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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is Paul's narrative.

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

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

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

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

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

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This nifty little ghost story appeared in the “San Francisco Chronicle” on January 3, 1882:

John Hargan, a man who has heretofore been credited with an unusual amount of hard common sense, has been driven out of his house at Recene by a series of circumstances that have plunged that little town into a fever of superstitious awe and excitement.

In order to fully understand the case that is at present agitating the denizens of Ten Mile, it becomes necessary to go somewhat into the past. The Hargan family, which consists of Mr. and Mrs. Hargan and two children, occupied a little house close to the foot of Ten Mile avenue before the devastating breath of the recent fire swept over it, and across the avenue tracks. Living with the family temporarily was a prospector whom Mr. Hargan was grub staking. These are the dramatis personae of the affair. 

The house consisted of four rooms, the two middle ones being used as sleeping apartments, and one occupied by the Hargans and the other by the prospector. 

About two weeks ago the first of a chain of remarkable manifestations took place. The family were one evening seated in the front room when one of the little children sprang up and cried out, “Who is that looking in the window?" and ran tremblingly to her mother's side.

At the same instant there was a loud knock on the glass. Hargin and his friend both ran to the door and threw it open. The moon was shining quite brightly outside and no one in sight anywhere--nothing but a broad expanse of freshly fallen untracked snow within 100 feet of the house. Puzzled and alarmed they returned and questioned the child. All she knew was that a man with a very white face had been looking in through the window, and when she screamed he suddenly disappeared. Mr. Hargan, who is not troubled with any superstitious fancies, tried to laugh off the matter and attribute the ghostly visitation simply to some hungry tramp attracted by the warmth and light within. 

An hour or two passed and the matter was well-nigh forgotten, when the family were thrown into consternation by a second rap, however, and sharper than before. Again a rush was made for the door, and again nothing but the untrodden snow greeted their eyes.

By this time, thoroughly alarmed, Mr. Hargan took a seat close to the window. and within a foot or two of the door, and patiently waited. In the course of twenty minutes there were two loud raps at the door, but their echo had scarcely died away when Hargan was on the threshold.

There was not a trace of any one outside, and completely unnerved, he re-entered the room and turned the lock. There were no other manifestations that evening, nor the next, but the day after that, at about noon, while Mrs. Hargan was engaged at some household work, there were three or four impatient raps at one of the middle doors of the house. She turned to it, supposing it to be one of the neighbors, when the door was suddenly pushed open in her face.

No one was there, the room was absolutely empty, and, half fainting with fright, she ran to get her husband. Ever since that time these manifestations have continued, and scarcely an evening passed that the raps were not heard on the doors or windows. 

The most startling of them, however, have taken place within the past few days. One night in the latter part of last week the prospector, who was quietly sleeping in the center room, was awakened by feeling something jump upon his feet and crouch there. His mind filled with the uncanny events of the two weeks past, he did not dare to move, and scarcely breathing, lay quite still.

An instant later the thing upon the bed crowded toward him, and he felt the clutch of a hand upon his shoulder. He had pulled the cover up over his head. but could stand it no longer, and gave a loud, long shriek of terror. Tho sound broke the spell, and he felt his legs instantly relieved of the weight, as at the same moment Hargan rushed, revolver in hand, into the room.  The story was told in a few words, and they hastily decided to say nothing about it to Mrs. Hargan, who was in a pitiable state of nervous prostration. 

Next night the husband made some excuse to sleep with the prospector, and with his revolver in convenient reach, they retired. Late at night, when everything was enveloped in pitchy darkness, Hargan was awakened by someone passing their hands over his side. His first impulse was to reach for his gun, but an uncontrollable terror seized him and he was unable to move. Half fainting, he felt something creep over him and then jump to the floor with an audible concussion. For an instant he lay mute and motionless, and then was aroused by the screams of his wife. The room in which she slept had a window opening to the old town of Kokomo, and when her husband rushed in she said she had awakened to see the black profile of someone between this and her. As she stared at it the head slowly turned, and by a faint phosphorescent glow that surrounded it she made out the figure of a man.

Then for the first time she found her voice, and as she cried out the figure faded and disappeared. This experience was sufficient, and the family sat up during the remainder of the night. As soon as possible the next day they moved out, and since then the house has stood vacant and empty. No one can be induced to even spend a night in it, and the owner is anxious to give it rent free to any tenant who will brave its unknown terrors.

The thing I love most about Wales is that they keep trotting out some of the damndest ghost stories:  Ones that are both oddly matter-of-fact and uniquely bonkers.  A wonderfully quaint example played out in the otherwise fairly normal pages of the “South Wales Daily News” in 1893.  On October 28, the paper reported:

Great excitement has prevailed during the past few days at Llwynypia and the adjacent districts in consequence of startling allegations by Mr John Dunn and his wife, who reside at 9, Amelia-terrace, Llwynypia, and also by several neighbours. These persons state that for several nights past hideous apparitions have been witnessed, and unaccountable peculiar noises heard, in the bedrooms and other parts of the cottage. The premises have been visited by hundreds of persons during the past two or three days, and watched by Sergeant Hayle, P.C. Pearce, and the other constables for hours in the evening, but nothing unusual has been discovered by them. On Thursday evening a well-known quoiter and a number of footballers stood for some time in front of the cottage, eagerly waiting the appearance of the ghost, and it is stated that the bravest of the football men was suddenly startled by an alleged supernatural visitant.

Our representative, accompanied by Mr Tom John, schoolmaster, called upon Mrs Dunn yesterday afternoon to receive her own version of the affair. The house is a four-roomed one with a pantry adjoining one of the rooms near the back door. As we paced along the terrace (writes our representative), consisting of about 20 houses, situated on the mountain side, men and women were standing on the thresholds discussing the matter. We entered the cottage and found Mrs Dunn standing by a tub upon a chair washing some wearing apparel.

"Is this the house where the ghost has been causing disturbance?" I asked.

"Yes, sir; take a chair, gentlemen, if you please."

Mr John, who is the Welsh representative on the executive committee of the National Union of Teachers, and myself seated ourselves immediately at her request, and then she unfolded her strange story.

"On Wednesday evening, about nine o' clock," she broke forth, in a somewhat low voice, "I was standing near the pantry door, and suddenly the back door opened, and a tall apparition robed in white appeared close by me right before my eyes. I shrieked, and instantly it stretched forth both arms and clutched me tightly. There was no one in the house beside myself at the time. I lost my sense, and found myself shortly afterwards in an outhouse. The ghost told me there that he was going to take me away with him. I was dumb, could not utter a word for some time. There he kept me, holding me upon the wooden seat, and telling me in Welsh to raise a brick for him. I could not do so. The scones and the few bricks moved, and a rattle was heard by me. Then I was lifted up bodily and taken out and raised up into the air, and I lost my senses again. Afterwards, when I came to myself I found myself by the brink of a pond lower down on the hill-side, and he threatened to chuck me into the water and drown me. In taking me there the ghost had to lift me over a fence seven feet high."

"Was the ghost still talking in Welsh?"

"Oh, yes; and he also talked to me in English, but I spoke to him in Welsh."

"What were the words in Welsh?"

"Mae rhaid i ti ddyfod gyda mi."  [“You have to come with me.”]

At this stage of our conversation, two or three of the neighbours entered the kitchen where we were seated, and they enlivened the proceedings by narrating what they had heard and seen in and about the premises. Mrs Dunn, resuming her tale, said, "This house has been troubled by the ghost for nearly seven months off and on, but it is during the past few days that we have been greatly disturbed."

