Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

The following poltergeist tale--one more Gothic and sinister than most--appeared in the Knoxville “Journal and Tribune,” October 11, 1889:

On the outskirts of this town, says a Woodville (Tex.) letter to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, is an old house which has stood untenanted for years but was recently repaired and once more rendered inhabitable.  A Mr. Z,  who is a recent arrival in Woodville, though well known in the county as an honorable gentleman, moved into this house about six weeks ago with his family, which consists of his wife, a grown daughter, and a little boy of seven.  One night about a week after they got settled the child came running in from the hall, which was unlighted, into his mother’s room crying out: 

“Oh, mamma, somebody with their hands all wet caught hold of me.”

His mother commenced to soothe his fright, when to her horror she perceived that the sleeve of the child’s little jacket of white linen bore the mark of a bloody hand.  She called to her husband who was sitting on the porch, and told him what the child said, showing at the same time the crimson marks. The two proceeded to search the house but found only the usual occupants. Mr. Z. was certain that no one could have passed him and the servants, on being questioned, declared that they had been sitting on the back porch and had seen no one come in. The whole occurrence was dismissed as a mystery that would in due course explain itself in some natural way, for both Mr. Z. and his wife were people of strong religious convictions. besides being possessed of cool practical common sense. 

Scarcely a week, however, had elapsed when one night about ten o’clock, shrieks were heard issuing from the room of the young lady daughter, who had just retired. When reached the girl was found to be nearly insensible from fright and it was several minutes before she was restored sufficiently to be able to tell the cause of her alarm. She had been standing before her toilet mirror in her night-dress braiding her hair when, happening to cast her glance on the reflection in the glass, she perceived a hand all dripping with blood lying familiarly on her shoulder. Seeing this frightful sight and knowing that there was no living creature in the room beside herself the terrified girl attempted to run from it but was mysteriously held fast by that bloody hand. 

Her night-dress was plainly impressed with the print of a large hand outlined in fresh blood. Mr. and Mrs. Z. were now thoroughly alarmed, for these things were wholly inexplicable from any but a supernatural stand-point. However, with a courageous determination to accept none but a purely natural explanation, they resolved to remain in the house awhile longer, but sent away their children.  Mr. Z. went to the owner of the house and inquired if any thing in its history could account for the strange appearances that had been witnessed in it.  Mr. O., to whom the house belonged at that time, informed him that he had bought it from a family who had left the place suddenly--for what reason no one ever knew--about eight years before. 

For a time nothing further was seen or heard of the bloody hand, and they were beginning to congratulate themselves that it would trouble them no longer, when it began a course of persecution that finally ended in driving them from the house. Mrs. Z. would be awakened by the touch of clammy fingers playing over her face, her husband found himself struck violently over the head whenever he entered a room unlighted; the servants left complaining that their work was interfered with constantly, for the dishes were thrown to the floor, freshly laundried clothes sprinkled with blood, and gory marks defaced the white plastered walls. The door-bell kept up a perpetual ringing day and night, and occasionally there would be a fearful crash as if the very roof had fallen. Mr. Z. procured a dog which was kept in the house all the time, but one morning after an unusually disturbed night the animal was found dead with a broken neck and a look of almost human terror in its wide-open eyes. One day Mrs. Z. in broad daylight was seized by her back hair and dragged violently from room to room until she repeated the Lord's prayer aloud, when her invisible enemy relaxed its hold and a pitiful moaning or lamentation filled the air as of some lost spirit bewailing its doom. 

The climax, however, was reached one magnificent moonlight night when Mr. and Mrs. Z. were sitting on their porch quietly conversing. All at once the husband without speaking directed his attention to the floor. There was a hand, severed at the wrist, and with a faint blue light playing about it, writing with the index finger on the white plank flooring of the porch. When the hand finished its writing it seemed to wring itself in the air in speechless despair and disappeared flaming.  A lamp was at once procured and the pair read the sentence traced by the hand in blood:

“The wicked cry rest, rest, and there is no rest!”

Scarcely had they finished reading it when the lamp was snatched from the hand of Mr. Z. and flung violently to the floor, shrieks and wails, sad and terrible beyond describing, filled the air and the husband and wife, conquered at last, rushed from the accursed house and sought refuge at a neighbor’s.  In a short while the alarm of fire was given and the house just deserted by the Z.s was found enveloped in flames. The lamp in its fall had set it on fire and it was completely consumed.