wiseacres who no sooner insist that superstition has died out than the
familiar headline in the daily paper, “A haunted house,” stares them
full in the face. It is believed that many such houses stand tenantless
to-day because of the secret fear they inspire in the minds of the
timid or superstitious, who, quite naturally, shrink from living under
the same roof with disembodied spirits. It has already been noted that
M. Camille Flammarion is a firm believer in haunted houses. Here is
what he has to say upon that much debated subject:--
“There is no longer any room to doubt the fact that certain houses are
haunted.
“I began the scientific studies of these questions on November 15,
1861, and I have continued it ever since. I have received more than
four thousand letters upon these questions from the learned men of
every land, and I am glad to be able to say that some of the most
interesting letters come from America.”
For every haunted house there must, of course, be an invisible intruder
who comes only in the small hours, when the effects of its unwelcome
presence would, of course, be most terrifying to weak nerves. But
it is to be remarked that we hear nothing nowadays of the old-time,
hair-raising, blood-curdling ghost whose coming forebode something
terrible about to happen, or who had some awful revelation to make.
That type of ghost has passed away. The modern ghost never makes set
speeches in a sepulchral voice or leaves a palpable smell of brimstone
behind. It comes rather in a spirit of mischief-making, shown in such
petty annoyances as setting the house bells ringing, overturning
articles of furniture, twitching the bedclothes from off a sleeping
person in the coldest of cold nights, putting out the lights, or
making a horrible racket, first in one room, then in another, as if it
revelled in pure wantonness of purpose. In short, there is no limit to
the ingenious deviltries perpetrated by this nocturnal disturber of
domestic peace and quiet.
After two or three sleepless nights, followed by days of quaking
apprehension, the occupants usually move out, declaring that they would
not live in the house if it were given to them. And so it stands vacant
indefinitely, shunned by all to whom its evil reputation has become
known, a visible monument of active superstition.
That all these things have happened as lately as in this year of
grace (1900) is too well known to be denied. And as most people would
desire to shun publicity in such a matter, there are probably very many
cases that never reach the public eye at all. One such is reported of
a family at Charlestown, Massachusetts, being disturbed by strange
noises, as of some one pounding on the walls or floors at all hours of
the night. Even the police, when summoned, failed to lay hands on the
invisible tormentor, who, like the ghost in Hamlet, was here, there,
and nowhere in a jiffy.
One of the most singular cases that have come to my knowledge, perhaps
because the unaccountable disturbances happened in the daytime, whereas
they habitually occur only in the night-time, when churchyards are
supposed to yawn, was that of a haunted schoolhouse. This was downright
bravado. If we do not err, in this case a bell was repeatedly rung
during the regular sessions, by no visible agency, to the amazement
of both teachers and scholars. After a vain search for the cause, the
schoolhouse was shut up, and so remained for a considerable time, a
speechless but tangible witness to the general belief that the devil
was at the bottom of it all.
Not many generations ago, when ghosts were perhaps more numerous than
at present, there were professional exorcists who could be hired to
clear the premises of ghosts or no pay; but this is now a lost art. As
Shakespeare says:--
“No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!”
While upon this interesting subject it may be instructive to know what
our ancestors sometimes suffered from similar visitations. We take the
following extract from Ben Franklin’s _New England Courant_, of 1726:--
“They write from Plymouth, that an extraordinary event has lately
happened in that neighborhood, in which, some say, the Devil and the
man of the house are very much to blame. The man it seems, would now
and then in a frolic call upon the Devil to come down the chimney;
and some little time after the last invitation, the goodwife’s pudding
turned black in the boiling, which she attributed to the Devil’s
descending the chimney, and getting into the pot upon her husband’s
repeated wishes for him. Great numbers of people have been to view the
pudding, and to inquire into the circumstances; and most of them agree
that so sudden a change must be produced by a preternatural power.
However, ’tis thought it will have this good effect upon the man, that
he will no more be so free with the Devil in his cups, lest his Satanic
Majesty should again unluckily tumble into the pot.”
