“After the storm, something strange was discovered: a silhouette of the girl’s face appeared, etched into the glass of the window near where she died”

Beside Maple Grove Cemetery in Russellville, Kentucky, stands a little white house built around 1870. It was originally the home of the cemetery sexton, the person responsible for caring for the cemetery and its grounds, which is how it became known as the Sexton House. From the road, there isn’t much about it that immediately suggests one of Russellville’s strangest stories. You have to know which window to look at.

The story begins with a young woman who lived in the house sometime in the late 1800s. She wanted to attend a local dance, but her parents refused to let her go. Exactly who she planned to attend the dance with depends on which version of the story you hear. Some versions simply say she wanted to go with a young man her parents didn’t approve of. Others attach a much more recognizable name to her date: Jesse James. James and members of the James-Younger Gang had robbed the Southern Bank of Kentucky in Russellville in 1868, giving him a very real connection to the town. Whether he had any connection to the girl in the Sexton House is another matter, but his name has become part of some versions of the story.

Whoever she planned to meet that night, her parents said no. The girl was furious. She went upstairs, where she was supposedly bathing near a window while a storm moved through Russellville. Still angry about being forbidden from attending the dance, she cursed God. Then lightning struck the house.

The girl was killed instantly. But when the storm passed, her family supposedly discovered that the lightning had left something behind. On the glass of the window near where she died was the silhouette of a young woman’s face. It wasn’t a perfect portrait. The image looked more like a shadow pressed into the glass, but people could make out the profile of a woman’s face. Her forehead, nose, lips, and chin seemed to be visible, with her head tilted slightly downward. Depending on how you look at it, there even appears to be the shape of hair or a bonnet around her head. The image looked as though the glass had captured the girl at the exact moment the lightning struck.

Word spread through Russellville, and people began coming to the Sexton House just to see the window. What had started as a family tragedy became a local curiosity, and eventually the attention became enough of a problem that someone decided to make the girl disappear.

Around 1920, the window was painted over. That should have been the end of it, but people claimed the paint didn’t work. Whenever another thunderstorm passed over Russellville and lightning flashed against the house, the girl’s face could supposedly still be seen through it. Eventually, the window was boarded over completely. Instead of ending the story, covering the glass only gave people another reason to wonder what was behind the boards.

For years, anyone driving past the Sexton House could see the covered window and know exactly why it was hidden. The boards became almost as recognizable as the image itself. People continued telling the story of the girl who cursed God, the lightning strike that killed her, and the face that refused to disappear. Today, the boards are gone, and the window can be seen again.

I have driven past the Sexton House more than once. We passed it in July 2019 on our way to the Emancipation Proclamation Parade in Russellville, and I drove by again in 2023. The house was still there beside Maple Grove Cemetery, still holding onto the story that has followed it for generations. And yes, you can still see something in the window.

It is subtle. If no one told you what to look for, you might drive past without noticing anything at all. But once you stop and look at the glass, the outline begins to take shape. There appears to be the profile of a young woman looking downward, her face still visible in the same window people once painted and boarded over to keep others from staring at it.

Maybe it is weathering. Maybe it is something in the old glass. Maybe people see a face because they have already been told there is one there. But whatever caused it, the image survived the paint, the boards, and more than a century of people trying to get a look at it.

The girl herself may have disappeared into Russellville folklore, but her face never did.