Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This curious little story--unique in Fortean circles as far as I know--appeared in the “Cleveland Leader,” April 7, 1875:

The Schenectady Union of March 30th tells this extraordinary story:

A few days ago a phenomenon of a very singular nature occurred at the residence of a Mr. Veeder at No. 37 Albany street. Mrs. Veeder at the time was engaged at her household duties, and all of a sudden she was astonished and confounded, according to her statement, by what seemed to be a flash of light that filled the room for a moment with a brilliant illumination. She was so overcome by the strange occurrence that she screamed at first, but the light having disappeared, she regained her composure, and to her still greater astonishment, happening to cast her eyes toward the ceiling of the kitchen where she was at the time she saw the mark of a child’s foot on the wall overhead. She stood a moment contemplating the object on the ceiling when she saw another mark precisely like the first begin to develop itself on the ceiling, which soon appeared in full, being the print of a child’s foot corresponding exactly to the other one. 

She became alarmed and rushed from the room. Proceeding to a neighbor’s, she called in another woman, and both watched the curious affair. Soon other footprints developed themselves on the wall when another lady was called in, but the footprints continued to multiply. 

This curious development went on until the ceiling of the kitchen was almost covered with these tracks crossing the wall in different lines of direction, and soon after similar marks were seen in quite a number on the ceiling of an adjoining bedroom. The marks in both rooms were all of a child’s foot and were all of the same size and precisely alike in all respects. The ceiling, like all others at this time of the year, is more or less colored and the marks on the wall look like white spots of the foot shape. The marks are still on the wall although some of them have been rubbed off.

The Poltergeist of Ringcroft

The following are the most relevant extracts from a pamphlet published by the Reverend Alexander Telfair in 1695:  "A true relation of an apparition expressions and actings of a spirit which infected the house of Andrew Mackie in Ring-Croft of Stocking, in the paroch of Kerrick, in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in Scotland."  It is a fascinating account of what we today would call one particularly destructive poltergeist.

Telfair prefaced his narrative by expressing his reluctance to appear "in print, to the view of the world."  However, his modesty was overcome by "the conviction and confutation of that prevailing spirit of atheism and infidelity in our time, denying, both in opinion and practice, the existence of spirits, and consequently a heaven and a hell; and imputing the voices, apparitions, and actings of good or evil spirits, to the melancholic disturbance or distemper of the brains and fancies of those who pretend to hear, see, or feel them."

In other words, Rev. Telfair was anticipating our modern world's insistence that alleged paranormal activities are "all in your head," and blowing a big raspberry.

After providing a long list of local worthies who were ready and eager to attest to the truth of his story, Telfair begins:

Whereas many are desirous to know the truth of the matter as to the evil spirit and its actings, that troubleth the family of Andrew Mackie in Ringcroft of Stocking, and are liable to be misinformed, as  I do find by the reports that come to my own ears of that matter, Therefore that satisfaction may be given, and such mistakes may be cured or prevented: I, the minister of the said Parish (who was present several times, and was witness to many of its actings, and have heard an account of the whole of its methods and actings from the persons present, towards whom, and before whom it did act) have given the ensuing, and short account of the whole matter, which l can attest to be the very truth as to that affair.

In the month of February, 1695, the said Andrew Mackie had some young beasts, which in the night-time were still loosed, and their bindings broken; he taking it to be the unruliness of the beasts, did make stronger and stronger bindings of withes and other things; but still all were broken. At last he suspected it to be some other thing, whereupon he removed them out of that place; and the first night thereafter, one of them was bound with a hair-tedder to the back of the house, so strait that the feet of the beast only touched the ground, but could not move no way else, yet it sustained no hurt. Another night, when the family were all sleeping, there was the full of an back-creel of peats set together in midst of the house-floor, and fire put in them; the smoke wakened the family, otherwise the house had been burnt; yet nothing all the while was either seen or heard. 

Upon the 7th of March there were stones thrown in the house, in all the places of it, but it could not be discovered from whence they came, what, or who threw them: after this manner it continued till the Sabbath, now and then throwing, both in the night and the day, but was busiest throwing in the night time.

Upon the Sabbath, being the 11th of March, the crook and potclips [implements for cooking pots]were taken away, and were a wanting four days, and were found at last on a loft where they had been sought several times before. This is attested by Charles Macklelane of Colline, and John Cairns in Hardhills. It was observed that the Stones which hit any person, had not half their natural weight, and the throwing was more frequent on the Sabbath, than at other times: and especially in time of prayer, above all other times, it was busiest, then throwing most at the person praying. The said Andrew Mackie told the matter to me upon Sabbath after sermon; upon the Tuesday thereafter I went to the house, did stay a considerable time with them, and prayed twice, and there was no trouble: then I came out with a resolution to leave the house, and as I was standing speaking to some men at the barn-end, I saw two little stones drop down on the croft at a little distance from me; and immediately some came crying out of the house, that it was become as ill as ever within, whereupon I went into the house again, and as I was at prayer, it threw several stones at me, but they did no hurt, being very small: and after there was no more trouble till the 18th day of March, and then it began as before, and threw more frequently greater stones, whose strokes were surer where they hit: and thus it continued to the 21st.

