Who is the Black Widow of Hazel Green?

maple hill cemetery, hazel green, black widow — Maple Hill Cemetery it Huntsville’s oldest and largest graveyard. (McCarley Northway / Hville Blast)

From Dead Children’s Playground to the rocking chair ghost, Huntsville has no shortage of haunting legends. One infamous woman, Elizabeth Dale-Gibbons-Flanagan-Jeffries-High-Brown-Routt, earned the nickname “The Black Widow of Hazel Green” for her haunting list of dead husbands.

“The story was that she kept marrying these men, and they would disappear/die pretty quickly in succession. There’s not really ghost stories about her because she was scary enough when she was alive “
Sue Anne Griffith, Creator of Lily Flagg’s Signal Podcast

How the Black Widow of Hazel Green got her name

Before her husbands’ untimely deaths established her as a Huntsville legend, Elizabeth Dale was born on Oct. 28, 1795 in Worcester, Maryland. She married her first husband, Rev. Samuel G. Gibbons, when she was 17 according to the Huntsville History collection. Gibbons wrote a will in 1816, just four years into their marriage, that promised his wife his entire estate. When he died in 1830 of black tongue, the will had never been updated.

Their union had produced no children, and Elizabeth took another husband shortly after Gibbons’ death. Phillip Flanagan, her second husband, died five months after their marriage.

Elizabeth took her third husband William Alexander Jeffries the following year, 1832, and he owned a sizable plantation in Hazel Green, Alabama. The couple was married for 5 years, and had two children, before Jeffries died in 1835. Elizabeth inherited the Jeffries plantation.

More husbands, more money

bus stop coffee, widow of hazel green — Bus Stop Coffee debuted the “Dark Chocolate Cherry Latte” inspired by the Black Widow of Hazel Green this fall. (Bus Stop Coffee via Instagram)

An Alabama House of Representatives member who had acquired sizable property, Robert A. High, married Elizabeth in 1839. He died 2 years after they wed.

Her fifth husband, Absalom Brown, was a wealthy merchant who financed building an impressive home in Hazel Green. Upon the home’s completion, Brown died. Elizabeth called for a midnight burial due to the odd swelling of his body.

She married her final husband, Willis Routt, for 3 years before his death left her a six time widow.

Rumors swirled around Elizabeth and her unusual story. One potential suitor, whom she rejected, published the rumors in a book. Elizabeth filed a $50,000 defamation lawsuit but ultimately lost the case. She sold her plantation in Hazel Green, and moved to Mississippi to outrun her past. She died in 1866 at 71 years old.