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The following story goes in that bulging file known as “restless ghosts of murder victims.”  The “Ithaca Journal,” August 12, 1922:

Painesville, Ohio, Aug. 12--A "ghost" which farmers living near Paines Hollow say has been haunting them for seven years, is "at rest" today. It disappeared several days ago with the burial of the body of Henry Lipenstick, found in an abandoned well on a farm. Lipenstick, a farm hand, disappeared seven years ago. Since then the farm is said to have had poor crops.

A farm house burned down and the "ghost" was blamed for that. Owner after owner has come and gone. Carl Logies purchased the farm about a year ago. Whenever he went to his barn at night, Logies said today, he would see "a white wraithlike figure" walking about. At times he declared, he followed it with his gun in hand and it always disappeared in the direction of the well. Determined to find out what caused the apparition, Logies cleaned out the old well, which had been filled with stones.

He came upon the body of Lipenstick. Sheriff Spink was called and he and his deputies suspected murder. The next day the sheriff ordered the body buried and now the "ghost"' is gone. Frank Loerman, who owned the farm at the time Lipenstick disappeared, is in Lake County Jail. He was bound over to the grand jury on charges of murder.

The actual evidence against Loerman (his name was most often given as “Lerman” in contemporary accounts) proved to be virtually nonexistent, and he was soon freed.  Lipenstick’s murder was never solved, but the ghost apparently vanished for good.  Perhaps just seeing the body given a decent burial was enough to satisfy his spirit.

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This eerie little tale appeared in the “Shamokin News Dispatch,” November 26, 1929:

To have been haunted day and night by the apparition of his wife who passed away just a month ago with the result that he could not sleep and then went into a state of nervous collapse, is believed to have been the cause of the sudden death yesterday of William Waslouksas, 55, of Minersville. 

Since the death of his wife the man repeatedly told members of the family that a ghost was constantly about him and he dreaded to be left alone. He sought companionship of his children all the time and during the past weeks had been unable to sleep except at brief intervals. A daughter, residing with relatives at New. Minersville, called yesterday to visit her father and was apprised by other members of the family that he was still in bed, having failed to get up at his usual hour.

Going to his bedroom the girl was horrified to find him lifeless. Death is believed to have occurred during the night and attributed to fright resultant from the man's hallucination concerning the ghost of his departed wife.

One has to wonder if Mr. Waslouksas had a very uneasy conscience regarding his late wife.

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This account of a strange figure that seemed to take fashion tips from the Ku Klux Klan appeared in the “Syracuse Post Standard,” December 8, 1901:

CAZENOVIA, Dec. 7.-The usual calm of this quiet village has given way to unwonted excitement.

Strong men do not venture out at night unarmed, and even the most daring urchins have suddenly discovered a new charm in an evening at home. The cause of this state of things is the advent of some apparently unearthly object which wanders at will about the streets frightening men. women and children. The apparition is variously described as ranging in height from five to six feet. By some it is said to have a slight figure, while others, who claim to have good reason to know of what they are talking, declare it to be of much greater dimensions.

It sulks behind hedges, in the shadow of buildings and glides between the lofty elms for which Cazenovia is noted. Its head is described as enclosed in a white hood which terminates in a point which sways backward and forward as the ghost glides over the ground. The figure below the head is robed in a long flowing mantle of snowy whiteness. Several times on its nightly errands it has been seen to display threateningly a long. rusty knife and a revolver which glistens in the moonlight.

Its favorite haunts seem to be about the old skating rink, the Inhigh Valley Station, and Sullivan street. A few nights ago several boys were chased into a house by the strange object, but that same night it also was pursued through a vacant lot by three men, when it suddenly disappeared.

One evening some sash factory hands were wending their way homeward along the railroad tracks, boasting of the heroic deeds they would do if the apparition should appear to them, when on rounding a curve they were surprised by the subject of their conversation.  Without a moment's hesitation they took to their heels and did not once stop for breath until they burst excitedly into their own homes. 

Some insist that it is simply some boy out for a little fun. Others say it is merely a delusion. Still others believe it to be a sick man slightly demented. Another theory is that it is someone having the interest of the village at heart and is trying to do the young lads a service by frightening them off the streets at night.

As far as I can tell, the mystery of this armed-to-the-teeth apparition remained unsolved.

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A ghost that was, you might say, all things to all people was reported in the “Moncton Transcript,” February 1, 1922:

London, Jan. 30-Eastbourne is being troubled, or entertained, by a "ghost" mystery.

A strange apparition has been seen several times gliding along the Crumbles, near the fishermen's huts, and across Fishermen's Green. As the place is within 800 yards of the spot on which Irene Munro was murdered, some of the local residents accept the theory that the spirit of the murdered girl is abroad by night; but one of those who has seen the "ghost" says it was a male figure.

It was first seen in the half-light of a December morning by Mг. Richard Prodger, a fisherman, who says he was walking towards the huts when an apparition, clothed in a long black gown, suddenly rosе from the ground in front of him. As he moved forward the ghostly figure went ahead some distance. When he stopped the ghost stopped also.

"It was wearing a thing like an ulster cape, that reached down to the ground," he says. "It did not walk: it glided along. It wore also a big round hat.

"Three times I stopped, and the ghost stopped, too. It continued in front of me right across Fishermen's Green, and then suddenly sank into the ground and disappeared. I walked to the spot but saw no signs of the ghost. If I had not been loaded down with beat-hooks I should have gone for it."

The same apparition has been seen by Mrs. Goldsmith, caretaker of the Fishermen's Institute, adjoining Fishermen's Green. She says the ghost was white and luminous. She was walking near the huts when the strange figure emerged from between two of them like a white cloud. She stopped, trembling with fright, when, just as suddenly, the apparition disappeared--"vanished into nothing."

Bolder spirits are making nightly visits to the spot in an effort to run the strange visitor to earth.

Mr. Prodger is certain that the figure looked like a man who hanged himself in a house close to the huts, and thinks it is only natural that he should return to his old home at Christmas time.

On the other hand, Mrs. Goldsmith is equally sure that Irene Munro walks The Crumbles every night, while a girl who saw the ghost on her way home one night said she could "see right through it" as it glided along and vanished through the side of a hut.

More superstitious people dare not face the desolate waste after dark.

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On this blog, we’ve met mysterious Women in Black.  Not to mention the occasional Women in White.  So, who’s up for making the acquaintance of a Welsh Woman in Yellow?  The “Bradford Weekly Telegraph,” February 18, 1905:

A silent woman, shimmering in a bright yellow light, with gleaming eyes and up-lifted knife, is the latest ghostly form to be reported from South Wales. She has taken up her abode in a large building at Rhymney, now used as a Salvation Army barracks. The silent apparition, it is claimed, had been seen by many members of the corps, and, at the request of the Salvationists the local Wesleyan minister remained in the building through Friday night in order to investigate.

He was accompanied by two or three friends and a lady, the Salvationist Army lieutenant, and other Salvationists. The minister certainly did not see anything like what some of the others aver they saw, but he did see in the passage a body of very bright light moving to and fro. The party hoard many things during the night, such as the noisy walking and of a lady's dress rustling. 

“About half-past three," continued the minister, in describing his experiences, "my attention was called by one of the members of the Army to a face in the broken pane of the pantry window. I could not see the form of a face, but I saw something like a body of light.

“The lieutenant declared about that time that she saw apparition in the form of a woman dressed in yellow standing by my side, with a terrible look in its eyes and a knife in its band. I did not see  my undesirable companion. The Salvationist shouted out, ‘Oh, look at the knife!' and then fainted. 

“Coming to herself again, she appeared to follow the apparition with her eyes until they rested on the doorway, then she made a dash towards it, and was prevented by force from descending the cellar. 

“It occurs to me from what I saw,” adds the minister, that some enemy is using undue influence upon the Salvationists,such as hypnotism.  If it were not so, then it must be the hand of God revealing past events to the Salvationists, as well as to the world." 

In a conversation, the lieutenant informed the minister that she had been supernaturally informed that events had taken place in the house years ago, and that they would shortly be revealed to her and another lady Salvationist. The rev. gentleman has advised the Salvationists to close up the building for the present, and suggests that an exhaustive search should be made.

After a number of other sightings of the knife-wielding yellow lady, the Salvationists decided that they wished to gather someplace where life was less exciting, and cleared out of the barracks.  After that, as far as I know, the story disappeared from the newspapers.