"How was he attired?"

One of the neighbours standing close by Mr John and myself interjected excitedly "He had a pair of moleskin trousers on, I think, and a white sheet over his shoulders."

"It was not a man, was it?"

"No, because he vanished into air all at once, and then appeared before our very eyes and went off again. Here, this little girl has seen him many times" (pointing to a girl about 16 years of age standing near). "She can tell more than we can."

Mrs Dunn looked quite pale, but did not appear to be suffering from any sort of mental aberration. Proceeding with her account of the strange affair, she said, "Men living in this locality have been sleeping in turns upstairs for days past for the purpose of getting to the bottom of the matter. They hear the latch rattling and rapping on the doors and noises like the shuffling of feet and the clatter of crockery, and other noises, and they can't see anything."

Mr John put several questions to her, and in reply she stated that the ghost had told her she would have peace in future, and that he would not torment her again. She received that ghostly assurance, according to her statement to Mr John, on the preceding night. Another of the neighbours who had patiently listened to all this, observed that she had also seen a shadow of the ghost on the wall opposite her house, and she thought that the ghost was wearing corduroy breeches. She said that a "Christian young man," and very religious, was one of the men who were sitting up in turns all night in the house, and he had experienced the very same thing as they and Mrs Dunn had. "Jack," the husband, who was a native of Somersetshire, was also troubled be the spectre, and he sincerely believed it was a ghost. The pond has been visited by hundreds of people during the past day or two, and they all marvel at the strength of the "goblin" in lifting or conveying the landlady over the high fence.

"What's the cause of the appearance of the ghost, or why does he trouble you more than the neighbours?" asked our representative.

"Well, I don't know," replied Mrs Dunn.

"An old man was taken to the asylum from here many years ago," broke forth one of the neighbours, "and he wore ribbed trousers and moleskin trousers sometimes, and I think his spirit has returned to look for a bag of gold which, it is said, he left behind. A lot of people have been searching the place for money yesterday."

P.C. Pearce, Llwynypia, stated that the pond to the brink of which the ghost carried Mrs Dunn is about 300 yards away from the cottage. He had been telling "Jack," the husband, that the noise he heard in the house at night was not produced by a ghost, but it was no use arguing with "Jack," because it only drove him out of temper. The delusion had stuck in "Jack's" mind, and also in his wife's and neighbours' brains. A very large number of people had visited the premises, and remained outside the house until a late hour in the evening. Dr. Jennings had also visited the premises, and described the whole affair, according to P.C. Pearce, as a pack of nonsense. But the matter is, nevertheless, the topic of the day in the district, and has caused a great sensation among the residents.

On November 7th, readers heard from Mrs. Dunn directly:

We have received a long letter from the woman who alleges that she was visited in her house at Llwynypia by a spectre, which carried her bodily away and deposited her a considerable distance from her dwelling. In the course of her somewhat discursive epistle, Mrs Downe [sic], of 8, Amelia-terrace, says: - "I am the woman who was carried away, and I am the woman who can tell you the truth about it. I have plenty of witnesses who have heard the noise, and I had plenty of company in the house when he (the ghost) took me away. They asked the constable who looks after the company's houses to stop here a night to hear and see, if he could, but he did not come.

I was sitting on a chair by the fire, with three other persons - Mrs Lewis, Mrs George, and John Samuel. The company was outside. It was at half-past eight in the evening, as near as I can say, when the ghost pulled me off the chair towards him to the passage. I was afraid, and I screamed, and jumped back to my chair. He was still there. Mrs Lewis told me to speak to him. I felt too nervous at first, but after a time I started to speak to him, when, before I could finish my words he pushed me out from the house and across the bailey and into the water closet. Here he lifted me on to the seat, standing, and he pointed to the top of the wall.

He told me in Welsh to raise the stone and take what was under it, and that I must go with him. That was all he said to me there. Then he took me down about 200 yards from the house. I cannot tell you how he took me from the closet because I lost all my control. I found myself by the brim of a pond. Here he took from he what I had in my hand, and threw it into the water. Then he told me he should never trouble me any more. So that's all the truth, and I hope you'll be so kind as to put the truth down in your paper.

I am not able to do the washing nor anything else; I am not the same woman that I was before, and I don't think I ever will be. I can give you these names and many others who can swear to what I have said - John Samuel, 9 Amelia Terrace; Mrs Lewis, 1 Amelia Terrace; and Mrs George, 11 Amelia Terrace."

So.

Via Newspapers.com

To the Editor of the Bristol Mercury. 

Sir--In my present excursions in this country, 

Through land of leeks, with Welshmen sped, 

From Afon Gwy to Dewi's Head, 

I may be enabled to send you some occasional communications if you think proper to find a corner in your Demi Cambrian Paper. 

A most extraordinary sensation has been lately excited in the village of Llandoga, midway between Chepstow and Monmonth. 

"The windows shake, the drawers crack, 

Each thinks that Nick's behind his back,

And hitches to the fire.”

On the 31st Dec. last, the house of Wm. Edwards, formerly a local preacher in the Wesleyan connexion, but now estranged from that society, was beset by some (as it is said) invisible spirit, which so violently disturbed the man and his family, by demolishing his earthen-ware, and breaking his glasses, in such unfriendly and unneighbourly manner, that he was obliged to remove to another house, farther up the village, when lo! this crockery-destroying demon pursued his victim to the new residence, and as he had acted on the last day of 1822, so he commenced on the first day of 1823 by kicking the remainder of the perishable furniture down the stairs, and other strange whims, almost too comical for the old gentleman or his imps to enact. On my passing through this village on Tuesday last, I endeavoured to catch the floating opinions of men's minds, of which the following is an epitome.

1. Mr. Edwards is of the opinion that it is the buffeting of Satan, on his determination to become a new man, and to enter again into a state of warfare with that enemy of mankind. 

2. A native of the diocese of St. David's will have it, that the preacher has sometime or other promised a ghost or sprite to meet it, in order to the discovery of hidden treasure, and that he has omitted, or forgotten his appointment. 

3. But some respectable informants there, are convinced that this affair forms a fit sequel to, or a triad with that of Ann Moore, the Tetbury Fasting Impostor, and Scratching Fanny, the Cocklane Ghost. 

An inquiring and well-informed public expects that Mr. Edwards will illustrate, if he can, for it certainly is a scandalous imposition of someone, but I will not say who, for fear of mistakes.

Mr. Editor, you will please to observe these are not the crudities of Tom Coryate, but of real events occurring in the travels of your old correspondent. 

THOMAS TICKLE. Jan. 9, 1825.

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In January 1907, a salt merchant named Samuel Hughes left his home in Blackwood, Wales, for an ordinary business trip. Soon afterwards, his dead body was found beneath a bridge.  The investigation into his death was largely unremarkable--it was ruled that in the darkness, Hughes had accidentally fallen off the bridge--but the inquest was marked by an eerie incident related by Hughes’ wife.  Her testimony was recorded in the “South Wales Gazette” for January 25:

A curious story is related by the widow, Mrs. Hughes, who states that she sat up all Saturday night waiting for her husband to come home. At 3 a.m.  she heard a familiar voice cry out, “Bess, Bess,” whereupon she rushed to the front door, expecting to find her husband there. On opening the door, she declares that she saw a figure robed in black and wearing a tall hat, such as her husband often wore. The apparition--for such she now deems it to be--vanished immediately the door was open. Interviewed at Blackwood on Monday afternoon by a Press representative, Mrs. Hughes emphatically confirmed the statement that she had seen an apparition, which she believed to be that of her husband.

