Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This sinister little ghost story--with hints of murder and spectral vengeance thrown in--appeared in the “Garnett-Journal Plaindealer,” May 6, 1887:

New York, May 2. A New Haven, Conn., special says: Charles L. Beecher, who committed suicide Sunday, is now believed by many to have been driven to his death by a belief that he was haunted by the ghost of his wife.  The fact that he took so much pains in preparing for his death is thought to indicate that his mind had given way. He first shot his pet dog, and then seated himself in an easy chair and took aim through the medium of a hand-mirror, and put a bullet through his head. He had previously told some of his neighbors that he could not live in the house, owing to the frequent appearance of the spirit of his wife, who died about three months ago. He said her figure, increased to twice its natural size, appeared to him on the wall of his room very often.

The vision always seemed to be carrying a baby in its arms, and this, he said, was the figure of an infant that his wife had lost. Corroboration of the ghost story was given by a 16-year-old girl named Collar, who lives in the house adjoining the one occupied by Beecher. This girl, together with a servant employed in the house of L.L. Camp, nearby, went into Beecher's house one evening at his invitation to see the ghost.

Miss Collar says that a huge figure like a shadow did appear on the wall, carrying a babe in its arms. Beecher sat in his chair and pointed to the apparition, exclaiming: "There she is; there's my wife!" Miss Collar says that she ran up to the wall and slapped the vision, but when she did so it moved off to another portion of the wall, and when she repeated the slapping operation the same thing took place. The servant girl who was with her says that she, too, saw the figure. Beecher has been seen moving things out of the house of late. Some say that he did not treat his wife well toward the end of her life.

When she died one of the neighbors went to Medical Examiner White and told him the case would bear investigation, but nothing ever came of it. Beecher was once a very well-to-do boot and shoe dealer here.