The First Mrs. Bennett

William Bell Scott, Woman Startled by the Ghost of a Girl by a Mirror

Second marriages can be awkward, especially when the ex-spouse has issues with their former partner entering into a new union.  If said ex-spouse happens to be dead, you know your domestic life has well and truly entered Strange Company territory.

In her 1974 book “Haunted East Anglia,” Joan Forman described an unsettling episode in the life of an acquaintance of hers to whom she gave the pseudonym “Mrs. June Bennett.”  At the time our story opens, June had recently married a widower, after which the couple settled into the Wroxam home Mr. Bennett had shared with his first wife.  The late Mrs. Bennett had greatly loved the home and had been very possessive of it--as it happened, she had even died there.  June knew of all this, but felt no superstitious unease at becoming the house’s new mistress.

However, as soon as June took up residence, she noticed odd things going on around her.  She would hear phantom footsteps walking up and down the stairs, and she began noticing strange odors in some of the rooms.  The smells were like nothing she had ever noticed before--she could only describe them to Forman as “like incense, and yet unlike.”

The Bennetts employed a cleaning woman, who had also worked for the first Mrs. B.  She too heard the mysterious footsteps and smelled the strange odors.  However, what really frightened her was that she began hearing an invisible figure calling her name.  It was the voice of the first Mrs. Bennett.  The woman was so unnerved by this that she visited the grave of her late employer and begged to be left alone.  Unfortunately, this had no effect.  Oddly, Mr. Bennett heard and saw nothing unusual.

As unpleasant as all this was, June did not start to become seriously alarmed until she had been living in the house for about a year.  The Bennetts had just arrived back home from a holiday, when June heard both doorbells ring simultaneously.  By this point, she was not particularly surprised to find no one at either door.  A few nights later, June woke up to feel some substance clinging to her face.  She tried brushing it off, to no avail.  She told Forman “It was unlike material, but resembled cobwebs, and was certainly sticky.”  June got up to get something to drink, and by the time she went back to bed, the strange sensation had gone.

The most frightening incident of all came a short time later.  June was putting on makeup in front of the mirror on her dressing table.  Then, the mirror began to mist over.  When she tried to wipe it clean, she saw a reflection of a woman…that was not her.  It was the face of a stranger.  When she later described the woman to her husband, he said it must have been the face of his first wife.  June never used that mirror again.  Soon after this incident, she persuaded her husband to sell the home, and they moved to Norwich.  The home’s new owners reported no unusual occurrences, which seems logical.  The late Mrs. Bennett had no reason to feel jealous of them.

Even after moving away, June was not completely free of her predecessor.  One room in the new house contained furniture that had belonged to the first Mrs. Bennett.  The new cleaner who worked for June told her that this room often smelled strangely:  “Not quite like baking bread, but very near it.”

Pro tip:  If you plan to marry a widow/widower, always clear things with the ghost of the previous spouse first.  It could prevent a lot of uncomfortable situations.

The Cursed Chest of Cornwall

"Western Morning News," January 8, 1949, via Newspapers.com

In late 1948, Trevor Ley of Stanbury Manor, Morwenstow, bought an old hand-carved, cedarwood chest from a Cornwall antique shop.  The woman who owned the shop let him have the chest for a low price, explaining that since she had acquired it, anything placed on the walls kept falling to the ground.  She thought that “some sort of ghost seemed to be attached to it.”

This purchase soon led Trevor to question his life choices.  As the shop owner had warned, wherever the chest was placed, the most damnable--literally--things began happening.  Six antique shotguns that were securely fastened to the wall suddenly smashed to the floor, even though the nails and wires that had held them were still intact.  A heavy painting leaped two feet from the wall, hitting Trevor on the head.  Two other large pictures which had been “hanging safely for generations” also propelled themselves into the center of the room.  In another bedroom, a painting did something even weirder--it somehow was pushed backwards through the paneling.  An electric light bulb which had been placed on a window sill hurled against the wall on the opposite side of the room.  

And so on.  The Leys were naturally curious why their ghost--which they had nicknamed “Old George”--had attached itself to the chest, but Trevor had a healthy distrust for self-proclaimed “mediums” and declined most of their offers to contact their “spirit.”

In January 1949, Trevor brought in the local vicar, the Rev. K. Rees, to try to exorcise “George.”  When Rees examined the chest, the men were bemused to find what appeared to be bloodstains on the object.  The red stains  were on carved figures on the outside of the chest.  One was on the arm of a woman holding a corpse. The other, three feet away, was on the body of a headless man.  Rees made the cheery remark that "The chest would make an ideal hiding-place for a body.”  When asked about conducting an exorcism, Rees demurred.  "I'm not well versed in exorcising,” he explained.  “I must look it up."

Finally, the Leys brought in a spiritualist from London to rid them of their poltergeist.  These efforts were apparently successful, as “George” subsequently ceased to bother them.  However, just to be on the safe side, the Leys put the now-famous chest up for auction.  This failed to find a buyer, and the chest was withdrawn from sale.  I have been unable to learn of its subsequent history.

Despite his efforts to trace the chest’s history, Trevor never learned for sure why the chest came to be haunted, but he did uncover one wonderfully M.R. James-ish clue.  He wrote to a psychic researcher named William H, Gilroy that he had received a letter from a Cornish curate who had recognized the chest from its photos in the newspapers.  

This curate told Trevor that “many years ago there were two sisters living in the Manor House, Newlyn, (he gave their names but I cannot find his letter at the moment, but will look it up if it is of interest to you). They had in their house quite a collection of antiques and among them was this chest which they kept in their bedroom. One time, after having been away for a few days, they returned late one night and being rather tired, placed their heavy baggage on the chest rather than unpack at such a late hour. Early the next morning their attention was drawn to the chest and as they went over to it the lid, although weighted down by the heavy baggage, slowly opened and they looked inside. What they saw they would never reveal, but it was so horrible that they were both struck stone deaf; and although they lived to an old age they never got their hearing back.

“When they died the house and furniture were sold at auction and all trace of the chest was lost until it turned up in the antique shop where I purchased it.”

The Ghost Sausage of Devon

This brief, but delightfully offbeat “ghost story” (for lack of a better term) was related by author, paranormal researcher, and photographer J.P.J. Chapman:

Many years ago my late father-in-law rented a large farm near Bampton in North Devon.  The farm buildings and the dwelling house were situated half way up a steep hill overlooking the River Exe.  During a warm summer it was quite nice but with a lingering threat of bitter winds and snow in winter.

There was a lane going from the farm to a large moor which was quite 300 feet higher than the tillage.  Now, it is well known that large open spaces, devoid of any useful vegetation and situated atop a high hill, frequently possess a bad reputation.  Of a summer evening my wife and I frequently took a walk to the moor.  It commanded a wonderful view, while the sunsets were a sight to behold.

The lane ended at a gate which led into this moor.  Quite a while before the events to be related my wife and I frequently remarked that it was an eerie spot and the sooner passed the better.  Personally, I never gave it much thought for, being a “country lad,” I knew of many such places which were not nice--and that was all that could be said.

However, things proved otherwise.  My wife and her sisters rode a lot and took turns exercising the horses.  Sometimes they went out together.  I can still see them up on the moor, putting the horses into a gallop and thoroughly enjoying the wild ride.

On one occasion one of the girls was asked by her father to go on the moor to see if some cattle had strayed.  It was in the autumn and, the sun having set, it would soon be dark.  My wife’s sister decided to ride up.  Having seen that all was well she was just about to leave the moor, through the gate which she had left open, when the horse suddenly shied.  Nothing would induce it to pass through the gate.  There was no alternative route except by a long detour, so go through they must.

After several attempts she decided to dismount and lead the horse through.  This time as they reached the gate a curious luminous shape could be seen drifting nearby.  It was like an elongated sausage, with baleful eyes.  The whole thing seemed to be pulsating, from dim to bright.  It was in a vertical position except for a sideways, wavering movement.  To say the least, the girl was frightened but made up her mind to face it.

Placing herself between what-ever-it-was and the horse she coaxed the animal through.  When the horse was half way it broke loose and galloped down the lane for about 50 yards where it stopped and waited.