"My husband,” she said, "went to Newport on Saturday, and said that he would return by the 5 o'clock train. I met that train, but he did not come. I sat up during the night, sitting in a chair by the fire in the living room. At 3 o'clock in the morning I heard his voice calling “Bess, Bess," and I also distinctly heard his footsteps. I went to the door, and there saw a figure robed in black clothes, with a silk hat on.  The next minute it had vanished. I took the candle and went round the house, but could not find anything. It was pitch dark, and there was not a sound to be heard. I was very much startled, but went back and resumed my seat by the fire for time, and then went and lay down on the bed until daybreak.  I was the more alarmed because on the previous Thursday I had had a remarkable dream, in which I saw my husband engaged in a scuffle with men whose appearance I distinctly remember, and could, if needed, describe.

“After the scuffle ended my husband fell to the ground. This dream has made a great impression on me, so much so that when my husband left on Saturday morning I implored him to be careful, and he assured me he would follow my advice."

If you have any confidence in the concept of precognitive dreams, it may well be that--despite the inquest’s verdict--Mr. Hughes’ death was no accident.

Via Newspapers.com

This tale of an unusually eerie bit of real estate appeared in the “Richmond Times-Dispatch,” August 7, 1904:

SOUTH BOSTON, VA., August 6. There is a cabin in this county that has been haunted for forty-three years. The haunted cabin is eighteen miles west of South Boston, near Stebbins, Va, two miles from the public road.

Down by a creek in an old pine field, the darkest, dreariest, most forsaken place that one could picture--there stands a lone log cabin, with a family graveyard all sunken, with ivy, locust and plum bushes. This place is known as Aunt Tabby Anderson's, who was a widow with four children, in the days of 1861--three boys and one girl, and the afflictions of this family were extremely sad in this log cabin. Her oldest son, Joe, and Meredith, the youngest, a bright lad of fifteen years, lived on the magnificent farm of Mr. A. A. Fomer, who allowed them this house, rent free.

In this cabin, in the early days of '61, her son Joe came to his mother with a sad face and told her that he had to go and join Lee's army, and he had one request to make--that was, he had seen a vision and he would be killed In battle--and he wished his remains brought home and buried at the end of this cabin. The youngest son was left alone with the widowed mother. A month later this boy came running home screaming and fell on the doorsteps and was taken with violent convulsions, and when he revived could simply say he saw something, and for thirty-five years was prostrated without reason save as a child. This was the first intimation of these mysterious happenings. 

The widow, about thirty days after the departure of her son, remarked that if she had some paper and envelopes she would go and get Chesley Andorson (a merchant) to write to Joe.  Immediately they were at her feet, the letter was written.

Her son was killed. 

She at once set to work to get his remains home, and after a lapse of two months a box supposed to contain remains of her son was placed in the family burying ground, as he had requested. 

Then these mysterious happenings multiplied.  Rocks would fall on and in the cabin and come through cracks in the log house that no one could get them back through the same openings. The door would raise from its hinges and move out doors. Articles of furniture, clothing, bedding and, cooking utensils, would move about noisily and afterwards would often be found suspended In the trees and bushes, All this caused great excitement throughout the vicinity, and parties of men, middle-aged and old men, visited this place night after night for weeks, even years, and yet the mystery can not be explained. On one occasion a party of ten men took with them dogs and guns and surrounded the cabin before night, and the dogs would whine and crouch at their feet. This only seemed to intensify the display of rocks, for they fell out and in the cabin in great force and quantities.

A few days later a plow was seen to come in one door and go out at the other. The water bucket was seen to move of its own accord, and these same conditions have existed for forty-three years. This widow lived with her afflicted son until 1896. She also had a son blind for twenty years, who died only three years ago.  She had one granddaughter who burned to death, and now the entire family has passed from this life. 

It is said that at the death of Aunt Tabby in 1896, that the shower of rocks on the cabin equalled the worst hailstorm ever heard. 

I could fill columns of your paper and yet one-thousandth part of these strange happenings could not be told. If any reader of The Times-Dispatch doubts this story, they can write any citizen in that locality and get the evidence. 

Mr. Willie Dunn now owns the place, and has a family living in this cabin, and the writer was informed by the lady that she was nervous and would not look at the ghost work, but her husband saw lights and only a week ago the door could not be kept shut. 

The picture, herewith, represents the original cabin and a group of thirteen sightseers.  Professor C. C. Firesheets planned to visit this noted place with some of his friends. A picnic was the result. The members consisted of the following: Professor C.C. Fusheets, who was elected chairman and spokesman; Mr. W. D. Stoops, Umalla, Fla,; Miss Ruselin Spiggs, of Chicago, Ill., with W. W. Murphy, of Mt. Jackson, Va.: Miss Amanda Stoops, of Denver, Col., with Mr. Joseph H. Mabine, of Asheville. N. C.; Miss Georgia Daniel, of Mt. Sterling, Ky., with Mr. Eugene Terry, South Boston. Va; Miss Marguretta Daniel, of Mt. Sterling, Ky., with E. T. Beazley, of the News, South Boston, Va.: Miss Myrtle Edwards, of Chester Springs, Va., with Captain Alex. Spiggs, of South Boston, Va. The haunted house was reached at 10 A.M. At noon. dinner was spread at the old rock spring.  The chaperone made a motion to spend a week, but being put it lost by overwhelming majority. 

The professor then gave a brief sketch of the place for forty-three years. Music, instrumental and vocal, and speech making was the order of the day.

As the shadows of evening began to fall, they left the scene of mystery and the merry party arrived home at 10 P.M. by moonlight.

Corpus Christi College, sometime in the late Victorian era

An old and venerable British academic institution would make an ideal backdrop for a M.R. James-style haunting, and, happily for us, a little over a hundred years ago, Cambridge University was obliging enough to provide us with a corker.  On December 5, 1926, the “Sunday Express” published Lieut. Colonel Cyril Foley’s reminiscences of his encounter with a classic Edwardian ghost.  (Note: There are other accounts of this particular ghost story, but Foley’s is generally regarded as the most authoritative.)

Just about twenty-two years ago, in October, 1904, Cambridge University rocked with excitement over some psychic phenomena of exceptional interest.

The Cambridge authorities deemed it advisable at the time to suppress the publication of the facts, for obvious reasons, and no full and accurate account emanating from any of the principals in the drama has ever been published.

Of course I had, like most people at the time, heard vaguely of the occurrence, but few people knew what actually happened, and it is thanks to Mr. Shane Leslie, the author, who was one of the participants in the gruesome event, that I am able to record for the first time an accurate account of what happened.

The scene was laid in Corpus Christi College.  

About the middle of the eighteenth century it is believed that a certain Doctor Bott, a Fellow of the college, committed suicide in his rooms there, just before he was due to preach the University sermon, and these rooms have been haunted ever since.

Originally they formed part of Archbishop Parker's suite and always had a bad record. Their last occupant, a tutor of the college, is said to have crawled out of them on his hands and knees about a generation ago and the rooms were officially closed. They were opened again in the winter term of 1904.