But houses are by no means the only things subject to these astounding
visitations. Dark and secluded ponds, thick swamps, and barren
hillsides often bear that unsavory reputation to-day, it may be from
association with some weird tale or legend, or mayhap because such
places seldom fail, of themselves, to produce a certain effect upon
an active imagination. Let any such person, who has ever been lost
in some thick forest, recall his sensations upon first making the
unwelcome discovery. The solemn old woods then seem all alive with--
“The dim and shadowy armies of our unquiet dreams,
Their footsteps brush the dewy fern and print the shaded streams.”
As regards haunted ships, the following incident, taken down as
literally as I could transcribe it at the time, from the lips of a
seafaring friend, speaks for itself:--
“‘Twas some dozen year ago, may be less, may be more--beats all how
time travels when you’ve turned the half-century post--I was aboard
of the old _Paul Pry_--queer name, now, warn’t it? We was a lyin’ in
Havana harbor, all snug, about a mile from shore. Well, the mate he
was on watch. In port, you know, ships always keep slack watch. Our’n
was light, nothin’ in her, hold all swep’ out clean that very day,
’cause we was to begin takin’ in sugar and molasses in the mornin’. All
hands were off in the ship’s boat visitin’ another ship--all ’cept the
steward. The old man, he was ashore.
“I’m slow, but you just hold your hosses. All to once’t the mate
thought he heern somebody walkin’ back’ards and for’ards plumb down in
the hold. He walked to the open hatch and called down, ‘Who’s there?’
No answer. He listened. No sound. Thinkin’ it might possibly have
been the steward getting his firewood, the mate went for’ard to the
steward’s room to see if it was so, and found him fast asleep in his
bunk. That settled it. Nobody aboard but them two.
“The mate he said nothin’ to nobody, but got a lantern and slipped
quietly down the ladder into the hold, determined to find out who was
skylarkin’ there, for I tell you the mate he was a game one all the
time, and don’t you b’leeve he warn’t!
“He hunted high and low, from the fore-peak to the run, but not a soul
was to be seen anywhere; but just as soon as he stood still he would
hear those myster’ous footsteps go trampin’ fore and aft, fore and aft,
as plain as day, right by him, where he stood.
“By this time the mate had got pretty well worked up, I want you to
know, so he just gin one kinder skeered look around him, and then
hustled himself off up that ladder just a leetle mite faster than he
came down, wonderin’ to himself what it all could mean, and thinkin’
all sorts of things to once’t.
“Then he went and woke up the steward, and both on ’em went and
listened fust at one hatch, then at t’other, and sure enough that
consarned tramp, tramp, tramp, was a-goin’ on agin just the same as
before. Then they pulled on the hatches. But, Lor’ bless you, it warn’t
no use. Them critters down below had the bulge on ’em every time.
“The mate he said nothin’ ’cept to the old man, who looked as black as
a new-painted deadeye with the lanyards unrove when he heerd it; but
somehow it leaked out among the crew before we sailed, and one or two
ran away and laid low till the ship was clean out of the harbor.
“It was gen’lly b’leeved fore and aft that them there footsteps was
a warnin’. Hows’ever, the thing quieted down some in a day or two, so
nothin’ more was heerd of the walkin’ match down below; but on the
third day out, I think it was, we was struck by one of them northers,
and in spite of all we could do we was drove ashore on a reef off the
Bermudys, where the _Paul Pry_ brought up all standin’, and there she
left her old bones. The wreckers they came and took off the crew, and
fetched ’em all safe into Nassau. Now if that ship warn’t haunted, I
miss my guess. You can’t most always tell about them things, I know;
but ef it was skylarkin’, all I’ve got to say is, it was a purty neat
job, and don’t you forget it.”
