Harrison Cemetery is a small rural burial ground east of Kinston in Coffee County, Alabama, located off County Road 484 (near its intersection with County Road 473). It began as a family plot associated with the Harrison family, early settlers in the area, and later expanded to include other local burials. The cemetery holds roughly 150–160 marked graves. Among them is the grave of William Harrison Sr., identified as the only known Revolutionary War patriot buried in Coffee County. The most distinctive feature is the above-ground brick tomb of William “Grancer” (or “Grand Sir”) Harrison (c. 1789–1860).
William “Grancer” Harrison was born around 1789 in the Ninety-Six District of Edgefield County, South Carolina. He moved to Alabama in the 1830s and established a large cotton plantation (reported as roughly 2,500 acres) near the junction of Cripple Creek and the Pea River, just outside present-day Kinston. He was a successful planter who hosted frequent barbecues, horse races, and dances. Local accounts state that he had a large dance hall built on his property and that he especially loved Saturday-night parties at which he played the fiddle and danced in a special pair of custom clogs or dancing shoes. According to tradition preserved in local histories and later folklore collections, Harrison directed that he be buried in his dancing clothes and clogs, lying on his feather bed, inside an above-ground tomb built within earshot of the dance hall so he could still hear the music. He died in 1860, and the burial was carried out according to those wishes. The dances continued for a time after his death but eventually ceased, and the hall fell into ruin. The tomb has been vandalized and rebuilt multiple times; in 1964 dynamite was used to break it open (rumors of hidden gold proved unfounded), and further vandalism occurred in 2010. It was last substantially reconstructed around 2005.
Reported Hauntings and Folklore
Harrison Cemetery is the setting of one of Alabama’s best-known ghost stories, the “Dancing Ghost of Grancer Harrison.” For generations, travelers on the nearby road have reported hearing faint fiddle music, the rhythmic tapping of dancing feet or clogs, and sometimes a deep male voice calling square-dance figures, especially on Saturday nights near the tomb. Some accounts add a sudden chill or swirling dust. The story was collected and popularized in Kathryn Tucker Windham and Margaret Gillis Figh’s 1969 book 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. In 2021 the Alabama Folklife Association and the William G. Pomeroy Foundation installed a Legends & Lore historical marker at the cemetery that reads: “Sounds of a fiddle and tapping feet can be heard near the grave of Grancer Harrison, buried in his dancing shoes in 1860.” These reports remain oral tradition and visitor accounts rather than the product of formal paranormal investigation.
Relevant links
William G. Pomeroy Foundation: Grancer’s Ghost marker
Historical Marker Database: Grancer’s Ghost
Find a Grave: Harrison Cemetery
Find a Grave: William “Grancer” Harrison
