Octavia Hatcher, Pikeville’s Statue That Turns Its Back

Octavia Smith married James Hatcher, a rising Pikeville businessman, in 1889. Local history, as summarised by the Clio history site and by WYMT, says she gave birth to a son, Jacob, on 4 January 1891 and that the child lived only a very short time. She then sank into depression and, by April, was bedridden. She died on 2 May 1891 and was buried in the hilltop cemetery above the town. James Hatcher went on to build a business empire in timber, coal, steamboats, banking and hotels, died in 1939 and was buried in the family plot in Pikeville Cemetery.

The legend adds a darker second act. It says the spring of 1891 saw other townspeople fall into comas, that the heat meant Octavia was buried without embalming, and that a worried family opened the grave to find the coffin lining shredded and her fingernails torn. Roadside America quotes curator Everett Johnson of the Big Sandy Heritage Center as saying there is enough anecdotal evidence to believe it, while conceding that very little is documented. The Clio entry reports that the museum’s director, Polly Hopkins, says there are no period documents for the sleeping sickness, the burial alive or the exhumation. University of Pikeville archivist Edna Fugate told WYMT in 2018 that she has never found Octavia’s or the baby’s obituary, that the newspaper issues for those months are missing, and that James Hatcher’s own letters and obituary speak of a much-loved wife without any horror. Hatcher relatives dispute the tale, according to Roadside America.

The ghostly element is thinner and rests on retelling. The statue James commissioned, a life-size marble figure said to have been made in Italy and set up in 1892, is said to turn on its pedestal on the anniversary of Octavia’s death so that it faces away from the town that, in the legend, buried her. Roadside America attributes this to museum board member Jessica Forsyth, who says the spinning stopped after the family fenced the plot. The Clio entry adds that University of Pikeville students were reportedly found turning the statue at night and are blamed for breaking off its hand. A 2024 episode of KET’s Kentucky Life says residents have reported hearing a woman weeping in the cemetery and that some avoid the place after dark.

James Hatcher’s own habits fed the story. His downtown hotel reportedly displayed a custom-built coffin fitted with a way for its occupant to signal from inside, and the KET episode’s historians float the idea that the buried-alive story may have started with him. The family fenced the plot and raised the statue on a pedestal in the mid-1990s.

A marble statue said to rotate on its pedestal to face away from town, and a woman’s weeping reported by residents near the grave at night. Both are secondhand local reports.

The Hatcher plot in Pikeville Cemetery, on a hill above downtown Pikeville, with the statue as its focus. The anniversary of Octavia’s death, 2 May, is named in the statue story; Halloween draws visitors.

Octavia Hatcher’s statue is one of eastern Kentucky’s best-known Halloween stops. The story has appeared on WYMT, in Roadside America’s listings and in a 2024 Kentucky Life episode on KET.