Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

The Poltergeist of Pelhamdale


There is a lovely historic home located at 45 Iden Avenue in the Village of Pelham Manor. It is known as "Pelhamdale." Portions of the home including the rear basement with entrance and massive fireplace are believed to pre-date the Revolutionary War. The home once was owned by American Patriot David Jones Pell. The structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The home has been significantly altered since the eighteenth century. 

The home, known also as the Old Pell Place and the Old Pell Home, is located today on a triangular tract bounded by Carol Place, Iden Avenue, and the Hutchinson River Parkway. The plot on which the home sits was part of a large 18th and 19th century farm that once was bounded by today's Colonial Avenue (the Old Boston Post Road), the Lane that became known as Wolf's Lane, today's Boston Post Road, and the Hutchinson River. 

Col. Philip Pell III (1753-1811) owned an adjacent farm, the farmhouse of which once stood at the intersection of today's Cliff and Colonial Avenues. Col. Pell was a son of Philip Pell II who, in turn, was son of Philip Pell who was a son of Thomas Pell (so-called Third Lord of the Manor of Pellham). The original farm cottage that forms a portion of today's "Pelhamdale" at 45 Iden Avenue was built by Philip Pell II around 1750-60. 

Philip Pell II was the father of Col. Philip Pell III (often referenced, oddly, as Philip Pell, Jr.) and David Jones Pell. Both the sons were American Patriots. After the death of the elder Pell, his son David Jones Pell became owner of "Pelhamdale." David Jones Pell's brother, Philip Pell III, built his adjacent farm and farmhouse. That farm included the land on which today's Pelham Memorial High School stands. A memorial marker and date stone of the home built by Col. Philip Pell III stand next to the front entrance of the high school. 

After the death of David Jones Pell in 1823, Pell's widow sold the farm to James Hay who owned it until his own death in the 1850s. Hay extensively expanded and renovated the home, giving it an appearance similar to the home's appearance today. Apparently during the expansion of the home, James Hay embedded in the north wall of the home a large block of sandstone on which is carved in relief the Hay family coat-of-arms. 

As one might expect, with a portion of the home now nearly 270 years old, there has been a long succession of owners and tenants who have lived in the home over the years. Also, as one might expect, the home is associated with a number of entertaining and important Pelham ghost stories. One of several such stories associated with the home is that of the poltergeist of Pelhamdale. 

Mrs. Garnett Mabel Winslow was visiting Pelhamdale, the stunning home of her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Le Roi Layton Elliott, some time ago. After a pleasant Friday evening with the family, Mrs. Winslow retired to an upstairs guest bedroom where she slept soundly in the supremely-appointed bed. 

In the wee hours of Saturday morning, before the sun had risen, Mrs. Winslow was startled awake by the screech of furniture being dragged on a floor. It took her a few moments to clear the fog of sleep from her mind until she heard the banging of chairs and, again, the dragging of furniture above her bedroom. 

Mrs. Winslow loved her daughter and her son-in-law, but it was a little annoying so early on a Saturday morning that they had chosen to rearrange furniture in the room above her as she slept. To make matters more annoying, the sounds suggested that furniture was being dragged from one side of the room to another and then back again, repeatedly! 

As the banging and scraping grew more frantic, Mrs. Winslow realized that she was wide awake and unlikely to slip back into sleep. She lay in bed awake as the bumps and scrapes continued until the sun rose and dawn crept into her room. At that moment, the noise from the studio above ended. Mrs. Winslow got up, dressed, and wandered downstairs for coffee and to visit with her daughter and son-in-law. 

When she made it downstairs, not a soul was there. Pelhamdale was quiet. Neither her daughter nor son-in-law was downstairs. Thinking it odd that they would work so hard in the third-floor studio overnight then return to bed, Mrs. Winslow shrugged, made the coffee herself, and waited for pair to come downstairs. 

Soon Le Roi Elliott and his wife wandered downstairs. Still sleepy, they were surprised to find Mrs. Winslow and a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen. The trio sat to enjoy the morning together when Mrs. Winslow remarked that the work in the studio in the wee hours of the morning must have been exhausting since it sounded as though her daughter and son-in-law had been rearranging furniture for much of the night. 

Mr. and Mrs. Elliott stared at her in disbelief, then glanced at each other. “Mom,” Mrs. Elliott said, “we just got up. There was no one in the studio last night.” 

Mrs. Winslow felt a chill run up her spine. She knew better. Someone had, in fact, been in the studio last night. That someone, it turns out, was the poltergeist of Pelhamdale. . .



Pelhamdale, 45 Iden Avenue, Pelham Manor, New York.

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Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Another Account of the Phantom Fire Ship of Long Island Sound


Long, long ago when three-masted merchant sailing ships plied the waters of Long Island Sound, one such ship departed New York Harbor for Newport, Rhode Island. Ominous dark clouds hung over the region. The air was thick and experienced seamen knew a storm was brewing. 

The captain intended to sail his fully-loaded ship into Long Island Sound nonetheless. He had sailed the Sound in bad weather countless times and he viewed this time as no different. He wanted to make it to Newport on time. Not only was his ship carrying a heavy cargo of lumber, but it also was transporting a few horses for delivery in Newport. 

His experienced crew went about their tasks with professional precision.  Soon, the captain gave the order to let go and haul. The ship maneuvered through Hell Gate and the Devil’s Stepping Stones into Long Island Sound as the winds became violent and the Sound became angry. To make matters worse, the evening was fading away and darkness enveloped the ship. 

Neither the captain nor his experienced crew were alarmed. Instead, the captain began looking for a sheltered cove where his ship might ride out the storm. He thought of City Island, Hart Island, and Eastchester Bay at Pelham Bridge. The captain gave the order to come about just as the lookout in the crow’s nest shouted “ship ahoy!” 

The captain and his crew turned and could see a large ship advancing on the stern of the merchant ship. Something seemed terribly odd. Despite the darkness, the ship had no navigation lanterns lit. 

The captain had no stern chaser to fire a warning. His was a merchant ship. Indeed, only a few of his crew likely had any personal firearms. Now the captain became alarmed.

The large ship advanced quickly on the merchant ship and pulled alongside. “Pirates!” one of the crew members shouted. As quickly as he shouted, a shot rang out and a musket ball dropped that crew member, dead. The captain of the merchant ship shouted “all hands!” but was shot as well before he could finish his command. 

Grappling hooks flew.  In a moment the heavily-armed pirate crew boarded the merchant ship. There was nary a scuffle. The crew of the merchant ship had been entirely surprised and were overwhelmed. 

As the storm intensified, some of the pirates rounded up their victims and tormented them while others of the cutthroats rampaged throughout the merchant ship and looted all valuables they could find. Though not interested in the cargo of lumber and horses, the pirates found many valuables among the possessions of the captain and his crew as they pillaged the merchant ship. 

As the storm intensified, both ships were rolling in the high waves. The pirates tied the merchant ship crew tightly to masts and other parts of the ship as the howling wind intensified and the storm displayed peculiarly terrific violence. Most of the pirates disembarked with their loot to their ship. A couple, however, slipped down to the cargo hold of the merchant ship. 