There were several curious facts concerning this particular haunting.  It took place only at dusk--no other time.  No other animals, except horses--any horse--were affected.  But here again was a most remarkable fact.  It had to be a horse and a human.  If there was not this combination nothing happened.  The “Ghost Sausage” as I dubbed it, seemed anchored to one spot, its movements restricted as related.  Several times I visited the place but, while noticing there was something there, never could decide what.  The ghost seemed quite harmless.  I got the impression that it was neither good nor bad.  It was just some form of a ghost--nothing more.

There was a big disused quarry nearby; possibly some earth spirit had been released.  My sister-in-law stated it was a greenish colour, about a foot across and five feet high.

This is the end of my story.  If the present residents of the farm ever see it, I don’t know, as we have not been near the place for the last 35 years or more.

What it was, how it originated, I do not know.  I never could find out.  Your answer will be as good as mine!

The Ghostly Coven Of Branden Farm

Ian Davison was a successful librettist, actor, and playwright on the London stage during the 1920s.  However, Davison grew tired of the big city theatrical life, and decided to retire to the countryside.  His choice of rural retreat was Branden Farm, just outside Sissinghurst, in Kent.

At first glance, Branden seemed an odd pick for someone seeking a pastoral idyll.  The farm was over 400 years old, and looked it.  The place had been abandoned for many years, and boasted rotting wood, overgrown weeds, and rats.  But Davison saw great potential for the house, and relished taking on the project of making it habitable.

Within several years, Branden was completely transformed.  It became a perfectly charming residence, surrounded by flower gardens and orchards full of fruit and nut trees.  It was a genuine farm, with cattle, chickens and pigs.  Davison moved into Branden in April 1932, little guessing that he would have roommates: a pack of ghosts who were very annoyed at having their territory invaded.

The apparitions wasted no time in making their presence known.  On Davison’s very first night in Branden, he heard a tapping at his bedroom window.  When he looked outside, nothing was there.  Nothing visible, at any rate.  Soon afterwards, he heard footsteps outside, followed by the noise of two people running.  Then there was a loud crash at the north end of the house, but when Davison went to inspect the area, he found no damage, or any sign of who or what had been running around.  He began hearing other unsettling sounds--agonized wails, more crashes, heavy footsteps through the house.  He and visitors to Branden always sensed that they were being watched by some invisible presence.  Many of Davison’s guests felt oddly exhausted while staying at Branden, and some had terrible dreams where they felt that someone was strangling them.  In one downstairs room, the atmosphere would go from unaccountably cold to inexplicably blazing hot.  The room made people feel dizzy, or even faint.  In another downstairs room, the imprint of a clawed hand mysteriously appeared on a table.

One night, a couple who was sleeping in an attic bedroom saw the figure of a sad-faced woman walk through the room.  The husband threw a slipper at her, after which the figure disappeared through a wall.  A few weeks later, Davison saw the same unhappy woman appear in his bedroom.  She was bent over and seemed to be looking for something on the ground.  Other shadowy figures began appearing throughout the house, including a ghostly cat.

Davison was obviously a phlegmatic sort--or perhaps his theatrical career gave him the mindset of a Man Who Had Seen It All--because he was largely unfazed by the supernatural goings-on.  He did not become genuinely alarmed until one night, when he heard a guest’s dog scratching at his bedroom door.  He let the animal in to join Davison’s own dog, Peter.  Both the dogs were clearly upset about something.  Davison realized that his bedroom had become so hot, he feared the house must be on fire.  Then the door suddenly seemed to disappear, revealing the presence of what Davison later described as “the foulest looking man I have ever set eyes on.”

The man was wearing an odd outfit in bright green, brown, and red.  He was extremely tall, and his revoltingly ugly face glared menacingly at Davison.  The librettist shouted, “Who are you--a fiend of hell?”  The figure laughed mockingly and vanished.  

One of Davison’s friends was a psychic investigator named Ronald Kaulbeck.  When he heard of the uncanny events at Branden, he volunteered to visit the farm to see if he could determine what was going on.  He later said that during his stay there, he experienced the worst fear of his life.  One evening, he suddenly began struggling for breath and clawing at his neck.  Others in the room saw a shadow appear around Kaulbeck’s neck that was clearly trying to choke him to death.  It took all their efforts to free him from the ghostly would-be strangler.

Kaulbeck was able to identify three distinct ghosts at Branden: the woman who was endlessly searching for something, a short, thick-set man who also had an air of unhappiness, and the tall, malevolent man who was clearly the source of all the evil at the farm.

Davison, determined to find out how his new home came to be a gathering-place for unpleasant spirits, brought in other mediums and spiritualists.  One told him that many years back, Branden Farm had been a meeting-place for practitioners of black magic.  Many terrible things, including animal and human sacrifices, had taken place on the site.  The medium sensed that the ghosts of these long-ago sorcerers wanted to force him out of the house, so they could again have it all to themselves.  She believed that the tall, sinister spirit was a George Tarver, who had occupied Branden in the 16th century.  He was the Grand Master of the satanic coven which met there.  The ghostly woman had been Tarver’s mistress, who went insane after her newborn baby was used as a human sacrifice.  The short, stocky ghost had been a coven member named Hunter.  After Hunter turned against the coven, Tarver strangled him and secretly buried him in the grounds.  Eventually, Tarver became too dangerous and frightening even for his fellow devil-worshippers.  The remaining members of the coven hanged him from a beam in one of the downstairs rooms.

This medium warned Davison that if he allowed the spirits to scare him away, Branden would never be habitable for any living human.  However, if he could just brave it out for five months--fighting off whatever evil might be thrown at him--the ghosts would give up and leave.

Davison decided that he had not put all that money and effort into renovating Branden just to be forced out by a pack of satanic ghosts.  He resolved to stick it out.

His life among the apparitions went on as usual until one day, when he encountered Tarver’s ghost in a hallway.  The spirit sneered at him.  The force of the ghost’s wicked, hateful presence left Davison, for the first time, thoroughly frightened.  Fighting off his instinct to run away, Davison shouted, “You must get out of my way!  This house is mine!  My will is stronger than yours!  It does not matter what holds you here!  You must leave!  Go!”

To Davison’s surprise and unimaginable relief, Tarver reacted by fading into a wall, never to be seen again.  Three days later, the female ghost appeared before Davison.  For the first time, she smiled at him, after which she too vanished for good.

Hunter was the last of the ghosts.  One night, he appeared by Davison’s bed, staring at him with such sadness that Davison, who had always pitied this spirit, asked if there was any way to help him.  The apparition silently disappeared.

For a short time afterwards, odd shadowy figures continued to be seen, but their appearances gradually became rarer and rarer, until they ceased to be seen at all.  The unholy forces that had occupied Branden Farm for so very many years had finally been evicted.

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Tenants have been evicted by their landlords for many reasons, but I’m guessing “Your dead relative is lowering my property values” doesn’t crop up very often.  The “Detroit Free Press,” December 29, 1929:

Berlin, Dec. 28.(U. P.)--There is a landlord in Berlin who absolutely refuses to let tenants bring ghosts with them into his apartments. He has gone to court to ask for permission to eject a family that, he alleges, has been harboring an all too active spirit in their rooms.

According to popular report, not only undenied by the family but actually confirmed by the family pastor, the ghost is that of an uncle of 11-year-old Lucy Regulski, the only person now alive to whom the apparition has appeared.

Other members of the family, however, have heard the noises made by the unearthly fellow during his nocturnal calls upon his niece, and years ago, it is said, Lucy's grandmother was once favored with a visit from her then recently deceased son. 

Family ghosts may be all right in their way, the owner of the building suggests in his petition to the court, but families possessing them should at least have the common courtesy to report the fact before signing leases on new apartments. Sometimes they can be very disturbing, as  apparently they have been in the case of Uncle Regulski.

The landlord argues that the Regulskis must have known of the existence of this ghost before they moved in because it had once called upon the grandmother. It is his contention that its occasional presence in Lucy's bedroom, but more especially the effect that its presence there has had on neighborhood opinion, will result in decreasing, to his financial loss, the desirability of his apartments as living quarters and thus also eventually lower the market value of the building.

Just to play it safe, in the event that there really are no such things as ghosts, he included in his petition another plea in which he asserts that the entire affair is probably a hoax upon the part of the Regulski family, that the ghost has been invented by them for unexplained but nevertheless sinister reasons. In either case, he feels he is being damaged and he wants to dump the Regulskis, ghost and all, out into the street. 