Then I went to the home and stayed a great part of the night, but was greatly troubled; stones, and several other things were thrown at me.  I was struck several times on the sides and shoulders, very sharply, with a great staff, so that those who were present heard the noise of the strokes: that night it threw off the bedside, and rapped upon the chests and boards as one calling for access.  This is attested by Charles Macklelane of Colline, William Mackminn, and John Tait in Torr.  That night, as I was once at prayer, leaning on a bed-side, I felt something pressing up my arm, and casting my eyes thither, perceived a little white hand and arm from the elbow down, but presently it vanished: it is to be observed, that notwithstanding all that was felt and heard, from the first to the last of this matter, there was never any thing seen, except that hand I saw, and a friend of the said Andrew Mackie's said he saw as it were a young man, redfaced, with yellow hair, looking in at the window; and other two or three persons, with the said Andrew his children, saw, at several times, as it were a young boy, about the age of 14 years, with gray cloths, and a bonnet on his head, but presently disappeared; as also what the three children saw sitting by the fireside. 

April. 3. It whistled several times, and cried wisht, wisht, this is attested by Andrew Tait. Upon the 4th of April, Charles Macklelane of Colline land-lord, with the said Andrew Mackie, went to a certain number of ministers met at Buttle, and gave them an account of the matter; whereupon these ministers made public prayers for the family, and two of their number, viz. Mr Andrew Howart, minister of Kells, and Mr John Murdo, minister of Corsmichael, came to the house and spent that night in fasting and praying : but it was very cruel against them, especially by throwing great stones, some of them about half an stone weight. It wounded Mr Andrew Ewart twice in the head, to the effusion of his blood, it pulled off his wig in time of prayer, and when he was holding out his napkin betwixt his hands, it cast a stone in the napkin, and therewith threw it from him: It gave Mr John Murdo several sore strokes; yet the wounds and bruises received did soon cure. 

There were none in the house that night escaped from some of its fury and cruelty: That night it threw a fiery peat among the people; but did no hurt, it only disturbed them in time of prayer: and also in the dawning, as they rose from prayer, the stones poured down on all who were in the house to their hurt: this is attested by Mr Andrew Mewart, Mr John Murdo, Charles Macklelane, and John Tait. 

Upon the 5th of April: It set some thatch straw in fire which was in the barnyard:  At night the house being very throng with neighbours, the stones were still thrown down among them : as the said Andrew Mackie his wife went to bring in some peats for the fire, when she came to the door she found a broad stone to shake under her foot, which she never knew to be loose before: she resolved with her self to see what was beneath it in the morning thereafter. Upon the 6th of April, when the house was quiet, she went to the stone, and there found seven small bones, with blood, and some flesh, all closed in a piece of old suddled [soiled] paper; the blood was fresh and bright, the sight whereof troubled her, and being afraid, laid all down again; and ran to Colline his house, being an quarter of a mile distant: but in that time it was worse than ever it was before; by throwing stones and fire balls, in and about the house, but the fire as it lighted did evanish: in that time it threw an hot stone into the bed betwixt the children, which burnt through the bed cloaths.

Upon the 9th of April, the bones were sent to the ministers, who were all occasionally met at Kirkcudbright, they appointed five of their number, viz. Mr John Murdo, Mr James Monteith, Mr John Mackmillan, Mr Samuel Spalding, and Mr William Falconer, with me, to go to the House, and spend so much time in fasting and praying as we were able.

Upon the 10th of April we went to the house, and no sooner did I begin to open my mouth, but it threw stones at me, and all within the house, but still worst at him who was at duty: it came often with such force upon the house that it made all the house to shake, it brake an hole through the timber and thatch of the house, and poured in great stones: it gripped, and handled the legs of some as with a man’s hand; it hoisted up the feet of others while standing on the ground, thus it did to William Lennox of Mill-house, myself, and others; in this manner it continued till ten o clock at night, but after that there was no more trouble. 

The 16th it continued whistling, groaning, whisling [whispering], and throwing stones in time of prayer; it cryed Bo, Bo, and Kick, Cuck, and shook men back and forward, and hoisted them up as if it would lift them off their knees. This is attested by Andrew Tait.

The 20th it continued throwing stones, whisling, and whisting with all its former words: when it hit any person, and said, Take you that till you get more, that person was sure immediately of another; but when it said, Take you that, the person got no more for a while. This is attested by John Tait.

The 21st, 22nd, 23rd, it continued casting stones, beating with staves and throwing peat-mud in the faces of all in the house, especially in time of prayer, with all its former tricks. The 24th being a day of humiliation appointed to be kept in the parish for that cause; all that day, from morning to night, it continued in a most fearful manner without intermission, throwing stones with such cruelty and force, all in the house feared lest they should be killed.

The 26th, it threw stones in the evening, and knocked on a chest several times as one to have access; and began to speak, and call those who were sitting in the house witches, and rakes, and said it would take them to hell.

Upon the 27th it set the house seven times in fire. The 28th, being the Sabbath, from sun rising to sun setting, it still set the house in fire; as it was quenched in one part, instantly it was fired in another: and in the evening, when it could not get its designs fulfilled in burning the house, it pulled down the end of the house, all the stone work thereof, so that they could not abide in it any longer, but went and kindled their fire in the stable.

Upon Tuesday's night, being the 3rd of April, Charles Macklelane of Colline, with several neighbours, were in the barn; as he was at prayer he observed a black thing in the corner of the barn, and it did increase, as if it would fill the whole house; he could not discern it to have any form, but as if it had been a black cloud, it was affrighting to them all; and then it threw bear chaff and other mud upon their faces, and after did grip several who were in the house by the middle of the body, by the arms and other parts of their bodies, so strait, that some said, for five days thereafter they thought they felt these grips: after an hour or two of the night was thus past there was no more trouble. This is attested by Charles Macklelane, Thomas Mackminn, Andrew Paline, John Cairns and John Tait. 

