Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This Stephen King-like item is short, and anything but sweet.  “New York World,” May 2, 1905:

“I have been seeing ghosts and I am afraid that they are going to harm me,” were the last words of Irving Fuller, a young embalmer, to his friend, Duncan Stephenson, when they parted yesterday.

Fuller’s body, attired in pajamas, was found at the bottom of an airshaft in the New York and Brooklyn Casket Company’s establishment, at No. 160 East One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth street, early to-day.  He had fallen four floors.  His neck had been broken and death was instantaneous.  Stephenson believes he jumped into the shaft in fleeing from the visions he so greatly feared.

Fuller, who was twenty-seven years old and unmarried, came to New York from an up-state town only a few months ago, and obtained a position as an emergency embalmer for the casket company.  It was part of his duty to live in the big five-story brick building in East One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth street, every floor of which is filled with caskets.  The young embalmer had to stay in the place all night to answer emergency calls.

During the last few days Stephenson, another workman in the casket factory, had noticed that Fuller was growing wan and pale.  When he asked him what the trouble was he says the young man replied:

“I’ll tell you just what it is, Stephenson, although it sounds rather foolish.  For the last few days I have been seeing ghosts.  They walk into my room while I am in bed.  They stand at my side and look at me and some of them make menacing gestures.  All of them seem to be ghosts of people I have embalmed.  I suppose it’s absurd to talk this way.  Of course the ghosts don’t exist.  What I need to drive them away is fresh air and plenty of exercise.  But still when they come and look at me my hair stands on end and my impulse is to get away from them at any cost.”