Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

People who work in cemeteries often wind up with some odd tales to tell, as this item from the “Iowa County Democrat,” April 11, 1895, amply demonstrates:

Sexton Gorham, of Marietta City cemetery, is not a believer in ghosts, but during the many years he has been at work among the dead he has seen two mysterious persons suddenly disappear, that astonished him, says the Atlanta Constitution. 

Eleven years ago, he says, he was at work one Saturday and he noticed a man, dressed in black, standing about where the tool box is now. He says he worked on a short distance from him, and for one hour the mysterious man stood there like a statue. When Mr. Gorham concluded to quit work he placed his tools in his wheelbarrow and started towards the man to put up his tools. When he got within 15 or 20 yards of the man he looked down to guide his wheelbarrow, and when he looked up again the “man in black” had disappeared. 

He said it was an open space where he stood and there was no place for any one to hide. He said he looked all around, but he couldn't find him anywhere. Recently Sexton Gorham has had another experience. He said that he was coming from the new cemetery to the old, through a drizzling rain, and at a newly made grave he saw a woman dressed in black. He watched her closely, and walked toward her to see who it was out on such an inclement day, and when he got very near her he passed around a monument, and when he looked for the “woman in black" again she, too, had suddenly vanished. He went to where she stood and he could see no tracks and he made a diligent search for her, but nowhere was she visible. Sexton Gorham says it put some “curious feelings" on him, and he did not propose to explain the matter.