There was at that time a Cambridge Psychical Research Society, and it happened on this particular evening of October, 1904, that three members of that society were gathered in the room of a Kingsman. I shall refer to him in the story as the Kingsman, but I am permitted to say that he was a young man of temperate habits, a very distinguished King's scholar, and about to take up Holy Orders. The other two were Mr. Shane Leslie and Mr. Wade, also an Ordinand.

They had been discussing, among other things, these very rooms when, at about ten minutes to ten an excited undergraduate from Corpus burst in upon them and implored them to go to the assistance of the occupier of the rooms who was, he said, in great distress.

He told them that the poor man was reduced to such a state of nerves that he could do no work. A face had been seen at his window from the Old Court, after the door had been "sported" and the room left empty.

Footsteps were heard in one room while the occupant slept in the other. It was a case requiring definite action. Something more than an appeal to the tutor or a consultation with the college porter. 

The Kingsman leapt to his feet.

"This is an Evil Spirit which must be exorcised," he said, "and I am going to take it by the throat. Will you two stand by me?"

They agreed to do so. He then opened a cupboard disclosing a temporary altar, from the tabernacle of which he drew a phial of holy water, and the four then set off for Corpus.

As they passed through the Great Court of King's the college clock struck ten, and it was only by doing "level time" that they got down the King's Parade and through the Gate of Corpus on the last stroke of the hour.

Their guide directed them to the ill-omened and ivy-clad rooms in a corner of the Old Court, where they were met by the pale occupant, who told them that it was impossible to stay in the rooms under prevailing conditions.

The Kingsman said, "In these cases we can only use exorcism, which Christ bequeathed to His Holy Church."

They entered the room, and the Corpus man, a young Ordinand of singular piety, produced a large Crucifix from the folds of his gown. This the Kingsman took and without preamble raised it above his head, and began to chant the terrible words of the Exorcism Service in which the fiend is personally addressed and defied.

The Corpus man had shut the door, and there was no light in the room except that given by a tiny twinkling fire.

At the termination of the Exorcism the four men remained silent. Nothing occurred, and Leslie was about to speak when the Kingsman suddenly cried, "The Thing is here!"

With nerves on edge they peered into the gloom.

"The Thing is watching me," he said. "Push me slowly forward, hold up my arms, but do not get in front of the Crucifix as you value your lives."

His companions upheld his elbows, as Aaron and Hur once supported the aching Moses.

Leslie, who had hold of one of his arms, felt it suddenly stiffen, and at the same moment the Kingsman cried out, "The Thing is pulling me, hold me tight or I shall lose the Crucifix."

Like some powerful magnet, the Evil Thing was actually drawing him out of the grasp of his companion. It was a veritable "pull devil, pull baker" situation.

It was also a terrifying one. The atmosphere of the room had become surcharged with an intangible yet all-absorbing Evil, which sapped the strength and numbed the senses. It had become a definite tussle, a combination of a tug-of-war and a Rugby scrum.

All the human competitors were bathed in a cold perspiration of fear and effort. The affair became intolerable. Fortunately the Kingsman kept his head.  There was only one thing to be done. "Push me right into the Foul Fiend," he said, and crying out "Limb of Satan, avaunt in the name of the All Holy," the whole party crashed into the ancient panelling of the room. In a state more easily imagined than described, they picked themselves up, gathered round the fire, and poked it into being.

"The Thing is gone," said the Kingsman. None of the other three dared speak.

He then took the flask of holy water from his pocket and began to sprinkle the room. Some drops fell into the fireplace with a demoniacal hiss, and the Kingsman, swinging round, pointed to the open doorway of the bedroom, and said: "The Thing is in there."

Without hesitation or assistance, and minus the crucifix, he sprang through the doorway of the bedroom. It was a courageous but unsuccessful manœuvre, for with the speed of thought he was hurled back through the doorway, and fell in a heap at their feet.

The situation was as follows: The Kingsman was crawling about on the floor, searching for the half empty flask of holy water which he had dropped in his fall. Wade was in a corner of the room holding the crucifix over the cowering Corpus man, while Leslie, on his knees near the fire, devoid of initiative, and having, as he admits, given up all hope, was praying pitifully.

They were a beaten side beaten by an innings and a hundred runs--by ten goals to nothing--devoid of cohesion and volition, prisoners of war, captured by Satan, vanquished and manacled by the powers of evil, and doomed to death.

They could only stare vacantly into the blackness of the bedroom, out of which the evil Thing was slowly advancing. Their tongues clove to the roof of their mouths. They could not cry for help.

And then, framed in the square-cut darkness of the doorway, the Thing appeared.

It bore a human shape, and was menacing, but beyond that, no one could afterwards visualize its exact aspect. But upon one point they were all agreed. It was cut off at the knees!

Crash! Crash! Crash!-something was happening outside their mentality. Crash! again, and the door was burst open and floods of light and excited undergraduates poured into the room. Their listening impatience had mastered their fear of the occult.

The situation was temporarily saved. It is easy to imagine the remarks of the uninstructed rescue party. "Where is the ghost? Does it bite?" etc., etc., but it was significant how quickly their attitude changed from gay to grave, a change not altogether due to the obvious distress of the principal actors, but rather to the inexplicable and uncanny atmosphere of the room itself.

"The Thing has ascended into the room above, and we must follow it," said the plucky Kingsman.

The four principals, leading a mass of supporters, started up a tiny flight of stairs, and entered the room of a medical student who was reading, unconscious of the terrors of the room below.

Now it so happened that he was a pronounced atheist and had been ragged in consequence some little time before. He naturally thought that this invasion was a repetition, and being of a stubborn disposition got off his anti-spiritual views first.

"This is just the room where the Thing is sure to have gone," said the Kingsman, and the undergraduates, crowding the doorway, grinned approval, while the occupant of the room proclaimed the nullity of the spirit world.

The Kingsman advanced with uplifted crucifix towards the corner of the room, and the medical student darted daringly in front of him.

The Kingsman warned him not to do so, but he persisted, and to the horror of every one fell in a heap on the floor, murmuring, " I am cold, I am cold, I am icy cold."

For the first time the unconvinced spectators were awed, for here was proof indeed-the scoffer, turned into a humble and dejected heap of clothes, huddled up in a corner and complaining that he was "icy cold."

The Kingsman, protecting him with the crucifix, soothed him back to sanity. Every spectator was struck dumb with fear and amazement. Nothing further of psychical interest occurred beyond the rather natural collapse of all three, who were conducted back to their rooms. The only wonder was that the Kingsman had borne the strain so long and so courageously.

By this time the undergraduates were thoroughly roused, and pouring down the stairs, rushed into the haunted rooms below, and completely demolished them.

Led by some brawny oarsmen, they broke up all the cupboards and tore down the ancient oak panelling.

There was the devil of a row the next morning. The Corpus authorities forbade any Kingsmen to enter their college an order which, had I been a Kingsman, I should most certainly have obeyed-and did their best to hush up the whole affair, in which latter objective they were joined by the University authorities.

The principals agreed among themselves never to divulge what they had seen and experienced while they remained undergraduates, and the whole affair died a natural death.

The rooms, or what remained of them, were closed. But, all said and done, though it goes much against the grain, as an old Cantab, to do it, I personally give the devil that fight, on points.

Because it’s always fun to see people who play silly buggers with other people’s body parts get a terrifying supernatural comeuppance, let’s look at the time someone stole the skull of a notorious murderer, and almost instantly regretted it.  Consider it a cautionary tale about the dangers of causing someone to rest in pieces.

