Randa: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Stabbed Stylists podcast. I'm Randa. And I'm Ashley. We are just two stylists who love true crime and hair, and we're gonna tell you about both. This is a true crime podcast. These stories may be disturbing to some. Listener discretion is [00:01:00] advised.

Ashley: welcome back to episode 103 of the Stab and Stylist Podcast. This is Ashley.

Randa: Reporting in live.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah.

Randa: Well, shoot, what are y'all doing? What y'all been doing all summer?

Ashley: I know. Summer's, like, wrapping up now.

Randa: That's weird, 'cause it's just starting for us- I know ... as we're recording this.

As we've discussed before, we batch record, so sometimes we're like, "Wait, when does this come out? What, when is this? Are, are the children back in school by the time this one comes out?"

Ashley: Yeah.

Randa: Okay.

Ashley: They just started back.

Randa: Well, I'm so sorry to all my teachers. I'm so sorry.

Ashley: I love Randa will text me in like two months and be like, "So what number do we have to?"

Well, I'm trying to figure out when I have to record again. Ugh. We do a

Randa: lot

Ashley: of these. I'm just

Randa: a

Ashley: girl with ADHD. Leave me alone. When we first started, oh my God, the people we were back then, so ambitious, young lads. We were like, "We're gonna [00:02:00] record every single Monday. It'll come out the next week." That is not- That didn't

Randa: happen

Ashley: that is not how this works.

Randa: That is-

Ashley: This is, we do.

Randa: So it turns out we have lives.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, we just do this out of the goodness of our hearts, so.

Randa: Really because we can't shut up mainly.

Ashley: And I've learned so much. I love to learn- Yeah, I learn a little- ... and I've

Randa: learned so

Ashley: much ...

Randa: learn a little bit every time.

Yeah. Every single time.

Ashley: Yeah. So we've, we've been kinda having a historical- Moment ... historical crime summer.

Randa: Well, this is gonna be a historical spooky.

Ashley: I love that. We need a little crime, let off the crime, 'cause we got some... We still, we're not done with it yet. We're still rolling with some historical ones, but yeah.

Let's have a palate cleanser of the spooky.

Randa: Well, I don't know how much of a palate cleanser it's gonna be 'cause we're still talking about the damn Civil War, but today we're going to [00:03:00] Franklin, Tennessee, and we are gonna talk about the Lotz, that's L-O-T-Z, Lotz, and Carter houses. The Lotz House was built in 1858 by a German immigrant named Johann Lotz.

Johann hand-built this house as a master woodworker. He was a master woodworker in Germany, came over here, built his house, and he kinda built it as like a basically like a 3D show model of like, "This is what I can do."

Ashley: Okay.

Randa: You know? Yeah, yeah. Like, "This is my work. This is my craftsmanship."

Ashley: Who wants

Randa: one of these

Ashley: houses?

Randa: Exactly. And Johann did not own any slaves. He had no help. It was just him building it.

Ashley: Did he have sons?

Randa: He did. So, He has six children, including a set of twins

One of his daughters Matilda, would later become famous for her paintings. And they also had a set of twins, but the [00:04:00] twins would end up dying from... I told you we were gonna talk about the Civil War, would end up dying from playing in a poison creek that the Union army poisoned to get rid of the Confederates.

Ashley: Ooh, what?

Randa: Yeah.

Now, right next door, and, and in Franklin, these two houses- Yeah ... still stand today. You can walk between them. They're not that far apart. Um, I mean, they're, like, right there. Boom, boom. Um, Is the Carter House. The Carter House was built in 1830 by Fountain Branch Carter for his wife and his 12 children Um, he actually sold Johan the property that his house sits on- Okay

which is 110 steps from his own.

Ashley: You'd think he'd try to push that a little bit.

Randa: You'd think. I'm guessing it must have been, like, a road situation. Yeah. You [00:05:00] know? Eight of the 12 children lived to adulthood. One of Fountain Branch's sons was actually home on furlough from the army, and ended up fighting in the Battle of Franklin, which by the way- Okay

raged right outside the doors of this house, like, basically on their lawn.