There are also places, as well as houses, which have the reputation
of being haunted, sometimes through the commission of a horrible
crime in that particular locality, sometimes through the survival of
some obscure local tradition. It matters not. Once give the place a
bad name, and local tradition preserves the memory of it for many
generations. Every schoolboy is familiar with the weird legend of
Nix’s Mate, a submerged island at the entrance to Boston Harbor,
where pirates were formerly hung in chains. Appledore Island, on the
coast of New Hampshire, once had the name of being haunted by the
uneasy ghost of one of Captain Kidd’s piratical crew. The face of the
spectre was said by those who had seen it, or who thought they had
seen it, to be dreadful to behold, and the neck to bear the livid
mark of the hangman’s noose. Once, no islander could be found hardy
enough to venture himself on Appledore after dark. Indeed, such places
of fearsome reputation are found all over New England. For example,
there is the shrieking woman of Marblehead, a remarkable spook, who at
certain intervals of time could be heard uttering the most heartrending
cries for mercy to her inhuman murderers. Then, again, there is the
legend of Harry Main, reputed pirate and wrecker, who, by means of
false lights, decoyed simple mariners to destruction on the shoals of
Ipswich Bar, to which for his many crimes the wretch was doomed to be
chained down to the fatal spot to which he had lured his unsuspecting
victims.[20]
Quite naturally these legends mostly cluster about the seacoast,
but now and then one is found in the interior. One corner of the
town of Chester, New Hampshire, lifts into view an eminence known as
Rattlesnake Hill, one rocky side of which is pierced entirely through,
thus forming a cavern of great notoriety in all the country round. This
cavern is known as the Devil’s Den, and many were the frightful stories
told around winter firesides of the demons who, of yore, haunted it,
and who, all unseen of mortal eyes, there held their midnight orgies
within the gloomy recesses of the mountain.
There are two entrances to this cavern, both leading to an interior,
subterranean chamber, whose vaulted roof is thickly studded with
pear-shaped protuberances that are said to shine and sparkle when the
flame of a torch sheds a ruddy glow upon them. According to popular
tradition the path leading to the cavern was always kept open, summer
and winter. Many years ago the poet Whittier put the legend into
verse:--
“’Tis said that this cave is an evil place--
The chosen haunt of a fallen race--
That the midnight traveller oft hath seen
A red flame tremble its jaws between,
And lighten and quiver the boughs among,
Like the fiery play of a serpent’s tongue:
That sounds of fear from its chambers swell--
The ghostly gibber,--the fiendish yell;
That bodiless hands at the entrance wave--
And hence they have named it the Demon’s Cave.”
The persistent life of such local traditions as these fully attests to
the belief of former generations of men in the active agency of the
Evil One in human affairs. And not only this, but this omnipresent
devil has actually left his mark, legibly stamped, in so many places,
and his name in so many others, that to doubt his actual presence were
not only unreasonable but ungenerous. Even his footprints are found
here and there, yet strange to say, few represent a cloven foot. The
sonorous names, Devil’s Pulpit and Devil’s Cartway, are found within
a few miles of each other on the coast of Maine. Moreover, do we not
know from a perusal of the testimony given at the celebrated witchcraft
trials, that the arch-fiend had been both seen and spoken with _in
propria persona_?
It used to be a not uncommon threat with quick-tempered people to
say that if their wishes or expectations were not gratified to their
liking, they would “haunt you” when they died. I myself have often
heard this expression used either in jest or in earnest; and when used
it never failed to leave a disagreeable impression on the listener.
It is not a great many years ago since an account was telegraphed all
over the country, and duly appeared in the daily newspapers, of an
honest citizen, a resident of one of the largest towns in Pennsylvania,
whose wife “while yet in good health, frequently admonished her
friends that she did not wish her body to be buried in a certain
wet graveyard. She threatened to ‘speak to them’ if her wish was not
granted, and went so far as to tell them how she would haunt them by
coming back in ghostly form. The wife died, and her body was buried
in the graveyard she had disliked. Now, strange as it may appear, her
husband alleges that, since the funeral took place, she has appeared at
his bedside several times each week, always looking at him, and always
making motions with her bony hands, as a mark of her displeasure.
