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In the early 60's, the Corp of Engineers began acquiring land for Percy Priest Lake. Homes, farms, even one entire town were reclaimed to build the lake. This meant relocating families, including many family cemeteries. While most folks were eager to cooperate, one family was not particularly happy about the government taking their land... the Morelands.

Uriah Moreland's family had owned the modest, five-hundred acre farm since the late 1860's. With the help of his wife, Abby, their five children and a few farm hands, the farm was successful, producing corn, tobacco as well as cattle. Uriah's interests though... were not totally farm-related. A curious man, he had a passion for the darker side of life. His photography chronicled this passion.


Tales of Uriah's dabbling in the dark arts, combined with his fierce temper were chilling... torturing farm workers... mutilating them... some claim killing them... if his orders were not followed. The farm hands nicknamed the place "The Body Farm".

With Abby, he conducted crude seances, resulting in the awakening of all sorts of evil spirits. They would gather with their children by moonlight in the woods, chanting inexplainable incantations. Sometimes screams of terror were heard by the farm hands during some of those gatherings. The next day, the wooded area where they were seen would be bloody, and bits of what appeared to be flesh and hair could be found. This same blood would also be found marking the family graves with ritualistic symbols.


After more than one farm worker 'vanished', and countless others experienced the temper of Uriah, the farm help left...only the Morelands themselves remained. The farm deteriorated, and when time came for the Corp of Engineers to take the farm, they found Abby, and the children brutally slain in the old farmhouse. The former farm hands figured Uriah had gone mad with anger over his farm being taken and the evil within his soul took matters into its own hand, destroying not only his farm but his family as well.

As for Uriah... he was never found. The land was condemned, the family graves moved, and today most of the farm lies under the cold waters of Percy Priest Lake. What remains visible is the high ground where the Moreland house still stands, and the adjacent woods.

Many unexplainable stories of horror and sightings of apparitions have been reported in those woods and near the house where the Morelands once lived-and died. Strangely, Uriah's horrific photos of what went on have been recently discovered at the Moreland House.




Uriah Moreland's farm.

A mysterious -- some would say possessed -- landowner ruled with an iron fist over this 500 acre family plot, where the spirits of the many farm workers, sharecroppers and complete strangers, tortured to death in the macabre chambers in his house, barns and nearby woods... refuse to rest.

In the 1960s, the Corp of Engineers tried to drown it out of existence.

Uriah wouldn't let them. Photography oddly comes to life.

Today, while much of the land lies 12 feet under the choppy waters of Piercy Priest Lake, there still remains the home, the forgotten woods, the graves and the ghosts....

as for Uriah... no one knows.