Shortly, the two pirates scrambled out of the hold and leaped back onto their ship. Within moments, the orange flicker of flames could be seen coming from the hold. Smoke was billowing and the anguished screams of horses filled the air. The merchant ship was rolling in the heavy seas from side to side as the flames consumed the lumber and the ship. 

The poor souls tied to the masts and other parts of the ship struggled and struggled to free themselves to avoid the coming conflagration, all to no avail. 

Had the wind not howled so loudly and the rain not pounded so heavily, those along the shores likely would have heard the piteous screams of the merchant ship crew as the flames reached them and slowly burned them to death. The screams seemed unearthly as burning debris cascaded onto the deck of the ship. Soon, the shrieks and screams gave way to nothing but the sound of the howling wind. 

Ever since that terrible night long, long ago, mariners and landlubbers alike have reported that during storms on Long Island Sound of peculiarly terrific violence a luminous three-masted merchant ship fully enveloped in a glowing fire may be seen plowing through the waves of the sound with a great white horse stamping and pawing at the heel of the foremast of the ship with a ghostly phantom crew assembled at quarters. As the fiery ship passes, long comet-like streaks of flames and sparks stream from the ship and unearthly screams and shrieks can be heard though the ghostly crew remains motionless and statue-like still assembled at quarters.




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Below is an excerpt of another of many accounts of the Phantom Fire Ship of Long Island Sound on which today's Pelham ghost story is based.  The excerpt is followed by a citation and link to its source. 

"ON FOOT IN WESTCHESTER.
-----
Revelations of a Tramp Through an Interesting County.

A tramp or a ride through Westchester county, such as a Sun reporter recently took, zigzagging his way often by little-frequented roads, brings to light many interesting nooks with which our readers are little familiar.

There is still standing, not far from Pelham Manor, on a lonely strip of the old post road, overlooking the neck of the Sound, a natural wayside rest, looking like a a giant horse block and almost buried out of sight by weeds and grasses.  This stone was once known as Huguenots' Rest, and it recalls a strange old time church going procession.  Before the erection of the first Huguenot church in New Rochelle the inhabitants of that settlement footed it regularly every Sunday to New York, to attend services at the old Church du Saint Esprit, in Pine street, returning in the Sabbath evening to their humble homes.  This was between 1689 and 1691, and at this stone was one of the customary halting places.

Then as now the neighboring waters were famous for their bass and blackfish, and a little further on there was standing not long ago a weather-stained, shingle sided building whose doorpost bore a quaint emblem, with rude rhymes attached.  The design was that of a chestnut leaf and bore these lines:

When chestnut leaves are as big as thumb nails,
Then bite blackfish without fail;
But when chestnut leaves are big as a span; 
Then catch black fish if you can.

The reporter came across an old lady in New Rochelle, who remembered her grandmother's abiding belief in the famous Phantom Fire Ship that was so well known to haunt the Sound coast from the boiling waters of Hell Gate to Gardiner's, and the lone beacon tower of old Montauk.

My grandmother was certain, said the old dame, 'that she had once seen the Fire Ship glaring through the darkness, with her phantom crew standing like red-hot statues at their quarters, and the big fiend-horse galloping through the flames, till all, was suddenly caught up in a storm cloud, and, bless you, nothing could have convinced by grandmother that she only dreamed it all.'

The tradition had it that the apparition was that of a ship which had been taken by buccaneers, who had butchered all hands and then set her on fire.  A large white horse, which had been found on board, was left near the foremast to perish in the flames.  Accordingly, when the Phantom Fire Ship made its appearance, always in storms of exceptional violence, the white-horse might be seen rushing along the deck enveloped in fire, or stamping and pawing at the heel of the foremast, while the phantom crew were assembled at quarters grinning and clapping their red-hot hands. . . ."

Source:  ON FOOT IN WESTCHESTER -- Revelations of a Tramp Through an Interesting County, New Rochelle Pioneer, November 7, 1885, p. 2, col. 4.  


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Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Spirits of Bartow-Pell Mansion


Introduction

Though it is a New York City showplace, the imposing Greek Revival mansion on Shore Road known as the Bartow-Pell Mansion almost blends into the inky blackness of each night.  During winter months, the gnarled hulks of leafless trees seem to grab at the mansion and even lean with the wind as if attempting to pluck all who come within reach from the very ground beneath their feet. 

The mansion stands isolated and distant from any other structure within the darkness of Pelham Bay Park. Many nights the shrieks of owls echo throughout its grounds. Occasionally, the bawling howls of mangy coyotes that roam the park chill the heart.  

Today the mansion serves as the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum.  The mansion, its carriage house, and grounds have quite a storied history. The estate once was part of the Manor of Pelham and, later, the Town of Pelham before the area was annexed by New York City in 1895.  Scholars believe that John Pell, a nephew and the principal legatee of Manor of Pelham founder, Thomas Pell, built a home near today's mansion in the early 1670s. Four generations of Pell family members resided in the home until, according to a variety of sources, it was destroyed during the American Revolution when Pelham stood in the midst of the so-called Neutral Ground between the principal warring armies. 

The property passed from the Pells to Herman and Hannah Leroy in 1813. Robert Bartow, a New York city merchant, bought the property in 1836. Shortly afterward, he built the Greek Revival mansion of native stone and moved with his family into the home by 1842. The Bartow family remained in the home for more than four decades. They attempted to develop an area around the nearby City Island Station on the New Haven Branch Line into a settlement that came to be known as Bartow and "Bartow-on-the-Sound." (The station likewise came to be known as "Bartow Station.") 

In 1888, while assembling parcels to create today's Pelham Bay Park, New York City acquired the Bartow estate. (It likewise acquired the lands that formed the tiny little settlement of Bartow nearby.) For nearly the next three decades, mansions in the region acquired by the City of New York -- including the Bartow mansion -- languished scandalously. They were subject to vandalism, squatters, and municipal corruption involving "rentals" of some of the structures to well-placed City employees for virtually nothing. 

In 1914, the International Garden Club was formed "to promote horticultural knowledge and to save the Bartow-Pell Mansion." The organization raised funds and restored the mansion. Today, the mansion and grounds including the Bartow carriage house built in the 1840s are owned by the City of New York, overseen by the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, and operated by the Bartow-Pell Conservancy.  The Mansion-Museum is a member of the Historic House Trust and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The grounds on which the mansion stands have a recorded history that goes back nearly 350 years.  The mansion is more than 175 years old.  Of course, it should come as no surprise that such an ancient location with such a grand old structure as the mansion is replete with ghosts in addition to "The Ghost of the Murdered Traveler Who Wanders the Bartow-Pell Grounds" (Historic Pelham, Oct. 26, 2016). Indeed, as the following suggests, the Bartow-Pell Mansion and its grounds are among Pelham's most haunted spots.  

Whose Spirit Sits on the Lannuier Bed?