Meanwhile spiritualists and other persons learned in the ways of manes and wraiths have been cooperating with the Regulskis in trying to lay low the secret of this restless uncle.

The judge in the case eventually ruled that as the Regulskis obviously genuinely believed their apartment was haunted, it proved that the family was not intentionally trying to annoy their neighbors or their landlord.  Therefore, they had the legal right to occupy any ghost-infested dwelling they chose.

Which really seems only fair to Uncle Regulski.

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I've shared stories about ghosts.  I've shared stories about witches.  It's not often that you see the two combined.   The "Glasgow Daily Record," September 10, 1928:

The "ghost" of an old woman, reputed to be a witch, who died two years ago, is said to have been seen by many people in the Cambridgeshire village of Horseheath, and, in consequence, women and children are afraid to leave their homes after dark. 

While she lived in Horseheath, " Mother Redcap," as the "witch" was known, had a sinister reputation, and the ghost seems determined to live up to this record. The apparition is said to have shaken its fist in the faces of villagers whom it has met at night, and generally to have behaved in a very menacing manner.

Remarkable tales are told in the village about the old woman. 

"She was employed at a farm," a villager stated. "One day a black man called, produced a book, and asked her to sign her name in it." 

The woman signed the book, and then the mysterious stranger told her that she would be the mistress of five imps who would carry out her orders.

Shortly afterwards the woman was seen out accompanied by a rat, a cat, a toad, a ferret. and a mouse. When she died, her "imps" were killed, it is said, and buried with her in her coffin.

I couldn't find much more about "Mother Redcap," but apparently Horseheath was a village with a strong tradition of witchcraft that lasted well into the 20th century.  It may still exist, for all I know.

The Haunted Cottage on the Hill

In 1956, author Miriam Allen deFord (1888-1975) described the eerie phenomena she and her husband experienced after they moved into a seemingly innocuous little home, only to realize they were really renting a hefty dose of The Weird:

When the owner showed me the little cottage on a hill in Mill Valley, California, nearly forty years ago, she made a strange remark. 

We were on the sun porch, which had big glass windows around three sides. “If these windows ever break,” she said, “you will have to pay to have them replaced.” 

I assured her that it was very unlikely we would ever open them. But a few weeks later I understood what she meant. The windows had heavy hasps, almost beyond my strength to move. On the windiest days they stood firm. But often, on calm, clear days, one of them would suddenly fly open and bang against the trees outside. 

Finally, my husband, Maynard Shipley, tried an experiment. He went out on the sun porch and spoke aloud. 

“If this is a demonstration of some sort of extrasensory power,” he said, “please find another way to demonstrate. We can’t afford to have these big windows replaced if you break them.” 

They never opened again. 

But that was not the first “manifestation” to occur in the little house, furnished with the owner’s own belongings. 

One Saturday afternoon I brought home a bag of fruit. My husband picked out a pear, then observed that it was too pretty to eat, polished it, and laid it on the bare center table in the living room. 

We were both sitting near the table, reading, he facing it and I with my back turned to it, when I heard a strange bumping sound. Subconsciously I counted; there were twelve bumps in all, in rhythmic pairs. I thought he was kicking a table leg, and asked him to stop. He did not answer, and I turned around to see his eyes fixed on the pear. I was just in time to see its last two vibrations; it was jumping up and down, rising about two inches each time. 

Perhaps this is the place to explain that neither my husband nor I believed (nor do I now; he died in 1934) in occult phenomena. He was a writer and lecturer on scientific subjects, I was and am a freelance writer and a labor journalist. We were both agnostics, with no faith in survival of the personality after death. But we both had open minds and we could not deny the evidence of our senses--though the experiences we underwent made neither of us a Spiritualist convert. 

In fact, my husband’s first thought was that the pear was abnormal--perhaps that some parasite was in it. He cut it open, and it was perfectly sound. As he lifted it from the table there was a tinkle like that of a silver bell, and a tiny whiff of white smoke arose from below the table and was dissipated in the air. 

That was the first peculiar phenomenon we witnessed in the cottage. Here are some of the others; I am not including any that were not seen by at least two persons. 

There was a whirring, metallic sound sometimes that we tried in vain to locate. Finally we went into the bedroom, the doors and windows of which were closed, so that there was no breeze. Hanging on a nail on one of the doors was a metal coathanger, which was vibrating like mad. 

In the bathroom was an old-fashioned bureau with drawers which had brass pulls, so stiff that they stayed in any position in which they were placed. Twice, when my husband entered the room, all the brass pulls began to dance up and down. 

In the kitchen was a wooden gadget fastened to the wall, on whose arms we hung various utensils--basting spoons, can openers, spatulas, things of that sort. Frequently when Maynard approached them, all of these started to vibrate. 

A door led from the kitchen to the bedroom. It was always closed at night. Every night, precisely at eleven, there would be a sound like that of a wet mop striking the kitchen side of this door. When it was opened, nothing was there. 

We brought home a trailing piece of wild blackberry vine and put it in a hanging vase on the living room wall. It started to swing back and forth like a pendulum and kept it up for forty-eight hours. Maynard tried to account for this on scientific grounds, and in fact had an article published in The Scientific American in which he discussed the movement as a possible effect of radiant energy on a living plant, since it happened to be halfway between a window into which the sun poured, and a wall light which was on at night. But later, when we tried the experiment with many other plants, the vase did not swing at all. We heard constant raps, day and night, and nearly every evening small bluish-green lights, like faint electric bulbs, used to move horizontally across the room, about four feet from the floor, and then vanish; this happened in both the living room and the bedroom. 

In the living room was an old-fashioned Franklin stove--all the furniture was of turn-of-the-century vintage--which burned wood. In its lid was fixed a common iron stove-lifter. One night, in full electric glare, we saw this lifter raise itself about three inches from the lid and sail horizontally across the room, dropping with a thud on the floor at the other end of the living room. Another time we saw a large china bowl on the top shelf of an open china closet in the kitchen lifted as if somebody had hold of it, and deposited gently on the floor beneath; it was not even cracked. 

But the prize exhibit was the folding bed. For those who have never seen such an object, it is a bygone piece of furniture which when closed is just like a big closet door against the wall. This one was in the living room, and we never thought of using it until I was ill with the flu, and my husband tried to sleep in it. (It opened out into a regular double bed.) I say “tried,” because every time he got into it he had the distinct impression that he was not alone--that somebody else he couldn’t see was in the bed, somebody who didn’t want him in it. He stuck it out for three nights, and then he said, “Well, if you want the bed you can have it,” and got out and spent the rest of the night in a chair. 

After I was well we decided to try an experiment with a weekend guest. Our visitor told everybody that she was “a natural medium” and a devout believer in Spiritualism. So without mentioning anything about the bed we put Genevieve in it. About two o’clock in the morning there was a knock on the bedroom door. Genevieve said she couldn’t sleep in that bed because somebody else was in it! We fixed her up on the sun porch, but we never told her why we had given her the folding bed. 

We found our Mill Valley “ghosts” extremely interesting, and we hated to leave them when the owner decided to sell the house and we had to move. Later the house was destroyed in a fire which burned all that part of the town. 

We never had anything again approaching the crowding phenomena of our “haunted house,” but perhaps the “ghosts” did follow us for a while in San Francisco and later in Sausalito, where we lived until my husband’s death. 

One day I received a letter telling me of the death of a very dear old friend. That evening Maynard and I were washing and drying dishes together in the kitchen of another rented cottage. We were facing the window and it was very dark outside. I was talking to Maynard about my friend, whom he had never known, when suddenly there was a crashing blow at the window--enough, one would think, to have broken it. “Cats,” Maynard said, and went outside to look. No cats, no anything. He came in again and we started to talk it over. It came again, just the same as before. This time we didn’t even look. 

Almost the same thing happened later in another house. This time we were in the dining room. I was seated with my back to the front window, which looked on the porch; my husband sat opposite me, facing it. Again we were talking about somebody recently dead. And again there was a smashing blow at the window. This time Maynard caught a momentary glimpse of something round and white that had struck the blow. But when we both dashed out on the porch, seconds afterward, there was nothing whatsoever there. 

In the apartment in which we first lived in Sausalito, there was a big bare kitchen with wooden walls. On a nail on one of the walls hung several big paper shopping bags. We had a close friend whose husband had one day taken a train for a short business journey and had never been seen again; no trace was ever found of him, and nobody knows to this day whether he is alive or dead, though it is probable that he is dead. 

