Random Creepypasta 2 (OG creepy)

In the year 1840 I was detained for several months in the sleepy old town of Taunton. My chief associate during that time was ·a foxhunting squire-a bluff, hearty, genial type of his order, with just sufficient intellectuality to temper his animal exuberance. Many were our merry rides among the thorpes and hamlets of pleasant Somersetshire ; and it was in one of these excursions, while the evening sky was like molten copper, and a fiery March wind coursed, like a race - horse, over the open downs, that he related to me the story of what he called his " luminous chamber." Coming back from the hunt after dark, he said he had frequently observed a central window, in an old hall not far from the roadside, illuminated. All the other windows were dark, but from this one a wan, dreary light was visible ; and as the owners had deserted the place, and he knew it had no occupant, the lighted window became a puzzle to him. On one occasion, having a brother squire with him, and both carrying good store of port wine under their girdles, they declared they would solve the mystery of the luminous chamber then and there. The lodge was still tenanted by an aged porter; him they roused up, and after some delay, having obtained a lantern and the keys of the hall, they proceeded to make their entry. Before opening the great door, however, my squire averred he had made careful inspection of the front of the house from the lawn. Sure enough, the central window was illuminated : an eerie, forlorn-looking light made it stand out in contrast to the rest-a dismal light, that seemed to have nothing in common with the world, or the life that is. The two squires visited all the other rooms, leaving the luminous one till the last. There was nothing noticeable in any of them ; they were totally obscure. But on entering the luminous room, a marked change was perceptible. The light in it was not full, but sufficiently so beneath them to distinguish its various articles of furniture, which were common and scanty enough. What struck them most was the uniform diffusion of the light : it was as strong under the table as on the table, so that no single object projected any shadow on the floor, nor did they themselves project any shadow. Looking into a great mirror over the mantelpiece, nothing could be weirder, the squire declared, than the reflection in it of the dim, wan-lighted chamber, and of the two awe-stricken faces that glared on them from the midst-his own and his companion's. He told me, too, that he had not been many seconds in the room before a sick faintness stole over him ; a feeling-such was his expression, I remember-as if his life were being sucked out of him. His friend owned afterwards to a similar sensation. The upshot of it was, that both squires decamped, crestfallen, and made no further attempt at solving the mystery. It had always been the same, the old porter grumbled: the family had never occupied the room  but there were no ghosts - the room had a light of its own.
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The Times, 8 July 1811. ‘For several days a boy, nine years old, the son of a tradesman in … Paddington, had been missing. Not returning home from school at his usual hour, search was made for him. Last Tuesday morning he was found dead in one of the vaults of St George’s chapel, Paddington. The body was standing against the wall of the vault. His bag, with his schoolbooks, was on his shoulder; there were several coffins in the vault. It is conjectured that the boy had been led there by curiosity, to see a funeral, and that having been inadvertently shut in, he died of fright.’
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Blackburn Standard, 10 November 1852. ‘The peaceable and well disposed inhabitants of the pleasant village of Blackley have been thrown into a state of considerable excitement by the alleged re-appearance of a ghost, or boggart. The house where this unearthly visitor has chosen to take up its winter’s residence is a very old building, adjoining the White Lion public house, occupied by a person named William Whitehead, a clogger, who has resided there for the last ten months. He states that he first heard the “boggart” about six weeks ago, when it made noises like the cackling of a hen or the moaning whistle on a railway; and when any of the family stood upon a certain flag in the back room, it screamed like a child. Whitehead removed removed the flag, and after digging a hole several feet deep, found a cream jug, filled with lime and bones.
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“It was Lady Ashburton’s brother, Stewart Mackenzie, who had that strange adventure at school. He was in bed in a long dormitory, with the boys in rows of beds on each side. In the night he awoke, and saw a little old woman come into the room, dressed in a peaked hat, and round her neck was slung a sort of satchel filled with carpenter’s instruments—a mallet, chisel, hammer, nails, &c. He saw her go up to one of the sleeping boys, look at him, bend over him, examine him very carefully, and then take out a nail, seize the hammer, and seem about to knock the nail into his forehead: then suddenly, just at the last moment, to change her mind and pass on. Into the foreheads of some of the boys she seemed to strike a nail, some she passed by altogether: into others she seemed to intend to strike the nail, and then to change her mind. Finally, with horror, he felt her approaching his own bed: she took out a nail, seemed coming near to strike it, then suddenly passed on. In the morning young Mackenzie was very ill, very feverish, and said, ‘Oh, I have had such a dreadful dream,’ and he told what he had seen. The master said, ‘Can you remember which the boys were into whose foreheads she struck the nail?’—’Oh certainly, I can perfectly,’ and the master wrote down the names in a pocket-book. Very soon after a terrible fever broke out in the school. All those boys died. The boys the old woman looked at and finally turned away from, had the fever, but recovered: the boys she passed by altogether escaped entirely."
The Story of Two Noble Lives, Augustus John Cuthbert Hare, 1893
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‘A strange story reaches us from Newtown. It appears that for some days past most extraordinary noises have been heard in the kitchen of a tradesman’s house in the town. The cook and housemaid were seriously alarmed, being under the impression that the house was haunted, and nothing could persuade them to the contrary. Eventually the boards of the kitchen were removed by a carpenter, when, to the surprise of all the occupants of the house, a wretched, emaciated-looking man was discovered, in almost a dying condition in a vault beneath the kitchen. The poor fellow appeared to be on the verge of starvation, and would certainly have died had he not been discovered in the extraordinary manner already described. He has been rescued from his prison-house, and is now under the doctor’s hands. At present it has not transpired how he got into the vault’. The Illustrated Police News, 19 April 1879.
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A Mrs. Olson (a widow) and her 14-year old son lived on the south shore of Stump Lake. One day a ‘boy’ they did not know showed up at their door to inquire how he could get to the residence of a certain farmer whose house was on the opposite shore. Because the trip involved a three-mile walk, the mother directed her son to take the stranger by boat, a much shorter, less time-consuming trip. The Olson boy had his passenger sit at the stern (rear), while he picked up the oars and began rowing across the water. Oddly and rudely, the stranger sat with his back to his host. Worse, he did not respond to Olson’s efforts to engage him in small talk. Then, as the newspaper account had it: His strange behavior made Olson observe him more closely and the more closely and the more he looked at him, the more did he appear unlike a human. His attention was first attracted by the stranger’s ears, which were abnormally large, reaching almost to the top of his head, where they came to nearly a point or sharp angle and were covered with a fine downy hair. His head was small and angular, something like that of a dog and covered with short, black curly hair that hugged the skin tightly. The hands were small, shriveled and covered with hair similar to that on his ears. Young Olson was now becoming almost frightened out of his wits at being alone in the boat with such an unearthly looking being and rowed with all his might. On arriving at the opposite landing he got out of the boat hastily to let out his uncongenial passenger. The stranger arose to leave the boat, but instead of facing about to walk out, he backed and carefully kept his face from view. The rattled young Olson rowed back home as fast as his arm and oar would take him. The moment he was inside the house, he began to tell his mother about his bizarre adventure. She looked over to him to see if he was serious, and as she did so, her glance fell over into his shoulder and out the window behind him. There, running up a hill close to the house, was the strange boy last seen on the other side of the lake, though he could not possibly possibly have made the return trip that anywhere nearly that quickly. The stranger was chasing the Olson’s sheep. Mother and son both made after him, but on arriving at the crest of the hill nobody was to be seen, while the sheep stood down the slope a little way huddled together as if recently chased by a wolf or dog. There was nothing within eighty rods that the stranger could have hid behind. Why they did not notice his strange appearance before starting in the boat, how he got back so quickly and where he disappeared to, was more than the frightened widow and son could have been able to account for and they firmly believe there are still a few left of the old time elf family. Milwaukee Sentinel December 20, 1896.
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I was very much interested in [Ruskin’s] old guide, [Joseph] Coutet, with whom I had many climbs. He liked to go with me, he said, because I was very sure-footed and could go wherever he did. He was a famous crystal-hunter, and many of the rarest specimens in the museum of Geneva were of his finding. There was one locality of which only he knew, where the rock was pitted with small turquoises like a plum pudding, and I begged him to tell me where it was. There is a superstition amongst the crystal-hunters that to tell where the crystals are found brings bad luck, and he would never tell me in so many words; but one day, after my importunity, I saw him leveling his alpenstock on the ground in a very curious way, sighting along it and correcting the direction, and when he had finished he said, as he walked past me, “Look where it points,” and went away. It was pointing to a stratum halfway up to the summit of one of the aiguilles to the west of the Mer de Glace, a chamois climb. He told me later that he found the crystals in the couloir that brought them down from that stratum. A dear old man was Coutet, and fully deserving the affection and confidence of Ruskin. Connected with him was a story which Ruskin told me of a locality in the valley of Chamounix, [sic] of which the guides had told him, haunted by a ghost which could only be seen by children. It was a figure of a woman who raked the dead leaves, and when she looked up at them the children said they only saw a skull in place of a face. Ruskin sent to a neighboring valley for a child who could know nothing of the legend, and went with him to a locality which the ghost was reported to haunt. Arrived there, he said to the boy, “What a lonely place! There is nobody here but ourselves.” “Yes, there is,” said the child, “there is a woman there raking the leaves,” pointing in a certain direction. “Let us go nearer to her,” said Ruskin, and they walked that way, when the boy stopped and said that he did not want to go nearer, for the woman looked up, and he said that she had no eyes in her head, “only holes.”
The Autobiography of a Journalist, William J. Stillman, 1901
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The Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury,  3 September 1897:
‘On Friday, the 7th instant, the remains of Patrick Cormack, a blacksmith, were borne through Nenagh, from Bantess, to be consigned to “the narrow dwelling” in Kilmore church-yard. Some months ago Cormack resided in this town, and had a forge in Barrack Street, in which he did a deal of business. One night, having sat up some time playing cards with his two assistants, he retired to bed, leaving them to continue their amusement. Awaking some time in the night, he looked towards the fire-place, and seeing two men sitting near the fire, whom he imagined to be his assistants, he exclaimed, “So ye are at it yet; I think it is time for ye to stop”, words which were scarcely out of his mouth, when one of the forms slowly arose, and, betiding him a stony and staring look, it said, in a sepulchral tone of voice, “If you do not drop them too, you will rue it when it may be too late.” The shadowy form Cormack thought he recognised as the semblance of a cousin of his, named Jeremiah, who was murdered some years ago in the neighbourhood of Borrisuleigh. The other form then arose from its sitting posture, and its proportions seemed so gigantic as to fill half the house. Cormack shivered at every limb, and could not take his eyes off them until they melted into thin air; first their legs became indistinct, then their bodies, then up to their necks, and at last their heads. Cormack arose the next morning an altered man—his disposition, which was complexionally gay, became saturnine and morose; even the flutter of a bird would startle him in a fearful manner. He walked about like a being who held companionship with the invisible; his energies were cramped, and his spirits seemed awfully depressed by some supernatural agency. The unearthly visitant still frequented his hearthstone, and startling are the reports of the dialogues that are rumoured to have taken place between him and the shadow of a murdered cousin.In order to rid himself of his ghostly intruder, he broke up house and went to live at Bantess, near Cloughjordan. He opened a forge there, but the change of abode brought no change of feeling, for he still continued to be the pining victim of the hauntings of the murdered dead. Human nature could not bear any longer its being in contact with supernatural companionship, and on Wednesday poor Cormack breathed his last breath. We have seen him borne to his long home: his funeral was numerously attended and his death sincerely lamented.’
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On June 28, 1858, a report about a ghost-related suicide appeared in the news. The Marksville Central Organ printed the following:  Some two nights since, a death occurred in a certain portion of our parish, which was brought about in a strange manner.  A gentleman, living unhappily with his wife, some few months since committed suicide. This so affected her that she often of a morning declared that the ghost of the deceased had haunted her during the night.  Finally, one day she affirmed that the devil had appeared to her, and after upbraiding her, stated that hereafter when she should attempt to eat or drink, her food and water would choke her. And strange to say, whenever she took any nourishment it invariably choked her. This continued for 27 days, when she died, from pure starvation.  These facts we have from a gentleman of undoubted veracity.
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‘A short time ago it was stated in the newspapers that a farmer named Roberts, returning home from Church Stretton, Shropshire, saw the apparition of a woman who some time ago mysteriously disappeared from that locality. Roberts saw her distinctly and recognised her and was about to speak, when she glided from him and was lost to his sight, by disappearing down a place called “The Copper Hole”. Some persons, 30 years ago, commenced sinking for copper at this spot. After driving a shaft 40 feet deep, finding no copper they desisted … [and] the hole was fenced in, and stout railings placed round to protect it … It is now about five years since it was filled up … It is a strange fact that the filling up of the copper hole took place soon after the disappearance of a female named Sarah Duckett. This person, a woman 35 years of age and single, was about to leave the neighbourhood; she came with her boxes to Church Stretton Railway Station over night inquiring about the trains. She left her boxes at the railway station and was seen to walk up the Hamler Road. From that time up to the present she has never been seen alive. The boxes remained a considerable time.
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If bodies were safe after death, characters were not. Isabel Heriot was maid of all work to the minister at Preston. “She was of a low Stature, small and slender of Body, of a Black Complexion. Her Head stood somewhat awry upon her Neck. She was of a droll and jeering Humour, and would have spoken to Persons of Honour with great Confidence.” After some short time of service, her master the minister began to dislike her, because she was not eager in her religious duties; so he discharged her: and in 1680 she died—and “about the time of her death her face became extreamly black.” Two or three nights after her burial, one Isabel Murray saw her, in her white grave-clothes, walk from the chapel to the minister’s louping-on stone (horse-block). Here she halted, leaning her elbow on the stone, then went in at the back gate, and so towards the stable. A few nights after this stones were flung at the minister’s house, over the roof, and in at the doors and windows; but they fell softly for the most part, and did no especial damage. Yet one night, just as the minister was coming in at the hall door, a great stone was flung after him, which hit the door very smartly and marked it. Isabel Murray was also hit with stones, and the serving-man who looked to the horses was gripped at the heel by something which made him cry out lustily. So it went on. Stones and clods, and lighted coals, and even an old horse-comb long since lost, were perpetually flying about, and only by severe prayer was the minister able to lay the devil who molested them.

Soon Isabel Murray reappeared with a fresh set of circumstances concerning the ghost of her namesake Isabel Heriot, the maid of all work. She said that as she was coming from church between sermons, to visit her house and kailyard for fear some vagrant cows might have got over the dyke—which were very likely of the true Maclarty type—on going down her own yard, which was next to the minister’s, she saw again the apparition of Isabel Heriot, as she was when laid in her coffin. “Never was an egg liker to another than this Apparition was like to her, as to her Face, her Stature, her Motion, her Tongue, and Behaviour; her face was black like the mouten soot, the very colour which her face had when she died.” The ghost was walking under the fruit-trees, and over the beds where the seeds had been sown, bending her body downwards, as if she had been seeking somewhat off the ground, and saying, “A stane! a stane!” Her lap was full of stones; as some people supposed the stones she cast in the night-time; and these stones she threw down, as if to harbour them, at a bush-root in the garden. Isobel Murray, nothing daunted, goes up to her.

“Wow!” says she, “what’s thou doing here, Isabel Heriot? I charge thee by the law thou lives on to tell me.”

Says the ghost, “I am come again because I wronged my master when I was his servant. For it was I that stealed his Shekel (this was a Jewish shekel of gold which, with some other things, had been stolen from him several years before), which I hid under the Hearthstone in the Kitching, and then when I flited took it into the Cannongate, and did offer to sell it to a French Woman who lodged where I served, who askt where I got it. I told her I found it between Leith and Edinburgh.” Then she went on to make further confession. Having fyled herself for a thief she went on to show how she had been also a witch. “One night,” says the ghost, “I was riding home late from the Town, and near the Head of Fanside Brae, the Horse stumbled, and I said, The Devil raise thee; whereupon the Foul Thief appeared presently to me, and threatened me, if I would not grant to destroy my Master the Minister, he would throw me into a deep hole (which I suppose is yet remaining); or if I could not get power over my master, I should strive to destroy the Shoolmaster.”

“It was very remarkable,” says George Sinclair, as a kind of commentary, “that one of the minister’s servant-women had given to the schoolmaster’s servant-woman some Linnings to make clean, among which there was a Cross cloth of strong Linning, which could never be found, though diligent search was made for it, till one morning the Master awakening found it bound round about his Night Cap, which bred admiration both to himself and his Wife. No more skaith was the Devil or the Witches able to do him. What way this was done, or for what end it cannot be well known: but it is somewhat probable that they designed to strangle and destroy him in the night time, which is their usual time in working and doing of mischief. This happened about the time (I suppose) that the Devil had charged Isabel Heriot to destroy this honest man. Yet within two days a young child of his, of a year old, fell sick, which was quickly pulled away by death, none knowing the cause or nature of the disease.”

