Methodist minister William “Bill” Sketoe Sr. was hanged by Confederate Home Guards near Newton, Alabama, on December 3, 1864, during the final bitter months of the Civil War. Legend says his executioners hung him for trumped-up charges of deserting the Confederate army. They dug a hole beneath his feet because the tall preacher’s body touched the ground after the rope tightened beneath a post oak tree beside the Choctawhatchee River. For generations afterward, locals claimed the hole could never stay filled, turning “Sketoe’s Hole” into one of Alabama’s most enduring ghost stories.
While much of Sketoe's story is difficult to confirm, he is known to have resided in Newton prior to the Civil War, and was lynched there in December, 1864.