Upon Wednesday's night, being the 1st of May, it fired a little sheephouse; the sheep were got out safe, but the sheep house was wholly burnt. Since there hath not been any trouble about the house by night or by day. Now all things aforesaid being of undoubted verity, therefore I conclude with that of the Apostle, 1 Pet. v. 8, 9, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist, steadfast in the faith.”

Telfair could offer only one possible explanation for why the Mackie household was so bedeviled:

"Whereas one Macknaught, who sometimes before possessed that house, did not thrive in his own person or goods. It seems he had sent his son to a witch-wife, who lived then at the Routing-bridge, in the parish of Iron-gray, to enquire what might be the cause of the decay of his person and goods. The youth, meeting with some foreign soldiers, went abroad to Flanders, and did not return with an answer. Some years after, there was one John Redick in this parish, who, having had occasion to go abroad, met with the said young Macknaught in Flanders, and they knowing other, Macknaught enquired after his father and other friends; and finding the said John Redick was to go home, desired him to go to his father, or who ever dwelt in the Ring-croft, and desire them to raise the door-threshold, and search till they found a tooth, and burn it, for none who dwelt in that house would thrive till that was done. The said John Redick coming home, and finding the old man Macknaught dead, and his wife out of that place, did never mention the matter, nor further mind it, till this trouble was in Andrew Mackie's family, then he spoke of it, and told the matter to myself. Betwixt Macknaught's death, and Andrew Mackie's possession of this house, there was one Thomas Telfair, who possessed it some years; what way he heard the report of what the witch-wife had said to Macknaught's son, I cannot tell; but he searched the door-threshold, and found something like a tooth; did compare it with the tooth of man, horse, nolt [cattle], and sheep, (as he said to me), but could not say which it did resemble, only it did resemble a tooth. He did cast it in the fire, where it burnt like a candle, or so much tallow; yet he never knew any trouble about that house by night or by day, before or after, during his possession."

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where one of the Strange Company staffers shares our HQ's usual motto.

A "lost" manuscript about King Arthur has been discovered.

A cow that loved sausages not wisely but too well.

The London that never was.

The theory that our names can shape our appearance.

Meet what might be the weirdest animal in the world.

The Zambia rock revolution.

A brief look at life from 100 years ago.

A look at the Great Siege of Malta.

A brief history of Parisian telephones.

From hearse to chicken brooder.

Some really peculiar (and rather creepy) fossilized structures.

The archives of an antiquarian bookseller.

An Easter Sunday familicide.

A walk along the Black Path.

Some new light on the Trojan War.

A weird Martian rock.

Four tragic teenagers.

Henry James in America.

A goat gland wizard.

What's a fable?  What's a folktale?  What's a myth?  Answer:  It's complicated.

The burial of a Mesolithic baby.

Revisiting "Brideshead Revisted."

Pennsylvania's apple-loving Bigfoot.

How Alexander the Great influenced Napoleon.

A haunted English pub.

The history of the word "beclown."

The court records of a "free woman of color."

Earth's magnetic field is getting weird.

The unusual clock of Corn Street.

A brief history of death masks.

The life of one of Gainsborough's sitters.

The mysterious death of Mary Tobin.

When grandpa goes on a killing spree.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll meet a Scottish poltergeist.  In the meantime, here's Linda & Co.  There was a time when this song was something of a personal anthem of mine.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Introduce me to a ghostly hamster who looks out for her favorite sports team, and you have pretty much made my day.  The “Reading Evening Post,” May 3, 1996:

Forget Uri Geller, Reading Football Club were saved from relegation by a dead hamster buried in the goal mouth. 

Royals fan Vicky Lowe is convinced the spirit of her heroic pet played a part in Reading's 3-0 hammering of Wolverhampton Wanderers at Elm Park on Tuesday night. Vicky, 23, a barmaid at the Royals Rendezvous, was left heartbroken last month when her three-and-a-half-year-old hamster, Miss Effie, died. To add to her grief, Vicky had nowhere to lay her pet to rest--until Reading groundsman Gordon Neate heard of her plight. 

Vicky said: "I haven't really got a back garden, it's more like a yard, so I couldn't bury Miss Effie there.

"I then thought of Prospect Park, but although it is very beautiful it didn't really seem fitting. 

"Gordon then offered to bury her in the goalmouth at Elm Park which was perfect. It was a wonderful gesture and it really means something to know she is buried on the pitch. 

"Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the burial but Gordon said that as he laid her to rest. at noon, the church bells started ringing and the sun came out."

 

And Vicky added that the spirit of Miss Effie lives on.

"I believe her ghost distracted the opposition and helped Reading stay in the First Division."

Groundsman Gordon, a former full-back for the Royals in the 1950s and 1960s, said he was only too happy to save the day after hearing of Vicky's plight. 

He explained: "Vicky was telling me she had nowhere to bury her hamster and certainly didn't want to throw her in the dustbin.

"I thought it would be nice to rest in the goalmouth which Vicky was more than happy with. We put her in the goal in at the Tilehurst Road end." 

Miss Effie is not alone at Elm Park. The ashes of several supporters and an ex-chairman have been buried at Elm Park.

Although the club is expected to be at Elm Park for only another year, Gordon is still receiving requests to bury ashes on the pitch.

He said: "We do stress to relatives that we probably won't be here much longer but as it may be someone's last request we still do it." 

Too Many Clues: The Puzzling Death of Elias Purcell

"Chicago Tribune," December 1, 1935, via Newspapers.com

Many murders go forever unsolved due to a complete lack of clues.  On certain rare occasions, the opposite happens: the victim left behind so many clues--many of them either contradictory or just plain incomprehensible--that it is impossible to make enough sense out of them to conduct a successful investigation.  Anyone who tries winds up feeling like they are spinning in a room of funhouse mirrors.