One morning at breakfast we were talking about our friend’s dilemma; after searching and waiting for several years, she had decided to get a divorce to remedy her anomalous position. 

“My own belief is that Charlie is dead,” my husband said. 

At which moment, suddenly, with no breeze anywhere, all the paper shopping bags on that nail raised themselves slowly to a horizontal position and then as slowly fell back again. 

If either of us could be considered a “physical medium”--whatever that really is--it was not I, but my husband, in whose presence metallic objects shook and danced. After he died, I would have given anything, including my life, for some evidence that something of him still lived and could communicate with me--as we had often promised each other to try to do, if it were possible--but it never came. There was just one slight and unexplained happening. 

About a week after his death, while I was still living alone in our Sausalito home, preparing to leave it, one of our friends came to visit me. We were sitting before the fireplace, and I was saying to her what I have just said above. There was a silence. And then we both distinctly heard a strange sound. It was like a large, soft, heavy object falling to the ground from a short height--the nearest analogy I could think of was a bag of laundry. 

We searched the house systematically, from cellar to attic. Nothing was disturbed, nor was there anything out of position that in the least resembled what we both had heard. 

Nothing of the sort ever happened to me again. It was not enough evidence. 

Only twice in my life, before I met Maynard, have I had inexplicable experiences. Once, in 1917 in Hollywood, I saw a “phantom of the living”--so distinct that I took it for granted it was the man himself, and spoke to him--when he vanished. And later that same year, in Spokane, a friend whom I was visiting and I both heard heavy footsteps climbing the cellar stairs to the locked kitchen door, and then cross the floor. We not only searched the house but we called a policeman, who searched again for us with a bored air that we soon understood when a week later, at precisely the same hour, the whole thing happened over again--and several times more. This too was a rented house, and apparently the police had often been called to find the phantom burglar. 

I never heard any story to account for this. In our Mill Valley house I made inquiries, and discovered that the owner had lived in the cottage with her old father until he died, and that he slept in the folding bed; that was all. I might add that after we left, she was unable to sell the  house after all, and rented it again. I was told by neighbors that it was rented three or four times before the fire, but that nobody ever stayed more than a month or two. 

As for my husband, he had one other strange experience during our years in Sausalito, though it did not occur there. I tell it to complete the record, though he had only a quasi-witness. 

In the course of a lecture tour in northern California, he had a speaking engagement in the town of Woodland. He could not get a hotel room, and had to take a room for the night in an apartment over a grocery store. All night he was kept awake by constant sawing and hammering downstairs; apparently the grocery store was being repaired or remodeled, and the workmen for some reason were doing the job at night. He was very much annoyed when he paid the landlady in the morning, and was about to make some caustic comment when she said, with a queer mixture of bravado and timidity, “Were you able to get any sleep in that room?” 

Puzzled, he glanced in at the store when he got outside. It was precisely as he had seen it the night before when he went there after his lecture. There was no sign that any carpentry had been done on it. 

Just how and why we should have had that intensive period of unexplained phenomena for the year and a half in Mill Valley, gradually tapering off for three or four years more, and then never recurring, neither of us ever knew. The last thing I can remember of this nature that we experienced was also in our last Sausalito house. One moonlit night I happened to glance from a front window, and saw on the steps leading to the front porch a curious thing--a sort of cone of light, about two feet tall and about a foot at the base, milky and solid-looking in texture. We both went out and stood directly above it; there it sat, looking like crystallized soapsuds, but with the line of the steps visible through it. It glowed faintly as if with its own light; no moonlight struck anywhere near it. 

Maynard was all for stooping down and touching it, but I held him back; I had a foolish nervous feeling that it might give him an electric shock, or be in some other way unpleasant to touch. Just then an automobile passed the house, down our hilly street, and instantly the cone vanished. If it had been some trick of light which the auto’s headlights had reversed,it should have reappeared when the car had passed. It did not return, and we never saw anything like it again. It was some time later that it occurred to us that the thing, whatever it was, resembled pictures we had seen of ectoplasm. 

If my husband was one of those people somehow in tune with so-called parapsychic phenomena, it seems peculiar that he had not had similar experiences in the past, instead of just during this limited period. It may have been that for some reason he was in a particularly receptive condition in those years; or it may have been that I, though not myself a “medium,” in some way supplemented his receptivity. The whole question is one which was beyond our powers of explanation. “There can be no such thing as the supernatural,” he used to say. “Everything that occurs is a part of nature. All we can say is that these things occurred, that they were not subjective, and that therefore they will be susceptible to scientific explanation some day, even though they are not now.” 

In an attempt to secure some informed outside judgment of the phenomena, we wrote an account of them and sent it to Dr. Walter Franklin Prince, of the Boston Society for Psychic Research. He was extremely interested (though no better able than we to explain our experiences), and intended to publish the account in a forthcoming volume in his series of Human Experiences, based on an extensive questionnaire sent out by the Society; but he died before another volume could be compiled. 

After Maynard’s death I again wrote a statement of what had happened in the Mill Valley house and sent it to Harry Price, the well-known English psychic researcher. He too was both interested and baffled. 

About all one can say at the present stage of our comprehension is that the house was “haunted”--whatever that word really means--and that we, and especially my husband, were susceptible media through whom the haunting became objectified. Any more satisfactory elucidation will have to come--for me, at least--as a result of further objective investigation on a purely scientific basis. I offer this detailed description, minus dubious or very minor phenomena and those witnessed by only one person, as a document for such research.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

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It’s not every day that you encounter a ghost who is headless and has “remarkable eyes.”  The “Richmond [Indiana] Item,” December 12, 1912:

A ghost which has appeared frequently is striking terror into the hearts of the girls and women and the more timid of the men working nights at the Starr Piano factory. The phantom has made his appearance for the past week between the hours of 6 and 8 when the employees are going about their work.

The spirit has been seen several times in the lighter parts of the shop and on approach of any one it flees to some darker parts of the factory which are then idle. There are several descriptions as to the dress and size of the spirit. Those most alarmed credited the ghost with being very tall, without arms and having an unusually small head, in which are two remarkable eyes, which throw off a light comparable to that given by pocket-flash lights. Another employee, who has seen the spirit on different nights, says that the phantom each time was dressed in white and is without arms or head and his description of the eyes tallies with that given by others. On one of his visits the ghost met a reception from one of the watchmen.  The watchman saw his white form in the doorway leading to a covered bridge between two of the buildings. Drawing his revolver, he proceeded to the door, only to see the ghost moving at an astonishing rate of speed across the bridge. The watchman fired twice at the retreating figure and then went forward to see if any damage had been done. The ghost was not to be found but the bullets were found embedded in the side of the bridge. 

The ghost has been seen in various parts of the shop but mostly in the vicinity of the covered bridge leading across the street from one building to the other and in the door of the engine room.

The employees have leagued together and are determined to get the phantom.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any follow-up stories about this unusual spook.

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As proof that some actors never know when to go off stage, I present this story from the “Hamilton County Times,” July 12, 1906:

Los Angeles--A more uncanny visitor than death, whose silent entrance of its portals there is not a day that fails to record, has appeared at the county hospital, according to inmates. 

This weird apparition is not the rider of the pale horse, who is welcome, but a ghost, which is terrible--the ghost of a man who died there months ago--Lawrence Hanley, the actor; Lawrence Hanley in the wraith-garb of the spirit world enacting the role of Hamlet at midnight in the darkness of the corridor upon which opened the room where he died August 28 last; Lawrence Hanley smoking a cigarette and leaning with one arm raised upon thin air and with his feet crossed, saying, "Yes, I'll have another, thanks!" 

The doctors and the nurses laugh or pooh-pooh when they hear these reports, but doctors and nurses are of unsuperstitious fiber; they believe in scalpels and saws and such obviously material things, and if a ghost should appear to one he might call it a wreath of smoke, a shaft of moonlight or some other easily explicable thing.

The nurse who was with Lawrence Hanley when he died, H.S. Rea Don, when interviewed, refused to discuss the alleged spectral manifestation. Mr. Rea Don glared when he was asked if he had not chased the luminous phantom up and down the hall with a club to drive it from the building.