Isabel Murray went on to say, that furthermore the ghost confessed to her, that she, Isabel Heriot, when in life, had met the devil a second time at Elfiston Mill, near to Ormiston: and she told what foulness the devil did to her. Also, one night as she was coming home from Haddington Market with some horse-corn, she met the devil at Knock-hills, and he bade her destroy Thomas Anderson, who was riding with her. When she refused he threw all the horse-corn off the horse. “This Thomas Anderson was a Christian man,” and when Murray told her tale “well remembered that Isabel had got up the next morning timeously,” and brought home her oats which had lain in the road all the night. She said too that she had cheated her master whenever she went to the market to buy oats, charging him more than they cost—not an unusual practice with servants at market anywhere; and she told Isabel Murray that the stone cast at her was not for herself but for her goodman, who had once flung her, the ghost, into the jawhole, and abused her. At this point Murray said she began to be frightened, and ran home in all haste. So Isabel Heriot’s character was settled for ever, and her neighbours only thought the judgment came too late.
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Following rumours about supernatural occurrences at the home of Isaac Burnett, in Edgefield, Carolina, the local paper published the following account:
‘The voice was first heard in October last, imitating various noises, such as that of the spinning-wheel, reel, ducks, hens, etc. It was first heard by Mr. Burnett, about twenty yards from the house, which led him to suppose it was some of the neighbour’s children, hiding in the weeds and trying to frighten his children. It was afterwards heard in the loft of the house and Mr. Burnett, supposing it to be a bird, sent a boy up to drive it out, but nothing could be seen. It thus continued to perplex the minds of the family for some time, until, at length, one of the children said he believed the thing could talk, and commenced asking questions, which it answered by whistling, pretty much like a parrot.... ​Mr John Shepherd, a pious and worthy gentleman, who lives in the neighbourhood, conversed with it in the presence of a number of witnesses. To ascertain the extent of its knowledge, he asked it various questions about most persons in the neighbourhood and their circumstances, which it answered correctly. It told his name and the number of children he had; also, the names of most of the persons present.
He asked what it came there for. It replied, “Because it had no other place to go.” It was asked if it came to do the family any harm; it said no – it loved the family. It was asked finally if it loved Jesus Christ, to which it made no reply, nor answered any more questions. The evening after, it answered others, but would not answer him.  For the first three months it was heard only once a month, but afterwards much oftener. It has been heard at various times, both in the day and at night, but more frequently in the day. Search has been repeatedly made by the family and others, but nothing found from which the voice could proceed. There is no place of concealment about the house. It is a small house with but one room, a loft of boards laid across the joists, and a piazza on one side. The house is not underpinned, so that you can see from one end to the other underneath. For some time the voice appeared to proceed generally from the further end of the house, opposite the fire-place, and the upper part or loft. If anyone, except the children, would go to that end of the house while it was talking, or if anyone would steal round ever so softly to that end on the outside of the house when it was dark, and whilst others talked to it, it would instantly stop, and when they returned it would commence again.
This experiment was tried one evening when a number of persons were there, so that both the house and piazza were full. Someone from the piazza, without the knowledge of those in the house, who were talking to it, went round on the other side to see if they could discover anyone, when it instantly stopped. It has been known to whistle almost any tune, either sacred or profane, which anyone would tell it. ​Mr and Mrs Burnett appear to be simple-hearted, upright, and amiable persons, serious in their dispositions, and [very] far from encouraging any trick … No one in the neighbourhood, who knows them, believes that they know anything about the matter. They have evidently been much disturbed and alarmed on account of it, but having so far experienced no harm from it, they have resolutely maintained their ground. It manifests a great partiality for a little daughter of the family, who is about eleven years of age. This so alarms her that she generally gets sick whenever she talks of it, and she has been known to quit the house precipitately, when she has heard it alone in the house. Not long since, however, she quoted to it a passage of Scripture, which a pious friend pointed out and advised her to memorize for that purpose, (I Tim. 1 xv) and it bade her hold her jaw, but she persisted in quoting the passage until it hushed, and has not spoken to her since. ​
Since so many persons went to hear it, it has become very shy, and is seldom heard when many persons are about, or when any person is in the house except the smaller children. They have never been able to ascertain who or what it is, or the object of its visit. It has told its name repeatedly, but cannot be understood. It will not answer any serious or religious questions. When asked whether it was a man or a woman, it said it was the foolishest question it ever heard, and appeared to laugh. ​The statement then relates the acquaintance made with the Rev. Mr Hodges, whom it told very frankly, “I do not like you”. When he told it, “I have come to drive you away,” it replied, “Do, if you dare.”
During this conversation, which lasted about an hour, there was nobody present but Mr Burnett’s wife, Mr Shepherd, and Mr Hodges, with the small children. When it ended, the two gentlemen examined the house, but found nothing. During the … conversation it was asked to whistle a song; it said it did not know any. Mr Hodges whistled a sacred tune; but it said that wouldn’t do; it then whistled Yankee Doodle Dandy very distinctly. ​Mr Hodges at first suspected that the noise might proceed from someone possessing the art of ventriloquism; but it has been heard at different times without any reference to the presence of any particular person … About two months ago Mr Burnett, at the suggestion of someone, put a Testament in the place whence the voice appeared to proceed. It instantly left the place, came down into the house, and said it was going away. They asked it why it was going away. It replied, it was obliged to go, it could stay there no longer, and bade them farewell.
It was then absent about two weeks, during which time it was heard at Mr Nicholl’s, and Mr Dick’s in the same neighbourhood … They had heard it at Mr Burnett’s, and believed it to be the same, but did not converse with it. When it returned it was asked, and said it had been to those places. None of Mr Burnett’s family were at those places when it was heard. Since its return it has occupied no particular part of the house, but is heard in various parts. It is now seldom heard, as Mr Burnett does not allow the children to talk to it, and they do not pay much attention to it.’ The Morning Chronicle, 8 September 1829, citing Edgefield Carolinian from 11 July last.
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‘During the past week “Jack’s Brae” and neighbourhood [in Aberdeen] have been in a state of considerable excitement, in consequence of the following succession of painful circumstances: about three weeks ago, a girl, of eleven years of age, of the name of Moore, whose parents reside in that locality, on her way to Spring Garden Works, between five and six o’clock in the morning, accompanied by her sister, a girl of thirteen years of age, and while going down the brae at the north-west side of Gilcomston brewery, saw what she terms “a man without a head”, standing by the wayside, near the brewery; and upon seeing which she sprang into the burn which runs alongside the road, from fright. Her sister likewise saw the apparition, but was not so much frightened. The girl was unable to proceed to her work, and returned home, where she remained a few days, when she at length so far recovered as to be able to attend the mill. It was, however, observed that her look was considerably changed, and she was heard to give some strange sighs at times. On the forenoon of Friday week, she found herself unable to work, and consequently left the mill, and proceeded home. Passing along John Street, she says the apparition came again into her mind; she was frightened at the thought of passing Gilcomston, although in broad daylight, and ultimately fell into such a state that she dropped down upon the street. Several people observing her, went to her assistance, and carried her home, where she still lies in a most deplorable state, having been seized with a most violent sort of fits, with only a short time intervening between them. On Monday last, her sister was likewise seized. She came home from the factory, took her supper, and went to bed, well enough, and soon after sprang out of the bed onto the floor, on her hands and knees, exclaiming, “Nu, mither, I’m as ill’s Bell.” She has been in a most deplorable state ever since, at times requiring three men to hold her. Both girls seem to have a strong inclination to catch hold of everything that comes near them with their teeth; one of them bit the side out of a wooden cog, the other day, while getting a drink out of it. ​They both say that the sight of this said apparition was nothing uncommon to them. They had seen it often before, were sometimes afraid, and sometimes not, that it usually had on a white cap, but the last time they saw it it wanted the head, and which so frightened the younger girl. Other girls in that neighbourhood, and at present in good health, also say that they have frequently seen the headless monster – that they have done so occasionally for the last two or three years – that they are become quite familiar with it, and thought no more of it than the black spout beside which it stood – and that it was sometimes in a sitting and sometimes in a standing posture. ​But here the catalogue of misfortune does not end. A person of the name of McKenzie, a grown-up man, was seized in the same manner on Wednesday evening; an aunt of the two girls Moore, was also seized on Wednesday evening; the aunt’s sister-in-law has been seized likewise, together with a boy, a brother’s son of hers. All these are exactly in the same state as the two first. Several medical gentlemen have attended the parties, but are put to their wits’ end to find out what is the matter with them. The ghost story should be looked into. It must either be a phantom of the girls’ imaginations, or it must be some person intent upon frightening them. The latter is not at all unlikely, as they say it was always during the winter that they saw the figure.’
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The Times, 4 April 1844. ‘The Honfleur Journal, after noticing that for some time the Chalet, or Swiss Cottage, of Monsieur Guttinguer, at St Gatien, on the skirts of the forest of Pennedepie, had been disturbed by strange and unaccountable noises, which the country people attributed to a ghost, goes on to say…  “On Tuesday last knockings were heard at the doors of all the apartments of the house; and, though they had been locked by the man in charge, were all found open in the morning. On Wednesday, a decorator employed at the Chalet, and intending to sleep there, having no faith in ghosts, locked all the doors himself, and took the keys into his own room. During the night, the watchman called him up to show him the ghost, and, in fact, he saw in an outer gallery, a figure all in white, resembling a camel, making motions with its head. The watchman fired upon the apparition, which immediately leaped down from the gallery, uttering cries which were not those, which a camel or any other animal, brute or human, was likely to make. The decorator would have pursued the discomfited spectre, but was prevented by the necessity of attending to two women in the house, who had fainted from affright, and before he was at liberty the nocturnal visitor had disappeared. On examining the rooms, all the doors were found wide open; the carpets had been rolled up, and, with the chair covers, thrown out on the staircase. The watchman also became ill, complaining that he had received a violent blow on the chest while levelling his gun at the ghost; but we imagine it was from the recoil of his own piece. Since that night no supernatural object has been seen about the place”.
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The Morning Post, 12 August 1841. ‘The inhabitants of Sidney Sussex College Lodge have lately been alarmed by a supernatural visitation of a very awful description. The following are, as far as we can learn, the circumstances of this extraordinary affair. On Friday night last, about the dread hour of midnight, the nurserymaids, who were about returning to rest, were terrified by hearing several strange and mysterious noises; the sounds appeared to proceed from the staircase; presently they ceased, and the door of the nursery was slowly opened, and a figure of tall and unnatural proportions presented itself before the horror-struck maids. The appearance had a head white and ghastly, long legs, also white, but the body was distinguished only by a dim outline. The body was a shadow – it was a thing of head and legs. The affrighted maids rushed shrieking from the room – the lodge was aroused – the police were called in, but no trace of the apparition was visible, unless a curious odour which perfumed the apartment might be considered so.
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December, 1892. “You have heard the story as (Washington) Irving tells it of the headless horseman who spread consternation through Sleepy Hollow. This is a story of a mysterious woman in black who is exciting as much fear among the people of this peaceful village, sixty miles further up the beautiful valley, as did Irving’s ghost. It is the story of a strange creature that glides noiselessly along the country roads at dead of night. She has never been known to address anybody, although she has met many. Her language is the language of signs. She invariably halts long enough to stretch out her long arm from beneath a black veil and make a hissing noise. She might say more if any one hesitated long enough to give her the chance, but nobody has tarried as yet. This strange apparition is described by those who have seen it as a thin woman, at least six feet four inches tall, with a slight stoop and a long stride. HER FIRST APPEARANCE. The woman in black, as the apparition is known, first made her appearance in Rhinebeck about six weeks ago. She had been parading the streets of the villages just north of Poughkeepsie for several nights prior to that time, and the people of Rhinebeck thought she was a myth. John Judson, who lives in Chestnut Street, was the first to behold her here. As he was going home late one night he heard a noise in Walter W. Shell’s front yard. He looked around and was startled to see a tall black object standing perfectly still. Judson hurried home and arrived there in a cold sweat. The next day the news was all over Rhinebeck. The women and children shivered and the men laughed, but that same night as David Ackert, one of the best known businessmen in the village, was going home he met the black robed object in Main Street. Ackert is six feet tall himself, and he says he had to look up at the woman. She shrank from him with a hissing sound, he declares, and he passed on without saying a word or again looking around.
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A young girl's skeleton, a rusty razor, and chicken feathers.

These were the items found in the cellar of home at 133 South Fourteenth Street, by plumbers who were digging in the basement of the building in February of 1915. The coroner, Jacob Eckinger, was summoned and immediately concluded that the girl had been murdered. Unfortunately, nobody in the neighborhood recalled a young girl ever having lived at 133 South Fourteenth Street since the home was built twenty-three years earlier. Even more strange was the fact that no girls had been reported missing.
So who was this unfortunate girl and how did she end up in a cellar grave in Allison Hill? These were the questions which tormented Coroner Eckinger, as well as county detective James E. Walters and District Attorney Michael E. Stroup, who left no stone unturned in their investigation. Dozens of anonymous letters poured in, but these letters provided few leads. One of the more promising leads suggested that the body belonged to Bessie Guyer, a girl from nearby Mechanicsburg who had run away. This theory was later disregarded when Bessie was located safe and sound.
The house at 133 South Fourteenth Street, which still stands today, was built in 1892 by a man named Engle, who sold it soon after to a contractor named Morris Strohm. The following year Strohm sold the building to Milton Wagner, who owed the house until the early 1900s, when it was sold to Miss Minnie Burtner, who was the owner at the time of the chilling discovery. Like Wagner, Miss Burtner purchased the home as a rental property, leaving it in the hands of a landlord named B.F. Eby.
According to city records, the home's first occupant was Dixon Kitzmiller, a railroad worker who lived there between 1893 and 1894. From 1894 to 1900 the home was occupied by another railroad worker, Charles Eberly. From 1901 to 1902, a dentist named Charles Ayres lived in the building. All of these men were questioned and then exonerated, but the authorities were suspicious of the family who rented the home after Dr. Ayers- a German family said to have strange habits, which included the keeping of chickens and geese in the cellar.
R.C. Cashman and his workmen had taken four loads of mud from under the cellar steps in a wheelbarrow when they unearthed the bones. They found four or five vertebrae, several bones of the hands and feet, and fragments of skull. Next to a small clump of hair one of the men found a rusted razor blade and eight chicken feathers. The authorities believed that the feathers were an important clue and honed in on the German family who had rented the home in 1902. Unfortunately, all traces of the German family had been lost. It was said that the man of the house had worked as a laborer at the Boll Mattress Factory, but the Boll officials had no recollection of a German in their employ and, to complicate matters, the Boll company didn't keep records of its employees.
"A thousand to one shot that the mystery will never be solved," stated District Attorney Stroup to the Harrisburg Telegraph on February 19th. "When you consider that the body appears to have been buried at least ten years and that half a dozen families lived at the house during the time the body may have been buried, and that no marks of identification have been found, you can see how indefinite the clues are that we must work on."
On April 21, the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that authorities from Dauphin County paid $10 to Dr. E.L. Perkins to examine the bones, in the hopes that the physician would be able to uncover some bit of information that would help solve the case. But the bones told no tales and the investigation was put on the shelf. On May 24, 1915, the bones were buried and the unsolved murder faded from memory like the German family who once kept chickens in the cellar of 133 South Fourteenth Street in Allison Hill.
With the burial of the bones yesterday which figured in the skeleton mystery of Allison Hill, the last act in the drama of the skeleton of the young girl unearthed in a cellar was closed.-  Harrisburg Telegraph, May 25, 1915
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Our story opened in September 1710. A widow named Anne Haltridge, while staying in the Island Magee home of her son, James Haltridge, began to be the victim of some strange and frightening occurrences. Every night, an invisible force would violently throw stones and pieces of turf at her bed. Her pillow would be snatched from under her head, and the blankets torn away. A careful search was made of the room, but nothing could be found that would explain these attacks. Mrs. Haltridge, understandably unnerved by it all, moved to another bedroom, hoping that would be the end of her troubles.

It wasn't. One evening in early December, as she sat alone by the kitchen fire, a little boy suddenly materialized and sat beside her. His appearance was odd: he wore an old black bonnet, a torn vest, and was wrapped in a blanket that he used to cover his face. Mrs. Haltridge plied him with the obvious questions--Who was he? What was he doing there?--but the weird visitor merely danced around the kitchen for a moment, then ran outside. The servants chased after the boy, but he had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

After this, life returned to normal until February 11, 1711. That afternoon, Mrs. Haltridge was again alone, this time reading a book of sermons. She momentarily placed the book on a table. A few moments later, the book was gone. She had not left the room, nor had anyone else entered. She could not find it anywhere. The next day, the mysterious little boy reappeared outside the house. He broke one of the windows and thrust the missing book inside the hole. He told one of the servants, Margaret Spear, that he had stolen the book and that Mrs. Haltridge would never get it back. Spear asked if he had read the book. Oh, yes, the boy replied. The Devil had taught him how to read. "The Lord bless me from thee!" Spear gasped. "Thou hast got ill learning!"