Ashley: Yeah.

Randa: So the night of the Battle of Franklin, the, the troops have taken over both properties, right? They're using one house as a, basically as like a- A check-in station. The other one is also housing troops. Upstairs- Okay ... both families um, are down in the cellar basement of the Carter home-

Ashley: Okay

Randa: for 19 hours they are down there, listening to cannon [00:06:00] fire, and gunshots, and men screaming, and horses, and everything.

Ashley: And let me add to this. A lot of people don't realize that , old mansions you see, from the Civil Wars time, like bef- prior to Civil War, in this area, they were probably taken over by either side of the army as a hospital- Mm-hmm

or a command- Mm-hmm ... post. Think of how many spooky mansion stories you've told, that that's the exact story.

Randa: Yeah. Oh, yeah. A- and when you, and when you think about it, I mean, these people's barns, their out sheds um, their fences are being torn down, and then the lumber is being used by the Confederate Army.

Ashley: Right.

Randa: Their livestock is being used. Horses are being taken. Their

Ashley: fences are being melted down [00:07:00] for bullets.

Randa: Yeah. Their horses are being taken. Their, their chickens are being slaughtered for food. I mean, they just sweep in and they take everything. Um- And so the

I want you to take a second and imagine, this battle has raged. These people hear it all for 19 hours. They're huddled in this cellar, and they emerge to a completely different landscape than when they went in.

Ashley: Right.

Randa: They find nothing but carnage. I mean- Mm-hmm.

Ashley: And holes all in the front of their house.

Randa: They find nothing but carnage. They f- there are 17 dead on the Lotz yard alone. Not even the Carter house's yard, just the Lotz's yard. Both houses are currently being used as [00:08:00] hospitals To treat the wounded. There, there's a burn mark from a six-pound cannonball in the Lott's floor that is still there- Oh my God

today, where it came through and basically, like, landed

Ashley: there. Yeah.

Randa: There's a patch in the floor above where it actually crashed through and, and came to rest on this bottom floor. There are blood stains on every floor in the Lott's home.

Ashley: That is so wild. I'm sitting here looking at pictures of it right now.

Randa: So Mr. Lotz kind of pivots to making instruments more often than like working on houses after all this, after he's repaired his own house and everything. And Lotz makes a piano in the years following the war, and the piano features a carving of an eagle with its claws in the Confederate battle [00:09:00] flag. So the Klan gets wind of this

And in 1868 They come round knocking for Mr.

Lotts, 'cause they're not too happy about getting wind of this piano that he's made after, mind you, his house has been destroyed.

Ashley: Right. Give him a break.

Randa: Le- leave this man alone. The Klan starts to harass Mr. Lotz, and after like, a several, like, pettier things, it just starts escalating and escalating and escalating and escalating.

And then Lotz finds out that they have a plan to tar and feather this man on his own lawn for this fucking piano, right?

Ashley: The fucking Klan, if nothing, they're tenacious-

Randa: I know ...

Ashley: and not in a good way.

Randa: And so Lotz sells everything, packs it up, and moves out to San Jose, California. I know. He says, [00:10:00] "Fuck all y'all."

Ashley: Yeah. "

Randa: Fuck all this. I'm getting out." In current day, the Lotz House is said to be very haunted. Oh,

Ashley: I can imagine.

Randa: There are... I've watched hours and hours and hours of people who have uh, investigated paranormally the Lotz House. Um, There's EVPs, there's full apparitions, there's people that report being touched.

Um, And one of the main ones is that people see a woman on the stairs looking for somebody named Anna. Um, There's apparitions that appear in the windows at night. People hear children laughing and playing. They think that's probably the twins.

Ashley: Yeah.

Randa: Pant legs have been tugged. Hair has been brushed.

There have been whispers in ears. And of course, outside at night, you see [00:11:00] soldiers walking around the grounds.