Those to whom the specter is said to have appeared are Willis H. Hoes, Frank Hartwell and Charles C. Morell. They tell substantially the same story, which was related by each without collaboration with the other. It seems especially strange that such a story should be told of Lawrence Hanley.

He knew more about ghosts, perhaps, than any other patient who ever died there, for his long and brilliant stage career acquainted him intimately with Shakespeare's ghostly company. As "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" he had held communion with avenging spirits; in the first year of his acting he had even impersonated Banquo's ghost and that of the Danish king. But the persons  mentioned gave him a part more ghastly than any of these, the eighth act in the human drama. Lawrence Hanley's death was itself as tragic as that of any character he portrayed, for he died miserably, the wreck of a man once fired with genius. 

Hanley's ghost is said to have appeared a month after his death.  A luminous, pearly vapor having the form of a man emerged from the southwest room on the lower floor. It was an opalescent apparition; it wore a stiff straw hat set jauntily, a light suit and carried a cane. It floated down the long corridor with the semblance of a stride--the tread of the actor upon the boards--and wailed in a voice itself the ghost of the vocal: "To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day," and so on to the end. He was Hamlet mournfully reciting "To die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream." All of the great characters of his past he enacted. 

He strode quickly forward, they say, made as if to draw a sword, leaned his chin upon his hand and mused, beetling his brows until his eyes glowed with greater intensity, threw back his head and laughed, and then bowed and disappeared. The last time these men saw the spirit it was in a bibulous vein. It stood long at a bar of its fancy and tossed down unseen glasses of nothing until its wraith form began to stagger. It sang a song of revelry, then stopped short, straightened up and said: "I must go home." 

Hospital authorities do not attempt to account for the weird stories which have circulated, except to say that they must have emanated from the distorted fancy of some insane patients. 

The Ghost of Armit Island

Armit Island is a tiny, largely undeveloped island in Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia.  Accessible only by boat, Armit has a wild beauty that makes it a popular visit for the more adventurous and self-sufficient campers and bird watchers.  However, what has earned Armit a place on this blog is something entirely different: a very sad and lonely ghost.

Sometime around 1890, a man named Heron, obviously wishing to see civilization in his rear-view mirror, leased Armit from the Queensland government, and built himself a little hut on the island.  Heron was a great collector of plants, which he used to start an orchard on the island’s western aspect.  One day, some yachtsmen anchored off Armit, and one of them went to Heron’s hut for a chat.  The visitor was greatly impressed by the silence and isolation of the place, and he asked Heron if he didn’t find it oppressively lonely living by himself.

“Oh, no,” Heron replied casually.  “A sailor keeps me company.”

The bemused yachtsman, who had seen no other signs of human habitation on the island, tried to get more information, but the hermit suddenly clammed up and refused to say any more about the matter.  Other visitors to the island heard Heron mention this mysterious “sailor,” but they too were unable to get him to provide further details.

The explanation for Heron’s enigmatic remarks was finally discovered by one Captain Gorringe, who was raising sheep on nearby Lindeman Island.  On one occasion, Gorringe spent a week camping on Armit.  Like the other visitors, Gorringe was told of Heron’s sailor friend, but, not being a terribly inquisitive man, he asked no questions.  However, when after several days this sailor failed to make an appearance, the captain couldn’t help but ask about him.

Heron matter-of-factly explained that soon after his arrival on the island, one night he was awakened by some noise, and left his hut to investigate.  As he went outside, he was shocked to hear an agonized scream coming from the slopes of the island.  He then saw the figure of a man dressed in the clothing of an 18th century sailor emerge from the brush and walk to the water’s edge.  Heron called out to the man, but received no response.  He was stunned to see the sailor walk into the water…and disappear.

After that, Heron often watched the same scene play out: the horrible cry, the march to the water’s edge, the vanishing into the ocean.  Heron told Gorringe that he assumed this was the ghost of a crew member of a long-ago ship who had come to a tragic end on Armit.

Heron was not the only visitor to Armit to see the sailor.  One night in 1908, one Charles Anderson anchored his cutter off the island.  Happening to look towards the beach, he saw a figure walking through the trees to the water’s edge.  Anderson later said that “there was something about it which immediately convinced me that it was not the figure of a living man.  It did not walk so much as float a few inches above the sand.  The phantom came and went so quickly that I did not have time to examine it properly, but my impression was that the sailor clothes on the ghostly figure were those of the seventeenth century.”

In 1938, a Queensland author named Frank Reid visited Armit with a group of fishermen.  After fishing for some hours, the men made camp on the western beach.  After a late dinner, the party relaxed on the sand, talking and smoking.  This peaceful scene was rudely interrupted by the sound of a “shriek of horror” coming from the woods.  It was like nothing they had ever heard before.

When the dreadful cry was not repeated, one of the men dismissed it as the sound of some strange bird, and the group began to settle in for the night.  Then, Reid saw an apparition emerging from the nearby trees.  It was of a man dressed like a “sailor of Nelson’s days.”  The figure stared straight ahead, ignoring the fishermen.  Silently, eerily, the sailor glided across the beach and into the water.

I do not know of any more recent sightings of the spectre--every haunting, no matter how persistent, seems to have an expiration date.  However, if you are ever on Armit Island, and you hear a heartrending scream, don’t be frightened.  It is just a spirit, doomed to endlessly march into the sea…

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

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…Well, perhaps not the worst, but certainly something you wouldn’t want in the neighborhood.  The “Rutland Daily Herald,” September 7, 1874:

From New Martinsville. West Virginia, comes the latest ghost story. If we may credit the account given by the Wheeling Intelligencer, there lives, 25 miles up Fishing Creek, and about 20 miles from Burton, one Henry Nolan, A wealthy and altogether respectable gentleman. Mr. Nolan has a son John, 18 years of age. He is a bright, intelligent boy, and has always, until lately, been in good health and spirits. Early last spring, however, he began to be troubled in a manner unaccountable to his parents, who at first thought he had lost his reason. He was followed, he said, continually when in the house, by an old gray-headed man. He could see this man plainly, but no one else could.

John's parents, becoming alarmed, sent him away from home, and he remained some time, experiencing no annoyance while absent. His friends, thinking his mind sound and health restored, sent for bim, and he returned, but to have his every step dogged in the same mysterious manner. Now, the affair took a different turn, and stones began to be hurled at him by this old but invisible man. If John was in the house the stones would fall from the roof; likewise, if he was in any of the outbuildings. If he was in the yard or fields--in fact, in any place out-doors--they would fall around and upon him, but never hurt him.

These stones varied in size from the dimensions of a pullet's egg to those of a human fist. They could be seen coming through the air, but from whose hand John alone could tell. He could always plainly see the old man hurling them at him. Things went on in this way for some time, John steadily and rapidly failing in health and strength, till in July, when he again left home, and, as before, was not troubled during his absence.

He was to return on Sunday, the 20th of the month, and now some of the friends and neighbors are determined to ferret out and expose the whole business. Accordingly, on Saturday, four men armed themselves and went to the house. Early Sunday morning, before John was up (he was never in any way disturbed while asleep), they surrounded the building, first being careful that within their circuit no one was concealed. Scarcely had John arisen when the stones began falling almost in a shower on the roof. Looking up into the air, the party could see them dropping like rain, but whence they came, or by what power impelled, was a complete mystery. Of one fact all were assured--they were thrown by no one within a long distance of the house. After breakfast John came out, and the stones fell thick and fast around him, now apparently coming from a field near the house. John could distinctly see his old assailant in the field, so, with rifles cocked, the men moved in that direction.

The boy described the ghost as sitting in a small bunch of briar bushes--the very one whence the bombardment proceeded. The patch was instantly surrounded, rushed upon with clubs and stones, and John saw the old man enter another. This was in its turn surrounded, but with the same effect. Sometimes after coming from a patch the old man would enter another a few feet away, and sometimes dash across the field. All Sunday, the search went on, but without success.

On Monday, however, while the storming party were running from briar heap to briar heap, their victim became suddenly visible to all. He was dressed in blue trousers and a shirt of fine-looking material. He was hatless, but his long, white flowing beard and hair hung in profusion around his shoulders and over his breast. His face was pale, his eyes clear and sharp, and black as night. He was ordered to surrender, but did not deign to stir.