The murder of Maria Marten is one of those sordid, non-mysterious crimes that nevertheless somehow gain immortal fame.  In 1827, a young man named William Corder, wishing to rid himself of Marten, who had been his lover, killed her and hid the body in a local landmark called the “Red Barn.”  After the corpse was discovered the following year, Corder became the immediate suspect.  He was arrested in London and eventually faced trial, conviction, and the gallows.  As far as is known, Corder’s spirit rested quietly for about fifty years, until someone took a regrettable interest in his skull.

The ghostly sequel to the “Red Barn Murder” was told by British author and ghost-hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins. Hopkins, you might say, literally grew up in the shadow of the infamous murder: He spent his boyhood within the old prison at Bury St. Edmunds, where his father F.C. Hopkins, a prison official, proudly kept a framed copy of Corder’s final confession.

A close friend of Hopkins’ father was one Dr. Kilner, who had a deeper, and far more morbid, interest in the Corder case.  He owned a book about the murder that was bound in Corder’s skin, as well as the murderer’s pickled scalp.  One would think that Kilner owned enough bits and pieces of the late Mr. Corder to satisfy even the most ghoulish tastes, but such was not the case: Corder’s skeleton then resided at the West Suffolk General Hospital, where for years it had been used as a sort of celebrity anatomy display, and Kilner longed to get his hands on the skull.  As he knew that the hospital would not part with its prize, the good doctor decided that his only option was to pinch the thing.

When Kilner sneaked into the hospital one night to do his bit of body-snatching, he lit three candles.  One immediately went out.  When he relit it, the other two went dark.  As he was removing Corder’s skull from the rest of the skeleton, the candles continued mysteriously snuffing themselves out.  One would think Kilner would realize he was being warned, but he blithely replaced Corder’s skull with a ringer he had picked up somewhere, and took his stolen treasure home.

Kilner lovingly polished the skull until it glowed like a gemstone, and placed it in an ebony box which he kept in a cabinet in his drawing room.  However, he was not entirely happy.  He felt a vague unease about his acquisition, which he tried to dismiss as merely his overactive imagination.

A few days after the skull became part of the Kilner household’s bric-a-brac, a servant told the doctor that a man had come to see him.  As it was after his surgery hours, Kilner was a bit irked by the disturbance.  When he asked if the caller was someone the servant recognized, she replied that he was a stranger.  “He is proper old-fashioned looking,” she remarked, “with a furry top hat and a blue overcoat with silver buttons.”

The doctor went to his surgery, asking the servant to follow him with a lamp.  As he entered the room, he caught a glimpse of a figure standing by the window, but when the servant came in with the lamp, the room was empty.

Kilner’s servant swore that she had escorted a man into the surgery.  She surmised that he changed his mind about seeing the doctor, and left.

Not long after this incident, Kilner happened to be looking out a window of his house when he saw a man standing on the lawn.  He was wearing a beaver hat and an old-fashioned blue overcoat.  Kilner went out to confront the man, but by then the figure had disappeared.

Kilner began to have the disconcerting feeling that he was constantly being followed by…something.  At night, he would hear doors mysteriously opening, and the sound of phantom footsteps throughout his house.  Outside his bedroom door, he heard loud breathing, spectral murmurings, and sobbing, accompanied by loud bangs coming from the drawing room.  He started to have dreams where he got the sense that he was being begged to do something.

In short, Kilner knew that he had made someone very unhappy.  And he had a good idea who it was.  William Corder, understandably enough, took great offense at being turned into home décor.

Kilner was now as anxious to return the skull as he had been to steal it.  However, the skull was so highly polished that the difference between it and the rest of the skeleton would be obvious, leading to some very uncomfortable questions.  He had no idea what to do.

One night, Kilner was awakened by a sound from downstairs.  When he lit a candle and looked down over the stairs, he saw a disembodied hand over the handle of the drawing room door.  This hand turned the knob and opened the door.  Then, from the drawing room, there came a sharp noise that sounded like a shotgun blast.  When Kilner ran downstairs to investigate, he was met by a huge gust of wind which blew out the candle, and nearly knocked him off his feet.  When he managed to relight the candle and enter the drawing room, he found that the box containing the skull had been shattered into bits.  Kilner was greeted by Corder’s skull resting in the open cabinet, grinning at him.

That was enough for Dr. Kilner.  Rather selfishly, he gifted the skull to F. C. Hopkins, who was idiot enough to accept it.  As Hopkins walked home with the skull (discreetly wrapped in a handkerchief,) he twisted his ankle and fell flat on the pavement just as a female acquaintance was passing by.  He dropped the skull, which cheerfully rolled at his friend’s feet.  The woman screamed and dashed off.

Hopkins’ life subsequently became very difficult.  His injured ankle kept him bedridden for a week.  His best horse fell into a pit and broke her back.  Both Hopkins and Kilner suffered a series of personal and financial disasters that left both men shattered in spirit. Hopkins finally wised up and did what Kilner should have done a long time before:  He took the skull to a churchyard near Bury St. Edmunds, where he bribed a grave-digger to give it a decent burial. Fortunately, Corder’s spirit seemed content with this compromise, and peace returned to the lives of everyone involved.

At the end of the younger Hopkins’ account of this episode in his 1953 book “Ghosts Over England,” he noted, “if ever you come across a tortoise-shell tinted skull in a japanned cash box, leave it severely alone.”

Excellent advice.  William Corder was clearly a ghost one does not want to cross.

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little story appeared in the “New York Sun,” June 30, 1875:

One evening, a week or two since, a lady residing in one of the southern wards was returning to her home, from a social gathering at a private house, near the hour of midnight.  She was accompanied by a male relative who lived in the house. As they were about to ascend the steps, both glanced upward toward the windows of the second story, and at one of them both saw with perfect distinctness a human face pressed against the pane. The features were not known to either, but presuming it to be a friend of their neighbor (as there more than one family in the house), nothing strange was thought of it at the time.

Before retiring, but after both had bared their feet, the lady and her companion bethought themselves of some article to be procured from the lower part of the house, and as the exact location was known, they descended without a light. On returning, just as the young gentleman placed his foot upon the landing at the head of the stairs he felt beneath it a yielding substance, the shape of which was so clearly defined that he exclaimed, “Why, aunty, I stepped on someone’s thumb!”  At the same instant, the lady putting down her foot responded, “I have stepped on the hand." No sounds of retreating footsteps were heard, and such examination as the darkness permitted failed to discover any human being near them.

On procuring a light, a moment later, both soon satisfied themselves that no creature of flesh and blood was in the immediate vicinity. Wondering, and trembling at the contact with these mysteries, they retired to their beds. 

In the morning simple inquiry, which attracted no attention, elicited the fact that there had been no person in the house the previous night other than the usual members of the family, and a comparison of the features of each one with the face she had seen, a sharp impression of which was fixed in her mind, convinced the lady that it was not that of any one of them.

The most startling and mysterious of the phenomena remains to be told. As if to convince them that their imagination had not been worked upon by any means to create the impression we have detailed, there appeared upon the bottom of the gentleman's foot the next morning, plainly printed in a color quite like blood-red, the facsimile of the thumb he had felt beneath it, and upon the foot of the lady was as clearly discernible the likeness of the inside of a human hand.