The boy sneered that she might bless herself as often as she liked. It would do her no good. He then brandished a sword, announcing that he would kill everyone in the house. Spear ran into the parlor and locked the door behind her. The boy laughed at this, stating that he could come inside by the smallest hole in the house. The Devil could turn him into anything he liked. This sinister apparition then threw a large rock through the parlor window. Shortly after that, Spear saw the boy catching a turkey, which he threw over his shoulder. The bird's struggles loosened the book, which the boy was carrying inside his blanket, and it fell to the ground. The boy tried to kill the turkey with his sword, but it escaped. Spear then saw him using the sword to dig a hole in the ground. The girl asked him what he was doing. "Making a grave for a corpse which will come out of this house very soon," he replied. Then, obviously realizing he had delivered one hell of an exit line, he flew over a hedge and disappeared.

All was quiet for a few days. Then, on February 15, the blankets on Mrs. Haltridge's bed were mysteriously removed and placed in a bundle on the floor. The family replaced them on the bed, only to have them again yanked off and placed under a table. The Haltridges made another effort to put them back on the bed. For a third time, some unseen force removed the bedclothes, this time forming them into the shape of a corpse.

That night, the family's minister, Robert Sinclair, stayed with the now deeply shaken family, offering what comfort and prayers he could. Mrs. Haltridge retired to bed, but, understandably enough, did not sleep well. Around midnight, she gave a sudden yell of pain. She said it felt as if she had been stabbed through the back. The sharp pain never left her until the moment she died a week later. While she was on her deathbed, the blankets on her bed were periodically again removed and placed in that eerie corpselike shape.

Inevitably, talk spread that Mrs. Haltridge had been bewitched to death. The surviving Haltridges found themselves wondering if the ordeal was over, or if a curse had been placed on the entire family. They got their answer at the end of February. A houseguest, a teenaged friend of the family named Mary Dunbar, found that some of her clothes had been removed from her trunk and scattered around the house. While gathering up the items, she found on the parlor floor an apron. It was rolled up in a tight ball, and bound with a string which was tied in a number of strange knots. When the apron was undone, a flannel cap that had belonged to Mrs. Haltridge was found inside. Miss Dunbar and the Haltridges were terrified. They took this as a sign that the malevolent spirits were about to claim another victim.

That night, Dunbar went into a violent fit. She cried that someone had run a knife through her leg. She claimed that she was being tormented by three women, whom she described in great detail. A few hours later, she had a second fit, during which she claimed to see visions of seven or eight women. When she recovered, she identified them as some local women: Janet Liston, Elizabeth Sellar, Catherine McCalmont, Janet Carson, Janet Mean, Jane Latimer, and one who was called only "Mrs. Ann." If Mary Dunbar could be believed, the Island Magee area was home to a vicious coven of witches, and after all that had happened at the Haltridge home, no one was inclined to doubt her.

The alleged witchcraft now became a serious legal issue. The Mayor issued a warrant for the arrest of all those suspected of belonging to the witch cult. Taken into custody were all the women Mary Dunbar had named, as well as one Margaret Mitchell, whom she identified as "Mrs. Ann."

Depositions dealing with the various strange events were taken. A typical witness was a James Hill, who told of an occasion when he was at the house of a William Sellar. A woman named Mary Twmain "came to the said house and called out Janet Liston to speak to her, and that after the said Janet came in again she fell a-trembling, and told this Deponent that the said Mary had been desiring her to go to Mr. Haltridge's to see Mary Dunbar, but she declared she would not go for all Island Magee, except Mr. Sinclair would come for her, and said: If the plague of God was on her [Mary Dunbar] the plague of God be on them altogether; the Devil be with them if he was amongst them. If God had taken her health from her, God give her health: if the Devil had taken it from her, the Devil give it her. And then added: O misbelieving ones, eating and drinking damnation to themselves, crucifying Christ afresh, and taking all out of the hands of the Devil!"

On March 31, 1711, the accused were put on trial in Carrigfergus. Our main account of the tribunal comes from the Vicar of Belfast, Dr. Tisdall, an eyewitness who compiled the closest thing we have to a transcript of the proceedings. He wrote,
"It was sworn to by most of the evidences that in some of [Mary Dunbar's] fits three strong men were scarce able to hold her down, that she would mutter to herself, and speak some words distinctly, and tell everything she had said in her conversation with the witches, and how she came to say such things, which she spoke when in her fits.

"In her fits she often had her tongue thrust into her windpipe in such a manner that she was like to choak, and the root seemed pulled up into her mouth. Upon her recovery she complained extremely of one Mean, who had twisted her tongue; and told the Court that she had tore her throat, and tortured her violently by reason of her crooked fingers and swelled knuckles. The woman was called to the Bar upon this evidence, and ordered
to show her hand; it was really amazing to see the exact agreement betwixt the description of the Afflicted and the hand of the supposed tormentor; all the joints were distorted and the tendons shrivelled up, as she had described.

"One of the men who had held her in a fit swore she had nothing visible on her arms when he took hold of them, and that all in the room saw some worsted yarn tied round her wrist, which was put on invisibly; there were upon this string seven double knots and one single one. In another fit she cried out that she was grievously tormented with a pain about her knee; upon which the women in the room looked at her knee, and found a fillet tied fast about it; her mother swore to the fillet, that it was the same she had given her that morning, and had seen it about her head; this had also seven double knots and one single one.

"Her mother was advised by a Roman Catholic priest to use a counter-charm, which was to write some words out of the first chapter of St. John's Gospel in a paper, and to tie the paper with an incle three times round her neck, knotted each time. This charm the girl herself declined; but the mother, in one of the times of her being afflicted, used it. She was in a violent fit upon the bed held down by a man, and, recovering a little, complained grievously of a pain in her back and about her middle; immediately the company discovered the said incle tied round her middle with seven double knots and one single one: this was sworn to by several. The man who held the Afflicted was asked by the Judge if it were possible she could reach the incle about her neck while he held her; he said it was not, by the virtue of his oath, he having her hands fast down.

"The Afflicted, during one of her fits, was observed by several persons to slide off the bed in an unaccountable manner, and to be laid gently on the ground as if supported and drawn invisibly. Upon her recovery she told them the several persons who had drawn her in that manner, with the intention, as they told her, of bearing her out of the window; but that she reflecting at that time, and calling upon God in her mind, they let her drop on the floor.

"The Afflicted, recovering from a fit, told the persons present that her tormentors had declared that she should not have power to go over the threshold of the chamber-door; the evidence declared that they had several times attempted to lead her out of the door, and that she was as often thrown into fits as they had brought her to the said threshold; that to pursue the experiment further they had the said threshold taken up, upon which they were immediately struck with so strong a smell of brimstone that they were scarce able to bear it; that the stench spread through the whole house, and afflicted several to that degree that they fell sick in their stomachs, and were much disordered.

"There was a great quantity of things produced in Court, and sworn to be what she vomited out of her throat. I had them all in my hand, and found there was a great quantity of feathers, cotton, yarn, pins, and two large waistcoat buttons, at least as much as would fill my hand. They gave evidence to the Court they had seen those very things coming out of her mouth, and had received them into their hands as she threw them up."

[Mary Dunbar warned that the "witches" had vowed that they would leave her unable to testify against them in court.] "She was accordingly that day before the trial struck dumb, and so continued in Court during the whole trial, but had no violent fit. I saw her in Court cast her eyes about in a wild distracted manner, and it was then thought she was recovering from her fit, and it was hoped she would give her own evidence. I observed, as they were raising her up, she sank into the arms of a person who held her, closed her eyes, and seemed perfectly senseless and motionless. I went to see her after the trial; she told me she knew not where she was when in Court; that she had been afflicted all that time by three persons, of whom she gave a particular description both of their proportion, habits, hair, features, and complexion, and said she had never seen them till the day before the trial."
The prisoners--who had no legal counsel--could only counter all this by fervently denying their guilt. Tisdall recorded that "It was made appear on oath that most of them had received the Communion, some of them very lately, that several of them had been laborious, industrious people, and had frequently been known to pray with their families, both publickly and privately; most of them could say the Lord's Prayer, which it is generally said they learnt in prison, they being every one Presbyterians...Judge Upton summed up the whole evidence with great exactness and perspicuity, notwithstanding the confused manner in which it was offered. He seemed entirely of opinion that the jury could not bring them in guilty upon the sole testimony of the afflicted person's visionary images. He said he could not doubt but that the whole matter was preternatural and diabolical, but he conceived that, had the persons accused been really witches and in compact with the Devil, it could hardly be presumed that they should be such constant attenders upon Divine Service, both in public and private."

Unfortunately for the defendants, Judge Upton's common-sensical opinion was in the minority. The other judge, James Macartney, held the opposite view. He saw no reason to doubt the accused were all in league with the Devil, and virtually instructed the jury to bring in a verdict of "guilty."

The jurors complied. The defendants were sentenced to a year in prison, during which they were to stand in the public pillory four different times. It is said that during one of these ordeals in the pillory, the crowd pelted them with garbage so violently that one of the prisoners lost an eye.

Thus ended the haunting of Island Magee.
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"Harrisburg Sunday Courier," August 14, 1938:
Beardstown, Ill., Aug. 13--Strange goings-on in an isolated Pike county farmhouse today led authorities to press anew their investigation of the deaths of three small children found smothered in an old type ice box on the farm three months ago.

The victims were Henry Petri, 8, and his sisters, Emma, 10, and Alberta, 5. When their bodies were discovered, it was believed the three youngsters had been trapped accidentally in the refrigerator while playing "hide and seek."

But this theory never was fully accepted and a coroner's jury continued its hearings indefinitely.

Now, authorities are convinced the children were murdered. They base this conclusion on a series of mysterious happenings at the Petri farm which so frightened the parents they decided to move.

Most inexplicable, according to authorities, was Mrs. Petri's assertion that early last week she found a broken red celluloid ring on the floor of the bedroom. The ring, the mother said, was worn by Emma the morning of the day she and the other children were found dead. The ring was not on Emma's hand when her body was found.

Mrs. Petri insisted the room had been cleaned and swept many times since the day of the tragedy, May 9. It was not possible, the mother said, that she could have failed to see the ring if it had been there all the time.

Finding of the broken ring led the Petris to move. Authorities said they feared their home was "haunted."

Also without suitable explanation was the mother's report to police three weeks ago that she had seen the snarling face of a man pressed against a window. He disappeared when she screamed.

A week later, the Petris reported, they returned home to find the house ransacked, clothing and papers spread over the floor, and a floor board ripped up.

These happenings, particularly the mystery of the celluloid ring, authorities said, probably will lead to reconvening the coroner's jury, which likely will return a verdict of murder.

Dan Irving, chairman of the coroner's jury, explained that he and his fellow jurymen had from the first doubted the accidental death theory. He said that the ice box is only three and one-half feet tall, with two compartments, an upper shelf for ice and the lower one for food. Irving said also the box could not be locked from the inside, but had to be latched from the outside. It was improbable, too, he said, that all the children would have hidden in the same place.

Mr. and Mrs. Petri had left the farm on the morning of May 9 to attend a stock sale at Chambersburg. The tragedy was discovered when they returned after several hours' absence.
Somewhat to my surprise, I was unable to find any further updates on this bizarre story, leading me to assume that the investigation into the deaths of the Petri children fizzled out from lack of evidence.  Back in May, shortly after the children died, it was reported that a partially-erased note was found at the farm, that was believed to read, "Man at door."  The sheriff, however, dismissed the note as a worthless "plant" aimed at forcing authorities to intensify their probe into the deaths.  No other clues about the mystery appear ever to have been found.
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"Chicago Tribune" (January 2, 1888):
Nebraska Letter to "Kansas City Journal": William S. Aimison, a farm-hand working for  a man by the name of Bills, about fourteen miles west of this city, was in the city Friday, and related a strange story, which in substance was as follows:

He says he was married in Illinois about six years ago and three years later his wife died very suddenly. He attended the funeral, as a matter of course, looked for the last time upon the face he had loved in life, now cold in death, saw the coffin closed, lowered into the grave, and heard that awful sound as the earth from the grave-digger's shovel fell upon the coffin-lid that hid from sight all that he held dear in this world. Shortly after the death and burial of his wife he removed to Kansas and for the last year has been in Nebraska. In all this there is nothing singular; such things happen every day.

Now comes the strange part of his story. He says that shortly after he reached Kansas he received a letter, dated and postmarked at his old home in Illinois, signed by his wife's name, "Lulu," and unmistakably in her handwriting. Of this latter fact he is assured, as he compared the handwriting with that of several letters received from his wife before his marriage, which he still has in his possession. She said in the letter that she was very lonely, missed him greatly, and implored him to return to her. The only singular thing to one not knowing the facts of the case was a sentence something like this: “You all thought I died, but I did not, and am much better than when I saw you last.” To the latter part of this sentence Aimison could or would not attempt an explanation. Otherwise the letter was such as any wife might write to an absent husband.

Since then at irregular intervals he has received other letters, all couched in endearing language, but making no attempt to explain the mystery. One came from Concordia, Kas., near which place he was located before coming to Nebraska. In this the writer bitterly bewailed the fact of his leaving before she reached him.

At first Aimison thought some of his former acquaintances in Illinois were playing a ghastly practical joke, but after receiving several letters began to feel disturbed, and sent them back to his wife's parents in Illinois. They agreed with him that the handwriting was that of their daughter, but could offer no explanation. He answered one of the letters, addressing it, "Mrs. W.S. Aimison," and it was returned to him at this city from the Dead-Letter Office. The last letter received from his "wife" came about three weeks ago, dated at Table Rock, this state, and stated that "Lulu" was there sick, out of money, and asking him to come to her relief. Aimison left immediately upon receipt of this letter for Table Rock.

Upon investigation after his arrival he found that a woman had been at the hotel there, arriving several days before he did. She was sick when she reached there, confined to her room most of the time, and left after a week's stay for no one knew where. In the register at the hotel he found the name "Mrs. Lulu Aimison," no place of residence being given. The handwriting was identical with that of the letters he had received. The description of the woman given by people at the hotel was almost identical with that of his wife the last time he saw her alive. There were slight discrepancies, but nothing but what three years' time accounts for. Aimison, now thoroughly aroused and determined to get at the bottom of the affair, left at once for Illinois and had the remains of his wife exhumed, finding them as they had been buried: there could be no mistake about that. The question is, Who sent the letters and who is the woman? Mr. Aimison is a fairly educated man, not at all superstitious, but acknowledges that the affair has worried him a great deal. His reputation here is good, his employer speaking very highly of him. He says if he receives any more letters he will not allow them to trouble him, but will make an earnest effort to discover their author, and when he does has promised to tell what happens.
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"Statesville (N.C.) Landmark," March 15, 1928:
Mooresville Enterprise, 15th

Mr. and Mrs. Thad Lowe received a severe shock Monday evening at about 6 o'clock when they returned to their cheerful cottage home on North Main street after their day's work was done. The bath room and kitchen were bespattered with blood, and in the bath tub Mrs. Lowe found several clots of dark blood, and wash rags and towels reeking in damp splotches of blood. In the kitchen there is an arcola heater, and within fourteen inches of the door to the furnace there is a kitchen sink. On the end of the sink there were great splotches of blood. There was evidence everywhere that some one had been in the home and that something unusual had taken place.

Mr. Lowe is associated with the Sherrill Motor Company, and his hours are from early morning till about 6 o'clock in the evening. Mrs. Lowe is bookkeeper for the Mooresville Flour Mills, across the street and within several hundred yards of her home. It is her custom to leave home for her work about 9 o'clock every morning, returning to her home after 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Mr. and Mrs. Lowe take their meals with Mr. and Mrs. J.D. Cranford, parents of Mrs. Lowe.

When Mrs. Lowe entered her home Monday evening she was greeted with a great volume of smoke, the smell of burning flesh, and the heat was so intense that she could not remain in the house. She walked through the house and opened doors and windows and passed out for a while. When Mr. Lowe returned home a short while later they were discussing the cause of the smoke and having occasion to enter the bath room Mrs. Lowe found the terrible spectacle of blood and the condition of the room as described above. Policemen and others were called in to help solve the mysterious affair. No one had been seen entering the house during the day and no one had been noticed leaving the building since early in the day when Mrs. Lowe went to her work. There were workers building a drive way within fifteen feet of the house but none of the workers had seen anyone coming and going from the house. However, there were tracks of a woman's shoe of the common sense type leading up the drive way between the Lowe house and the residence of Mrs. W.W. Rodgers.