The men then closed upon him, but he darted off like a deer. Meanwhile the stones continued to rattle down, though propelled by some other power than the arm of the phantom. John started in pursuit, running with such swiftness that he kept close by the old man's side, while the rest of the party were left far behind. Again the strange being entered a thicket of briars and became invisible to all except the boy. As soon as he was driven from that hiding place he entered another and so the chase went on.

Once more during the day he appeared in full sight, and at this time, as he spurned all attempts to make him surrender, it was decided to shoot him. One of the men took deliberate aim with his rifle and fired. The spirit, unhurt, bounded off. Another pursuer fired, but in vain. The two men prepared to reload their rifles, but upon neither of them was a lock, both having fallen off.

For two days this hunt proceeded, without satisfactory results. On Tuesday, however, a smoke was observed to rise from every bush whence the stones came, Another singular circumstance was connected with this, namely, that an Indian hen, a bird found every where in that part of the country, was seen to rise from each bush and fly to another, the volley seeming to follow in the wake of her flight. No conclusion having been arrived at with regard to this mystery, the investigation is abandoned. John, now weak and emaciated, wasted away to a shadow of his former self, has been sent away from home, and had not, up to the time the report was written, returned. The story, incredible as it may seem, comes to the Intelligencer supported by the names of citizens well known in the neighborhood where the events are alleged to have occurred.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

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This evocative tale of a missing person’s ghost appeared in the “Democratic Northwest,” October 18. 1894:

Fully 20 years have passed since Lizzie Clark, an orphan with a heritage, disappeared from a hotel in Dallas City, Illinois., as completely as if the earth had swallowed her up. In all that western country there has never been a stranger case than the disappearance of that girl, and there has never been a greater ghost mystery than has been and still is occasioned by the evidently disembodied spirit of the girl. 

The story of Lizzie Clark has been county history. She was an orphan and had some property and money.  A guardian had been appointed, and Lizzie, being ambitious to add to her little store, set about to work in a hotel hard by the river's edge. Through the dining room of this hotel runs the line between Hancock and Henderson counties, so that often a guest reached from Hancock into Henderson county when after butter.  A country swain and his lass, if seated opposite each other at this board, are in different counties. Many a man wanted for some offense in Hancock county has sat at this table in Henderson county and grinned at the sheriff of Hancock county. 

It was one afternoon about 20 years ago that Lizzie Clark, who had been washing dishes in the kitchen, stepped into the yard of the hotel.  She was seen to leave the kitchen by several working around the house, who paid no attention to the girl, but that was the last ever seen of her. Those who saw her step out into the yard heard no scream, no stifled moan, no struggling, but there are people yet living who believe that the girl was suddenly seized, strangled, concealed in the house until dark, and then cast into the dark river. Be that as it may, the murderers, if they remained in the same locality long, have been amply tormented since. It is said that the murderers did not leave the locality for some time thereafter, and yet, again, others say the girl was never murdered, but drowned herself, and that her ghost is not one of a murdered person, but one of a suicide. All one can gain from the different stories and theories is that the girl was dealt with foully in some manner, and that her ghost still haunts the locality.

Of course every effort was made to ferret out the mystery. Detectives hunted high and low, money was spent to no purpose, and finally the guardian of the girl's estate turned her money and property over to the county authorities, in whose hand it remains to this day because there is no kith or kin to claim it. 

The girl's ghost was first seen in December, 1887, when a party of duck bunters were returning to Dallas City from the islands. An excursion steamer had become disabled late in the season and was lying on the bank of the island across the bay. She was in a rather bad fix.  It was expected to leave her there during the winter. As the hunters neared the craft a form in white was seen to run out upon the upper deck. It was a young girl's figure, and she was evidently being pursued, for from across the water came screams, and then the following words: "'Leave me alone, leave me alone, or I will drown myself!" With that the specter flung itself into the river. There was a splash, and the cold waters closed over the white body. Several times during that winter the ghost of Lizzie Clark was seen at night and at early candle light around the disabled steamer.

When the steamer was taken away next spring, workmen and steamboatmen heard pitiful screams from the willows on shore as the boat moved away. The spirit did not leave the island, and it is believed now that she was buried on the island after the murder.  

Of later years, however, the girl's ghost has been seen in a skiff at night, and it was only a few evenings ago that one of the St. Louis and St. Paul fast steamers ran into the spectral thing.  The pilot did not see the ghostly craft until too late. He says he saw a boat of white that looked more like floating fleece than anything else. In the boat was a young girl in white raiment, but there were blood clots on the white dress. “She was rowing swiftly. When the prow of the steamer struck this frail craft, it cut through it like mist.  The ghostly occupant only laughed a sort of uncanny laugh--a half scream--and when we had passed I saw the spectral craft dancing on the waves behind. I doubt if an ordinary skiff could have lived in the waves of our steamer, right under the paddles." Thus spoke the pilot, and he is a man of few words and sterling integrity. 

"Have you seen Lizzie Clark's boat?" is now the question that goes from one mouth to another during the summer season. The question is not asked so often in winter from the fact that the poor girl's spirit does not seem to roam so much. Hunters have come into Dallas shaking with fright and calling for a dram to brace their nerves, saying that while coming down from the islands above on the ice they had met Lizzie Clark walking rapidly toward them.

She always wears that white dress, and the blood stains on the neck are plain. The girl's eyes are always staring wide open, as if she were being suffocated. Her spirit has been known to step out from behind a clump of dead trees at the head of the island and face passersby. She will give them a terrible look and then scream piteously. In an instant more the spirit has disappeared.- - Chicago Times.

There is a sequel to our little tale:  In March 1915, a skeleton of a human female was unearthed around the grounds of the hotel where Lizzie had worked, leading to the assumption that these were the remains of the long-missing girl.  It was said that Lizzie’s employers had been “bad characters, utterly devoid of decent principles.”  Lizzie was said to have been in “deep trouble” with the hotel proprietors, presumably because she knew too much of their evil doings.  The obvious conclusion was that Lizzie’s mouth had been permanently shut.

After the skeleton was found, Lizzie Clark’s unhappy ghost was never seen again.

The Baron and the Ghost

On December 24th, 1922, the “Weekly Dispatch” carried a Christmas ghost story narrated by the wonderfully named Alexander Peregrine Fuller-Acland Hood, Lord St. Audries.  It is described as a genuine experience of his, but it is certainly colorful enough to fit in with any fictional collection of spooks and apparitions:

Do you believe in ghosts ? Or are you one of those fortunate persons who have no fear of the unseen? Or, again, do you belong to the great majority who keep an open mind, but who like to feel on Christmas Eve that, after all, just round the corner, in the mysterious darkness, something might happen?...

I believe in ghosts, and not only on Christmas Eve, for it was a perfect summer evening, in July, 1920, tranquil and moonlit, that the astounding experience befell me, which the editor of The Weekly Dispatch has requested me to relate.

I was staying in Devonshire with an old Oxford friend who had taken orders. I had been living a delightful, care-free existence in the open air, bathing and playing tennis, in fact, doing everything but think of ghosts.

Then one night at dinner the conversation turned, as it often does, to the psychic, and the usual discussion took place. Paul, my Oxford friend, had been reading stories by Algernon Blackwood, and was still deeply affected by the impression they had made on him. His brother Philip, a clever, cool-headed young man, who was spending his long vacation at home, openly scoffed at his foolishness, and a keen argument took place.

Finally Paul leaned forward and said: "Well, we have an opportunity of testing all these theories." I asked him what he meant.

And then he explained. Not a mile away, on the farthest side of the hill, standing off the road in a desolate and overgrown garden, was a house which I had often noticed. We will call it Weir Court (not its correct name). This house has been empty for years. It had an evil reputation. Grass had grown thick on the deserted drive, bats had built their nests in the blank windows, the roof had fallen in, making the top floor unapproachable. But no workmen would venture to repair the roof, and, though the house was for sale, no tenant could be found for it.

"Why not go there and see and test for yourselves?"

The question came from Philip, who did not believe anything he had not thoroughly tested for himself. And something in his tone of cool scepticism made me feel that I should like to take him at his word.

And so it came that eventually, at about ten o'clock, we set out. The night was very still, with that luxuriant beauty that one associated with a Devonshire midsummer. We must have looked a strange trio as we walked along the lonely road, Paul with a candle and matches in his hand and a crucifix in his pocket, Philip swinging a stick and whistling an air from "Mignon," myself wondering what was in store for us.