"Louisville Courier-Journal," March 30, 1887, via Newspapers.com

Ghosts always have a way of popping up when you least expect them.  One of the most baffling aspects of poltergeist activity is its usual lack of any obvious "trigger" or underlying cause.  Life for its victims is perfectly normal one minute, awash in The Weird the next.  One prime example took place in Bucksville, Kentucky, in 1887.

The household of farmer Samuel H. Glidewell was utterly ordinary until one day early in March.  The first intimation that something was very, very out-of-the-ordinary came when the Glidewell daughters noticed that all the sheets and blankets had been removed from the beds and packed in a box upstairs.  This happened so repeatedly that for several days, the family was forced to keep a continuous watch on the upper rooms.  No one was seen, but the mysterious stripping of the beds somehow continued.  The minute the bedrooms were left unguarded, the bedclothing  would be removed and folded away.  Then, inexplicable streams of water would occasionally run across the rafters.  The family could only conclude that a monkey had escaped from some circus and could find nothing better to do than pack bedding and throw water about.  However, a minute search of the upstairs failed to uncover a monkey, or anyone else for that matter.

Their invisible visitor began to show more blatant hostility.  A plank was removed from the upstairs floor, and old boots and shoes were hurled at the occupants of the lower rooms.  Again, no person or animal could be found.  At night, the Glidewells could hear eerie sounds coming from upstairs, which sounded like the labored breathing of someone who was dying.  If anyone went up to investigate, on their return they would hear a sound of something heavy falling on the steps just behind them.  Furniture would somehow appear and disappear inside of locked rooms.  Perhaps most unsettlingly, one morning Glidewell's son noticed that his gun was missing from his bedroom.  It was eventually found in the adjoining room, with the hammer pulled back.

Not knowing what else to do, Glidewell called in the neighbors to see if any of them could get to the bottom of all this.  Two of them, described as "reliable men as can be found," went upstairs.  They too failed to see anything, but others waiting below suddenly found themselves drenched with water--water that came from no evident source.  These mysterious showers continued.  Without warning, people inside the house would have water fall on them, and others in the room could never see it fall.  A boy who came to see the now locally famed "ghost" ran into a closet to avoid getting drenched.  As anyone who knows the ways of spooks could have predicted, a stream of water cascaded down, soaking him to the skin.

The poltergeist continued to expand its repertoire.  It tore up carpets.  It continued to move furniture around.  On one occasion, a roaring fire was discovered in a securely locked room that had not been opened for years.  One night, the family was awakened by the sounds of violin music and dancing coming from that same locked room.  When the Glidewells finally worked up the courage to enter the room, nothing was found except a candle, which had just nearly burned to the bottom.  The next night, at the stroke of twelve, loud peals of laughter were heard coming from a closet under the staircase.  When one onlooker nervously opened the closet door and peeked inside, he was nearly drowned with a deluge of icy cold water, which was accompanied by more bursts of ghostly laughter.  The following morning when the family entered the dining room, they were greeted by a skull and crossbones at the head of the table.  At each plate was a small sprig of cedar.  [Note: Cedars, known as "burial trees," have a long folkloric connection to cemeteries and various death-related superstitions.  It's an easy guess that these sprigs were not intended to convey anything cheery to the Glidewells.]

This was the last straw for the beleaguered family.  They immediately abandoned the house, taking refuge with a neighbor.  While they were moving out their household goods, the table and chairs suddenly began dancing around the room.  When one of the Glidewells tried grabbing a chair, he received a shock as if from an electric battery.  This was followed by another peal of the sinister laughter.  

The local marshal, accompanied by a posse of armed men, did a prolonged search of the house.  They heard many strange noises, all interspersed with the bursts of mocking laughter, but could find no "rational" explanation for the phenomena.  They left puzzled, exhausted, and not a little unnerved.  

Unfortunately for the Glidewells, their ghost had no wish to be left behind.  It was obviously enjoying their company.  When they moved, so did the spirit, along with its usual bag of tricks.  In their new abode, the family heard the now-familiar demonic laughter and endured the now-familiar drenchings of cold water. One morning, they found that their milk supply had been replaced with a foul-smelling fluid.  On another occasion, the oil was removed from the lamps and replaced with this same repulsive liquid. Doors that had been left securely locked were found wide open.  The mysterious moving of furniture was so frequent as to become practically commonplace.

The strangest event of all took place in the new house.  One night, Mr. Glidewell was just dropping off to sleep when he was suddenly jerked wide awake by...something.  He had not heard or seen anything, but he realized there was some other presence in the room.  In a moment, a pale, bluish light became visible.   It seemed to radiate from outside the house.  When he cautiously crept to the window, he saw, about ten steps away, a ball of pale blue flame about three inches in diameter hovering several feet off the ground.  As he stared at the object, it began to wave to and fro, emitting a strange, flute-like music.  Then, the air around him was filled with an odd perfume, one so overpowering it caused him to collapse on the bed unconscious.  When Glidewell came to the next morning, he found that a wet, blood-red handkerchief of fine fabric, with the initial "U" embroidered in black silk, had been placed upon his forehead.  Although the handkerchief was exhibited to hundreds of curious onlookers, no one could identify it.

Poor Mr. Glidewell was psychologically destroyed by this experience.  It was reported that his "nervous system is shattered and it is feared that total derangement of the mind will speedily follow."  He was desperate to sell his property and move out of state--taking care not to leave the ghost his forwarding address--but he could find no one willing to take the "ghoul-disturbed" place at any price.  After this item, the story seems to have dropped out of the newspapers, so I cannot say when--or if--the Glidewells were finally rid of their persecution.

A man who had drowned many years previously was buried in what eventually became Glidewell's garden.  It was speculated that this man's spirit resented having his eternal rest disturbed, and so was taking a supernatural revenge against the interloping family.  Others suggested it was the spirit of a young girl who had committed suicide in the house in 1869, a short time before the Glidewells moved in.  Those remained only theories, of course.

It is notoriously difficult to get a straight answer out of a poltergeist.

Haunting a house is bad form, but stealing electricity from the rightful residents seems to be going way too far.  The London "Independent," December 6, 1994 (via Newspapers.com):

Heol Fanog House in St David's Without, near Brecon in Wales, has plagued its occupants since they moved in five years ago. Self-employed artist Bill Rich, his wife Liz and three young children, have endured smells of sulphur and church incense, shadowy figures and ghostly footsteps. Their first quarterly electricity bill was £750; electricity is somehow consumed even when the family is away and all the appliances are off. They reckon they had been charged about £3,000 for electricity they hadn't themselves used. The house made the children edgy and the parents listless.

The Riches called in the medium Eddie Burks, who said he found the highest concentration of evil he had ever come across, which was feeding off electricity for its own power. It was also taking it from the family. The electricity board tested the meter twice and found it to be working correctly with no abnormal fluctuation.

Apparently, the Rich family was troubled by various sinister manifestations until they finally fled the house in 1995.  Subsequent residents did not report anything unusual, which just shows that you can never tell with poltergeists.

One of the great charms of old houses is that the many occupants it sees during its long history leave behind many varied and interesting stories.  The Stockton home in Richmond, Kentucky, is no exception.

The large, white, three-story house was built in 1880 by pharmacist Robert C. Stockton.  It remained in the family until 1937, when Stockton family history took a tragic turn.  The home's owner at that time was Edward Stockton, son of the man who built it.  After his pharmacy business was ruined by the Great Depression, Edward sought an end to his troubles by taking poison.  His death and funeral both took place in the family home.