With a few cases--such as the one we will examine in this week's post--it even remains uncertain if the dearly departed was murdered at all.

Elias H. Purcell had a varied, and largely successful career.  In the late 1800s, he toured America with the Schubert Concert Company, where he was both director and pianist.  The company included Purcell’s wife Lavinia, who was a singer, and their son Thomas, a precociously talented banjoist and violinist.  In 1899, the family, which by then included a daughter, Virginia, settled in Hibbing, Minnesota.  Thanks to an iron range, the local real estate market was booming, and Purcell invested in land to such a profitable degree that by the time WWI broke out, he was worth an estimated $75,000.  (Approximately $1.5 million in today’s money.)  After the children grew up and began their own lives (Virginia married one John Sheehy and Thomas became the leader of a touring jazz orchestra,) Purcell sold most of his holdings in Hibbings, and in 1918, he and Lavinia moved to Chicago.  The pair moved into an apartment building Purcell owned.

Life for the Purcells appeared to roll on quietly enough until Monday, September 22, 1919.  Purcell was temporarily on his own, as Lavinia was visiting friends in Sterling, Illinois.  That morning, the building’s janitor, Henry Van Vaerender, asked his wife and another tenant, a Mrs. Wegener, to accompany him to Purcell’s apartment.  He said he had a feeling that “something funny” was going on with their landlord.  He explained that Purcell was a man of very regular habits, but the day before, all his curtains had remained down, and Purcell failed to take his usual early morning walk.  In short, Vaerender felt uneasy about going in search of Purcell alone.

When the trio approached the door of Purcell’s kitchen, they found that it was closed, but the key hung on the outside.  When they cautiously peered through a window, the women began screaming.  Purcell was sitting bound to a kitchen chair, very unmistakably dead.

When police arrived on the scene, they noted that the body was rigid, suggesting that Purcell had died some hours before.  A shattered glass was on the floor about two feet away from him.  His wrists were bound to the sides of the chair, but very loosely and carelessly.  Over his head was a towel spotted with dark stains.  When this towel was removed, everyone was further unnerved to see that the dead man’s eyes were wide and staring, as if he had passed away while looking at some horrifying sight.  Stranger still, there were no marks of violence anywhere on the body.

The entire house had been completely ransacked.  Furniture had been displaced.  The beds were stripped of their blankets.  Drawers had been pulled out of dressers, with the contents dumped on the floor.  Despite all this chaos, nothing appeared to be missing from the apartment.

In the dining room, the table had been set for three.  Fingerprints on the dishes did not belong to Purcell or any members of his family.  One egg--and one egg only--had been boiled and distributed in three pieces.  One slice of toast was also cut into three pieces and put on separate plates.  There was a bit of coffee in each of three cups, and on three knives was a small lump of butter.  There was something oddly staged about everything that was found in the apartment--including Purcell’s corpse.  But who did the staging, and why?

Although police were able to establish that Purcell’s wife and children were not in Chicago at the time of his death, there were indications that he had not been in the apartment alone.  A milkman named William Hornung told police that around 4 a.m. the previous day, he was walking to the back porches behind Purcell’s building when he saw a shadow cross the curtain of a rear bedroom in Purcell’s flat.  He heard a noise that he thought was either a groan or a snore.  Then, the curtain was pulled aside, revealing the head of a man wearing an officer’s army cap.  The police took particular interest in this detail, as among the items found in Purcell’s apartment was an officer’s cap belonging to Purcell’s son-in-law, who was a lieutenant in the army.  A neighbor of Purcell’s stated that some time around 2 a.m. that same Sunday, she had heard footsteps either in the backyard or the passageway.  Another neighbor said that early Sunday, she had heard a woman’s voice in Purcell’s flat, along with the sounds of a piano and a violin being played.  Yet another tenant heard voices and saw a light from the Purcell bedroom around that same time.

Meanwhile, ten days after Purcell’s body was discovered, the coroner finally learned what had killed him: nicotine.  There was enough of the poison in his system to “kill half a dozen men.”  The dose was so high, it would have ended his life within just a few minutes.  This just added to the puzzle, as deliberate nicotine poisoning was extremely rare.  It would have been hard for anyone to get hold of enough to kill someone, and only a chemist or someone who was an expert in poisons would even think of using it.  Also, nicotine poisoning would cause extreme convulsions before death, but Purcell’s bound body showed no sign of any such seizures.  Could he have already been dead when he was tied to the chair?

The sheer weirdness of the whole death scene led some investigators to propose that Purcell had committed a suicide elaborately faked to look like murder.  They believed Purcell’s hands were tied loosely enough to enable him to drink the poison from a glass and then throw it to the ground, shattering it.  It was pointed out that Purcell had recently lost a good part of his fortune in the stock market, and that he had recently purchased $15,000 worth of life insurance, which would have been invalidated if his death was ruled a suicide.

This theory brought a storm of criticism, not least from Purcell’s family.  They declared that despite his financial losses, he still had a good deal of money, leaving him with no reason to kill himself.  And what about all the witnesses who saw and heard other people in his flat?  In short, both the suicide and murder advocates had enough material to make a plausible case.

The inquest jurors tasked with making some sense of the whole mess delivered the only reasonable verdict:  

"Elias H. Purcell came to his death in the kitchen of his home at 661 Roscoe street from cardiac and respiratory failure due to nicotine poisoning.  From the evidence presented we are unable to determine how or in what manner or by whom said nicotine was ingested.