An investigation was started Tuesday morning to unravel the mystery. Two theories are advanced. One is that some one committed murder, probably a human being, and burned the remains of the victim in the heating furnace. Another theory is that some woman gave birth to a child, either dead or alive, and destroyed the body by cremation.

W.M. Lentz, Policeman Brown, C.E. Earnhardt, and a newspaper man examined the ashes and unburned coal taken from the furnace Tuesday morning, and found charred bones that crumbled when mashed. These charred bones were not scattered among the coals, but appeared to be all in one place when the receptacle was emptied.

Is some one guilty of infanticide? or has there been a murder outright? The mystery has puzzled the occupants of the home as well as the entire police department.

Whoever the strange and unwelcome visitor was, evidently was familiar with the coming and going of Mr. and Mrs. Lowe and timed their nefarious work accordingly.

The same newspaper had a follow-up story on March 26:
Mooresville Enterprise, 22d.

While the county coroner, Solicitor Zeb Vance Long, Sheriff Alexander and the local police force, with private detective C.E. Earnhardt, have been working industriously on the mysterious blood stained bath tub incident at the Thad Lowe home on Monday, March 12th, there are no developments that gives any clue to the perpetrators of the apparent murder. The mystery is baffling to everyone, and while every suggestion that might lead to some solution of the crime have been run down, there is nothing tangible, and so far no one has been identified in connection with the affair.

Rock S. Witherspoon, a well-known citizen, says that on Sunday, March 11, while sitting in his automobile in front of St. Mark's Lutheran church, about 10 o'clock in the morning, he saw a man visit the Lowe home, pull back the screen from the door and finding the door locked, took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and entered. Mr. Witherspoon says he did not remain there very long, and did not see the man come from the house. He described the man as being about 5 1/2 feet tall, and wore a light colored hat, suit and overcoat. He did not recognize the man, but knew that it was not Mr. Lowe. Mr. and Mrs. Lowe had gone to Sunday school. All of this happened the day before the blood-stained bathtub was discovered.

All evidence points to a crime having been committed, but the solution of the mystifying incident rivals anything our local officers have ever had to unfathom.
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On the Saturday before Palm Sunday, which in that year [anno Domini 1294] fell on the fourth of the Ides of April, there took place in Lothian an event most marvelous, enough in itself to warn wise persons that it i evil spirits that stir up tempests, and also to teach the ignorant that, according to the teaching of the saints, in every act and at very step thy hand should make the sign of the Cross.
Verily on that day, when crowds gathered in the town of Haddington, from various districts to attend the market, a young fellow with an equally young wife came thither with his neighbours some distance of six miles to buy some necessaries. Bu there came such a dense fog and driving snow as struck with dismay the countenances of all who beheld it.
Having done their business, the couple were returning home about midday, an the wife who was a hale and hearty young woman riding on the horse behind her husband's saddle. On arriving at a rivulet about half a mile from their house in the town of Lazenby, she persuaded her husband to let her alight from the horse and follow on foot, while he went forward to the house and ordered a fire to be kindled against the cold.
He consented, out of love for his wife, and no sooner was she left alone than suddenly she encountered, by the side of the stream, and evil spirit, of a pale countenance, but presenting the appearance of a little girl-child scarce seven years old. This creature, seizing the woman by the left hand with a hand life a horse's hoof, tore the flesh off her arm and flung her, terrified, into the water; then, as she struggled to rise, it dealt her such a blow that a gash was left between her shoulderblades of such depth that a man's fist might be thrust into it. Indeed it so cruelly handled the poor woman, though she resisted with all her might, it beat some parts of her body black and blue, and left still other parts deadly pale, tearing off the flesh, as was said, and as those who saw and touched her have testified to me.
The husband wondering why she tarried, galloped back to the place they parted, and finding his wife in a swoon and beaten all bloody, put her again on the back of his horse and brought her home. Strengthened through confession and extreme unction, she showed to all who visited her the humours and extravasated blood, and so departed this life on the second day following.
Chronicle of Lanercost
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Brooklyn Eagle, December 5, 1891:

The little hamlet of Oakville, lying seven or eight miles east of Statesborough, Ga., on this Savannah river, is much agitated at present over a ghostly sensation which appears to be more substantial than is usual with such excitement, to use a paradoxical expression. About three weeks ago the family of a small farmer named Walsingham began to be annoyed by certain disturbances in their household matters, which they at first attributed to the malice or mischievous propensity of some outsider. These disturbances generally took the form of noises in the house after the family had retired and the light was extinguished. Continual banging of the doors, things overturned, the door bell rang and the annoying of the hound dog, a large and intelligent mastiff. It was the conduct of this animal that first caused the Walsinghams to believe there was something more in these occurrences than appeared on the surface, though they were reluctant to attach any supernatural significance to them, being a family of education, practical persons and avowed skeptics on the subject of spooks, etc.

Don Caesar, the mastiff, would be seen to start suddenly from a nap and run at full tilt as if from some one, or start suddenly back while walking leisurely down a path, as if he again met with some one. But he soon lost his temper and varied these pacific proceedings by snarling at every door, as if he expected an enemy to enter, and often drawing back with a threatening bark and displaying fangs to warn his unseen annoyer from him. One day he was found in the hallway barking furiously and bristling with rage, while his eyes seemed directed to the wall just before him. At last he made a spring forward, with a hoarse yelp of ungovernable fury, only to fall back as if flung down by some powerful and cruel hand. Upon examination it was found that his neck had been broken.

The house cat, on the contrary, seemed rather to enjoy the favor of the ghost, and would often enter a door as if escorting some visitor in whose hand was stroking her back. She would also climb upon a chair rubbing herself and purring as if well pleased at the presence of some one in the seat. She and Don Caesar invariably manifested this eccentric conduct at the same time, as though the mysterious being was visible to both of them. This kept up until no doubt could be entertained that the animals saw something of a supernatural character, which was also making itself very disagreeable to the Walsinghams.

It did not long content itself with petty annoyances, but finally took to rousing the family at all hours of the night by making such a row as to render any rest impossible.

This noise, which consisted of shouts, groans, hideous laughter and a peculiar, most distressing wail, would sometimes proceed apparently from under the house, sometimes from the ceiling and at other times in the very room in which the family was seated. One night Miss Amelia Walsingham, a young daughter, was engaged at her toilet, when she felt a hand laid softly on her shoulder. Thinking it her mother or sister she glanced in the glass before her only to be thunderstruck at seeing the mirror reflect no form but her own, though she could plainly see a man's broad hand lying on her arm.

She brought the family to her by her screams, but when they reached her all signs of the mysterious hand was gone. On another occasion the girl was startled by beholding the knob of her door turn softly, the door open and then close as if someone had entered and shut it behind them. She strained her eyes trying to make out some form or the cause of the phenomenon, but nothing appeared. She vacated the room, however, feeling sure nothing was in it with her. Mr. Walsingham himself saw footsteps form beside his own while walking through the garden after a light rain.

The marks were those of a man's naked feet and fell beside his own as if the person walked at his side. After some minutes the steps left him and led toward the house, where Don Caesar was lying on the front piazza. The dog sprang up, barking furiously, but retreated as the steps approached him.

Matters grew so serious that the Walsinghams became frightened and talked of leaving the house when an event took place that confirmed them in this determination. The family was seated at the supper table with several guests, who were spending the evening, when a loud groan was heard in the room directly overhead. This was however, nothing unusual, and very little notice was taken of it until one of the visitors pointed out a stain of what looked like blood on the white tablecloth, and it was seen that some liquid was slowly dripping on the table from the ceiling overhead. This liquid was so much like fresh shed blood as to horrify those who watched its slow dripping. Mr. Walsingham, with several of his guests, ran hastily upstairs and into the room directly over the one into which the blood was dripping.

A carpet covered the floor and nothing appeared to explain the source of the ghastly rain, but, anxious to satisfy themselves thoroughly, the carpet was immediately ripped up and the boarding found to be perfectly dry and even covered with a thin layer of dust. And all the while the floor was being examined the persons below could swear the blood never ceased to drip. A stain the size of a dinner plate was formed before the drops ceased to fall. This stain was examined next day under the microscope and was pronounced by competent chemists to be human blood.

The Walsinghams left the house the next day and since then the place has been apparently given over to spooks and evil spirits, which make the night hideous with the noise of revel, shouts and furious yells. Hundreds from all over this county and adjacent ones have visited the place, but few have the courage to pass a night in the haunted house. One daring spirit, Horace Gunn of Savannah, however, accepted a wager that he could not spend twenty-four hours in it, and did so, though he declares that there is not enough money in the county to make him pass another night there. He was found the morning after by his friends with whom he made the wager in an insensible condition and was with difficulty brought out of his swoon. He has never recovered from the shock of his terrible experience and is still confined to his bed suffering from nervous prostration.

His story is that shortly after nightfall he endeavored to kindle a fire in one of the rooms and to light the lamp which he had provided himself, but to his surprise and consternation found it impossible to do either. An icy breath which seemed to proceed from some invisible person at his side extinguished each match as he lighted it. At this peculiarly terrifying turn of affairs Mr. Gunn would have left the house and forfeited the amount of his wager, a considerable one, but was restrained by the fear of ridicule and of his story not being believed in. He seated himself in the dark with the calmness he could and awaited developments.

For some time nothing occurred, and the young man was half dozing when, after an hour or two, he was brought to his feet by a sudden yell of pain or rage that seemed to come from under the house. this appeared to be the signal for an outbreak of hideous noises all over the house. The sound of running feet could be heard scurrying up and down the stairs, hastening from one room to another, as if one person fled from the pursuit of a second. This kept up for nearly an hour, but at last ceased altogether, and for some time Mr. Gunn sat in darkness and quiet and had about concluded that the performance was over for the night. At last his attention was attracted by a white spot that gradually appeared on the opposite wall from him.

This spot continued to brighten until it seemed a disk of white fire, when the horrified spectator saw that the light emanated from and surrounded a human head which, without a body or any visible means of support, was moving slowly along the wall at about the height of a man from the floor. This ghastly head appeared to be that of an aged person, though whether male or female it was difficult to determine. The hair was long and gray and matted together with dark clots of blood, which also issued from a deep, jagged wound in one temple. The cheeks were fallen in and the whole face indicated suffering and unspeakable misery. The eyes were wide open and gleamed with an unearthly fire, while the glassy balls seemed to follow the terror stricken Mr. Gunn, who was too thoroughly paralyzed by what he saw to move or cry out. Finally the head disappeared and the room was once more left in darkness, but the young man could hear what seemed to be half a dozen persons moving about him, while the whole house shook as if rocked by some violent earthquake.

The groaning and wailing that broke forth from every direction was something terrific, and an unearthly rattle and banging, as of china and tin pans being flung to the ground floor from the upper story, added to the deafening noise. Gunn at last roused himself sufficiently to attempt to leave the haunted house. Feeling his way along the wall, in order to avoid the beings, whatever they were, that filled the room, the young man had nearly succeeded in reaching the door when he felt himself seized by the ankle and was violently thrown to the floor. He was grasped by icy hands which sought to grip him about the throat. He struggled with his unseen foe, but was soon overpowered and choked into insensibility. When found by his friends his throat was black with the marks of long, thin fingers armed with cruel, curved nails.

The only explanation that can be found for these mysterious manifestations is that about three months ago a number of bones were discovered on the Walsingham place, which some declared even then to be those of a human being. Mr. Walsingham pronounced them, however, to be an animal's, and they were hastily thrown into an adjacent limekiln. It is supposed to be the outraged spirit of the person to whom they had belonged in life that is now creating such consternation.
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Just at the entrance of the castle is a great stone chair(14) for the Governour, and two lesser for the Deemsters here they try all causes, except ecclesiastick, which are entirely under the decision of the Bishop: when you are past this little court, you enter into a long winding passage between two high walls, not much unlike what is described of Rosamond's labyrinth at Woodstock: in case of an attack, ten thousand men might be destroyed by a very few in attempting to enter. The extremity of it brings you to a room where the keys sit; they are twenty-four in number; they call them the Parliament; but in my opinion they more resemble our juries in England: because the business of their meeting is to adjust differences between the common people, and are locked in till they have given their verdict. They may be said in this sense indeed, to be supreme judges, because from them there is no appeal but to the Lord himself.

A little farther is an apartment which has never been opened in the memory of man; the persons belonging to the Castle are very cautious in giving any reason for it, but the natives, who are excessively superstitious, assign this: that there is something of inchantment in it. They tell you that the Castle was at first inhabited by fairies, and afterwards by giants, who continued in the possession of it till the days of Merlin, who by the force of magic dislodg'd the greatest part of them, and bound the rest in spells, which they believe will be indissoluble to the end of the world. For proof of this, they tell you a very odd story: they say there are a great number of fine apartments underground, exceeding in magnificence any of the upper rooms; several men of more than ordinary courage, have in former times ventured down to explore the secrets of this subterranean dwelling-place,(16), but none of them ever returned to give an account of what they saw; it was therefore judged convenient that all the passes to it should be kept continually shut, that no more might Offer by their temerity. But about some 50 or 55 years since, a person who had an uncommon boldness or resolution, never left soliciting permission of those who had the power to grant it, to visit those dark abodes: in fine, he obtain'd his request, went down, and returned by the help of a clue of packthread, which he took with him, which no man before himself had ever done; and brought this amazing discovery, viz., that after having passed thro' great number of vaults, he came into a long narrow place, which the farther he penetrated, he perceived he went more and more on a descent, till having travelled, as near as he could guess, for the space of a mile, he began to see a little gleam of light, which, tho' it seemed to come from a vast distance, yet was the most delightful sight he had ever beheld in his life. Having at length come to the end of that lane of darkness, he perceived a very large and magnificent house, illuminated th a great many candles, whence proceeded the light just now mentioned: having, before he begun this expedition, well fortifed himself with brandy, he had courage enough to knock at the door, which a servant, at the third knock, having open'd, asked him what he wanted. I would go as far as I can, reply'd our adventurer; be so kind therefore to direct me-how to accomplish my design, for I see no passage but that dark cavern thro' which I came. The servant told him he must go thro' that house, and accordingly led him thro' a long entry, and out at a back-door. He then walked a considerable way, and at last beheld another house, more magnificent than the first; and the windows being all open, discovered innumerable lamps burning in every room. Here he designed also to knock, but had the curiosity to step on a little bank which commanded a low parlour; on looking in he beheld a vast table in the middle of the room of black marble, and on it, extended at full length, a man, or rather monster; for by his account, he could not be less than fourteen foot long, and ten or eleven round the body. This prodigious fabrick lay as if sleeping with his head on a book, and a sword by him, of a size answerable to the hand which 'tis supposed made use of it. This sight was more terrifying to our traveller than all the dark and dreary mansions he had passed thro' in his arrival to it: he resolved therefore not to attempt entrance into a place inhabited by persons of that unequal stature, and made the best of his way back to the other house, where the same servant reconducted, and informed him, that if he had knocked at the second door, he would have seen company enough, but never could have return'd. On which he desired to know what place it was, and by whom possessed; but the other reply'd, that these things were not to be revealed. He then tools his leave, and by the same dark passage got into the vaults, and soon after once more ascended to the light of the sun.

Ridiculous as this narrative appears, whoever seems to disbelieve it, is looked on as a person of a weak faith; but tho' this might be sufficient to prove their superstition, I cannot forbear making mention of another tradition they have, and of a moth longer- standing. I have already taken notice that their most ancient records were taken away in a Norwegian conquest, which renders it impossible to be certain how long the Island has been found out, or by whom: to make up this deficiency, they tell you this history of it.
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Cambridge (England) Daily News, March 16, 1901—that Lavinia Farrar, aged 72, a blind woman, "of independent means," had been found dead on her kitchen floor, face bruised, nose broken. Near the body was a blood-stained knife, and there were drops of blood on the floor. The body was dressed, and, until the post-mortem examination, no wound to account for the death was seen. At the inquest, two doctors testified that the woman had been stabbed to the heart, but that there was no puncture in her garments of which there were four. The woman, undressed, could not have stabbed herself, and then have dressed, because death had come to her almost instantly. A knife could not have been inserted through openings in the garments, because their fastenings were along lines far apart.