After Edward Stockton's suicide, the home was occupied by various families.  None of them reported anything unusual until June 1983, when the house was bought by David M. Jones and his wife.  Mr. Jones was an attorney and Mrs. Jones was, coincidentally enough, a pharmacist.  If one is a believer in Fate, synchronicity--or perhaps just a cosmic bond between druggists--this might help explain what came next.

A few days after the Joneses moved in, a picture in the dining room suddenly and inexplicably came loose from its nail and crashed to the floor.  Then, a lamp in the front hallway began going on and off on its own.  When the couple replaced it with a new lamp, the same thing happened.

On the night of July 19, 1983, things really began to get weird.  At about 2:20 a.m., Mr. Jones suddenly awakened to a most disconcerting sight:  a woman was standing at the foot of the bed.  He later said, "It was just like what you would envision a ghost to look like.  She was dressed in layers and layers, vapory, flowing.  It was not really something physical, but more like an image."  The apparition had blond shoulder-length hair, sunken eyes with blackish-blue eyelids, and deep half-moon creases about the mouth.  "You could tell she was very upset," he added.

I would bet that Mr. Jones was, as well.

The being began to speak to him, in a voice that was deep and coarse and "wasn't human."  All he could make out from what she said were the words "picture" and "funeral."  Then the spirit vanished.

The next morning, the couple found that baskets that had been hanging in the kitchen were now scattered over the floor.  This postscript to Mr. Jones' uncanny encounter emboldened him to tell his wife of what he had experienced.  Mrs. Jones, probably thinking her husband was in need of one of her prescriptions, treated his story with skepticism.

She did not remain a doubter for long.  Not long afterward, Mr. Jones began to clear out a small attic-like room on the third floor.  It was full of old papers, boxes, and knick-knacks--the sort of relics that any old house inevitably accumulates.  And then he came across an oil painting dated "January 27, 1891."  It was a portrait of an old woman, dressed in mourning.

The old woman who had appeared by his bed.

Mr. Jones took the painting to a psychic, who confirmed that yes indeed, this was a portrait of his ghost, who was probably lingering in the home because of the death of some loved one.  After doing some research, Mr. Jones surmised that the ghost was Mary Catherine, wife of Edward Dorsey Stockton, who died in 1891.  Mary Catherine passed away in 1898, at the age of 69.  On the psychic's advice, the Joneses had the portrait re-framed and hung it in the dining room.

The psychic told Mr. Jones that he would probably see the ghost again around Christmas, as the spirit was fond of that holiday.  The psychic advised him, "You will look into a huge mirror with a gold frame around it in the hallway, and see her sitting in the background."

The psychic was a bit off on her timeline.  Mary Catherine did not make herself visible again until February 1984.  One day, Mr. Jones happened to glance into the mirror in the front hallway..and, sure enough, there she was, sitting in a chair in the parlor.  Some time after that, even though he was alone in the house, he felt a warm spot on the couch in the parlor, as if someone had just sat there.  

Although Mr. Jones felt the ghost was friendly and harmless, he developed a distaste for being in the house alone.  Oddly enough, his wife never saw any sign of the spirit.  However, according to the psychic, Mary Catherine enjoyed watching Mrs. Jones in the kitchen. 

On Memorial Day 1985, the Joneses visited a grave in Richmond Cemetery.  As they went past the graves of the Stocktons, they noticed that the tombstone of Matthew, son of Mary Catherine, had fallen over.  The next morning, a lamp in their dining room began flashing on and off in a particularly pointed manner.

By this time, Mr. Jones had become fluent in ghost-speak.  He said aloud, "All right, Mrs. Stockton, I'm going to call the cemetery and have them put Matthew's tombstone back up."  The lamp never flickered again.

The Stockton home was next door to the fraternity house of Tau Kappa Epsilon.  Some of the members informed the Joneses that during the two years the home was empty before the couple moved in, lights could be seen periodically going on and off inside the residence.  A past president of the fraternity, Todd Taylor, had briefly lived on the second floor of the Stockton home.  On several occasions, he heard doors open and shut, when he knew no one else was around.  He never saw Mary Catherine.  However, there were times when he thought she was in his room at night, but he was too frightened to open his eyes to check.  "Now, I'm not saying there is a ghost, but I'm not saying there isn't, either," he commented, adding, "there are some awfully suspicious things."

In October 1985, the "Lexington Herald Leader" did a story on the Stockton family ghost.  Subsequently, a man who had lived in the house in the 1970s contacted Jones.  He said he had had experiences very similar to what Mr. Jones was going through.  Although the newspaper had not given any detailed description of the ghost, this caller was able to describe Mary Catherine perfectly.

A few years ago, author Keven McQueen contacted the Joneses, who confirmed to him that Mary Catherine was still one very lively spirit.  Although his wife never did see the ghost, Mr. Jones would encounter her on a regular basis, developing an odd sort of fondness for his spirit houseguest.  Mrs. Jones' father lived in the house with them until his death in 1989.  Every now and then, he would comment, "There's a haint in this house."  He refused to elaborate on this statement.

On one occasion, the Joneses were having a dinner party.  As everyone sat around the table, they all were treated to the sight of drawers of a sideboard opening and closing on their own. 

"Who's doing that?" one of the guests asked.

"Mrs. Stockton," came the obvious reply.

On another day, a friend was visiting the house.  As she and Mr. Jones were chatting, the visitor suddenly grew pale and quiet.  Jones immediately surmised that Mary Catherine was in the vicinity.  The visitor admitted that she had seen a woman standing in a doorway.  The ghost was all in black, with her hair in a black net.  (Curiously, Mrs. Stockton had previously always worn white.  Even more oddly, this guest was the only known woman to have seen the ghost.  For whatever inexplicable paranormal reasons, Mary Catherine liked to show herself only to males.)

The Joneses told McQueen that the psychic who had advised them about the painting had told them that eventually they would have a son, which would greatly please Mrs. Stockton.  In 1993, they were indeed blessed with a baby boy.  Although they never mentioned the ghost to their son, Mary Catherine soon made herself known to him.  When he was only a toddler, he would complain to his parents about the "witch" who lived at the top of the stairs.

The last time Mr. Jones saw Mary Catherine was in 1998, when she mumbled something about a fan.  Just to see what would happen, he bought an old-fashioned cardboard fan and left it on a desk.  The fan subsequently would vanish and reappear in odd places throughout the house.

In 2001, the Joneses moved out of the house, giving the new owner fair warning about their spectral tenant.  This latest owner of the home was not a believer in ghosts. One of the first things he did was to take down the portrait of Mrs. Stockton.  Soon afterward, he lost his job.  His mother came to visit, and died on her first night there.

Mary Catherine was not a ghost to be crossed.

Via Newspapers.com

This account of weird times at a seminary school appeared in the “St. Louis Post Dispatch,” July 8, 1906:

NASHOTAH, Wis., July 7.--At commencement time at the Nashotah Theological Seminary, a stronghold of high-church Episcopalianism in the west, you heard a strange story which concerns the man who not only founded the work here, but was also the pioneer of the Episcopalian establishment at Faribault, Minn. At this point is the theological seminary and three miles away at Delafleld Is the military academy, St. John's, which constitutes the group of schools the Rev. William Lloyd Breck began in Wisconsin.

