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Some Real American Ghosts
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At precisely 12.30 of the clock every night, so it is said, the door of the room occupied by the Committee on Military and Militia of the Senate opens silently, and there steps forth the figure of General Logan, recognizable by his long black hair, military carriage, and the hat he was accustomed to wear in life.
Logan was the chairman of this committee, and, if report be credited, he is still supervising its duties.
A GENUINE GHOST
(Philadelphia _Press_, March 25, 1884)
DAYTON, O., March 25.--A thousand people surround the grave yard in Miamisburg, a town near here, every night to witness the antics of what appears to be a genuine ghost. There is no doubt about the existence of the apparition, as Mayor Marshall, the revenue collector and hundreds of prominent citizens all testify to having seen it. Last night several hundred people, armed with clubs and guns, assaulted the specter, which appeared to be a woman in white. Clubs, bullets and shot tore the air in which the mystic figure floated without disconcerting it in the least. A portion of the town turned out en masse to-day and began exhuming all the bodies in the cemetery.
The remains of the Buss family, composed of three people, have already been exhumed. The town is visited daily by hundreds of strangers and none are disappointed, as the apparition is always on duty promptly at 9 o'clock. The strange figure was at once recognized by the inhabitants of the town as a young lady supposed to have been murdered several years ago. Her attitude while drifting among the graves is one of deep thought, with the head inclined forward and hands clasped behind.
THE BAGGAGEMAN'S GHOST
"The corpses of the passengers killed in the disaster up at Spuyten Duyvil was fetched down here and laid out in[1] The room was darkened and I could just make out the out that storage room," said a Grand Central depot baggageman. "That's what give it the name of morgue. Some of the boys got scared of going in after that, 'specially in the dark; and a lot of stories was started about spooks. We had a helper (a drunken chap that didn't know whether he saw a thing or dreamed it), and he swore to the toughest of the yarns. He says he went in to get a trunk. It was a whopper, and he braced himself for a big strain; but, when he gripped it, it come up just as if there wasn't nothing in it more'n air or gas. That unexpected kind of a lift is like kicking at nothing--it's hurtful, don't you know?"
"I should think so."
"Well, Joe felt as light-headed as the trunk, he says, but he brought it out. When he was putting it down he was stunned to see a ghost sitting straddle of it."
"What did the ghost look like?"
"Joe was so scared that he can't tell, except that it had grave-clothes on. And it went out of sight as soon as he got out into the daylight--floated off, and at the same instant the trunk became as heavy as such a trunk generally is. Some of us believe Joe's story, and some don't, and he's one of them that does. He throwed up his job rather than go into the morgue again."
DRUMMERS SEE A SPECTER
(St Louis _Globe-Democrat_, Oct. 6, 1887)
[The last man in the world to be accused of a belief in the supernatural would be your go-ahead, hard-headed American "drummer" or traveling-man. Yet here is a plain tale of how not one but two of the western fraternity saw a genuine ghost in broad daylight a few years ago.--ED.]
JACKSON, MO., October 6. At a place on the Turnpike road, between Cape Girardeau and Jackson, is what is familiarly known as Spooks' Hollow. The place is situated fours miles from the Cape and is awfully dismal looking where the road curves gracefully around a high bluff.
Two drummers, representing a single leading wholesale house of St. Louis, were recently making the drive from Jackson to the Cape, when their attention was suddenly attracted at the Spooks' Hollow by a white and airy object which arose in its peculiar form so as to be plainly visible and then maneuvered in every imaginable manner, finally taking a zigzag wayward journey through the low dismal-looking surroundings, disappearing suddenly into the mysterious region from whence it came.
More than one incident of dreadful experience has been related of this gloomy abode, and the place is looked upon by the midnight tourist and the lonesome citizen on his nocturnal travels as an unpleasant spot, isolated from the beautiful country which surrounds it.