“We recommend that the state’s attorney and the police make further inquiry into this mysterious case.”

If any “further inquiry” was made, it proved to be utterly useless.  Elias Purcell either committed suicide in a manner worthy of the cleverest detective fiction, or he was murdered in one of the most brilliantly baffling ways imaginable.

In 1920, the insurance company paid Purcell’s widow the full $15,000.  And everyone moved on.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

We have tea!

A haunted historic cabin.

A haunted historic inn.

The life of a 15th century Duchess of Milan.

The saga of the Los Angeles Breakfast Club.

The legacy of Flannery O'Connor.

The debate over "recovered memories."  I know someone who once went under hypnosis, and "recovered" memories of things that I know for a fact never ever happened.  The whole experience screwed up her mind big time, and, incidentally, caused a heck of a lot of trouble within my family.  Just saying.

The auriculas of Spitalfields.

Winston Churchill and the witch hunt.

A French submarine disaster.

A late-Georgian era country doctor.

A dangerous quack medicine.

America's worst dust storm.

The medieval holiday of Hocktide.

What we can learn from ancient kitchens.

A one-legged man attacked a one-armed man, and things got complicated.

Archaeologists are looking for Buddha.

An early mass extinction event.

A mechanical dog from ancient Egypt.

An "unprecedented" hoard from the Ice Age.

An "experimental" weaving station from early 20th century India.

Dessert recipes from the days of WWII rationing.

The politics of pedestrianism.

The photo gallery at the New York morgue.

Medieval castles were cleaner than you might think.

A brief history of Monaco.

AI discovers an ancient civilization.

The airman who fell 18,000 feet and lived to tell the tale.

The mystery of why we don't remember our babyhood.

A secret from King Tut's tomb.

Picturing an ice-free Antarctica.

The final years of former social queen Caroline Astor.

When French Indochina went to war.

Was Michelangelo an art forger?

Why they're called "soap operas."

In which we learn that Mona Lisa is a vampire.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a death that was either an unusually elaborate suicide or a bizarre murder.  In the meantime, here's Nessie!

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Unfortunately, the following is all I could find about what was potentially an intriguing poltergeist case, but I thought it was still worth sharing.  The “New York Daily News,” April 21, 1962:

St. Brieuc, France, April 20-Police and church officials today were investigating reports of a "ghost" in two Brittany villages who is said to have "attacked" people's clothing. 

A man at Landebia recently found himself practically undressed in the market place after seams in his clothing had given away, the reports said. 

Large acid-like burns were said to have appeared on the clothes of a family in Henabbihen--while they were wearing them. The "ghost" slit all the bed-sheets of another family.

The Child of Mystery

Henry John “Johnny” Brophy was, to all outward appearances, a perfectly ordinary little boy.  Although described as “slightly crippled” (as a toddler, he had been run over by a carriage) he managed to lead a normal life.  His mother was still alive, and living in Madison, Wisconsin, but since the age of two Henry lived with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Kaut Lund, in nearby Mt. Horeb.  (It seems to be unrecorded why he wasn’t living with his mother, who had remarried after Henry’s father died.)  Until he was eleven years old, Henry gave no indication that he was about to get a brief nationwide fame as the “Child of Mystery.”

Young Henry’s descent into The Weird began on March 9, 1909.  As the boy was entering a side door of his home, he was hit in the back with a snowball.  The impact was so fierce, he was knocked to the ground.  Once he picked himself up, he looked outside for his attacker.  He saw nobody.

The next day, another large snowball hit him.  His grandparents joined him in the hunt for this phantom practical joker, but again, no one was in the vicinity.  The three of them shrugged--hey, life does funny things sometimes--and dismissed the mystery from their minds.

On March 11, as the trio sat down for dinner, things suddenly happened which were impossible to ignore.  Various objects--cups, bars of soap, spools of thread--began being hurled throughout the room by invisible hands, quite thoroughly terrifying the family, and, I presume, really ruining their meal.

The following day, Henry’s mother was in town in order to attend a funeral.  That evening, as they were all in the sitting room, the spectral Hurler of Inanimate Objects made another appearance.  Various household items suddenly flew through the air, and the furniture began moving itself around.  The sight was so shocking that Henry’s grandfather feared he would have a heart attack.  The family, not knowing what else to do, called in their minister, the Reverend Mostrom.  Mostrom soon arrived at the home, accompanied by a family friend, Sam Thompson.  The two men were greeted by a Bible, which threw itself off a table and landed at the Reverend’s feet.

When Mostrom, in an effort to calm the group, began playing a hymn on the organ, their invisible guest seemed to take offense.  A carving knife flew past him, embedding itself in the floor in front of Thompson.  This was soon followed by a hatpin.

"San Francisco Examiner," August 22, 1909, via Newspapers.com

The clergyman’s visit just seemed to accelerate the eerie assaults.  Lamps would suddenly and mysteriously shatter.  The hinges of doors would unaccountably lose their screws, causing them to fall to the floor.  Out of nowhere, the family would be pelted with coal.  It was noted that these frightening occurrences only happened when Henry was in the house, leaving many to conclude that he was somehow responsible.  However, others asked, how could an eleven-year-old of only average intelligence somehow fool all the adults around him?  

Some speculated that the household objects were moving because the house had both electricity and phone service.  Perhaps this was causing items to become literally electrified?  The Lunds were skeptical about this theory, choosing instead to believe that Henry had somehow been secretly hypnotized, and his trance state was somehow causing the uproar.  