A knife was on the floor, and blood was on the floor. But it seemed that this blood had not come from the woman's wound. This wound was almost bloodless. Only one of her garments, the innermost, was blood-stained, and only slightly. There had been no robbery. The jury returned an open verdict.
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One old house in Tenby, N. Wales, is haunted by a very horrible creature, which from all accounts is evidently an elemental and vampire. This building, like many of the houses in the historical old town, is exceedingly ancient and I believe has quite a history of its own. My informant (an old lady) told me that years ago she had a terrible experience in that house. She occupied for one night the room haunted by this vampire. About midnight she awoke with a sense of unspeakable horror, and felt on her body a flabby furry creature which seemed to be drawing all her life out of her. The creature was clinging to her in much the same fashion as an octopus would. She struggled violently and shrieked and shrieked. As the bedclothes were thrown off in her struggles, she saw for a moment a pair of gleaming eyes in a dead white human face. Her shrieks were heard and as voices outside her locked door showed the presence of human beings the horrible creature slid from her on to the floor and disappeared. When the door was opened and lights brought in, nothing could be found, nor was there any way by which anyone or anything could have entered or left the room. Other people who occupied that room had similar experiences, and it has been shut up. The Occult Review December 1909.
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It may be worth putting on record, in these days of vanishing folk-tales, that in my youth in North Antrim such tales as Mr. Drew’s were often told. There was, however, this difference, that the strange creature seen in certain carefully avoided spots was not, like the Cornish monster, passing on its way, but rolling in agony on the ground.
I recall one field off the high road to Coleraine, which certainly contained something sinister, for our horses could never pass it without shying, and we were generally driven by a roundabout way to avoid it. I have often, when riding alone, seen my horses’ ears pricked, and known him to shy, when I, despising the terrors of Irish servants, rode past the haunted field. Every horse in the stable, whether drawing a heavy load or light cart, was equally terrified, and more than once I have known them to bolt.
The account we were always given was that they could see by daylight what men could only see by night, namely, a great, rough, dark animal with burning eyes, rolling over and over on the grass. It was believe to be a soul in torment, but I never heard any legend as to why that small and uninteresting field was the scene of its agony. One might fancy that horses, being very sensitive as to the presence of a dead member of their own species, may have been conscious of one buried there. But as the same signs of distress were shown by all our horses, and those of our neighbours, for many years, this explanation does not fit the case.
Another North Antrim tale bears on this form of apparition. I was told by a very respectable young woman that she and her widowed mother started very early one summer morning to help to stack peat in a bog some miles from their home—a very poor one. They sat down to rest and eat their oaten bread on the turf dyke that bordered a lonely mountain road. As they sat they heard behind them a horrible growling noise and a rushing sound, and before they could move a great animal rolled over the dyke behind them, almost touching them, and sending out a fiery heat as it rolled across the road and into a field beyond, where it plunged about as if in torture, showing its burning eyes as it writhed about. Believing it to be a soul in torment, whose sins were too terrible for the ordinary punishment, they prayed for it as soon as they recovered from their fright, the memory of which never left them. They were told it was always to be seen there, and had done some odious crime “in the auld ancient days” that rendered it “past praying for.”
I may add that the date of these appearances was in the seventies, and that people now living can vouch for them.
Notes and Queries 11 July 1908.
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On Dalen farm in Kvitseid, the oskorei came several times. Once they unsaddled their spirit horses there and threw the saddles on the roof. Then misfortune followed: there were seven murders on the farm, and there was never peace to be had at night. There was always a disturbance and a commotion, and the front door would never stay shut no matter how they locked it. Once, at Christmas time, the people from Dalen were invited to a feast at Hvestad. There was no one home and the doors were locked, but the food stood on the table as was the custom at Christmas. When the people came home a few days later, they could see that the oskorei had been there. They had drunk up the Christmas ale and eaten heartily of the Christmas fare. But worst of all, a dead man was hanging from the pothook over the hearth. By his clothes they could tell he was from Numedal, a valley to the east, and he had silver buttons on his vest. The oskorei had probably taken him along over in Numedal and had ridden so hard that it had killed him.
Folktales of Norway, Reidar Christiansen.
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The following comes from America; and if this superstition has not yet appeared in “N. & Q.,” perhaps it may be of interest to some of your readers:—
“A little Cincinnati boy has been slowly wasting away with some unexplained disease for several months. The German women of the neighbourhood concluded that he was a victim of witchcraft, and sent a committee to inform the parents, who did not accept the explanation, but permitted an examination of the bed. There is a German superstition that witches cause feathers in a bed to weave themselves into a wreath, and that whoever sleeps on it will become ill, dying when the ends of the wreath come together. Sure enough the women found in the boy’s bed what they declared was a witch’s wreath. It was sprinkled with salt and burned, in accordance with a traditional method.”
The old women above referred to visited the house, and solemnly informed the mother of their belief, and asked permission to examine the feather bed on which the child lay. She, while not all imbued with superstitious feelings, but in the vain hope that her child might be restored to health, consented to the plan. Accordingly, after the boy had been taken from the bed the ticking was ripped open and there among the feathers they discovered five unfinished wreaths of feathers, which at once to their minds, filled as they were with the legends of the fatherland, explained the reason of the boy’s continued illness….
The wreath begins to form in the bed, and then the person who is so unfortunate as to repose on that couch is sure to get sick. As long as the wreath remains in the bed the person continues ill, and if the wreath is allowed to lay there until the ends of the circle come together just that minute the patient dies. The only way in which to save life is to remove the unfinished wreaths from the bed, put on them a copious supply of salt and burn them in the fire. As long as the circlet stays in the bed in an unfinished state the patient can neither die nor get well. In support of her theory the woman said:
“In my life I have seen three. One was as large as a plate. The feathers are all different colors and lap over each other at the ends just like the feathers on a bird. The feathers are fastened to a cord, and when the wreath is finished it is utterly impossible for anyone to break it.” Another wreath that she saw had been found in the bed of a child. The father once or twice had taken the bed from the crib to use as a pillow, but he said he was unable to sleep, as he felt all the time as though a snake were worming about beneath his head.
In regard to the wreaths found in the bed of the child, referred to in this article, it was said that the old woman took the five wreaths to an old fortune-teller on Race Street, who is, so to speak, on good terms with the witches. She kept the feathers, when they should have been burned, and the woman who told the story to the reporter said that they should have been burned, as then the child would have got well. As it now stands the poor little fellow can neither get well nor die. Cincinnati[OH] Enquirer 29 May 1881
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The following example of an apparition, seen at the same time by several persons, comes to me from the eldest surviving member of one branch of an old yeoman family of Buckinghamshire, who himself witnessed what he here relates:
‘Some forty years ago my father resided at a small farm-house, the back part of which faced a large unenclosed common (since inclosed), and stood close to four cross-roads, two of which lead to what thereabouts is called “Uphills,” the Chiltern Ridge from Tring to Wycombe and Stokenchurch. The spot is very lonely even now, but was much more so then; for, at that time, there was not a single human habitation within a quarter of a mile of my father’s abode. Our house had always been called “The Gyb Farm,”—why, we did not exactly know—but because, as we afterwards found out, there had been often erected, near the site of it, a gibbet for the punishment of malefactors, and many a person who had taken his own life (let alone the murderers, highwaymen, and sheep-stealers), had been buried at the side of the road there; but the name of the farm, as a law-parchment states, seems to have been altered about the year 1788, when a much less disagreeable name was then adopted for it.
‘In the year, and about the time, that King William the IV. died (i.e. in 1837), my father and mother, two of my sisters, a younger brother and myself were all at home. One night, when we had all been in bed for some time, quite in the smaller hours, we were each suddenly startled and awakened by the most frightful shrill and horrid shrieks and noises just outside on the roadway that ever man heard. Partly human and partly as if made by infuriated hogs, violently quarrelling, the roar and the screeching simply appalled us. I never heard the like of it in my life. It went through and through me.
‘For a little while we all endured it: but in about five minutes we gathered half-dressed at the top of the staircase—father, mother, my brother and I—and went to a long front window overlooking the road, in order to learn the cause. The night was rather dark, and as our tinder-box would not light, we were looking out, without any candle or lamp, towards the spot from which this horrible and hellish row came, when all of a sudden a white face—a face most awful in its pallid aspect and miserable imploring look—was pressed from outside against the glass of the window and stared at us wildly. We all saw it, and I could mark that even my father was deeply affrighted. The indescribable and unearthly noises still continued, and even increased in their discordance and frightful yelling for at least four or five minutes. Then by that time a candle had been procured.
‘My father at once opened the lattice: and there by the light of the sky, such as it was, we saw a collection of most hideous black animals, some of them like large swine, others horrid and indescribable in their appearance, grubbing up the ground and half buried in it, scattering the earth upwards where the graves were, fighting, screaming and roaring in a way that no mere words can properly tell or set forth. Some of them, judging by their motion, seemed to have no bones in them.
‘We were all very much terrified. My mother implored the. Almighty to protect us, and I confess that, overwhelmed with fear, I prayed most heartily to God for His assistance. In a minute or two after this, with shrieks increased in intensity, the frightful creatures (whatever they were) rushed screaming down one of the roads.
‘In the morning there was not a sign nor sound to be seen. The ground had not been in the least degree touched, scratched up nor disturbed. But the “Ghosts of the Gibbet,” as we afterwards discovered, had been seen by others than us.’
[Author’s note: I append the following attestation: ‘The account which was given to Dr. Lee of the “Gyb Ghosts,” when it was written out fairly, was read over to me. I made several additions to it (to make it all the clearer to people who know nothing about it), and these additions were inserted in Dr. Lee’s copy. The story is true, and may be put into a book.
‘David Eustace.
[Wednesday, January 3, 1877
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A correspondent of the New York Sun from New Geneva, Penn., (which place was founded by Albert Gallatin,) tells the following strange ghost stories, after narrating the particulars of a murder which tradition says happened there a long time ago. The writer vouches for the character of Mr. Hare, his informant: One morning about 15 years ago Osborne Hare, a respectable carpenter, left his house after sunrise, to go to his work in the direction of New Geneva. He walked rapidly, and, just before the road entered a piece of wood known as the Fallen Timbers, he saw in advance of him a tall man walking slowly. Supposing it to be one Dugan of his acquaintance, he quickened his pace; but before overtaking him he discovered his mistake, and then began to examine the man narrowly; for a stranger in those parts was uncommon. He was very tall and thin. He had no coat, and his shirt sleeves were rolled up to the shoulder. His arms were as thin as pipe-stems and as white as snow. His shirt and trousers were of the same color, a somber drab.
By the time Mr. Hare had made these observations he perceived another man coming in the opposite direction. This man was Jim Dougherty, a stone mason, going to his work “across Cheat.” Dougherty, like Hare, was a man of good character, iron nerves, and proverbial courage. Hare observed him to say good morning to the stranger, then shrink to one side of the road, and hasten by. When he come up to Hare his face was pallid.
“Hare,” said he,” do you know that man?”
“No.”
“Well, don’t overtake him,” continued Dougherty. “It’ll scare you to death. It’s a dead man.” The look of the stranger, as he partially turned his face in reply to Dougherty’s cheery salutation, had almost paralyzed the latter. He could not tell precisely what it was that seemed to freeze the blood in his veins; whether the ghastly pallor of the skin, the shrunken features, or the unearthly glare of the fixed eyes; but he knew and declared to the day of his death that he had spoken to a walking corpse. Hare was startled, but being in a hurry, and ashamed to be frightened by a ghost in broad daylight, he said he would go on.
Just then the stranger, upon whom the men kept their eyes fixed, turned the corner of a fence which divided the woods from a field. There he seemed to sit down in the first corner, and Mr. Hare took the opportunity to push past, Dougherty going on the other way. When a few steps beyond the corner Hare could not resist the temptation to look back. There was no man to be seen. He had sunk apparently into the earth. He could not have gone further than the first corner behind the fence without being seen by Hare and Dougherty, and he could not have dodged off into the woods, for the space he must have crossed was, like the fence, in full view.
Mr. Hare now turned about, determined to explore the mystery. He searched the fence, the field, and the woods, but found no traces of him. Hare was an experienced woodsman, and is convinced that no man of flesh and blood could have gone in and out of that fence corner without leaving some trail or sign which he would have detected, even if the whole affair had not occurred within his actual view.
Mr. Hare is a Christian man. His faith is bottomed on the rock of ages. He does not believe in ghosts. He believes that those who go to a place of rest do not want to return, and those who go to the prison house of the lost, cannot, if they would. But he says that if the dead are ever permitted to walk the earth, “this man,” to use his own language, “was one of that stripe.”
Several years after the adventure related above one Clemmer, a farmer, went to New Geneva to buy a coffin for a dead neighbor. It was in the winter. He had placed the coffin in a sled, and having been joined by another man, whose name I have forgotten, they drove through the Fallen Timbers, and approaching the spot where the apparition had disappeared from the view of Dougherty and Hare, they saw the same figure, dressed precisely as before, coatless and bare armed, standing up to the knees in snow beside the road. It did not speak or move, but the dreadful aspect of the man had the same effect upon Clemmer and his companion as upon Dougherty, and they whipped past him in terror. This was in the afternoon.
About five years later still Dr. [Upton Lawrence] Clemmer, a practicing physician of Brownsville, was leisurely riding by the same spot, on horseback, when he heard a curious noise, like one drumming with his fingers on his lips. It seemed to come across the field, but looking in that direction, and seeing no one, he rode on. Presently, and just as he was about to enter the Fallen Timbers and opposite the fence corner, he heard the same sound behind and near him. Turning in the saddle and looking back he saw the apparition, in all points the same as before, at the very rump of his horse, and bending upon him the same dreadful countenance. He struck his horse a smart cut, and dashed through the Fallen Timbers, without daring to cast a glance backward. This was about midday.
The peculiarity of the ghost of the Fallen Timbers is that it appears always in daylight and at long intervals. It has been seen three times distinctly, and each time by perfectly reputable and trustworthy men.
Times [Troy NY] 9 January 1879
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They say that an apparition called, in their language, the Mauthe Doog, in the shape of a large black spaniel with curled shaggy hair, was used to haunt Peel Castle; and has been frequently seen in every room, but particularly in the guard-chamber, where, as soon as the candles were lighted, it came and lay down before the fire in presence of all the soldiers, who at length, by being so much accustomed to the sight of it, lost great part of the terror they were seized with at its first appearance. They still, however, retain'd a certain awe, as believing it was an evil spirit which only waited permission to do them hurt, and for that reason forbore swearing and all profane discourse while in his company. But tho' they endured the shock of such a guest when all together in a body, none cared to be left alone with it: it being the custom therefore, for one of the soldiers to lock the gates of the castle(28), at a certain hour, and carry them to the captain, to whose apartment as I said before, the way led through a church; they agreed among themselves that whoever was to succeed the ensuing night, his fellow in this errand should accompany him that went first, and by this means no man would be expos'd singly to the danger: for I forgot to mention that the Mauthe Doog was always seen to come out from that passage at the close of day, and return to it again as soon as the morning dawned; which made them look on this place as its peculiar residence.

One night a fellow being drunk, and by the strength of his liquor rendered more daring than ordinary, laugh'd at the simplicity of his companions, and the' it was not his turn to go with the keys, would needs take that office upon him to testify his courage. All the soldiers endeavour'd to dissuade him, but the more they said, the more resolute he seemed, and swore that he desired nothing more than that Mauthe Doog would follow him, as it had done the others, for he would try if it were dog or devil. After having talked in a very reprobate manner for some time, he snatched up the keys and went out of the guard-room: in some time after his departure a great noise was heard, but nobody had the boldness to see what occasioned it, till the adventurer returning, they demanded the knowledge of him; but as loud and noisy as he had been in leaving them, he was now become silent and sober enough, for he was never heard to speak more. and tho' all the time he lived, which was three days, he was entreated by all who came near him, either to speak, or if he - could not do that, to make some signs, by which they might understand what had happened to him, yet nothing intelligible could be got from him, only that by the distortion of his limbs and features, it might be guess'd that he died in agonies more than is common in a natural death.

