeded in its goals, it's still yet to be seen in this year of 2018. But returning to the story.
In the early years of the school, the school offered to to border students who lived far away. The cost of a room for the quarter was two dollars and it covered meals and bedding. Now, Benton was till something of a tiny settlement on the banks of the Big Black River, with very few people living in the town itself. Most instead lived on the surrounding plantations in one room shacks called “Sharecroppers Hovers”. And the presence of such a school did little to encourage people to move. Most of the students, inf act, came from either the more urban city of Yazoo City, the newly christen county seat of the newly formed Yazoo County, then a thriving settlement of seven thousand souls some twenty three miles to the north of Jackson, the newly built state capital that was quickly becoming the center of commerce and culture in the state that was located some twenty miles to the south.
Indeed most of the students came from neighboring Yazoo City with a modest few coming from Jackson and a token lot coming down from Vicksburg. Most if not all of them arrived on the newly built Yazoo Delta-Valley Railroad, a small railroad that's still in operation today. The Yazoo Delta-Valley railroad is more commonly called the “Yellow Dog” for the “YD” that was painted on the tenders of its locomotives and the doors of its Boxcars.
Among those students was a young woman of sixteen named Scarlet Rebecca Saxton, Scarlet came from a rich family of merchants and businessmen that hailed from Jackson. She spoke with a refined accent and had been sent to this school in hopes of earning a diploma with heavy emphasis on the liberal arts and bookkeeping in hopes that with such skills she might one day help her father and three older brothers govern and expand the budding empire of trade they were building throughout the south. Little did she know that the minute she stepped onto the wooden platform in downtown Benton, under a cloudless, azure sky that the sand in her hourglass was quickly starting to run out.
You see, while the winter down south had been modest, the winter up north had been brutal, one with plenty of ice and snow, and as the spring thaw progressed and spring melted into summer, that snow and ice started to melt into water, water that flowed into the many rivers and creeks that feed the mighty Mississippi River and a Tsunamis the water started to roll down the Mississippi River . The water push the river out of its banks and and as it rolled toward the mouth of the Gulf of Mexico it pushed its water into the Yazoo River, Little Sunflower, Big Sunflower and of course the Big Black and as Mississippi rose from its banks, and began its assault the man made levees many locals knew that a flood of biblical proportions was in the making, the flood reached its zenith a few days after Scarlet reached Benton.
The levees that surround the Yazoo River had melted away, covering the fields between Yazoo City and Vicksburg on the Mississippi under sixteen foot of water. The flooding had also cut the railroad line between Greenville and Yazoo City. Now, Benton Agricultural High school being located on the high bluffs that overlooked the river was spared the worst of the flooding. And thus the students were safe for the moment. So Scarlet had little to worry about. But with the flood came the plague of mosquitoes and with them came the dreaded curse of “Yellow Jack”.
A few days into classes another levee this time one on the Big black caved in and busted and the sudden onrush of water knocked out the wooden trestle that spanned the Big Black River and severed the main lifeline of the town. You see the railroad was the main way in and out of Benton at the time and with that connection cut, the town was for the most part isolated. To make matters worse it would take months to repair it with the flood water rising in and around Yazoo City, the spur line leading into Yazoo City was also knocked out.
Leaving only barges or privately owned boats as a means of escape or to bring in goods and supplies. All of this mattered little to Scarlet who was ranked among the most wealthy of students and thus noticed little of the events unfolding beyond the walls of the school. As the flood water rose, the steady rhythm of school life kept going. Even the outbreak of the Yellow Fever, a viral disease with such colorful nicknames as “Yellow Jack” or “Bronze John” and as the local newspapers named it, “The Saffron Scourge”.
The suffering and rising death toll of the town people and the field hands in the surrounding farms did not bother the headmaster who refused to send the remaining few students home, instead, he ordered a grand gala to be held to keep the young minds off the horrors of the plague raging outside the safety of the school.
And so a gala was held, and it turned out to be a fine on. The gymnasium of the school was filled with teenagers swinging to the latest tunes while on stage an hired Jazz band hammered away. Girls in fine fine gowns, sipped punch that had been cooled with ice and spiked with local whiskey. They giggled and flirted with boys who wore woolen coats and ties. They took there whiskey straight, refreshments were served and the sound of laughter and music filled the warm night air. It was a night of wonder for all. Nobody seemed to notice if somebody coughed or complained about feeling a little too warm. Nobody that is till early the next morning when the first death was reported among the students a young man by the name of Oscar Joan was found dead in his bed the morning after the party.
By midmorning half the school was stricken, students and teachers alike were ill. Panic soon set in and the dead were often or not left to rot in their beds. Or were covered with sheets and put away, as the hours dragged on. Something of a sense of order and reason resumed as the area that is now the nurse's office became something of a make-shift morgue. A nurse and doctor were summoned from town along with the local Episcopalian minister and the local Roman Catholic priest, both who were called to tend to the dying to offer their respective last rites.
As the hours melted into days, the number of dead increased. Many who were given last rites quickly slipped from this world to the other. Once their final breath left their weary lungs, they were wrapped in their bed sheets and carried away to a makeshift graveyard that was located where the JROTC building is located now. Hour by hour they carted out the stricken till at last death's cold, bony hand reached out and wrapped its firm strong hands around frail little Scarlet.
For “Bronze John” had come a calling during the night and at his leaving he had given Scarlet a deadly kissed and on the morn of the next day, in the pre-dawn twilight she carried toward the sick bay, there the doctor on duty gave her only a quick once over and with a sigh he shook his head. She was beyond his help.
Scarlet died that very afternoon, sweating and vomiting up blood and vile. She was buried in the same gown she wore to the gala only a few days ago. Since then, many have reported a young girl around the age of fourteen strolling up and down the hallways between classes. The girl is always dressed in a fiery red gown. Other times she appears in the JROTC building, watching the instructors as if amused by something known only to her. Other times she is said to appear to be field behind the other. Other times she said to appear at the bedside of resting students in the Nurse's office. What is clear is that Scarlet Saxton, the young belle of Southern High Society is still trying to finish her diploma, though we'll be over one hundred or so years have passed.