One of the most magnificent items in the collections of the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum is the magnificent mahogany French bedstead crafted in New York between about 1812 and 1819 by French émigré furniture craftsman Charles Honoré Lannuier (b. 1779; d. 1819).  Lannuier and his contemporary, Duncan Phyfe, were the leaders of the New York furniture makers of their day.  Their work was considered by affluent Americans at the time to represent the pinnacle of sophistication and the height of American cabinetry and furniture craft.

Bartow-Pell's Lannuier Bed includes a rare original crown encircled with classical faces of gilded brass that surround a gilded brass lion's head in the center of the front of the crown.  From the crown hang opulent bed curtains.  Bartow-Pell Historian, Education Director, and Curator Margaret Highland has written of the bed, in part, as follows:

"[The bed] features a superb and rare original crown encircled by classical faces made of gilded brass with a lion's head in the center.  Massive vert antique lion's paw feet, gilded acanthus leaves, and columns terminating in gilded foliate scrolls provide additional classical ornamentation typical of Lannuier's oeuvre from the period beginning in 1812 until his death in 1819.  The bed is made of fine figured mahogany veneer with secondary woods of mahogany, yellow poplar, and white pine.  Casters allowed it to be moved easily for changing the bed linens or for cleaning.  Although tradition dates the bedstead to around . . . 1810, Lannuier scholar Peter Kenny assigns a date range of 1812-19.  This is partly because of the bed's stylistic characteristics, which place it in Lannuier's mature antique style, with its rich classical ornamentation and appearance of monumentality.  In addition, the Bartow-Pell bedstead bears the bilingual engraved label that Lannuier used during this period.  The label features a cheval glass with the eagle from the great seal of the United States in the pediment.  Patriotic symbols were especially popular around the time of the War of 1812."

Source:  Highland, Margaret, "Crowning Glory:  Bartow-Pell's Lannuier Bedstead" in Mansion Musings [a WordPress Blog], Jun. 27, 2016 (visited Sep. 14, 2019).



The Lannuier Bed at Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum.
Click on Image to Enlarge.

The Lannuier Bed, it seems, is haunted.  For years those who work in, and visit, the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum have repeatedly observed that after no one has been in the room for a time, an indentation forms on the bed as though someone is seated there.  The area is roped off from the public.  The indentation often appears overnight when no one is present.  Bartow-Pell staff and docents repeatedly smooth the indentation, only to have it recur.  

Non-believers claim that the down settles within the feather mattress, creating the indentations.  Believers, however, know that the bed is haunted.  In fact, a few years ago Bartow-Pell arranged for Dan Sturges of Sturges Paranormal (a prominent paranormal investigation agency) to investigate paranormal activity at the mansion.  Sturges and his colleagues use equipment including environmental gauges and audio recorders to identify and assess paranormal activity, particularly in historic homes.  While in the bedroom, Sturges directly confronted the spirit, asking it to identify itself.  According to Margaret Highland, he "picked up a voice that sounded like 'Nathan Walker.'  We don't know who he was, but we do have a piece of [19th century] embroidery made by an Abigail Walker."

Source:  "Haunted by Houses" in The Villager, Oct. 22, 2015 (visited Sep. 14, 2019).

Does the Ghost of George Bartow Haunt His Bed Chamber?

George Lorillard Bartow (b. 1828; d. 1875) was the eldest son of Robert Bartow and Maria Lorillard Bartow, who were married in 1827.  George lived a life of leisure and never married.  Not only was he the only son of the family who did not graduate from Columbia College (of today's Columbia University), but he also is believed to have devoted much of his time to horse racing as an avid fan.  

George Bartow lived in Bartow-Pell Mansion most of his life, even as an adult.  He died at the age of 47 in St. Augustine, Florida and is buried in the cemetery of St. Peter's Episcopal Church at Westchester Square in today's Borough of the Bronx.  

The reasons that George Bartow never married have not been known -- until now, perhaps.  

Recently when a group of paranormal investigators including Dan Sturges (see above) visited Bartow-Pell, they spent a great deal of time in the bed chamber of George Bartow.  One of the psychics working with the group was able to contact the Bartow's spirit and learned that, in life, he had experienced a grave "disappointment in love" and that he once had a fiancé who broke off their engagement.  More significantly, the group also carried recording equipment while in the bed chamber.  Later, upon review of the recording, it was determined that equipment picked up a voice of forgiveness -- likely that of George -- admitting "it wasn't the girl's fault."

The Child Ghost of the Third Floor

Perhaps the most perplexing apparition that routinely appears in the mansion is that of a lonely child.  The apparition always appears on the third floor of the mansion and has been seen repeatedly for years.

Though the child whose ghost wanders the third floor has yet to be identified, the most disconcerting aspect of the sightings is the fact that unconnected sightings over many years by people with no connections always result in descriptions of the child ghost that are shockingly similar.

The Haunted Attic

As if all this were not enough, the attic of the Bartow-Pell Mansion is said to be haunted as well.  Numerous people have heard footsteps walking above in the attic when the attic was known to be empty.  Indeed, the sound of such steps moving back and forth across the dark attic above has been particularly unsettling for those who work in the facility at night.

The Long Skirted Apparition of the Mansion

One of the mansion's tour guides has seen a figure in a long skirt disappearing quickly.  Was it the ghost of Maria Lorillard Bartow slipping away quietly?  Could it have been the spirit of Clarina Bartow, one of the Bartows' girls, slipping back to her bed chamber after trying on one of the period dresses that the museum periodically puts on display -- often in Clarina's bed chamber?  Was it the apparition of one of the many, many elegant 19th century women who visited the Bartow family and toured the mansion enviously?

The Ghostly Music of Bartow-Pell

The Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum periodically hosts beautiful concerts.  It has hosted classical guitarists, brass quintet holiday concerts, First Friday music concerts, classical music concerts, woodwind quintets, and much more.  Indeed, music remains an important and powerful part of programming at Bartow-Pell just as music once was an important entertainment in the mansion during the tenure of Robert and Maria Bartow and their family.

Perhaps the importance of such music to the Bartow family is best illustrated by the ghostly strains of music that float throughout the mansion at times when no musical instruments are present.  Reports suggest the music is lilting, lovely, and almost hypnotic.  It never is harsh or frightening and evokes a sweetness and happiness that suggest the blossom of youth -- perhaps performances by the ghosts of young Bartow family members for the entertainment of their elders.

An Angelic Presence in the North Parlor

Perhaps the most intriguing and heart-warming tale of the supernatural in Bartow-Pell Mansion is the oft-told tale that there has been evidence of an angelic presence in the North Parlor of the mansion.  

Some report to have felt the presence.  Others claim to have perceived it in some fashion.  All seem to agree that the presence leaves those in the room with a supreme sense of peacefulness and contentedness.  

Perhaps this angelic presence watches over the many spirits of the Bartow-Pell Mansion!



Bartow-Pell Mansion in an Undated Photograph.
NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.


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Monday, October 28, 2019

The Luminous Lantern-Bearer of Baychester and Pelham Bridge


Heinrich Nieman made a single mistake.  Actually, it was a teeny-tiny mistake.  Even a teeny-tiny mistake, however, typically is disastrous in Nieman's business.  