 The Mauthe Doog was, however, never seen after in the castle, nor would any one attempt to go thro' that passage, for which reason it was closed up, and another way made. This accident happened about threescore years since, and I heard it attested by several, but especially by an old soldier, who assured me he had seen it oftener than he had the hairs on his head.
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A well-authenticated and most mysterious occurrence, and one which has always left in the minds of the residents of Rockland County a strong inclination to credit a belief in witchcraft — I confess to something of the kind myself — took place in my father’s school-day time. I have listened to his recital with staring eyes, ready to catch the slightest incident connected with it.
Mrs. Hopper, a very beautiful woman, was possessed of some very strange power. It was said that even when quite young she would perform strange feats with children who were in the habit of associating with her; and it was clearly ascertained that she had been seen in different places at one time.** I cannot say anything of my own knowledge of all this, but there is no doubt of the facts which I am about to relate.
Mrs. Hopper had not appeared in her usual spirits for several days. She complained of not feeling well, wished to be left to her repose, and appeared to be looking forward to something they could not comprehend. One of her bridal gifts was a favorite colored boy, a lad about seventeen years of age at the time of her departure. (Slavery still existed in New York.) [It was abolished in 1827.] She was an only child and much petted by her parents and friends.
Her mother, on learning she was ill, went to spend a few days with her, in the hope of cheering her spirits and benefiting her health. One afternoon she seemed more than usually restless, and called to Jack (the colored boy) to bring his hat and coat to her to repair them. While mending his clothes, she said to Jack, “Who will mend your clothes and care for you when I’m gone?” He tried to console her, and said, “You ain’t a goin’ to die, Missus, you’re too young.” She told her mother she needn’t stay with her as she was quite well and her mother was needed at home.
She also told her husband she would rather he would sleep in another room and leave her alone that night. They all complied with her wishes. The next morning her husband found the doors ajar, and on entering the room discovered that her bed had not been slept in, and on closer examination discovered her comb and pins on the stove and all her wearing apparel torn open (in front) from head to foot, and lying on the floor just as they had been stripped from her body. They searched the house and barn but could not find her. They explored the neighborhood, but no trace of her nor footprints could be found. The neighbors turned out to hunt for the missing woman. School was dismissed and the children joined in the search.
Near the place where she lived was a swamp. (My cousin took Mr. Underhill and myself to see the house. It is a short drive from his home “Mountain View House.”) The swamp named was quite extensive at that time.
The party hunted three days; taking horns along, which they sounded, whenever they strayed apart, to call them together again.
I believe it was my father’s aunt who first discovered the body of the missing woman (which they had traced by her hair; some of which they found hanging in the limbs of the trees). Her body was lying on a dry elevation, in the swamp, in a state of entire nudity; and so surrounded by mud and mire that they were obliged to make a log-way to enable them to reach and remove it. My aunt removed her apron and covered the body with it.
Her story is still repeated by many of the oldest inhabitants, and to-day remains no less a mystery.
I believe she had covenanted with evil Spirits, and the time or limit of her agreement was ended.
“Try the Spirits. By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Leah Underhill, 1885
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I recollect—though for a time I had forgotten—that when I was a child of eight and walking one sunny afternoon with nurses and other children past the old, drab-painted, slated house in which my grandmother chanced to dwell, I noticed emerging from the front door the figure of a man wearing the old-fashioned paper-cap common to the journeyman carpenter of thirty years ago, and familiarized to later eyes by the illustrations of Tenniel in Lewis Carrol’s books.
I pointed him out to the nurse, and asked why he was letting himself out of grandmother’s house. By this time he had turned the corner into a narrow lane and had disappeared, without, it would seem, the nurse or other children having remarked him. Instead, they saw some one solemnly lowering the window-blinds of my grandmother’s bedroom . . . and very soon we were told that she had died just before we passed the house.
Ten years later I had gone to a fashionable watering-place to pay a visit to an invalid uncle, who lay bedridden and incurable in charge of my mother and her sister.
The month was November and the weather of unusual mildness. The house was pleasantly situated in a garden bordered with aucubas and other shrubs, upon which a covered verandah gave. Here I was seated after dinner smoking a pipe, the light from the French windows of the dining-room falling upon the stones of the patio. Suddenly, from the darkened doorway on my left hand, I noticed the carpenter of my childhood emerge, and cross the lawn noiselessly and very swiftly, to disappear amid the laurels. . . . A few seconds later my name was called in startled tones, and, hurrying within, I found that my uncle had that moment expired with unexpected suddenness. . . .
In the spring of 1904 I was in London, and, having lunched rather earlier than usual at Frascati’s Restaurant, took my way up Oxford Street, with the purpose of strolling down Regent Street and spending an indolent afternoon among the magazines at the club. The day was fine and really spring-like; painters and decorators were busy with ladders and suspended paint-pots on the fronts of many shops ; there was a novel brightness and gaiety in the costumes of feminine passers-by: the spring had really come. . . .
I proceeded aimlessly enough along the southern side of the way until I neared Oxford Circus, when I half-turned towards Regent Street, in accordance with my original intention. As I did so I was brushed against a little roughly by some one whom I did not particularly notice, but of whom I took vaguely the impression that he was clad in workman’s garb of some sort. The encounter was sufficient in my indeterminate mood to make me go on across the Circus. It had just occurred to me that the unknown workman had muttered something as he touched me, and that the words he had spoken in a low, peculiarly hollow tone were: “Not yet.” I was beginning lazily to ponder the matter when I heard a sharp crackling sound coming from the right-hand side of Regent Street. . . . A policeman on point duty immediately in front of me turned sharply in the direction of the noise. . . . I caught a glimpse of sudden horror in his eyes . . . blowing his whistle he darted across the road.
Seeing, as I too turned, that some ladies were entangled in the débris of the awning that had screened the windows of a large draper’s establishment—through which a workman’s cradle had descended with a crash into the street—I hastened to the spot. I noted that it was equidistant from the corner of the Circus where the workman had brushed against me and from that where I stood when the crash came. But for his interference I should have lain under that awning amid the pools of red blood flooding the pavement, the broken glass, splinters, paint-pots, ropes, tools, and mangled bodies of several men. As I stood amid the confusion incident to the summoning of cabs, the temporary assistance rendered to the injured and to fainting women and terrified children, I caught a glimpse of a man in a carpenter’s paper cap helping to place the dying body of one of the fallen house-painters in the cab which was to take him to the Middlesex Hospital. For an instant only his eyes met mine. . . . I knew him intuitively for the unknown workman who had altered my course.. . I tried to force my way through the press to have speech of him . . . but he had disappeared. . .
During that same summer I entered an omnibus in the Bayswater Road, bound eastward. The afternoon was hot and dusty, and I was tired and worried. . . . As the omnibus swung along under the green trees of the park, the outlines of passing vehicles grew blurred and dim as I yielded to natural drowsiness.
The ’bus stopped at a tavern at which the result of some big race had just been received. The conductor mentioned the name of the winning horse, and my fellow-passengers began to talk excitedly about it. For me the event had no interest. . . . During the past few weeks I had been away from town, entangled in a series of almost tragic occurrences that had left me neither time nor inclination to attend to current happenings.
My eyes were attracted to a broad-shouldered young man in a brown suit, wearing a blue white-spotted tie fastened with a cheap horse-shoe pin, who sat opposite me. He looked very ill, and the mention of the winner’s name, after flushing his cheeks unnaturally for a second, had left them drawn and grey; while I could see fear lurking in his dark eyes.
As the ’bus started again a carpenter came out of the tavern and jumped in. He seated himself by the young man in brown. I saw his face quite closely and distinctly. It was a horrible face. Under the paper cap were eyes in which the pupils were mere black and sparkling points ; the nose was partially consumed by disease; the face dead white. A curiously unpleasant smell seemed to exhale from him. I felt a physical nausea and repulsion overcoming me and was inclined to stop the ’bus and alight. . . .
Suddenly the young man opposite repeated in a low tone of voice, with a pathetic sort of gasp, the name of the winner of the big race, adding, “I will never bet again, s’elp me. . . .” The carpenter turned sharply towards him, extending his hand, and saying, “Never,” in a strange, half-questioning, half-positive tone.
I saw the young man grasp the proffered hand, and heard him repeat the word, “Never.” Immediately afterwards he sank back into his corner with starting eyes and saliva coming from his lips. . . . He looked as though about to have a fit. . . .
A fellow-passenger, who called out that he was a doctor, came across the ’bus between me and the young man, and took his hand almost as it fell from the grasp of the carpenter. . . . There was some confusion. . . . The women screamed and hastened to get out of the vehicle. . . . The conductor signalled to the driver to stop. . . . A policeman entered and examined the body of the young man-who had just died. . . . Then the doctor and I alighted, the former handing his card to the constable. . . . “Hawful!” commented the conductor.
I looked hastily round for the strange carpenter; but he had vanished in the confusion.
The Occult Review, Vol. 8, July 1908
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 During my time in Magdeburg . . . the guards of the merchants’ church, while keeping watch at night, experienced phenomena similar to what I have described, by sight and by hearing. So they brought some of the foremost citizens and, having set themselves a far distance from the cadavers’ cemetery, they watched as lights were placed in the candelabras. Then they faintly heard two parts singing the invitatory and completing all the morning lauds in proper order. However, afterward when they approached they discovered nothing.
 The next day, I told my niece Brigit about [the episode in Magdeburg] . . . and I received this reply from her: “During the eighty years or more when the great man Baldric held the Holy See of Utrecht, he renovated a church that had fallen into ruin from old age, in a place called Deventer. He consecrated it and commended it to the care of one of his priests.
 “One day when [the priest] was going to the church very early in the morning, he saw dead people in the church and cemetery making offerings, and heard them singing. The priest informed the bishop immediately. He was ordered by the latter to sleep in the church. However the next night he was thrown out by the dead, along with the bed he lay on.
 “Terrified on account of what had happened, the priest complained to his superior about these things again. But the latter ordered that he should cross himself with saints’ relics and be aspersed with holy water, but that he should on no account stop guarding the church. The priest, obedient to the bishop’s command, tried to sleep in the church again, but he was struck with terror and so lay wide awake and watchful. And lo! at the accustomed hour the dead arrived. They picked him up; they placed him upon the altar; and they incinerated his body with fire down to a fine ash.
 “When the bishop heard about this, he ordered a three-day fast to be held for the succor of the dead man’s soul. I could say much more about all these things if my illness did not prevent me. As day is to the living, so night is conceded to the dead.”
Thietmar, Bishop of Merseburg, AD 1009
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When Dr. Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s, took possession of the first living he ever had, he walked into the church-yard, where the sexton was digging a grave, and throwing up a skull, the doctor took it up to contemplate thereon, and found a small sprig or headless nail sticking in the temple, which he drew out secretly, and wrapt it up in the corner of his handkerchief. He then demanded of the grave digger, whether he knew whose skull that was: he said he did very well, declaring it was a man’s who kept a brandy shop; an honest drunken fellow, who, one night having taken two quarts of that comfortable creature, was found dead in his bed next morning,  –Had he a wife?—Yes.—What character does she bear? —A very good one: only the neighbours reflect on her because she married the day after her husband was buried. This was enough for the doctor, who, under the pretence of visiting his parishioners, called on her. He asked her several questions, and, among others, what sickness her husband died of. She giving him the same account, he suddenly opened the handkerchief, and cried in an authoritative voice, Woman, do you know this nail? She was struck with horror at the unexpected demand, and instantly owned the fact.
A Thousand Notable Things, Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquise of Worcester, 1822
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[From the New Orleans Bulletin, December 26.]
The Parish Prison, or rather the building once entirely occupied by the criminals of our city, is now divided in two, and the northern side has been given up to the officers of the Fourth Metropolitan Precinct for a station-house, in which to lodge prisoners before their arraignment.
Why is it that such a dread should hang about this latter portion we can not say; but so well known is this dread of criminals against being locked up there they frequently go beyond the limits of the precinct before transgressing the law.
It appears that, a number of years ago, an old woman, clad in a ragged calico dress, was locked up there, charged with being drunk and disturbing the peace. During the night she, with the strips form her dress, managed to suspend herself to the iron bars of the window until life was extinct. Since that time a pall seems to hang over the place, and it was but a short time afterwards when, in the same cell, another prisoner attempted to take his own life.
After he had been cut down and brought back to life this would be suicide stated that there had appeared to him this same old woman with the red cloak, and it was due to her persuasion that he attempted suicide. This report spread, and the superstitious people began to wink and nod, as much as saying, “I told you so.” The turnkeys knew of the dread existing about these cells, and so, to put the matter to a crucial test, when two English sailors were brought in drunk they put them in the haunted cell, in order to thoroughly put the ghost matter at rest. Singular to say the two sailors hung themselves that night, the turnkeys who were watching cut them down in time to save their lives. Since that time fully twelve persons have taken their lives in this place. In fact, so strong has the belief become, it was deemed necessary to nail up the door of No. 17, so that no more prisoners might follow the unfortunates who had seemingly followed the beckonings of the mysterious “old woman in a red cloak.”
But a few nights since a patrolman passing into the yard thought he saw a figure moving along the gallery, on which the cells open. He at once went upstairs, and although he saw a fleeting shadow, nothing was found. With the other mysterious stories about this place, it is related that some three weeks ago a prisoner, who had been locked up for fighting, suddenly made his appearance down stairs in the office, and when questioned as to how he had broken out, said that an old woman, in a red cloak, had unlocked the door, and told him to go home.
How much of all this is true we have no means of knowing; but one thing is evident, that all the officers are satisfied that any prisoner locked up in No. 17, will, before day, attempt suicide.
At a quarter past 8 o’clock last night Margaret Kearney released herself from the bars of a prison cell by hanging herself to the window with her stockings. She was what the police style an old stager, and the reporter can bear witness that their assertions are correct, for many an item has Margaret Kearney furnished for the New Orleans press.
This time Margaret was recorded for being an habitual drunkard and a constant disturber of the public peace. She was arrested at the instigation of her husband. She had no sooner been placed in the cell than she tied her stocking around the window bars and then connected the other two ends by a strong knot. After placing a box under the window she stepped upon it, and then placing her neck in the loop, kicked the box from under her feet. The fall was not sufficient to break her neck and she died of strangulation.
The turnkey of the prison made his rounds as usual, and on arriving at the cell in which Margaret was incarcerated found everything quiet, and believed that the whisky which she imbibed had put her to sleep passed on to the next cell. On his next round, to make sure that Margaret was all right, he turned the key in the heavy padlock, and the massive black door swung back on its hinges, and the next thing that his eyes fell upon was the lifeless body of Margaret Kearney, rigid in death, suspended by the neck to the bars. The corpse was immediately cut down, so that if there was a spark of life left she might be resuscitated; but, alas! it was all over with her.
Of course there is no cause that can be assigned for this woman’s rash act, except that she was tired of being imprisoned. But as the legend runs, the cell in which she was confined was many years ago known as the haunted cell of the Sixth Station. In those days a number of persons committed suicide in this cell and a number were caught in the act of self-destruction. Each one that was frustrated invariably related the oft-told tale of their predecessors, that a little woman with a red cloak, a second Red Ridinghood, appeared to them and related the beauties of the other world, and before parting with them urged them to take their lives and join her, which they invariably attempted to do. Perhaps if Margaret had not succeeded in destroying herself, she too would have repeated the story of the little woman in red. The New Orleans Daily Democrat 5 August 1879
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A young woman by the name of Solveig was the maid of minister Oddur Gíslason’s manor Miklibær in Blönduhlíð, Skagafjörður in 1786. Solveig fell madly in love with the minister, but as she was just a servant, he wanted nothing to do with her. She went insane when he spurned her advances, wailing and crying in her bed. After repeated attempts on her own life, Solveig was promptly placed under suicide watch. One day at dusk she managed to slip her captors' grip and ran to a place of jagged rocks in the fields, where she commenced to slit her throat. As a worker ran to stop her, he saw her bleeding to death and commented: “Now she’s with the devil.” Solveig begged him to tell the minister to bury her in holy ground, and then died of her wounds.
    The minister sought permission from his superiors to bury Solveig in the churchyard, but they declined as Solveig had committed the deadly sin of suicide. After receiving the answer, Gíslason buried her outside the churchyard, without stone or marker or even prayers, near the same jagged rocks in the field where she had killed herself. Later, he dreamt Solveig came again and stood by his bed at night, staring at him with an angry grin on her face, saying that since he had declined her last wish, he himself would never rest in hallowed ground.
    Soon after, Solveig’s ghost started haunting Gíslason whenever he was alone, for instance as he rode home from performing his services. She would attack every time, tearing at his skin and clothes with her nails or her teeth, and so to ensure his safety, he received an escort wherever he went.
    One late evening when the minister was expected to return home, Miklibær’s inhabitants heard a beating on the manor’s doors. They felt the knocking had a sinister quality to it, so they didn’t answer. They then heard something stir by the window, but before they could draw the curtains the sound of something being dragged was heard. The people were too frightened, then and hid indoors until it was silent. Later that night, when the housefolk finally went out, they saw the minister’s horse stood riderless in front of the house. This spooked the people all over again, as they realised that the minister had rode home but was now nowhere to be found. After undergoing an intensive search, they decided that Solveig must have taken him, and finally had her revenge. The minister was never seen again, but his escort that fateful night reported that he had sent them off when his manor was in clear sight, believing himself to be in the clear.
    After the search had been called off, a worker of the minister’s named Þorsteinn declared that he would not rest until he learned his employer’s fate. One night, Þorsteinn gathered a mass of the minister’s belongings and placed them under his pillow, asking a clairvoyant woman he shared a woman with to keep watch as he slept. As soon as he fell asleep, the woman saw the ghost of Solveig approach his bed and loom over his sleeping body, fiddling with his neck. Þorsteinn started thrashing in his bed, so the woman jumped and woke him, driving the Solveig away in the process. Þorsteinn woke up in a sweat, red marks on his neck, and said that Solveig had screamed at him that he would never learn the minister’s fate before proceeding to slash at his throat with with her fingernails.
    Solveig was not seen anymore after that; thus ends her sad tale. But of the vanished minister it is said that many years later, when the house at Miklibær no longer stood, a farmer plowing the land turned up an old grave in which two skeletons lay, a man and a woman, and the arms of one were locked tight around the other.
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Surely one of the strangest tales ever marketed as ‘fact’ occurred in Raveley (whether Great Raveley or Little Raveley is not clear) in 1662. In that year a farmer called John Leech, prior to setting out for the Whittlesey fair one morning, decided to have a few ales beforehand with a neighbour at the local inn. At length, heavily refreshed, Leech stated to his friend: ‘Let the Devil take him who goeth out of this house today!’
  However, later on he had a change of heart and left the inn. As he rode his horse to Whittlesey he remembered his rash oath and began to regret having uttered it. The more he thought about it, the more Leech began to think he ought to return to the inn, lest the Devil come and take him, and in a state of complete indecision he spurred his horse first one way and then the other, until gradually night fell. At around two in the morning he suddenly found before him in the road two monstrous creatures ‘in the likeness of griffins.’ The griffin was a mythical creature, with the powerful body of a lion and the face of an eagle. Enormous wings adorned its back and its feathered forelegs had the talons of an eagle while its hindquarters were that of the lion. It had ears that resembled those of a horse. As such it was part terrestrial beast and part aerial, a huge flying animal that was written of at least 700 years earlier as being a real creature by Irish chroniclers. The two griffins grabbed Leech with their talons and took him into the air, where their beaks tore at his clothes, before dropping him ‘a sad spectacle, all bloody and goared’ into a farmyard just outside the village of Doddington.
 It was in this state that Leech was discovered and gently carried to the home of a gentleman, where as he lay in bed recovering he told his bizarre story. Before long, however, he began to take a turn for the worse; his ordeal had evidently sent him half-insane, and although he was well cared for, those looking after him became afraid to enter his bedchamber. Presently, the gentleman of the house called for the local parson. Upon entering the bedchamber Leech became so violent that the servants had to physically rescue the parson, and they were then forced to tie Leech to the bedposts while they decided what to do next.
  The following morning the household could hear nothing from the afflicted man’s room and so assumed that he had quietened down somewhat. Upon entering, however, they found Leech dead upon the bed, ‘with his neck broke, his tongue out of his mouth, and his body as black as a shoe, all swelled, and every bone in his body out of joint.’ Apparently Satan had managed to claim him after all.
  Were it not for the impressive-sounding testimony to the series of events, this story would undoubtedly have been classed as a work of fiction about the evils of drink. But ‘six sufficient men of the town’ stated that every word was the truth, and 10 days later a broadside tract was printed telling the ‘Strange and True Relation of one Mr. John Leech: Who lived in Huntington-Shire, at a place called Ravely, not farre distant from Huntington Town, who was (about ten dayes agoe) carried twelve miles in the ayre, by two finnes, and also of his sad and lamentable death’.
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Marlowe wrote of a rumoured incident that had taken place in a hamlet near Crowland in the late 19th century. A lady artist, a good-looking girl in her mid-20s from London, had taken herself off to a small Fenland railway station to make sketches of the banks and windmills. She was staying with a farming family two miles distant, and on her way home in the dusk she encountered the farmstead’s live-in helper – herself a young, attractive widow – in the lane. Although unsure of why this young domestic would be out in so wild a place at such a time, the London artist was nonetheless glad of the company on the lonely walk back to the hamlet; however, the widow acted strangely and gradually fell behind the lady artist, who turned to peer into the gloom for her mysterious companion. What she saw was the young widow drop onto all fours and transform into a terrifying wolf-like creature, which now bounded towards her and leapt at her throat. The lady artist shone a ‘pocket torch’ at the monster’s eyes, at which point it shrivelled up in smoke and vanished instantly.
  When she eventually arrived back at the farmstead the lady artist found that the young domestic had apparently never left the building, but had been found by the farmer and his wife writhing on the floor screaming that lightning had blinded her. A doctor was called for but could make no sense of the servant girl’s injuries and confined her to bed, her burned retinas shielded from sunlight by bandages. The doctor noticed that the lady artist very quickly returned to London in a state of some agitation after these events, and so he tracked her down and was told the bizarre story of the ‘werewolf attack’. When the young serving girl around whom this mystery revolved eventually recovered, she also left the farmstead and was not heard of again.
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From the story of J. Temple Thurston, I pick up that this man, with his clothes on, was so scorched as to bring on death by heart failure, by a fire that did not affect his clothes. This body was fully clothed, when found, about three o'clock in the morning. Thurston had not been sitting up, drinking. There was no suggestion that he had been reading. It was commented upon, at the inquest, as queer, that he should have been up and fully clothed about three o'clock in the morning. The verdict, at the inquest, was of death from heart failure, due to inhaling smoke. The scorches were large red patches on the thighs and lower parts of the legs. It was much as if, bound to a stake, the man had stood in a fire that had not mounted high.