The husband says he is unable to sleep, and also that he is sure the
strange midnight visitor is none other than his wife. He declares that
whatever other people may think of it, he himself firmly believes that
he has brought the enmity of the spirit upon himself and children by
their refusal to grant the wife’s last request. The children’s beds
are also visited by her, as they say, and as a consequence the family
is kept in constant alarm. One of the nearest neighbors has also seen
the ‘spook’ several times, and corroborates the family in every
particular. The terrified husband relates the facts himself, and it is
the responsibility of the man that warrants publishing his story of the
appearance of the spook. He gives the account of the strange happenings
in a straightforward manner, which impresses a person with its truth,
and he further says it is not imagination, a dream, or an attack of
nightmare, but that the spook always comes when he is wide awake. The
women and children of the neighborhood are in great terror, and the
people hardly venture out of doors after dark.”
Upon the heels of this experience comes the following telegram to the
Associated Press, thus disseminating, through its thousand channels,
superstition broadcast:--
[“Copyright, 1899, by The Associated Press.]
“LONDON, March 4, 1899. Another link in the chain of illfortune
which has followed the famous Newstead Abbey was forged this
week. It seems that a curse rests on the abbey, and that the
eldest has never succeeded to the estate.
“Byron sold it to Col. Wildman in 1808, who died childless. The
trustees sold it to Webb, the famous sportsman, whose eldest
son died this week. Byron had the skull which was reported to
have belonged to the ghost that haunted the abbey, and he used
it as a punch bowl. Webb buried the skull, hoping to lay the
ghost.”
As related to the general subject, it is too well known that certain
persons to-day profess the power of conversing with disembodied
spirits, to need more than a passing reference to this particular form
of belief, which some hold to as firmly as to an article of religious
faith, while others consider it a delusion or worse. Forty odd years
ago spirit rappings convulsed society from one end of the country to
the other. Spiritual séances were vehemently denounced from the pulpit,
and while fully reported also by the press, the mediums were charged
with being rank impostors, humbugs, and the like. Alleged exposure
followed exposure. Yet somehow the belief, such as it is, has contrived
to outlive ridicule, calumny, and persecution--the common lot of every
new and startling departure from the older beliefs--until to-day it has
acquired not only the right to live, but also that of calm discussion.
Dr. Samuel Johnson once asked the pertinent question, “If moral evil
be consistent with the government of the Deity, why may not physical
evil be consistent with it?” The solemn declaration that the sins of
the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and
fourth generations, sometimes recurs to us with startling force, more
especially when the awful anathema is brought so near home to us as it
is by the following veracious incident.[21]
There is a certain well-known locality in Essex County, Massachusetts,
which has long borne the evil reputation of being haunted, owing to
the tradition that a cruel murder was committed there. According to
some of the old people from whom I had the story, strange sights and
sounds have been both seen and heard near the spot where the crime took
place. For instance, a child would be heard crying out most pitifully,
though nothing could be seen. One belated horseman positively declared
that when passing this accursed place he had seen a child’s coffin
moving along the road, as he moved; and that the spectre followed him
almost into the town of Ipswich. It is said to be a fact that many of
the old folks were afraid to pass this place of dread after dark.
As to the origin of the story, with its highly dramatic features,
accounts differ somewhat; but considerable pains have been taken to
arrive at the truth, since it is a matter of general notoriety in
the neighborhood referred to, although the actual facts may have no
relation whatever to the “skeleton in the closet” disclosed by the
story itself.
The story goes back to colonial times, and chiefly has to do with the
two daughters of a family in good social standing. These young women
had for a serving-maid a negro slave, who was treated with marked
severity by her haughty mistresses.
In time, the slave woman bore a child. Angered at the coming of the
luckless little waif, the cruel sisters resolved to put it out of the
way. One day the mother found it hid away in a hogshead of flax, in the
garret. Failing in this attempt, the sisters then took the child, stuck
pins into its veins, and tried to smother it between two feather beds.
When the infant was thought to be quite dead, the body was thrown into
a brook, under a nearby bridge which spanned it. Life, however, was
not quite extinct, so that the child’s cries were heard by a passing
traveller, who rescued it, but it soon after bled to death from the
wounds inflicted upon it.
Half crazed by this dastardly act, the forlorn mother then and there
called down the curse of God upon the inhuman sisters and their sons
to all future generations.