Heinrich Nieman, you see, worked in the acid house of the Dittmar Powder Works in Baychester, not far from Pelham Bridge.  There, workers were expected not to make ANY mistakes as they handled nitroglycerin and made gunpowder, dynamite, and other explosives.

As soon as Nieman made his teeny-tiny mistake, a chill enveloped him.  His first instinct was to flee.  Before he could turn toward the door, however, a light luminous wisp of smoke arose from the vat.  There followed a tremendous flash and an earth-shaking explosion.  The blast broke windows throughout Baychester and Pelham.  It blew the acid house and much of the remainder of the facility into teeny-tiny pieces that soon rained from the sky.  

Heinrich Nieman was no more.  He was "blown to atoms" as one report stated.

Nieman was one of a long line of employees of local explosives manufacturers in Pelham and the surrounding region who were blown to smithereens.  Indeed, by the time of Nieman's gruesome death, such manufacturing facilities already were known as "earthquake factories."  One article, published shortly after the explosion that killed Nieman, stated:

"New buildings for the manufacture of gunpowder and other explosives are nearly finished at Baychester, in Westchester County, and it is said that the operations of the powder company will be carried on more extensively than ever.  The first enterprise of the kind was established near the junction of the Harlem and New Haven Railroad, and it was destroyed by an explosion attended by the loss of five or six lives.  The company was prohibited by the town authorities from resuming business in the town.  The next giant powder factory was established near the railroad station at Pelhamville, and was destroyed by fire.  The operations of the company under a new name were then located at Baychester, a short distance north of the railroad station.  The works were destroyed by an explosion and resulted in the loss of several lives and injuries to others.  New workshops were erected and the manufacturing operations resumed.  Another explosion took place and several persons were seriously injured.  A resumption of operations at Baychester creates some alarm, for, although the neighborhood is sparsely populated, persons while waiting for the arrival or departure of trains from the railroad station, will be exposed to great danger."  

Source:  STORY OF EXPLOSIONS -- People Object to an Earthquake Factory In Their Midst, The Republic [Columbus, IN], Jan. 23, 1884, p. 1, col. 3 (Note:  Paid subscription required to access via this link).

Of course, those at the Dittmar Powder Works who survived the blast that obliterated poor Heinrich Nieman grieved his death.  All who worked at the facility knew him well.  All loved him.  Moreover, everyone thought much about the poor fellow's death because, to a man, each understood "There but for the grace of God, go I."  

Within a short time, new buildings for the manufacture of gunpowder and other explosives were completed and operations resumed at the powder works.  Almost immediately, workers on the night shifts began reporting a most unusual occurrence.  

The first worker to experience the oddity could not believe his eyes.  He stepped out of one of the oppressively-hot manufacturing buildings late one winter night to take a brief break in the cold air.  In the distance, he could make out the glow of a bobbing light.  It clearly was a lantern being carried through a wooded area near the facility.  As the bobbing light approached, the worker became increasingly alarmed.  The open flame of any lantern was a terrible risk to the explosives manufacturing facility.  It had no business anywhere near the powder works.

The worker stepped into the darkness and walked toward the lantern bearer, hoping to stop him and keep him away from the powder works.  In the distance, the lantern seemed to cast an odd, luminous glow that lit the hazy figure from head to toe without lighting the surrounding countryside.  

As the worker approached the lantern bearer he stared at the figure's illuminated visage.  The hair on the back of the worker's neck stood up.  He blinked and rubbed his eyes in disbelief.  The figure carrying the lantern was poor Heinrich Nieman!  More accurately, the figure carrying the lantern was a luminous figure that seemed to glide along the ground with a shimmering face that once belonged to Heinrich Nieman.  That face seemed angry and singularly-focused.  Indeed, it seemed to stare right through the worker while focused on the powder works behind him.

The worker stumbled backward in terror until he fell.  He scrambled to his feet to flee the apparition.  The ghostly lantern bearer continued to glide toward the worker even as he fled.  Not knowing the spirit's intentions, the worker ran past the powder works and continued into the night, utterly terrified that the phantom was there to ignite the facility and kill all inside.  The worker never returned to the facility.

This merely was the first sighting of the ghost of Heinrich Nieman.  Most workers at the facility who worked in the evening or night hours soon reported seeing the apparition carrying its lantern.  The sightings frightened so many that a number quit their jobs.  One local newspaper reported that "the ghost of the man blown up has been seen perambulating about the premises at night, carrying a lantern, and the workmen, not caring to be in company with that kind of 'spirit' have all cleared out."  Another local paper reported "Since Heinrich Nimen [sic] was blown to atoms by the explosion of dynamite at Ditmar's works at Baychester, there are some persons who affirm they have seen his ghost about the works at night.  Some of the employees have left in consequence."

For years, explosions at Dittmar Powder Works continued to rock the Baychester and Pelham Bridge region.  For example, on September 30, 1886, a massive explosion killed four workers and scattered their body parts throughout the grounds.  On April 5, 1890 another explosion tore through the running house of the facility and killed two men and rocked houses at Pelham Bridge, in Bartow-on-the-Sound, and on City Island.  Some claimed that on each occasion the spirit of Heinrich Nieman carried its lantern into the facility, causing an explosion.

To this day the spirit of Heinrich Nieman wanders the Pelham Bridge and Baychester region.  Though explosives manufacturers no longer dot the heavily-populated region, the luminous phantom continues to search for powder works, apparently hoping to use its lantern to ignite a blast to blow all within to atoms -- exactly the fate that befell poor Heinrich Nieman more than 135 years ago.  




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Below are transcriptions of various brief newspaper references that relate to today's ghost story.  Each is followed by a citation and link to its source.

"An explosion occurred in the acid house about three years ago, and Heinrich Nieman, one of the workmen, was killed. It was said at the time that the explosion was caused by carelessness on the part of Nieman, and this explanation was generally accepted."

Source:  GIANT POWDER LET LOOSE -- FOUR MEN KILLED AND EVERYBODY STARTLED FOR MILES AROUND -- A Thousand Pounds of the Explosive Ignite in the Dittmar Works -- The Shock Felt on the West Bank of the Hudson and Across the Sound -- Mistaken for Wiggins's QuakeThe Sun [NY, NY], Oct. 1, 1886, Vol. LIV, No. 31, p. 2, col. 5.

"WESTCHESTER. . . .

The Ditmar powder works at Baychester, have been abandoned.  Recently the ghost of the man blown up has been seen perambulating about the premises at night, carrying a lantern, and the workmen, not caring to be in company with that kind of 'spirits' have all cleared out. .. ."

Source:  WESTCHESTER, The Chronicle [Mount Vernon, NY], Mar. 19, 1886, Vol. XVII, No. 864, p. 1, col. 5.  

"THE COUNTY. . .
-----
A GHOST SCARE. -- Since Heinrich Nimen was blown to atoms by the explosion of dynamite at Ditmar's works at Baychester, there are some persons who affirm they have seen his ghost about the works at night.  Some of the employees have left in consequence."

