Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

One of the many delightful things about the “Illustrated Police News” is that they often varied their reports of ‘orrible murders, gruesome deaths, and assorted wickedness with some nifty little ghost stories.  This short but extremely weird little tale appeared in the March 30, 1878 issue:

A singular scene was witnessed a few days ago at Bennington. As a young couple were standing at the altar of St. Mary's Church to go through the marriage ceremony, the proceedings were brought to an abrupt termination by that which all rational people must of necessity deem most preposterous and ridiculous. It appears that the whole wedding party was composed of spiritualists. All of a sudden the bridegroom became deadly pale, trembled, and pointed to a shadowy form, which he asserted arose between himself and the woman he was about to espouse. Like her, it was dressed in full bridal costume. The features were those of a young lady whom he, the bridegroom, had courted some four years, and who had but recently died. The loving bride, the bridegroom's best man, and indeed the whole wedding party, declared most positively that the spirit of the departed stood there to forbid the ceremony from being completed, and the effect was so tremendous and overpowering that the loving bride withdrew from the altar, and refused to have any further share in the proceedings.