In an effort to settle the question of whether Henry was--consciously or not--responsible for what was happening, he was sent to visit his uncle Andrew in Springfield.  The minute Henry walked through his uncle’s front door, a pail of water began spinning, dashing its contents on the floor.  A mirror crashed to the ground, shattering into fragments.

That question was being clearly answered.

Poor Henry was rapidly becoming unpopular among the other children, as it was impossible to play with him without things going right off the rails.  When he and another boy tried a game of marbles, the marbles not only kept disappearing, the ones that remained insisted on moving themselves.  The terrified boys both fled.  When Henry tried racing the other children, invisible hands pelted him with rocks and dirt clods.  Storekeepers refused to allow him into their shops, because whenever Henry came in, jars would fall off the shelves and break.  Even the family cat refused to go near him.

When Andrew brought the boy back to his grandparents, he included a present: a basket of eggs.  When he placed the basket on a table, he was unnerved to see an egg shoot out and shatter on Henry’s face.

The frazzled family decided to seek medical help.  Henry was examined by a number of doctors, who reported that he was physically normal.  These physicians said the boy must, in some unknown fashion, be playing a gigantic prank on everybody.  The Lunds then held a prayer meeting in their home, which just seemed to make matters worse.  One George Kingsley, who was both a doctor and a spiritualist, told the family that Henry was obviously a talented medium.  The strange events they were experiencing were merely due to the boy not having the training to control his psychic powers.  Another spiritualist claimed that Henry was surrounded by three spirits: two women and a man.  The publicity the boy was unwillingly attracting became so intense that the Lunds posted an announcement in the local paper, begging the crowds and reporters to leave them in peace.

Fortunately for the family, Henry’s “wild talents”--whatever may have been their source--soon faded away.  By the time of his marriage in 1917, he had long returned to being a perfectly ordinary mortal who, one hopes, spent the rest of his days in peaceful obscurity.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

And dance party!

A family's mysterious disappearance is finally solved.  

The library that employs bats.

An old church in a new light.

The secret trials of Nazi POWs.

An 18th century royal scandal.

The artistic legacy of Eleanor of Aquitaine.

A Los Angeles man who may have been part hero, part villain.

An "affair of honour" in the Crimean War.

That beloved tradition of hating Henry Symeonis.

The fall of Thomas Cromwell.

A brief history of haunted televisions.

Yet another "pushing back human history" discovery.

The Steerage Act of 1819.

A brief history of the pork taboo.

A chat between professional mourners.

Do we owe human evolution to...handbags?

A visit to Chiswick House.

A sailor and his slush fund.

When iguanas sailed the world.

How Moses might have parted the Red Sea.

Why you might want to rethink your ambition to live on a base in Antarctica.

The "hag" of our nightmares.

St. Patrick's Day wasn't always green.

The tomb of an unknown pharaoh has just been discovered.

The Dakota Uprising of 1862.

Ancient humans around the world simultaneously invented farming, and we have no idea how that happened.

The woman who restored the faces of WWI veterans.

Yet another marriage ends in murder.

A brief history of air conditioning.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a child with some weird talents.  In the meantime, here's a typical banger from Rockpile.  I loved that band back in the day.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This is another of what I classify as “mini mysteries”--cold cases where very little information is available.  The “Scranton Tribune,” July 14, 1936:

William Lynch, 50-year-old WPA foreman who was shot to death Sunday night in Pittston, may have been a victim of mistaken identity, according to a theory advanced by police last night. The possibility that he may have been mistaken for another man also was advanced by the widow of the man whom many termed "a man without an enemy in the world."

Mrs. Lynch, who was with. her husband when he was shot, unable to give a detailed description of the murderer.

Investigating authorities today began a checkup of the WPA employees who worked under Lynch on the grading of the Suscon Highway. WPA officials declared that Lynch, in his capacity as foreman, had no authority to hire or fire any workmen, and that such orders came through Wilkes-Barre.  

“It’s just a terrible mistake,” said the widow, Mrs. Anna O’Boyle Lynch, last night.

She explained that she and her husband had been visiting his sister and later attended the wake of a friend.  As they neared their home, a man crept up behind the couple and fired two shots in quick succession into Lynch's back.

Mrs. Lynch said that her husband cried, "Oh, Anna, I'm shot." and sank to the sidewalk. She bent over him in an attempt to lift him and at the same time saw a man running down the street. 

"After we left the wake we walked straight home, stopping for ice cream," she said.  "We passed no one after turning off Main Street with the exception of four men talking by the church. (The church is three blocks from the Lynch home). The street was awfully dark and I remarked this to Billie, saying that only one house was lighted. Everything seemed so quiet. 

"No one was in back of us or we would have heard him as we crossed the cement street.  Suddenly I heard a shot which sounded like a firecracker. Then there was another one. Billie cried out and I screamed. As I bent over Billie I saw a man running straight down the street--he didn't turn off, he ran straight. He was a heavily-built man about six feet two and he weighed quite a lot.  He wore a white shirt. I didn't notice anything else, I was too excited. 

"We were coming straight home, but we had to go to the hospital instead."

Mrs. Lynch seemed to lose her composure for a minute and then went on, almost as though she were talking to herself, "He might have dropped from the clouds. Some people on the porch of a house down the street saw him cross behind us. He must have had on soft shoes for we heard nothing.  It was so quiet we would have noticed it. Billie never had an enemy in his life. Everyone used to say he was a swell fellow. The man didn't say a word to either of us.  He shot and then he ran. And we were just a couple of doors Mrs. William Lynch from home--it would have been alright but we didn't get here. We had to go to the hospital instead." 

