Ghosts in the House
The Springfield, Mo. Republican published this untitled article on April 17, 1897, p. 3. The article was originally published in the Cassville Republican.
"Mrs. S. A. Spurlock, who is in her 85th year, has been somewhat singularly operated upon in the last six months by something in the form of a ghost or a haunt. It is said that her bedstead will begin to crack and then fall down and it cannot be fixed so tight or strong but what it will fall. Then there will be a noise heard just like the falling and breaking of a car load of queensware, or other noises so frightful that those who go to see and hear will leave the place. Parties who said they were brave enough to stay there all night when the bedstead breaks and the moans and groans of the living and all of those frightful noises began, their bravery forsakes them, they take the wead[sic] trembles [possibly meant to be weak trembles?] and leave the place. A number of people have gone to see and hear and all say they never saw nor heard anything like it. They have written to a witch doctor for a cure and he wrote back a remedy which was tried to no use. They told him that it had failed and he wrote that he would send the last remedy and if that failed he was out. The remedy is to take so many buttons of one kind and so many of another and so on until they have five kinds; then take and string them together on one string and fasten them a certain way on the knob of the door of her room. If that failed he said he did not know of anything better."
For more historical ghosts, read Ghosts, apparitions, and poltergeists : an exploration of the supernatural through history by Brian Righi.
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