This is substantially the legend. Now for the sequel. It is said to
be a fact that all the sons of the daughters of that family, and no
others, have ever since been afflicted with a strange and incurable
malady, the principal feature being a tendency to profuse bleeding
from the most trifling cuts or wounds. After some days have elapsed, a
mere scratch will begin to bleed copiously and so continue until the
sufferer has lost so much blood that in some cases it is said he has
bled to death. From this circumstance the persons so afflicted are
known by the name of “bleeders.”
Mr. Felt asserts that the family in which this singular hemorrhage
first appeared brought it with them from England; which, if true, would
summarily dispose of the legend; but his statement does not accord with
the story as told on the spot. It is here related as it was told to me.
Reference was earlier made to the old-time, respectable ghost of our
fathers, who like the ghost in Hamlet, made his unwelcome appearance
only to subserve the ends of justice. This practical generation
hardly realizes, we think, how lately the ghost was accepted in that
character, or how trustworthy his evidence was deemed by the purveyors
of public intelligence. On turning over the files of the _New England
Weekly Journal_ of December 1, 1729, we came across the following ghost
story, here reproduced _verbatim_:--
“Last week, one belonging to Ipswich came to Boston and related that
some time since he was at Canso in Nova Scotia, and that on a certain
day there appeared to him an apparition in blood and wounds, and told
him that at such a time and place, mentioning both, he was barbarously
murdered by one, who was at Rhode Island, and desired him to go to the
said person and charge him with the said murder, and prosecute him
therefor, naming several circumstances relating to the murder; and
that since his arrival from Canso to Ipswich the said apparition had
appeared to him again, and urged him immediately to prosecute the said
affair. The abovesaid person having related the matter was advised and
encouraged to go to Rhode Island and engage therein, and he accordingly
set out for that place on Thursday last.”[22]
Dr. Timothy Dwight, in his “Travels,” records, with approval, the
following singular superstition relative to the barberry, which is so
common in New England. “This bush,” he remarks, “is, in New England,
generally believed to blast both wheat and rye. Its blossoms, which are
very numerous, and continue a considerable time, emit very copiously
a pungent effluvium believed to be so acrimonious as to injure
essentially both these kinds of grain.
“In Southborough, a township in the county of Worcester, a Mr. Johnson
sowed with rye a field of new ground. At the south end of this field
also grew a single barberry bush. The grain was blasted throughout the
whole length of the field, on a narrow tract commencing at the bush
and proceeding directly in the course, and to the extent, to which the
blossoms were diffused by the wind.”
Certes, that was a most extraordinary belief held by the simple country
folk in a certain quiet corner of New England, that candles made of
the tallow obtained from a dead body, would, when lighted, render the
person carrying them invisible; and furthermore that a lighted candle
of this description, if placed within a bedroom, would effectually
prevent a sleeping person from waking until it should be extinguished.
This I had from the lips of a most intelligent and estimable lady, who
knew whereof she spoke.
I confess that on hearing this statement I realized that I had now
found more than I was looking for. But incredible as it may seem at
first, all doubts were set at rest by the following article found
among some fragments of old superstition in a certain treatise on that
subject. Here is the article verbatim:--
“The Hand of Glory is a piece of foreign superstition common in France,
Germany, and Spain; and is a charm used by housebreakers and assassins.
It is the hand of a hanged man, holding a candle made of the fat of a
hanged man, virgin wax, and siasme of Lapland. It stupefies those to
whom it is presented, and renders them motionless, insomuch that they
could not stir, any more than if they were dead.”
I do not find any recent mention of the appearance of that ancient
bugbear known as the Will-o’-the-wisp, or magical Jack-o’-lantern,
associated with the unearthly light sometimes seen flitting about
ancient graveyards. Science has practically accounted for this natural
phenomenon to the general acceptance; but science has not yet been able
to do away with the instinctive dread with which the vicinity of a
graveyard is associated in most minds. I well remember how, when a lad,
I dreaded to pass a graveyard after dark. There was a sickly feeling
of something lurking among those ghostly looking tombstones. I looked
another way. I whistled, I looked behind me. Vain effort! I ran from
the spot as if all the ghosts my fears had conjured up were close at my
heels.