The widow insisted she had no idea who could have committed the crime. She was emphatic in saying that her husband never had an enemy in his life.

She said that it was a terrible shock and that Mr. Lynch had been mistaken for some one else. Friends and police agreed with her in this supposition. A post mortem conducted at the Pittston Hospital yesterday by Dr. R.S. Bierly showed that Lynch was shot with a .32 calibre revolver. One of the bullets penetrated his spine and penetrated the lower part of his heart. The bullets showed that the gun was rusted and had not been discharged in some time.

William Lynch is originally from Hughestown.  For many years he was employed at Butler's and No 6 as a blacksmith and for two months acted as janitor of the City Hall, Pittston, during the illness of an uncle, Mr. Conners. The deceased leaves besides his widow, one brother, Charles, Pittston, and two sisters, Ann, Pittston, and Mrs. Mary Dougherty, Detroit, Mich. The funeral will be held Thursday morning at 9 o'clock.

A requiem mass will be sung at the St. John's Church at 9:30 o'clock. Interment will be in the church cemetery.

Believe it or not, the investigation into Lynch’s murder never progressed an inch beyond this point.  Police finally shrugged, concluded that the dead man must have been the victim of one of the worst cases of mistaken identity on record, and moved on to more explicable crimes.

"Something Utterly Malign"; Or, Why You Should Be Very Careful Where You Hike In Scotland

British author Joan Grant (1907-1989,) is probably best known for her historical novel about ancient Egypt, “Winged Pharaoh,” which expressed her lifelong interest in reincarnation and the supernatural.  However, this week we shall look at a passage from her autobiography, "Time Out of Mind," which describes an experience in 1928 that was as sinister and uncanny as anything in her fiction:

On one of our Sundays off my husband Leslie and I went to Rothiemurchus intending to climb towards the Cairngorms. It was a beautiful day and we had it to ourselves. Basking naked in the sun, we ate sandwiches beside a burn. It was far too hot and peaceful for serious walking, so we decided to wander on for another mile or so, and then go for dinner to the hotel in Aviemore. Nothing could have been farther from my mind than spooks when suddenly I was seized with such terror that I turned and in panic fled back along the path. Leslie ran after me, imploring me to tell him what was wrong. I could only spare breath enough to tell him to run faster, faster. Something utterly malign, four-legged and yet obscenely human, invisible and yet solid enough for me to hear the pounding of its hooves, was trying to reach me. If it did I should die, for I was far too frightened to know how to defend myself. I had run about half a mile when I burst through an invisible barrier behind which I was safe. I knew I was safe now, though a second before I had been in mortal danger; knew it as certainly as though I were a torero who has jumped the barrier in front of a charging bull. 

A year later one of Father’s professors described an almost exactly similar experience he had had when bug-hunting in the Cairngorms. He was a materialist, but had been so profoundly startled that he wrote to The Times--and received a letter from a reader who had also been pursued by the “Thing.” Some years later, when I was living at Muckerach, the doctor told me that two hikers, for whom search-parties had been out three days, had been found dead. He showed me the exact spot on the map. It was the place of my terror. Both men were under thirty. One came from Grantown, the other from Aviemore. The weather was fine. They had spent a good night under the shelter-stone on the highest ridge, for they had written to that effect in the book which is kept up there. They were found within a hundred yards of each other, sprawled face downward as though they had fallen headlong when in flight. “I did a post-mortem on them both,” said the doctor gravely. “Never in my life have I seen healthier corpses: not a thing wrong with either of the poor chaps except that their hearts stopped. I put ‘heart failure’ on the chit, but it is my considered opinion that they died of fright.” 

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where our staffers will premiere "Strange Company: The Musical."

The Thames of Old London.

The family that slays together...

Yet another "insurance murder."

Van Gogh in Paris.

A very tragic family.

Los Angeles' first policewoman.

Britain's most ghostly places.

A planet's gruesome death.

So, let's talk Danish Protest Pigs.

An English "major UFO scare."

The case for advanced ancient civilizations.  

The Scottish actor who inspired Homer Simpson.

The town of Ludlow and the Wars of the Roses.

A visit to a pet cemetery.

Something swept over our solar system, and astronomers are damned if they know what it was.

An unsolved murder and attempted murder.

The sinking of a WWI hospital ship.

A handy guide to spotting art forgeries.

Oscar Wilde's scandalous tomb.

The Notre Dame of Beijing.

Some people take their shrouds very seriously.

The Pope with the Evil Eye.

A Victorian embroideress.

It turns out that Saturn has more moons than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick.

When the Sahara was green.

The life of Princess Charlotte, daughter of George III.

When accused witches filed lawsuits.

That time when the BBC wanted to censor George Orwell.

A famed 18th century perfumer.

Virginia's first female newspaper publisher.

The world's oldest-known impact crater.

A brief history of the manicule.

The tragic, and slightly mysterious, end of three siblings.

One of the world's most famous beds.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a hike in the countryside that turned very, very weird.  In the meantime, here's a real golden oldie.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I have nothing to add to this story, except that it’s certainly a funny old world.  The “Blairsville Enterprise,” March 14, 1899:

A petition filed at Cordele, Ga., for a receiver for the First National Bank ends a peculiar story. The bank was established by Dr. George W. Marvin. A few months after organizing it he married a Mrs. Cunningham, a widow, who brought to him a large amount of property, which was added to the capital of the bank. A few months after the marriage Mrs. Marvin died and Dr. Marvin soon married Miss Trammell, a typewriter. In 1892 Marvin died and Mrs. Marvin married Joseph E. Bivens, who succeeded to Marvin's fortune.