Ashley: Yeah.

Randa: But I thought that was very, very, very telling of you know, even years after the war is over, this man is being punished for the way that he interpreted his experience.

Ashley: Yeah Which once again, I mean, Tennessee was not a super Confederate sympathizer.

They're-

Randa: Well, and why would this man be con- sympathize with the Confederacy? He's a German immigrant.

Ashley: Right. He's like, "I don't have nothing to do with this." No. So he didn't have slaves. He built it on his own. Yeah. So he didn't

Randa: want to agree with that. He just wanted to be a woodworker

Ashley: I bet this place, I've been sitting here looking at pictures, and I bet that place is- It's

Randa: gorgeous

Ashley: yeah, it is pretty.

Randa: It is stunning.

Ashley: And- I bet it is haunted, though ...

Randa: it's apparently, like, one of the only cantilevered uh, staircases that you can find-

Ashley: That's awesome ...

Randa: from the time [00:12:00] period. I m- like, the man was a- Yeah ... wood fucking worker. It's beautiful. Like, he was a savant- Yeah ... when it came to that. And the fact that, like, he also made instruments is, That is so cool

pretty telling of, like-

Ashley: Yeah ...

Randa: how good he was, you know?

Ashley: Yeah.

Randa: But no.

Ashley: I... That's what we talk about, like, Indian land all the time, but people don't realize that there's not much of Tennessee that wasn't touched by the Civil War, too, you know?

Randa: Yeah,

Ashley: yeah. And Georgia, but honestly, I have tried so many times-

Randa: Yeah, the battlefields are aplenty-

Ashley: Well, that's what I was gonna say

around here ... I've tried so many times to write up an episode on the Chickamauga Battlefield.

Randa: Haunted as hell.

Ashley: But really, that's all there is to say about it. It's haunted. Yeah. Green Eyes is there. You'll see Green Eyes out there. Mm-hmm. You can still hear the battle going on, but there's not anything to...

There's not enough for a whole episode. Mm-hmm. But one thing I used to love doing when Tim was down there next to it- At Fort O, yeah ... yes, I used to love driving. I'd always get there a little bit early [00:13:00] and circle in those big pretty houses- Mm-hmm ... behind it. But not much of this land has been not touched by the Civil War, and like I said, if it was a big pretty house, it was probably at some time or in some way taken over by the Civil War.

Randa: Yep.

Ashley: That's crazy. Those houses are really close.

Randa: But yeah, you can bu- you can go tour both the Lotts and the Carter House. Yeah, you can see the bullet holes. You can go see both of them.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. Like, it's all... I love that they thought to preserve that, though.

Randa: Yeah. '

Ashley: Cause so many things have been just lost.

Not necessarily like-

Randa: Also, I don't know if you know this, but Franklin is haunted as fuck.

Ashley: Yes.

Randa: There is so many haunted things in Franklin.

Ashley: Yes. Franklin was, like, a big city back then, too.

Randa: It was Nashville before Nashville

Ashley: was

Randa: Nashville.

Ashley: Yeah, and it was, like, a big railroad hub there, too. Yeah. So there's a lot that happened, happened there, and literally there was the Battle of Franklin.

This, these two houses are described as the [00:14:00] epicenter of

Randa: the Battle of Franklin.

Ashley: Of the Battle of Franklin. So yeah, it's really interesting. Nice. I love this history stuff. History hour.

Randa: But yeah, if you get real curious about it and wanna go on YouTube, just look up the Lotts House-

Ashley: Yeah ...

Randa: Franklin, Tennessee, and you will find plenty of footage of that thing.

Ashley: And I love an EVP.

Randa: Yeah.

Ashley: That's the thing about me, I love an EVP, so I would be interested.

Randa: Yeah. Go down that YouTube rabbit hole. I recommend

Ashley: it. I'm gonna do that. Nice. Go check it out, or go visit it. Either one.

Speaker: Don't whistle in the woods at night. Bye, y'all.