"Here we are," said Paul, after we had been walking about twenty minutes.

I shall never forget the strange and sinister appearance of that house. It stood back from the roads in a garden tangled with undergrowth, the plaster was falling from the walls, and not even the moonlight could give any glamour to its gaunt nakedness.

To enter the house it was necessary to climb a high gate, to go down some steep area steps, and to skirt the outside until one arrived at the front. It was then possible to enter by means of a window giving into the basement.

This we accomplished. The window was old and without a sash, and I remember that Paul decided to prop it up with a stick, " in case anyone wants to come out in a hurry." It was lucky that he did so.

We stepped into the basement, Paul holding the candle. Never was there such a scene of desolation. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling and the floor was littered with rubble, so that it was impossible to move one's foot even an inch without waking the echoes-a point I would ask you to remember.

"This way," said Paul, pointing to the stairs. We went up the stairs, which were rickety but safe, and found ourselves in a large hall.

Our first plan was to examine the house thoroughly. It was right at the beginning of this examination that what I may term the prelude to the adventure took place. We had been to the front room and had looked over every nook and cranny, Philip keeping up a running fire of conversation, which was, in some ways, rather comforting. And then suddenly he stopped. I looked at him. His face was dead white and over part of it there seemed to be creeping a shadow. Then he spoke, in a blank, expressionless voice :

"The candle-quick-the candle," and he staggered down the stairs. We found him in a state of collapse outside.

.This is Philip's account, which he has written for me:

"To tell the honest truth, I was bored with the whole proceeding. I did not believe in psychic phenomena, and considered it foolish to waste a wonderful evening in tramping round an old house. And so when we started to examine the rooms I admit that I treated the whole thing as a joke.

"When we came out into the hall I was thinking, to be quite precise, of the foreign policy of Queen Elizabeth, in which I was specialising at the moment. Then suddenly I felt what I can only describe as an anæsthetic. I have had several operations for my throat in the past, and each one has always affected me in precisely a similar way. That is to say, a black film has gradually stolen over my brain, from left to right. The right half of my brain remains active till the last; the left is gradually paralysed.

"To the smallest detail this was what happened then. It was so sudden that it took me completely by surprise. I had just enough presence of mind to get out before I collapsed. For I knew that the whole trouble came from a small room on the right down the corridor at the end of the hall.

"I have no explanations to offer."

That is the account of Philip, the confirmed sceptic.

Naturally, after what had happened, we felt trepidation about leaving Philip. However, he affirmed after a few minutes that he felt perfectly all right as long as he remained in the garden." Nothing would induce him to go back to the house. Paul and I returned with the candle in order to search the house from top to bottom. This we did with absolute thoroughness. Not a cupboard, not a crack in the wall escaped us. We paid particular attention to the little room from which Philip said the evil influence emanated. It was bare, desolate, and unromantic, with a few shreds of dirty green paper hanging from the walls.

We, therefore, went out again, empty-handed. Then I determined, by what irresistible force I do not know, to return. Something called me. Philip's experience had made me feel that, after all, there were things to discover in that house. On the other hand Paul, I imagined, whether on account of his mentality or on account of the crucifix which he carried, was not a good " subject."

Of course they endeavoured to dissuade me. However, I persisted, and it was arranged that I should whistle from time to time to show that I was still alive, and that they should whistle back.

I took the candle and gingerly climbed back through the window. I admit that I felt a little creepy as I ascended the silent stairs and heard the voices of my friends drift farther and farther away. But as I entered the hall, a broken patch of moonlight fell on the floor through the cracked roof and reminded me of the sane, wholesome world outside.

I should here point out that not only was the house empty (our search had been meticulous) but that there was no possibility of anybody entering it without passing Paul and Philip, and, in any case, without making a considerable noise on the rubbled floor.

I sat down at the bottom of the stairs--it was the only place to sit--and waited. There was absolute silence. Opposite me were the two large front rooms, and to the right of them a corridor onto which gave the small room from which I had felt all the evil influences coming. The door of the room, which was some twenty feet away, I watched intently.

I buried my head in my hands and fell to wondering what type of people had inhabited this strange house in the past. Weird tales ran through my brain of some of the things which had been seen here which Paul had told me as we walked along, tales of a strange man who had been the last tenant, and who had never ventured outside, but had taken in provisions through the door with his white hands--long, thin, with fingers pale as death. And how those hands had been seen on the wall, tapping, tapping.

I pulled myself together and thought of more cheerful things. I whistled again, the echoes resounding shrilly against the cold walls. From outside came the answering whistle. That reassured me and I turned my attention again to the little room.

Suddenly I felt that all was not well. Somebody, something, was trying to make me go away. The air was charged with a hostile influence. I knew I was not wanted. And I knew that the force came from the little room with the open door down the corridor which I was watching.

I leant forward and looked into the semi-darkness. As I looked I felt, as though it were a keen wind, this influence growing stronger and stronger. I summoned every effort of will power and tried to rise to my feet.

It happened. Out of the door, down the dark passage, something rushed, like an immense bat, towards me. I say something, because in the few seconds in which the episode lasted I had no time to see clearly. It was black from head to foot, and it seemed to be built in the form of a very powerful man. But two things made me know that it was no human being that sprang towards me. First, I could see no face. There was just a hideous blank, that was all. And secondly, though it came with huge leaps over the rough, rubbled floor, it made no noise. There was absolute silence all the time.

Now, I am not a small man. As a matter of fact, I am six foot two in my socks, and I think I may say that I am built in proportion to my size. Moreover, I was in the best of condition, and seated as I was in a defensive position, I think I may say that it would have taken a pretty powerful man to knock me over.

But when this thing dashed out I was struck backwards with an irresistible force. And as I fell I felt a sensation of incredible evil, as though the forces of Hell were conspiring against me. And with it something warm, not physically warm, but with a psychic warmth that cloyed and enveloped.

The rest is told in a few words. For a moment the whole world was blank, and then I found myself fighting, struggling with I know not what, down the steep stairs. Who or what it was, if it was one or two or a dozen, I do not know. All I know is that I saw nothing, and that I just managed to fight my way outside, where I sank down onto the grass.

The rest is best told by Paul, from whose written narrative I quote.

"When Lord St. Audries first went into the house we naturally felt somewhat anxious as to what would happen. After all, he was our guest, and after my brother's experience I did not feel that I was justified in letting him go in alone. However, when he whistled I felt reassured. I whistled back and waited with interest but without fear.

"I think about a quarter-of-an-hour must have passed without anything uncanny happening. I was just about to turn to my brother to suggest that we should call him back and go home, when something so extraordinary happened that I must narrate it in detail.

"The night was absolutely windless. That is an important point. I noticed that a tall belt of poplar trees at the end of the garden were without movement of any sort. It therefore follows that what we heard and felt was, whatever else it may have been, not wind.

"With absolute suddenness, sweeping over our heads, something came. I could not call it a wind, though I felt it. I could not call it a noise, though there was in one's ears a sensation of rushing. A second afterwards there came from the house one of the most terrible cries I have ever imagined, as though somebody had been violently stabbed in the back. It was Lord St. Audries' voice and was followed by the sound of a heavy crash.

"Aghast, I turned to my brother. He rushed to the entrance. Then we realised that we could not get in, for the place was pitch dark, and so blocked up that it was quite impossible to force an entry. A cloud had drifted over the moon, and it was impossible to find our way through the wreckage of the basement without a candle.

"We therefore ran at full speed to the neighbouring house, whose tenants I fortunately knew, in order to obtain a light. As we vaulted the gate the whole house resounded with violent shocks and shouts.

"We secured the candle and tore back. The noise in the house was indescribable. And then it suddenly ceased and we saw Lord St. Audries advancing towards us, covered with dirt and plaster."

That is Paul's narrative.

I offer no explanation for this story beyond saying that it is true in every detail. However, the following points may be of interest:

(1) It has transpired that the small room which was the centre of the trouble was once a bathroom in which some fifty years ago a particularly atrocious murder had been committed by a semi-insane doctor who had afterwards committed suicide.

(2) No dog will venture into the garden of the house, and many refuse even to pass it. 

(3) On the next night to my experience (at midnight to be precise) the inhabitants of the neighbouring house, who are also confirmed sceptics, were awakened by the sound of a violent report which, they allege, came from "Weir Court."

The house is still standing there and it remains without a tenant.