In this burning house, nothing was afire in Thurston's room. Nothing was found—such as charred fragments of nightclothes—to suggest that, about three o'clock, Thurston, awakened by a fire elsewhere in the house, had gone from his room, and had been burned, and had returned to his room, where he had dressed, but had then been overcome.

To the firemen, this fire in the house was as unaccountable as, to the coroner, was the burned body in the unscorched clothes. When the firemen broke into Hawley Manor, they found the fire raging outside Thurston's room. It was near no fireplace; near no electric wires that might have crossed. There was no odor of paraffin, nor was there anything else suggestive of arson, or of ordinary arson. There had been no robbery. In Thurston's pockets were money and his watch. The fire, of unknown origin, seemed directed upon Thurston's room, as if to destroy, clothes and all, this burned body in the unscorched clothes. Outside, the door of this room was blazing, when the firemen arrived.
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Paris. Oct. 11, 1913 -- Following the brutal murder at Avignon of a young girl by her brother and sister because they thought her possessed of demons, comes a harrowing tale from Brittany where a terrible spook with an "evil eye" has cast consternation over an entire community.

So much havoc has been wrought by the dreaded ghost that the authorities are taking a hand. An investigation is on.

The Croguennecs, consisting of father, mother, two daughters and two sons, are a well-to-do family owning considerable lands in and about the village of Borgne-Kerranborn. Suddenly their corn dried up on the stalk while a neighbor's corn in adjacent fields flourished to an unusual degree. A strange hand bridled the horses in the dead of night and morning found them covered with lather and almost dead from fatigue. No amount of watching appeared to do an good, while the head of the family, who had been constantly on watch, died suddenly of a strange and malignant disease. He had never been sick a day before in his life.

The day of the wedding of the eldest daughter, the finest horse on the place died without warning. Later, the herd of cattle known all over Brittany for their breeding qualities, became sterile.

Night after night the family went through an inferno of fear; strange noises were heard in every room in the house. A tempest seemed to be blowing outside, the wind shrieking like a million demons, yet the stars were out and the leaves of the trees never stirred. Chains rattled and clanked, and groans came from the chimneys, and every morning it was found that the heaviest furniture in the house had been moved about helter skelter.

In mortal terror, the two sons visited the neighborhood sorceress, but she could not explain the mystery. M. and Mme. Nicholas, a couple living in the neighborhood, came to live with the Croguennecs. to be company for them, but they became so frightened at the seemingly supernatural manifestations that they left the place immediately. Then they both died, suddenly.

Locks on barns seemed no obstacle, for the cattle and horses, securely locked in at night, in the morning were scattered all over the farm, wandering uneasily up and down lanes.

Then, one day Francois Marie Croguennec. one of the sons and as strong as an ox. was assailed in broad open daylight by something or somebody whom he claims he did not see. His back was wrenched so that he is an invalid for life, his nerves shattered.

Finally Alexandrine, one of the daughters, went insane from fear and is now in a madhouse.

Francois Marie Croguennec told an interviewer that the "evil eye" had been on his family for six years, ever since the death of an old aunt who had left them their fortune. Some of the neighbors claim the spirit of the aged woman is wrecking vengeance on the family because of the way they misuse her money. On the other hand the authorities are inclined to believe something more substantial than a ghost is at work on the Croguennec farm, and with this theory in mind the gendarmes are investigating.
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"At the time of King Henry II when Bartholomew de Glanville kept the castle at Orford, it happened one day that some fishermen who were fishing, caught a wild man in their net. They handed him over to Bartholomew to admire. The wild man was completely nude, and appeared as a human in all his parts. He had hair on his head, but ruined and wrecked in appearance. He had a really long beard, and he was really too hairy and shaggy on his chest. Bartholomew had him guarded for a time, day and night, so that he could not go back to the sea. Whatever was brought to him, he ate avidly. Indeed he ate fishes raw rather than cooked, but he would squeeze the raw fish between his hands and suck the juice out and thus he would eat. He emitted not one word either because he did not want to or he could not, even when he was suspended by his feet and subjected to frequent dire tortures. Although he was brought to church, he showed no signs of veneration or any sign of belief, by either bending the knee or inclining the head with which one could discern something holy. He always eagerly sought his bedchamber when the sun went down and would lie there until the sun came up.
     It happened one day, that they brought him to the sea and set him in the sea, held on to by a net, three lines thick. Who, seeking the deepest part of the sea, passing through the net, was emerging again and again from the bottom of the sea and was looking at those watching from the shore of the sea a long while. Often he dipped down and blow out a bit of water as if insulting those watching because he escaped their net. And when he played in the sea thus a while and now all hope was gone that they would recapture him, suddenly he came, swimming in the waves, again all the way to them. And he remained with them again for two months. But when those keeping him became negligent and showed distaste for him, he fled in secret to the sea and never appeared afterwards. If however he existed as a mortal man, presenting himself as some human type of fish, as if an evil spirit was hiding in the body of the submerged man, just as may be read in the life of St. Audoeni, one cannot easily categorize him. Most of all because so many wonders are being told by so many about these events."
Ralph of Coggeshall, 1205
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In Glimpses into the Past in Lammermuir (1892), John Hutton Browne relates the experience of John Niel, a local man, which ‘influenced his mind, and became to him and his family a reality’. On a journey through Greenlaw Moor, Niel saw ‘a strange animal, with a strange rider on its back’: This may have been the result of his imagination working on the effects of moorland and sky, or it may have been some optical illusion, but when he approached Dronshiel, he met Robert Wilson of Blacksmill, and seriously asked him if he had met this unearthly equestrian. This adventure was related to his family, and so convinced were they all of the truth of this report that it became a trial for them to cross this moor, lest some evil would befall them. Their fears were justified. Some time later, John’s son Henry, a tall and muscular blacksmith, set out to cross the moor, but never reached home. Although out on Greenlaw there was always the possibility of a sudden mist to bewilder a traveller, and there had been lives lost in snow, ‘it was neither mist nor snow that Henry Niel encountered on that fateful night, as he approached the Foul burn near the Cattleshiel road.’ Instead he 'may have been the victim of a delusion that he was at home and going to bed, for when he was found dead he had taken off most of his clothes, and 'tho he had apparently started to dress again, he had put some articles back on the wrong way round'.
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Eau Claire Daily Leader (Eau Claire, WI) on March 25, 1885:

Annie Coleman rushed excitedly into Lucien Alexander's drug store this morning, and threw a small package on the counter. She requested that it be examined, and asked the clerk to tell her what it was.

The clerk, on opening the bundle, found a large black thumb. The relic had been picked up on Congress street, between Eighth and Ninth. After leaving the drug store, Coleman went into Dr. Payton's office and asked his opinion of the fragment of mortality. From there she went to several neighboring places, in all of which she displayed her trophy and solicited opinions.

In an old house on Congress street, between Eighth and Ninth, Annie Coleman and her husband live. Within the last year the woman claims that eight deaths have taken place in their present abode.

The numerous persons deceased conspiring together in the spirit land have determined to render miserable the lives of those now residing in the former home of the departed.

With this idea in her head, Annie very positively asserts that the ghostly visitors have haunted her house steadily for the past four weeks and unlike the ordinary every-day ghost, they kick up as much of a row in daylight as in darkness. As substantial evidence of the truth of what she says Annie produces a number of fingers, toes and ears which she has at various times picked up in a little side alley next to her house. The uneasy spirits who so disturb her began their unseemly conduct just two weeks ago yesterday.

On the morning of that day she found in the side alley a tiny package neatly and securely sewed in silk. Opening it, she discovered two fingers, evidently those of a white person. She told several of her neighbors, who solemnly advised her to bury them. This was done with all the usual ceremonies incident to such an occasion.

A few days later mysterious sounds emanated from the closed doors of closets, and Mariah Brent, another inmate, was startled to find a white form bending over her while at work ironing. Mariah could give no description of the specter, beyond that it was big and white, and she seemed paralyzed by its presence. After this, almost daily, packages were picked up, every one of which contained some portion of a human body, a few fingers, toes, or ears and an occasional nose.

These were all buried with great reverence by the spook-ridden family of Coleman, who hoped eventually in this way to bury the whole of the specters by piecemeal.
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 Honesdale, PA) Citizen' on October 9, 1912:

GHOST STORY FROM AUSTIN

Spook Appeared About A Year Before Big Dam Broke On September 30 Last

"September 30 was the first anniversary of the Austin flood, which destroyed the Potter county town and drowned many of its inhabitants," says the Clinton County Times. "It is known that the people of Austin had a scare early in the spring when the high water and pressure moved tho dam a few inches from its foundation, and tho residents took to the hills where they remained all night and part of the next day until the water receded. But it is not generally known that the residents had another scare shortly before this when a ghost appeared that frightened some of the people and was the talk of tho town.

"While the people were on the hillside a young man came to Lock Haven to report the situation to his sister, who, with her family, were much unstrung and worried because all kinds of rumors were heard. One rumor afloat had it that the dam had broken with horrible results. The young man called on the writer before returning to Austin and told about his and the other folks who were on the hill in the chilly rain expecting the big dam to break at any moment and the rushing water to carry away their houses, stores and other buildings before their eyes. Before leaving he mentioned the ghost and related a few words of the ghostly tales that were the talk of the town until the threatening condition of the dam seemingly scared away the ghost and the talk.

"In the railroad and on and off the cars were the places the ghost haunted and frightened the railroaders with its queer and spooky actions. It was a very tall man ghost, dressed in black that would appear and disappear mysteriously, and no questions asked, for those who saw it did not care to ask questions or its business. The railroad men naturally felt uneasy or scared with a ghost riding their cars and none of them attempted to put it off when they saw it crawling between and running over the cars.

"About a year after the arrival of the ghost the dam broke, with the result that will always be remembered by those who witnessed the horrible scenes. In their misfortune, following the flood, the Austin people who fortunately escaped with nothing valuable but their lives forgot a little thing like a ghost; and the ghost must have been scared out by the dam talk or lost its life in the flood.
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Visum et Repertum

After it had been reported that in the village of Medvegia the so-called vampires had killed some people by sucking their blood, I was, by high decree of a local Honorable Supreme Command, sent there to investigate the matter thoroughly, along with officers detailed for that purpose and two subordinate medical officers, and therefore carried out and heard the present inquiry in the company of the captain of the Stallath Company of haiduks, Gorschiz Hadnack, the bariactar and the oldest haiduk of the village, as follows:

All unanimously recount that about five years ago a local haiduk by the name of Arnod Paole broke his neck in a fall from a hay wagon. This man had, during his lifetime, often revealed that, near Gossowa in Turkish Serbia, he had been troubled by a vampire, wherefore he had eaten from the earth of the vampire's grave and had smeared himself with the vampire's blood, in order to be free of the vexation he had suffered. In twenty or thirty days after his death some people complained that they were being bothered by this same Arnod Paole; and in fact four people were killed by him.

In order to end this evil, they dug up this Arnod Paole forty days after his death—this on the advice of their Hadnack, who had been present at such events before; and they found that he was quite complete and undecayed, and that fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; that the shirt, the covering, and the coffin were completely bloody; that the old nails on his hands and feet, along with the skin, had fallen off, and that new ones had grown; and since they saw from this that he was a true vampire, they drove a stake through his heart, according to their custom, whereby he gave an audible groan and bled copiously. Thereupon they burned the body the same day to ashes and threw these into the grave.

These same people say further that all those who were tormented and killed by the vampires must themselves become vampires. Therefore they disinterred the above-mentioned four people in the same way. Then they also add that this Arnod Paole attacked not only the people but also the cattle, and sucked out their blood. And since the people used the flesh of such cattle, it appears that some vampires are again present here, inasmuch as, in a period of three months, seventeen young and old people died, among them some who, with no previous illness, died in two or at the most three days.