Source:  THE COUNTY -- A GHOST SCARE, The Yonkers Statesman, Mar. 20, 1886, Vol. III, No. 722, p. 1, col. 4.  

"An explosion occurred in the acid house about three years ago, and Heinrich Nieman, one of the workmen, was killed. It was said at the time that the explosion was caused by carelessness on the part of Nieman, and this explanation was generally accepted."

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Friday, October 25, 2019

The Ghost of the Haunted Hardenbrook House on Shore Road


Halloween is nearly upon us.  As has been the tradition for years, on each of the five business days until Halloween beginning today, Historic Pelham will present another new Pelham ghost story based upon years of research.  Next year, this author will publish a third book on Pelham history centered on the many, many ghost stories centered in Pelham.  It tentatively is entitled "A Haunted History of Pelham, New York" and combines ghost stories and lore passed down in Pelham for generations with the historical context and backdrop from which many such stories originate.  Today's story begins the week before Halloween with "The Ghost of the Haunted Hardenbrook House on Shore Road" and includes what may be the only known image, or one of the only known images, of a Pelham ghoul.

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Marvin R. Clark of New York City was a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic.  He did not believe in superstitions.  He did not believe in ghosts, goblins, ghouls, or spirits.  Indeed, he devoted his life to proving that such things are poppycock.

Clark was the thirteenth member of the original thirteen members of the famous "Thirteen Club" of New York City.  The Club existed to flout such things, nay, to disprove them.  Its members met in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage on Sixth Avenue and 28th Street in Manhattan at 8:13 p.m. each Friday the 13th.  Club members broke mirrors, opened umbrellas inside, passed beneath ladders, kept black cats, and forbade the tossing of salt over the shoulder.  The Club even placed advertisements in The New York Herald offering a reward to anyone who could identify a truly haunted house in New York City in which members of the club might dine.  They never found one.  

Yet, there Clark stood in the garden of a Pelham home at midnight on a cool September evening in 1886 staring into the derisive countenance of a Pelham ghost that seemed to beckon him forward.  Frozen in place in abject terror, Clark could only listen as a housekeeper standing behind him let loose a blood-curdling scream.  

The story of Clark's amazing ghostly encounter that night later warranted nearly half a page of coverage in The World of New York City.  Indeed, the article included two images reflecting events of that night, one of which may be the only known image of a Pelham ghost based on an eyewitness account (see below).

The tale of that night of terror is one of the most fascinating Pelham ghost stories ever told.  Here is the saga of the ghost of the haunted Hardenbrook house on Shore Road.

On a moonless, breeze-less, and cool night in September, 1886, Marvin Clark visited his friend, John A. Hardenbrook, at the Hardenbrook home on Shore Road in the Town of Pelham.  Hardenbrook's beautiful cottage was on the Long Island Sound side of Shore Road.  The cottage sat on a slope that led to the water.  The entry and parlor of the home was at road level in the front of the home.  The rear of the cottage was a story lower than the parlor level.  

The lower level of the home included a cozy dining room that also served as a comfortable sitting room for after-dinner drinks, chats, and smoking.  Adjacent to that cozy room was a kitchen.  Both the dining room and the kitchen looked out over Long Island Sound.  Between the cottage and the Sound was a small garden planted with all the vegetables a housekeeper and cook might need including corn, cabbage, carrots, radishes, lettuce, pumpkins, and much more. 

Hardenbrook lived in the cottage with his housekeeper named "Mrs. Gordon."  Mrs. Gordon was a little gray-haired lady with a boundless sense of humor.  She was surprisingly active and kindhearted.  She adored John Hardenbrook and worked hard at her job to keep the cottage immaculate and to cook, and clean for him.

Like Marvin Clark, John Hardenbrook was a journalist.  He was a bright and intellectual journalist who had been nicknamed "Doctor" by his journalist peers.  That September he invited Marvin Clark to stay with him at his cottage for several days to get away from the hustle and bustle of New York City.

Every evening during Clark's visit, Mrs. Gordon prepared a sumptuous meal for Hardenbrook and his guest.  At the conclusion of every meal, after Mrs. Gordon had cleared the table, cleaned, and put away the dishes, the three would sit in the cozy dining room to sip beer while the men smoked their pipes and swapped stories.

Doc Hardenbrook knew his friend was a member of the Thirteen Club.  Hardenbrook, like his friend, was a jaded journalist and a skeptic who harbored no superstitions and did not believe in ghosts, ghouls, goblins, or spirits.

On a particularly black night, the threesome enjoyed after-dinner aperitifs and swapped stories in the brightly-lit cottage.  The kerosene lanterns were un-shaded.  Their tall wicks burned intensely, casting brilliant light throughout the room and out of the windows of the cottage into the inky night.  

As the clock crawled to midnight, Doc Hardenbrook and Mrs. Gordon prepared to retire for the evening.  As they busied themselves, Marvin Clark leaned back in his chair to read a little of the "Book of Martyrs" by John Foxe.  

Clark became thoroughly engrossed in his book.  A death-like stillness pervaded the cottage broken only by the sound of Doc Hardenbrook and Mrs. Gordon opening the door from the kitchen to the garden to step outside to count chickens and check on the old sow in a nearby pen.  Not a breeze stirred.  

Remaining absorbed in his book, Clark soon heard a gasp and glanced toward the door.  He saw Hardenbrook holding the door slightly ajar as Mrs. Gordon stretched to watch over his shoulder through the crack of the open door.  Both had ghastly, horrific looks on their ashen faces with wild-eyed stares directed at something immediately outside.  

Paralyzed with fear, Mrs. Gordon whispered hoarsely "It's a real, live ghost"  She urged Doc Hardenbrook to "lock the doors!"  

"Nonsense!" replied Hardenbrook.  Yet, Hardenbrook never averted his gaze.  He remained wild-eyed, with his stare transfixed on something just beyond the door.  

Marvin Clark could see that Mrs. Gordon was shaking with fright.  She said with alarm "See, Doctor, it is moving this way!  Oh, what will become of us all!  I say, Doctor, don't stay there!  I cannot bear to look at it!  Come in and shut the door!"

Ever the skeptic, Clark smiled.  He assumed the pair was playing a prank precisely because he was ever the skeptic and a member of the Thirteen Club.  He remained seated until. . . .

Mrs. Gordon gave a horrified shriek and turned toward Marvin Clark with a "ghastly white face."  Clark later wrote that the scream "almost curdled the blood in my veins."  He realized at that moment that whatever the pair saw outside the door had truly terrified them.  He stood and "crept cautiously" toward the door.  Doctor Hardenbrook was holding tightly to the edge of the slightly ajar door.  His knuckles were white and bloodless from gripping the door so fearfully.  The housekeeper continued to peek over his shoulder timidly through the crack of the door at something in the garden.

As Clark approached the door, he realized that the pair were shivering with terror.  He then understood that it was no prank.  The pair could see something, as he later wrote, "a long way out of the ordinary, nay, beyond the extraordinary."  

