JASPER COUNTY, Ga. — You may recognize Jasper County as the hometown of country singer and Food Network star Trisha Yearwood, and folks come to town to learn more about her, but some visitors come looking for history.
The really big mystery in Monticello sits six feet under.
Jasper County has over 100 cemeteries. including one that sits at Monticello Presbyterian Church. There's a story there that it doesn't have an ending, but it does have people talking.
A visitor resides in a plot of land at the church. He was a salesman who found his final resting place after a ride into town on the train.
Who he is, well, that's the million-dollar question.
"First, they thought he was asleep, and then they realized he was dead," said Katie Cannon.
Cannon has told the terrifying tale many times.
She worked as the Jasper County Tourism Director for four years, and she says this story gets even stranger.
"He was very well-dressed, and, basically, the funeral director judged him by what he was wearing and he figured he was well off, so someone was going to claim him," said Cannon.
In the 19th century, they didn't have morgues, so the spiffed-up soul went into the ground. Cannon says since he was someone with nice clothes, the townsfolk felt he deserved the best they could give -- a nice wrought-iron fence.
Cannon said, "This was done normally with family plots, not anything with individuals."
The sad part of it is no one ever came for the man, so no one paid for a headstone or any kind of a memorial to mark history.
"It's the only way some people get memorialized because there's no record of them other than their cemetery plot," said Cannon.
The plot has produced a legend of sorts, so much so the city plans three more murals in town, and the mystery salesman and his simple space may go up on the concrete.
The phantom that passed away in the 1800s still garners attention from the grave.