In addition, the haiduk Jowiza reports that his stepdaughter, by name of Stanacka, lay down to sleep fifteen days ago, fresh and healthy, but at midnight she started up out of her sleep with a terrible cry, fearful and trembling, and complained that she had been throttled by the son of a haiduk by the name of Milloe, who had died nine weeks earlier, whereupon she had experienced a great pain in the chest and became worse hour by hour, until finally she died on the third day. At this we went the same afternoon to the graveyard, along with the often-mentioned oldest haiduks of the village, in order to cause the suspicious graves to be opened and to examine the bodies in them, whereby, after all of them had been dissected, there was found:

i. A woman by the name of Stana, twenty years old, who had died in childbirth two months ago, after a three-day illness, and who had herself said, before her death, that she had painted herself with the blood of a vampire, wherefore both she and her child—which had died right after birth and because of a careless burial had been half eaten by dogs — must also become vampires. She was quite complete and undecayed. After the opening of the body there was found in the cavitatepectoris a quantity of fresh extravascular blood. The vasa of the arteriae and venae, like the ventriculis cordis, were not, as is usual, filled with coagulated blood, and the whole viscera, that is, the pulmo, hepar, stomachus, lien, et intestina were quite fresh as they would be in a healthy person. The uterus was however quite enlarged and very inflamed externally, for the placenta and lochia had remained in place, wherefore the same was in complete putredine. The skin on her hands and feet, along with the old nails, fell away on their own, but on the other hand completely new nails were evident, along with a fresh and vivid skin.

ii. There was a woman by the name of Miliza (sixty years old, incidentally), who had died after a three-month sickness and had been buried ninety-some days earlier. In the chest much liquid blood was found, and the other viscera were, like those mentioned before, in a good condition. During her dissection, all the haiduks who were standing around marveled greatly at her plumpness and perfect body, uniformly stating that they had known the woman well, from her youth, and she had, throughout her life, looked and been very lean and dried up, and they emphasized that she had come to this surprising plumpness in the grave. They also said that it was she who had started the vampires this time, because she had eaten of the flesh of those sheep that had been killed by the previous vampires.

iii. There was an eight-day-old child which had lain in the grave for ninety days and was similarly in a condition of vampirism.

iv. The son of a haiduk, sixteen years old, was dug up, having lain in the earth for nine weeks, after he had died from a three-day illness, and was found like the other vampires.

v. Joachim, also the son of a haiduk, seventeen years old, had died after a three-day illness. He had been buried eight weeks and four days and, on being dissected, was found in a similar condition.

vi. A woman by the name of Ruscha who had died after a ten-day illness and had been buried six weeks previous, in whom there was much fresh blood not only in the chest but also in fundo ventriculi. The same showed itself in her child, which was eighteen days old and had died five weeks previously.

vii. No less did a girl often years of age, who had died two months previously, find herself in the above-mentioned condition, quite complete and undecayed, and had much fresh blood in her chest.

viii. They caused the wife of the Hadnack to be dug up, along with her child. She had died seven weeks previously, her child—who was eight weeks old— twenty-one days previously, and it was found that both mother and child were completely decomposed, although earth and graves were like those of the vampires lying nearby.

ix. A servant of the local corporal of the haiduks, by the name of Rhade twenty-three years old, died after a three-month-long illness, and after a five-week burial was found completely decomposed.

x. The wife of the local bariactar, along with her child, having died five weeks previously, were also completely decomposed.

xi. With Stanche, a haiduk, sixty years old, who had died six weeks previously, I noticed a profuse liquid blood, like the others, in the chest and stomach. The entire body was in the oft-named condition of vampirism.

xii. Milloe, a haiduk, twenty-five years old, who had lain for six weeks in the earth, also was found in the condition of vampirism mentioned.

xiii. Stanoicka [sic], the wife of a haiduk, twenty years old, died after a three-day illness and had been buried eighteen days previously. In the dissection I found that she was in her countenance quite red and of a vivid color, and, as was mentioned above, she had been throttled, at midnight, by Milloe, the son of the haiduk, and there was also to be seen, on the right side under the ear, a bloodshot blue mark, the length of a finger.+ As she was being taken out of the grave, a quantity of fresh blood flowed from her nose. With the dissection I found, as mentioned often already, a regular fragrant fresh bleeding, not only in the chest cavity but also in ventriculo cordis. All the viscera found themselves in a completely good and healthy condition. The hypodermis of the entire body, along with the fresh nails on hands and feet, was as though completely fresh.

After the examination had taken place, the heads of the vampires were cut off by the local gypsies and then burned along with the bodies, and then the ashes were thrown into the river Morava. The decomposed bodies, however, were laid back into their own graves.

Which I attest along with those assistant medical officers provided for me. Actum ut supra:
(L.S.)* Johannes Fluchinger, Regiment Medical Officer of the Foot Regiment of the Honorable B. Furstenbusch.
(L.S.) J. H. Sigel, Medical Officer of the Honorable Morall Regiment.
(L.S.) Johann Friedrich Baumgarten, Medical Officer of the Foot Regiment of the Honorable B. Furstenbusch.

The undersigned attest herewith that all that which the Regiment Medical officer of the Honorable Furstenbusch Regiment had observed in the matter of vampires—along with both of the medical officers who have signed with him— is in every way truthful and has been undertaken, observed, and examined in our own presence. In confirmation thereof is our signature in our own hand, of our own making. Belgrade, January 26, 1732.

(L.S.) Buttener, Lieutenant Colonel of the Honorable Alexandrian Regiment.
(L.S.) J. H. von Lindenfels, Officer of the Honorable Alexandrian Regiment.
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Journal of the Folk-lore Society," Volume 22 (1911):
Let me tell you of an incident which happened within my own knowledge, and which could probably be paralleled in any county in England. On the 2ist January, 1879, a labouring man was sent with a horse and cart from Ranton Abbey in Staffordshire to Woodcote Hall, Shropshire, a distance of fourteen or fifteen miles. On the way he had to pass over a bridge which carries the high road over the Birmingham and Liverpool Canal. The canal runs through a deep cutting between spoil-banks planted with trees, the bridge is of peculiar construction, and the whole is a rather fine bit of engineering work by Telford. It is a picturesque spot with an eerie and uncanny reputation.
Well, the man returned late at night with his empty cart and tired horse, when just as he reached the bridge a black Thing with white eyes sprang out of the trees and alighted on the horse's back. [A cat, did ye say? No, it wunna no cat.] The weary horse broke into a canter; the terrified man lashed at the intruder; but to his horror the whip went through the Thing, and fell from his hand to the ground. How he got rid of the invader he never knew, but at length, his horse "all of a lather," he reached the village of Woodseaves, and there told his tale, alarming one of his hearers, (whom I know well to this day), so much that he stayed at Woodseaves all night rather than cross the Big Bridge to reach his home.

Well, the ghost-seer got home safely at last with his horse and cart, perfectly sober, as I was assured a few days later by his master, who was watching for his return; and the whip was picked up next day just where he reported having dropped it. A couple of days or so afterwards, the village policeman called on Mr. Bailey, the man's master, and desired him to give information of his having been stopped and robbed on the Big Bridge a few nights before, (for such was the form in which the story had reached the ears of the representative of the Law). Mr. Bailey, amused, gave him the correct version. The policeman was much disappointed. He was a local man, (which Mr. Bailey was not), and well up in the local traditions.
"Oh, was that all, sir?" he said. "Oh, I know what that was. That was the Man-Monkey, sir, as always does come again at the Big Bridge, ever since the man was drowned in the Cut."
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Yorkshire Telegraph and Star" for November 7, 1908:

The latest ghost story comes from Ipswich. On the Ranelagh Road, in a quiet neighbourhood near the main railway station, general alarm among the residents has been caused owing to the declarations of the members of one family that a “woman in black” has haunted them for several weeks past. At the house in question there went to reside five weeks ago the new stage manager of the Hippodrome, Mr. Crane. Coming from Scarborough with his wife and two little daughters aged 8 and 5 respectively, he rented the house, mainly owing to its pleasant and healthy situation, and having no idea that it possessed a history which linked it with ghost stones.

Terrified by the weird happenings at their home, the family took a hurried departure Thursday evening, since when an otherwise quiet suburb has been visited by crowds people anxious to find the ghostly object, which is described as a "woman in black.”

The figure was first seen in a passage next to the house on 29th October by the elder of the two daughters, who naturally in her fright cried for her mother. Mrs. Crane (says a "Morning Leader” correspondent), rushing to her frightened child, exclaimed, “Woman, what you want?” The figure made no reply, but backed away and disappeared through the door which leads to the coal-cellar. The strange apparition is described as having the figure of woman of medium height. It floats through the air, it is said, about 3 ft. from the ground, and is clothed in black. Its lower limbs or feet are visible, and though the body appears fairly substantial, only the upper part of the face can be seen.

The eyes are deeply sunken, but the cheekbones are large and protruding. On the head is a curious kind of three-cornered black shawl. The right hand and arm hang loosely by the woman’s side, but with her left hand she trails a very large bundle wrapped in something resembling unbleached calico and tied at the top. The child Ivy thinks that this bundle is a baby, and says she saw the woman place it for a moment on the staircase. On the forefinger of the left hand is a broad ring set with one very large stone.

The husband returning from his duties at the Hippodrome has on several occasions found his wife and children in a state of collapse, the spectral figure having frequently been seen by them. Mrs. Crane, feeling safe in a new home, declares that the ghost touched her on the shoulder in the pantry only last Sunday, and that she saw it four times during Thursday. She also says that it came accompanied with a cold draught of air.

To some extent the story is supported by the statement of a married couple who left after spending only one day in the house. Their explanation to their friends was that “they had seen things in the night.” A neighbour is also positive that last Christmas, when the place was empty, there were strange noises to be heard.
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What is the truth behind the strange occurrences at 51 Nile Street. Sunderland? Who are the two "well-spoken men" who are said to lurk on the roof tops? What is the explanation of the "blood-stained shroud" which is supposed to have appeared and just as mysteriously disappeared?

For a month mysterious happenings have been terrifying 65-year-old Mrs Harriet Clark, tenant of the house in Nile Street.

She said to-day that "men wearing sandshoes climb to the windows and enter the house in the early hours of the morning."

She also said that she has handed over to the police a note she found sticking to an upstairs window. It was made of letters from newspaper headlines, and read "I Will Get You All."

Sitting in the second floor living room at 51 to-day, Mrs. Clark and relations told me their strange story (writes a Sunderland Echo reporter). Broken glass from a window which was "mysteriously broken” in the middle of the night lay on the window sill.

"It all began about a month ago." she said. "At about 1:30 a.m., we heard the back door creaking," said Mrs. Clark. "One of the family ran out and found the back-room light on, and the key from the door lying on the floor. There was no one there. Since then five windows have been broken during the night. My daughter Eva, aged 25, became so frightened that she rarely comes home during the day now. She spends the night at her sister's home.

I sit up with relations until 6 o'clock each morning—too scared to go to bed since a face appeared at the window behind my bed-head."

Mrs. Clark showed me marks on the windows of her kitchen which appear to have been made by burning cigarettes. They are about the height of a man's mouth from the wide window ledge outside, 20ft. from the ground.

She told me that about 10:30 last Thursday a mysterious parcel was found in an outhouse.

When we brought it in and opened it we found what looked a shroud embroidered with lilies. It bore marks which appeared to bloodstains.

“Unfortunately we wrapped it up and put it back in the outhouse and it disappeared by the time the police arrived."

"If it was a shroud. I can only that it must have been made for someone with plenty of money—it was so fancy."

Mr. William MacDonald (36), son-in-law of Mrs. Clark, spends most of his spare time at the house now, "waiting to try and catch these men.”

After one of the incidents he ran out and saw a man in sand-shoes climbing out of a window of an empty house next door.

"I chased this man and another as far as Tatham Street at about two o’clock in the morning. There I caught up with them, and one who was well spoken, turned and said they had only been taking lead from a roof.

"Then they knocked me down," he added.

"The police have been working hard since we reported the letters to them, but these people seem to know when the police are about. They did not come last night for instance."

Other people living at 51 Nile Street corroborated the details, and said that the intruders sometimes come twice in one night.

As police keep check, Mrs. Clark watches out from her windows on to the warren of narrow streets in the neighbourhood, sleeping by daylight.
Sunderland Echo for July 23, 1949
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South Bend, Ind., March 22, 1880. Several months ago the grave of Sarah Platts, a young lady who died of consumption, was found disturbed, and an examination showed that the head of the corpse was missing. What led to the discovery was the finding of a human jawbone by Fred Auer, a farmer, who lived near the county graveyard, some eight miles from the city, where the body was buried. The fact that only the head was taken threw suspicions on an amateur phrenologist named Gordon Truesdale. Truesdale occupied a small farm in the vicinity with his wife and family of four girls, the oldest not more than eight years old. He was a handsome, broad-shouldered fellow, with a fair education, but lazy and shiftless. His great hobby was phrenology, and he occasionally lectured on that subject in country school-houses. His ambition to possess a collection of skulls was well known in the neighborhood, and the desecration of the Platts girl's grave was laid at his door, although he was never openly charged with it.

About three weeks ago Truesdale went to a physician and asked if a person could become poisoned in handling a dead body. He received an affirmative reply and appeared to be much troubled. He complained to his wife that his nose was paining him terribly and he believed he was taking the erysipelas. He began doctoring himself with bread-and-milk poultices, but without success. His face began to swell rapidly, and in less than three days it and his head became twice their natural size and lost all semblance to human shape. A physician was called in against the wishes of Truesdale. He found the man suffering terribly. His lids were drawn by the tension of the skin and writhed themselves away from the teeth in unceasing pain. The cuticle across the bridge of the nose and over the forehead was so distended with the mattery substance underneath that it seemed as if it must burst every moment. The eyes were swollen almost to bursting from their sockets and were turned with pain until hardly anything but the whites could be seen. It was evident that a terrible poison was slowly but surely permeating the man's whole system.

The physician, after a careful examination of the unwilling patient, cut open his skin from about the center of his nose almost to the roots of his hair, and then made another across the forehead almost from temple to temple. From these incisions there oozed a mass of loathsome, detestable putrescence, so terrible in its stench that the attendants, save one, ran from the house. Other incisions were made in different parts of the scalp, from which the hair had been shaved, and from these this terribly offensive matter oozed constantly, until the swelling was reduced and the head and face assumed nearly their normal size. Attempts were then made to free the incisions of matter by injecting water into them. It was noticed that when water was forced into the cut in the forehead it poured out of the holes in the scalp. As one of the attendants said, "it seemed as if all the flesh between the skin arid bone had turned into corruption and ran out."

When Mr. Truesdale was told that he could not possibly recover, he called his wife into the room and confessed to her that he robbed the Platts girl's grave, and referred to a certain night when he left the house and refused to tell her where he went at the time when he committed the crime. He said that he dug down to the head of the coffin, broke it open and, taking his knife, cut around the neck of the corpse through the flesh to the bone. He then placed one of his feet on the breast of the corpse, and, taking the head in his hands, pulled and jerked and twisted it until it came off by mere force. He afterward disjointed the lower jaw and threw it where Fred Auer found it. He closed his confession by telling her where the skull would be found, under the straw in a certain manger in the stable. It was found there and given up to the Platts family.

The last three days of Truesdale's existence were terrible, not only to himself but to those who watched him. The poison from some corpse (for it is believed he had recently opened several graves,) which was communicated to his system by picking a raw spot on the inside of his nose, appeared to course through every vein in his body. Not only was his person offensive to the eye, but the odor and heat of his breath was so offensive that it was impossible for the attendants to wait on him properly. The breath was so poisonous that when one of the attendants held his hand six inches from the dying man's mouth it stung the flesh like hundreds of nettles. Those who waited on him were obliged to wear gloves, as it was impossible to wash the odor from their hands. The day he died his flesh was so rotten that it seemed as if it would drop from the bones it touched, and his eyes actually decayed until they became sightless.

For two days before his death a coffin had been in readiness, and the orders of the physician were to place him in it as soon as the breath left his body and get him under the ground immediately. After his death none of the attendants had the temerity to touch the corpse, for fear of being poisoned, so they gathered the sheets on which the body lay at each end, and thus lifted it into the coffin. The lid was quickly screwed down, but before a wagon could be procured the body swelled and burst it off. It was then strapped on, but when the coffin was taken from the wagon at the graveyard, just at daylight, it again flew off, and the body appeared to swell visibly before the horrified attendants' eyes. The fetid, noisome stench from the putrid mass within was such that no one could attempt to replace the cover, and the coffin was covered from sight as hurriedly as possible.

The day after the funeral, or burial, rather, the wife of Truesdale was confined at a neighbor's house, this fifth child also being a girl. The Truesdale house will not be fit to occupy for several days, as all efforts to fumigate it thus far have failed. The doors and windows have been left open day and night, but the stench is still as bad as when he died. As one of the attendants said, "It still seems as if you could cut the air in that house with a knife."