When Clark reached the door, Doc Hardenbrook whispered "Look there!" and made barely enough room for Clark to step around him onto the doorstep to look.  What Clark saw sent shivers down his spine.  He later described his feelings at that moment:

"I gasped when my eyes fell upon the object which had riveted their attention for so long a time while I had sat in the dining-room, under the impression that they were trying to play a joke upon me and frighten a Thirteener.  The smile that was upon my face faded away instantly, and was superseded by a look of real alarm. . . . I was suffused with an indescribable fear which was the very extreme of terror. . . . It is the feeling of despair, which surrounds one like a cloud, with the knowledge of a quickly impending and unavoidable doom, and yet more than this.  It is the knowledge that this is something supernatural not of the earth, but intangible, and therefore irresistible.  It is the overpowering sensation that the bravest of the brave must go down before it as helplessly as the most cowardly of all cowards.  It is the realization that strong and weak alike must succumb to its ghostly influence, as to the avalanche, . . . the hurricane, the mountain torrent and the tidal wave, against which human power of resistance is as a straw."

Outside in the garden Clark saw a luminous, shimmering shape floating above the ground.  He later described it as an "awful shape, as plainly defined as ever was mortal man, all gleaming with white, its form perfect and outlined in silvery waves of light, standing out clear and distinct against the ebony darkness of the night for a background."  According to Clark, the luminous shape plainly was that of a man from head to foot.  Though there was no breeze and not a leaf stirred, Clark later maintained that from neck to floating feet, a shimmery robe-like light seemed to undulate as if it were blowing in a soft breeze that could not be felt in the black night.  As Clark described it, it seemed to undulate with "graceful oscillations."  In addition, the creature's arms rose and fell with a peculiar motion as if to beckon Clark to approach if he dared.  Clark shivered involuntarily as he looked at the face of the creature.  As he later wrote, its face was "smiling upon me derisively, as if to say, tauntingly, that I dared not" approach.  Even Clark realized that to doubt what he saw before him was to doubt not only the evidence of his own senses, but also that of his two friends who likewise stood mute and paralyzed beside him.  

Clark later wrote:  "I am not exaggerating -- not one hair's breadth.  There was the image, just as I have described it, and its long, white robe, almost reaching the ground where it stood, softly moving to and fro, while the arms waved and the ghastly head nodded and bowed at me solemnly."  Yet, with "more than human effort," Clark took a step forward and stopped.  

The terrible spirit neither advanced, nor retreated.  Clark advanced another step.  The shimmering ghost stood its ground, shimmering and undulating in the still night.  Clark could stand it no longer.  He rushed forward to touch and grab the awful creature.

Mrs. Gordon uttered a soul-piercing scream that rang out shrill and clear in the still darkness.  Doc Hardenbrook sprang forward and attempted to grab Marvin Clark by the arm to stop him.  Clark grasped at the creature's outstretched arms.  He felt utterly nothing.  It was as if the apparition was made of light -- no substance; no mass; no heft; only shimmering, dancing light.

Marvin Clark was a dedicated skeptic and a loyal Thirteener.  He simply never could accept what he saw that night in the Hardenbrook House on Shore Road in Bartow-on-the-Sound.  Indeed, for years he maintained that all that he and the others had seen was dancing light from an un-shaded kerosene lantern shining through a cottage window and playing through waving stalks of corn in the garden.  He claimed that when he later examined the rows of corn outside the cottage window there were two odd stalks that "stood out distinctly from the others" and were peculiarly shaped just right to filter the light so as to cast an image of "the tall figure of a man" into the night.  He claimed that "our fevered imaginations pictured the rest."

Of course, loyal Thirteener Marvin Clark never explained how the corn stalks could sway on a wind-less night.  He could not clarify how what he had seen was the luminous image of a man with its "form so perfect" as he admitted in writing.  Nor could he explain what strange sort of screen or substance the lantern light had projected onto to create so perfect an image of a floating man.  Perhaps most significantly, he never tried to explain the look of derision on the apparition's face as it seemed to beckon him to approach.  

Though his explanation of what he had witnessed that night may have satisfied smug members of the Thirteen Club, Clark's explanations and rationalizations fell on the deaf ears of at least two others:  Doc John Hardenbrook and Mrs. Gordon.  Those two never stepped into the garden of the Hardenbrook house in the dead of night again.  Both knew what they had seen that awful night:  the ghost of the haunted Hardenbrook house on Shore Road.

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Below is the text of the news article from The World on which today's Historic Pelham ghost story is based.  The text is followed by a citation and link to its source.  Also included below are two images that appeared with the article, including one that purported to show the spirit the group encountered that night.

"ALL SURE THEY SAW A GHOST.
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By Marvin R. Clark, thirteenth of the original thirteen of the famous Thirteen Club.

It may be considered remarkable that I, who have been one of the chief pillars of the Thirteen Club, for seven consecutive years its Archivist, loudest in my denunciations of the old, injurious superstitions, I, who have defied every known one of them and particularly scoffed at ghost stories, should, with grave deliberation, in all seriousness, tell the millions who have often heard of this now famous Thirteen Club, that I have actually seen a ghost!  Yet such is the fact.  What the consequences may be to me when it comes to the eyes and ears of my fellow-members of that anti-superstitious concern I will not stop to consider, but will leave the reader to surmise.

Every author of note has had his ghost, and I claim one as my inalienable right.  Charles Dickens had several, Shakespeare had a church full, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, G. P. R. James, Wilkie Collins, Charles Lamb, Capt. Marryatt, Washington Irving and a thousand more authors, both great and small, did not consider their work well done until they had introduced to the world at least one ghost, whose fame ran in an equal ration with the fame of the author.  In view of this fact, and considering that I am an author, I hope to be rubbed down less severely by the hard brick, now become so proverbial, in the hands of an irascible Thirteen Club, and would beg that the knowledge of my being the thirteenth thirteener of the original thirteen will not lead them to place any confidence in the superstition that I may be the Judas of that great anti-superstitious club of the world.

During the year 1884, I, as the representative, and with the sanction of the Thirteen Club, advertised in the New York Herald for a haunted house, they seeming, at that time, according to the newspapers, to be in season and the crop large, offering a reward for such residence of spooks, and agreeing to lay out any number of ghosts that might put in an appearance, and the more the merrier.  It may surprise the reader to learn that there was not even one response to that advertisement, although it was repeated several times, in the vain hope that something in the shape of what we most desired might put in an appearance.  As an anti-superstitious club, and one devoted to heart and soul to the laying of all manner of superstitions, including that of shades from the land of supernatural creations, we had pined and waxed impatient for a ghost.  Contrary to our fond hopes, none had visited us at our festive board, and experience had shown that, as far as the city of New York was concerned, there was not a genuine haunted house in it, and so far as the club was concerned, there wasn't a ghost in it.  It was after this effort that I began to look around on my own account for a veritable, unadulterated ghost.  After four long, weary years of waiting my industry was rewarded in a most unexpected manner and at a time and place when and where I could not have been forewarned of its coming.