Rev. William Lloyd Breck was known as “The Pioneer of the Church,” in Episcopalian circles. After he founded the Seabury mission, he went on to California, where he established St. Augustine’s college for boys, and St. Mary’s of the Pacific for girls, at Benicia. He died and was buried there. Several years later, the Wisconsin church asked that his body be transferred to the scene of his early labors and it was exhumed and brought to Nashotah.

After his arrival the casket containing the remains lay for a time on the ground floor of one of the seminary buildings, where each night watchers sat with it until the time for the ceremonies attending the reburial should arrive. On the night before these ceremonies, the watchers were Rev. James Ashmun of Chicago, and Rev. Charles P. Dorset, at the time of his death presiding over a parish in Texas, but then and until within the last few years as a resident of La Crosse, Wis. Along in the hours toward morning, the Chicago clergymen left the building for a little turn in the fresh air, but in a moment came rushing back with the exclamation: 

“Dorset, Dorset, the woods are full of ghosts.”

Both clergymen went out. In every direction through the trees they saw figures flitting hither and thither in a wild and fitful dance. The clergymen approached them, but the figures in front drew back, moving off to the left and right of them. The clergymen asked themselves several questions. Had the farming population of the lonely neighborhood turned out to dance there in the small hours of the morning in the seminary woods? Were the staid theological students out at an unseemly hour, on a night made solemn as the eve of the reburial of the founder of the school? And even if farmers or students had been moved to do such strange things, where did they get the untiring strength that made these creatures in the woods dance so constantly and so lightly?

The clergymen did not believe the apparitions were men, nor did they afterwards learn that anybody had been abroad in the woods at that time. They were convinced that the figures were ghosts, or that some strange phantasmagoria had deceived not one mind, but two, which an illusion does not often do. But the strange experience of the watchers had not ended. In the morning when the casket was moved, there was a round hole burned through the floor on the spot where the casket stood. A heap of old papers underneath the floor also had been burned. Had fire found its way underneath the building to this spot in the mass of paper, and so up through the floor? Perhaps. The freaks of the real are often as strange as anything we attribute to the unreal.

But several things must be noted. If the fire came in under the floor from without, it escaped setting fire to other debris in its progress. Moreover, the appearance of the hole and the area of burned paper seemed to indicate that the fire had burned from above downward, like the ray of a burning glass. How did the fire come to burn the hole under the casket, which, it must be explained, rested directly upon the floor?

A few nights later, the faculty of the institution sat in the office of Dr. Gardner, the president, discussing the recent mystifying events. Suddenly their discussion was terminated by a tremendous racket just outside the door. Waiting a moment in the hope it would cease, Dr. Gardner threw open the door. The noise ceased instantly. All was silent and dark in the hall.

Whoever it was had taken himself off with a rapidity that was astounding. Three times more the noise was resumed and three times it ceased as the door was jerked open and two searchers of the building failed to discover in it a living soul except the members of the facility. When Dr. Gardner had looked out a fourth time upon an untenanted corridor, he said, “If you are gentlemen, you will cease this disturbance.” It did not begin again.

In any other than a theological school, such a manifestation would be assigned to a very natural cause, but there is the presumption that theological students do not indulge in such unseemly pranks. While students might play tricks upon their own number in their own lodging, it seemed strange that they should go into another building to annoy their faculty. Between believing in ghosts and the impeccability of clerical neophytes, it must be said many of the clergy incline to attribute the disturbance to ghosts, while the students themselves in relating this tale, say it is a queer magnifying of a trivial student joke, unseemly, to be sure, but one which some postulant for holy orders did not perpetrate.

After the burial of Dr. Beck, a photograph was taken of the cemetery of the seminary. One of the students was the photographer. In the foreground of the picture can be seen two graves, just as they appear in the cemetery. But at the foot of each grave stands its occupant, Rev. Dr. Cole, former president of the seminary, in full canonical. At the foot of the other, stands the counterfeit presentment of its occupant, a lady who during life was a benefactor of the seminary. 

As in many other unexplainable phenomena, we may dismiss all these queer tales of a theological seminary by repudiating the testimony purporting to substantiate them. At Nashotah no one does this. At Nashotah, the testimony is believed to be unimpeachable.

Via Newspapers.com

An unusual prowler was reported in the “London Daily Mirror,” February 13, 1974:

A one-legged barefoot ghost seemed to keep a step ahead of the police who answered a burglar alarm call yesterday. 

For when they answered the call at the home of Mr. Kenneth Broadhead in Ashill, near Thetford, Norfolk--they found the house supernaturally secure, with nothing stolen. 

And the only clue nearly made their hair stand on end. 

That was a single spooky row of footprints--all made by the same foot--which had hopped across the floor of a room and stopped against a solid brick wall.

Then the ghost apparently de-materialised through a door and set off the burglar alarm. 

A senior police officer said: “Apparently it is the ghost of a one-legged Jesuit priest, and it is known at the house. 

“But why set off a burglar alarm when you can just melt through a door?”

Why, indeed?

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little story--which I suppose goes into the “bits of random weirdness” file--comes from the “New York Sun,” June 25, 1882:

The boarding house at 52 Willoughby street, Brooklyn, is one of a three-story, painted, brick row, on the south side, between Jay and Lawrence streets, a few doors only from the residence of Hugh McLaughlin, and is kept by Mr. and Mrs. William Swift, formerly of Boston, who leased it early in the present year.

The back parlor was let to a lady from Chicago, but about two months ago she suddenly went away, and the room, with a bedroom adjoining it, was rented to a young married couple, who yet occupy it. The room is very prettily furnished and ornamented with bric-a-brac. The walls are adorned with paintings and engravings, while the windows and doorways are heavily curtained. The following stories are told concerning these rooms: 

The couple had occupied the room only a few nights when the springs of a clock standing on the mantelpiece, and known to the trade as a carriage clock, began occasionally to vibrate with a sudden force, thereby transforming the ordinary tick into a sound likened to a prolonged mournful cry. This would occur while the occupants of the room were seated at the table, and sometimes it would break out in the middle of the night, when they were asleep. This peculiar noise has continued at irregular intervals ever since. The clock continued to keep good time, and there did not seem, on inspection, to be anything the matter with it.

Recently there has appeared in the room several times a floating, vaporous body which assumes the shape of a huge foot ball. It is of a dark color, and is transparent. It will start from a corner of the ceiling. take a downward course. and float slowly across the parlor, through the curtained doorway of the bedroom, and disappear under the bed.

In one instance it was discerned by a pet dog lying in his mistress's lap. With a bound the dog was upon the floor barking at it loudly. Two of the occupants of the room were riveted to their chairs, while the effect upon the third, who was lying sick in the bed, is described as like that of a severe electric shock. During the last few nights slight rappings have been heard.

On Thursday night the light was extinguished about 11 o'clock, and just as the couple had fallen asleep a loud pounding awakened them. The pounding ceased for a few seconds, only to be renewed in the shape of loud raps, which appeared to come from a small table by the fireplace. They sounded as though they were caused by a knuckle coming in contact with wood. The table is small, of common wood, and is covered with a cloth which would somewhat muffle the sound of a rap.

The raps heard were sharp and could not have been produced by striking upon the cloth. A thorough investigation failed to elicit any cause for the mysterious rappings, which were kept up almost without cessation until the dawn of day. There was also a rustling sound at intervals, as though something was moving through the air. The curtains trembled. 

The occupants of the house believe that a natural cause will eventually be found for the annoyance, but it is added that there are peculiar circumstances surrounding the affair which are very distressing.