I had a friend once of the name of Hardenbrook.  I say 'once' because it is past finding out how long you will have a friend unless you borrow his money and forget to return it, or run away with his daughter, sweetheart or mother-in-law, or do some other pleasant thing like that, so that he will keep you in mind and stick to you with commendable fidelity.  He was a fellow-journalist, and being brother Bohemians I may consider the friendship still on, I suppose.

Our great Washington Irving, in his 'Knickerbocker's History of New York,' speaks pathetically of the families of Tenbroeck and Tinbroeck.  Anglicizing them into Tenbreeches and Tinbreeches, claiming that their names originated in the fact that one of the heads of each of these families wore ten breeches and the other tin breeches, at that time, on account of the coldness of the atmosphere.  With equal pathos the great author mentions the existence of the ancient family of Hardenbroecks, or Hardbreeches, so called because they were particularly hard netherlings.  I mention this in order to account for a belief which has always existed in my mind that the 'Doctor,' as he is familiarly known among journalists, came of that grand old Holland Dutch stock of Hardbreeches, and on account of which statement he may honestly say that he owes me one, and also thank me for tracing  his pedigree as far as the famous Dutch, who are accused of being wide-awake enough, at one opportune moment to commit themselves to all time by taking Holland.

Dr. Hardenbreeches looked like a Hollander then, and still being in the land of the living and the place of his birth, he looks still more like a Hollander at this writing.  He was tall, gaunt, thin as a wafer, in appearance grand as Don Quixote, whom he resembled in many respects otherwise than his looks, and he wore a remarkable cloak in all his travels which the scraggy Don would have given a kingdom for, it he had possessed one, and Hardbreeches's travels were from Dan to Beersheba.  I do not know how it came about, but I always imagined that the Doctor wore that cloak in a spirit of weak imitation of the famous white coat of the reverend Horace Greeley, and this proverbial cloak clung pathetically to the old man's stooping shoulders until it became exhausted, which occurred after many years of good and faithful service.  When he emerged from it, like the butterfly from the chrysalis, he lost his identity until we became both accustomed and reconciled to the transformation he created in a new overcoat.  But the man was there, all the same, with a heart in his old breast and a growl upon his smiling lips for everybody.  The latter as a sop to Cerberus.

You will wonder how Doc Hardenbrook is in it, and I will inform you.  Hardenbrook owned a small place on the water side of Bartow-on-the-Sound, a small town in Westchester County, N. Y., now within the boundaries of what is known as Pelham Park, with a comfortable two-story and basement cottage on it, where he lived in peace and quietness with his housekeeper, Mrs. Gordon, a pleasant, little, gray-haired lady of immeasurable spirits and activity.  I was frequently a guest at this cottage during the summer and fall of the year 1886 and it was here that my ghost appeared one cool evening in the month of September.

The house being built upon a decline, the parlor floor was on a level with the road in front of the house, while the rear of the cottage was a story lower.  The dining room which was also the sitting-room, and the kitchen were in the basement, and both looked out upon a vegetable garden where was planted all kinds of garden truck.  Every evening after dinner when I was there, we remained in the dining room in preference to occupying the less congenial parlor, and smoked our pipes and drank our beer -- Dutch fashion to be sure and told yarns such as are rare and all the more enjoyable for that.  We did not spare each other on ghost stories and the most improbable we pressed most to believe.  After the ordinary run of this class of fiction was exhausted we set to work at manufacturing something beyond reason in order to grand discount those which had gone before.

One evening we had been engaged the Doctor and I in a powerful effort to frighten the pleasant housekeeper with some awful revelations, and, I may claim, with some degree of success.  After hours of labor, reaching up to the topmost figures on the clock's dial the Doctor and the lady went about preparing for retirement to the restful land of Nod, while I remained seated at the dining-table, engrossed in the mysteries of Fos's [sic; should be "Foxe's"] 'Book of Martyrs,' which no family is complete without.  They had gone into the kitchen together, and, as I supposed, out into the garden to count the chickens and the old sow.  A death-like stillness pervaded the premises and I was absorbed in the book until a whispered conversation fell upon my ear and awakened my suspicions.  I looked up and saw them standing at the outer door of the kitchen, leading into the garden, with the wonder in my mind as to what caused them to remain there so long, pinned, as it were, to the spot.  After straining my ears for a sound I heard a whisper of the Doctor, saying:

'Don't tell him for the world!'

Then came the reply from the housekeeper:

'Bless you, no.  It would scare him out of a year's growth.  But did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?  It's a real, live ghost and no mistake!  See it wave its arms and shake its head!  Doctor, let's go in and lock the doors!'

'Nonsense!' replied Hardenbrook, still in a frightened whisper, 'You can't get away from it that way.  Wait and see what it'll do next.'

'Come in, I say!' whispered Mrs. Gordon, with strong emphasis and shivering with alarm.  'See, Doctor, it is moving this way!  Oh, what will become of us all!'

'Nonsense!' answered he of the Dutch descent.  'It doesn't move an inch.  But what can it be, do you suppose?'

'Don't' exclaimed Mrs. Gordon.  'I say, doctor, don't stay there!  I cannot bear to look at it!  Come in and shut the door!'

I had listened to these whispers with a broad smile upon my face, and in the firm belief that they were playing upon me, with a hope that they would succeed in frightening me.  Consequently I sat still, and smiled a significant smile with a wink in the corner of my eye, saying to myself that they were barking up the wrong tree and that I was not the kind of coon to come down anyway.  But when the lady gave a horrified shriek, which almost curdled the blood in my veins -- for she was not more than fifteen feet from where I was sitting, and I saw her shiver and turn towards me a ghastly white face -- I arose and crept, cautiously, to where they were standing, at the open door, the doctor holding tightly to its edge and the housekeeper peeking timidly through the crack at something in the garden.

There was no moon that night, and all was black darkness, save for the faint light of a few stars, which seemed to make the darkness more impenetrable.  The water of the Sound lapped the shore with a melancholy sob and all else was silent, even to painfulness, at that midnight hour.  They stood there, perfectly mute, when I reached them and did not volunteer a word of explanation to my wondering look of inquiry.  Mrs. Gordon looked all that she felt of fear, and Hardenbrook's face was blanched as I never saw it before or since, and the door shook in his grasp.

'What is it?' I asked, realizing that something unearthly was presenting itself to their visitors.

There is something in this expression of fear which cannot be described.  These two were permeated with it to overflowing, and communicated the overflow to me, as I stood there and realized that they were shivering with terror at the sight of what, to them, was something supernatural.  They were man and woman past the meridian of life, and had seen much of it.  Younger people would have fainted at the sight and been justified in so doing on account of the extraordinary cause.  Evidently it was no hoax which they were endeavoring to practice upon me, but something a long way out of the ordinary, nay, beyond the extraordinary.

I cannot say that the old doctor's hair stood upon end, but it must have done so while I gazed at him and heard him, in a harsh whisper, say

'Look there!'

Even the whisper had a tremble in it as he nodded faintly around the edge of the open door, while holding tightly to it, as if to support his trembling limbs.  As he spoke he made room for me to pass out just one step of the board platform, and I turned my gaze in the direction to which he nodded.

I gasped when my eyes fell upon the object which had riveted their attention for so long a time while I had sat in the dining-room, under the impression that they were trying to play a joke upon me and frighten a Thirteener.  The smile that was upon my face faded away instantly, and was superseded by a look of real alarm, I am sure.

'Good gracious!' I exclaimed, 'It's a ghost!'

It is only by those who have had such an experience that my feelings can be appreciated, for the English language does not contain words adequate to the description.  I was suffused with an indescribable fear which was the very extreme of terror.  Even wild beasts tremble at such sights, and remain fixed to the spot.  There is a humble and religious awe that permeates the worshiper when he stands upon holy ground, and it sometimes overcomes him, but the feeling was not of that character.  There is a feeling of worship of the Almighty in the view of his grandest works, but it cannot be compared to that.  There is a painful feeling when in the presence of death, but my feelings were not of that character.  There may be that which overcomes the mind and terrorizes one when in the very gasp of the lightning's flash and the thunder's roll, but it was not that which I felt.  There is an unutterable feeling of loneliness and desertion that overwhelms one from whom loved ones, friends, and sympathetic acquaintances have dropped, one by one, and left him standing alone, without a helping hand to save him from the flood of affliction which sweeps down upon him, but it was not this that I felt.  It is the feeling of despair, which surrounds one like a cloud, with the knowledge of a quickly impending and unavoidable doom, and yet more than this.  It is the knowledge that this is something supernatural not of the earth, but intangible, and therefore irresistible.  It is the overpowering sensation that the bravest of the brave must go down before it as helplessly as the most cowardly of all cowards.  It is the realization that strong and weak alike must succumb to its ghostly influence, as to the avalanche, the simoon [sic], the hurricane, the mountain torrent and the tidal wave, against which human power of resistance is as a straw.

'Hush!' whispered the doctor, his voice ending in a hiss that made me start and shiver.

For what seemed to be a long time I remained silent, absolutely unable to remove my gaze from the ghost.  There, in the rear of the house, stood the awful shape, as plainly defined as ever was mortal man, all gleaming with white, its form perfect and outlined in silvery waves of light, standing out clear and distinct against the ebony darkness of the night for a background.  From head to foot it was a man, and from neck to feet it was clothed in a pure white, flowing robe, which undulated in the soft breeze -- so gentle that it did not stir a leaf -- with graceful oscillations, while its arms rose and fell with a peculiar motion, and seemed to beckon me to approach, the face smiling upon me derisively, as if to say, tauntingly, that I dared not.

I had never experienced such a sensation, and never since that evening have I felt anything like it, thanks to my good fortune.  Of course, I did not then approach the thing.  Nothing so foolhardy was in my mind.  I stood there tremblingly transfixed to the spot like my companions, without power of action, waiting, if for anything, to see it approach us, when I knew I must turn, if I could summon up the courage to do so, and fly in terror, whither I could not have cared as long as it might be out of sight of that undulating enormity, which with open eyes I then saw but had always before scoffed at and invariably ridiculed others for supposing that such visitors could have an existence upon this too solid earth after they had met with the same experience which was then overwhelming me. 

Quickly, as through the mind of a drowning mortal, rushed memories of all I had ever said in derision about just such supernatural visitors, and I became frightened at the thought that perhaps this wrath had come to mete out to me a terrible punishment for my mockeries and skepticism, so often vaunted at the festive board of the boldly defiant Thirteen Club.

I felt the clammy sweat oozing from every pore of my body.  I attempted to utter a long, loud and defiant laugh in aid of my forlorn condition and in evidence of an unfelt bravado.  But my courage had trickled out from my fingertips and, like the others, I was paralyzed with a fear such as I never had felt before, saving in a painful nightmare.  And this was a reality, while there stood the embodiment of the supernatural, waving its arms in the midnight darkness and beckoning me to its embrace of death.

I am not exaggerating -- not one hair's breadth.  There was the image, just as I have described it, and its long, white robe, almost reaching the ground where it stood, softly moving to and fro, while the arms waved and the ghastly head nodded and bowed at me solemnly, yet gracefully, as if to say that to doubt its existence was to doubt the evidence of, not only my own senses, but those of my two friends who stood mute and paralyzed beside me.

At last, with more than human effort, I moved a step forward and halted.  But seeing that the ghost neither advanced nor retreated, I again stepped forward, and then rushed towards it with a frantic desire to solve the mystery, while Mrs. Gordon uttered a scream that rang out shrill and clear through the night, and the doctor sprang after and seized me by the arm.  At the same instant, and when within a few feet of it, we looked up at the thing, and, as we grasped its outstretched arms, we burst out into a loud laugh, which was all the louder for the relief it brought to our overwrought feelings.

Shall I tell what my ghost was, or shall I leave the reader to surmise the real facts?  I prefer to clear up the mystery, and show that it was what many a ghost has been that has gone before it.

In the sitting-room, upon the dining table, was a kerosene lamp which gave out an unusually bright light.  There was no shade upon this lamp, and there was no shade down at the window opening out upon the garden.  Immediately in front of the garden, a few feet from the steps, were several rows of corn, and as the stalks waved in the air the bright light fell upon them.  Two of these stalks, which stood out distinctly from the others, were so peculiarly shaped that the light delineated in them the tall figure of a man, and our fevered imaginations pictured the rest.  I solemnly aver to you that we were as completely deceived by the vision that, had we retreated in affright, without solving the mystery, not one of us would have hesitated to swear that we had witnessed the supernatural, and that it stood plainly, and without the shadow of a doubt before us that night."

Source:  ALL SURE THEY SAW A GHOST, The World [NY, NY], Oct. 8, 1893, Vol. XXXIV, No. 11,737, p. 19, cols. 1-3.  



"WE DID NOT SCARE EACH OTHER ON GHOST STORIES."
Image shows, left to right, Housekeeper Mrs. Gordon, Dr.
Hardenbrook of Bartow-on-the-Sound, and Marvin R.
Clark of the Thirteen Club, in the Dining Area of the Hardenbrook
Home.  Source:  ALL SURE THEY SAW A GHOSTThe World [NY, NY], 
Oct. 8, 1893, Vol. XXXIV, No. 11,737, p. 19, cols. 1-3.  NOTE:  Click
on Image to Enlarge.


"THE DOCTOR SEIZED ME BY THE ARM."
Image shows, left to right, Housekeeper Mrs. Gordon, Dr.
Hardenbrook of Bartow-on-the-Sound, and Marvin R.
Clark of the Thirteen Club, in the Garden Area of the Hardenbrook
Home.  This may be the only eyewitness-based image depicting
a Pelham ghost.  Source:  ALL SURE THEY SAW A GHOSTThe World 
[NY, NY], Oct. 8, 1893, Vol. XXXIV, No. 11,737, p. 19, cols. 1-3.  NOTE:  
Click on Image to Enlarge.
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