Mrs. Bivens died in 1896, leaving all of her property to Bivens. The most uncanny feature of the story was Mrs. Bivens' treatment of her first husband's body. She had it perfectly embalmed by an expert and placed in a glass case in her parlor.

The coffin was so arranged that whenever she entered the room an electric motor forced it up to an upright position. After her marriage with Bivens this ghastly spectacle was relegated to the graveyard.

An article in the “Commercial Appeal,” on October 11, 1896, gives a bit more information.  (As you can well imagine, I wanted to learn every available detail.)

CORDELE, Ga Oct 10—The death in this town of Mrs. Joseph E. Bivens, wife of the president of the First National Bank, recalls a sensation as ghastly as it was realistic. 

Mrs. Bivens was formerly an old maid in Atlanta where she had some little property. Dr. Marvin, a specialist from Omaha, Neb., came to Atlanta, wooed the matured maiden and made her his wife. He engaged in some real estate speculations which made him worth nearly $500,000. He then removed to this city and erected a magnificent home which was a dream in the eyes of the country people hereabouts.

The happy couple lived in this new palace, but a few weeks passed when the doctor sickened  and died. Mrs. Marvin refused to be comforted. She forbade a funeral and telegraphed to New Orleans for an expert embalmer and an expert electrician. The result of their joint efforts was that Dr. Marvin was enabled to remain in his seat in the parlor and by an electrical appliance would rise and bow to his widow and then take his seat again. Ridiculous as this may seem there was no arguing the widow out of its continuance.

After about a year of this kind of enjoyment the widow concluded to give her hand and heart to Joseph Bivens, who had become her business manager. After her marriage she carried him to her home and then it was that she gained the remarkable distinction of having two husbands in her home at the same time—one alive and the other dead. She carried Mr. Bivens to look upon the body of her dead husband in the parlor and it was only after urgent solicitation on his part that she consented to the remains being sent to Macon and buried in Rose Hill Cemetery,

Notwithstanding this very peculiar conduct Mrs. Bivens was a lady of great charity and many Christian virtues.

The Coby Murders

When there is a clear motive for someone’s murder, the police are usually at least half-way to solving the crime.  However, when a cold-blooded killing happens for seemingly no reason whatsoever…you have a real problem, one that usually ends with the murderer getting clean away and the victims winding up on the pages of this blog.  The following haunting mystery is a prime example.

31-year-old Dennis Coby lived with his wife of eleven years, 30-year-old Evelyn, and their eight-year-old son Tom in a quiet, pleasant neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Dennis was an orderly at the psychiatric ward of the Cincinnati Veterans’ Administration Hospital, while Evelyn was a busy, seemingly perfectly happy housewife.  The Cobys were devoted to each other and their young son, and appeared to be the ideal middle-class family.

November 25, 1964, began as a perfectly normal day.  Tom came home from school to have lunch, then returned to his class at around 1 p.m.  Dennis was getting ready for a 3 p.m. shift at the hospital.  At 2:15, a neighbor saw Dennis and Evelyn walking to their garage, but did not notice their car leaving.  An hour later, Tom returned home to a puzzling scene.  The front door was open and the TV was on, but his mother was nowhere to be found.  He was also surprised to see that their lunch dishes were still on the table.  Although he did not know it at the time, his father had unaccountably failed to report for work.  The bemused child, not knowing what else to do, went to his grandmother’s house. 

At 4:45 p.m., another neighbor saw two people whom he assumed were the Cobys sitting in their car, which was parked in front of the garage.  When he walked past the Coby house fifteen minutes later, the car was inside the garage, but there was no sign of Dennis or Evelyn.

Meanwhile, Tom’s grandmother, understandably alarmed about the boy’s strange story, phoned Evelyn’s brother-in-law, Ray Temke.  When Ray went to the Coby house, he saw the car parked in the garage.  (The garage was an open, windowless recess, so anyone standing on the sidewalk could see inside.)  He also saw Evelyn and Dennis lying motionless in the back seat of the vehicle.  Assuming that they were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, Temke called paramedics.  When one of the firemen began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Evelyn, he found that her sweater was soaked in blood.  A closer examination found that both the Cobys had bullet holes in their chests.

"Cincinnati Enquirer," February 4, 1965, via Newspapers.com

The autopsies were able to give investigators some information about how the couple had been murdered, even if the “why” remained elusive.  Dennis and Evelyn had been shot multiple times.  The assassin had shot from point blank range.  The Cobys had both eaten a full meal just before they died, suggesting that the murders had taken place soon after lunch.  No fingerprints were found in the car.  The car doors were unlocked, the key was left in the ignition, and the engine was still warm.  There were no signs of a struggle, either in the car or their house.  It seemed clear that Evelyn had walked her husband to the garage, expecting to immediately go back to watching TV.

The Coby garage as it appears today on Google Maps

This was one of those cases brimming with unanswered questions:  Very little blood was found in the car, leaving it uncertain if the couple had been shot in the car, or someplace else.  Were they killed soon after the neighbor saw them walking to the garage, or just before Ray Temke discovered their bodies?  Although the undigested food in their stomachs would suggest that the couple must have died soon after eating their lunch, the coroner believed that they must have been shot sometime after 4 p.m.  If that was the case, where were the Cobys and what were they doing during the 2-plus hours after their last meal?  In this well-populated suburban neighborhood, how could someone commit these relatively public murders without anyone seeing or hearing anything?  Most importantly, who could possibly have had a motive for wanting the couple dead?  It is small wonder that, faced with so much murky and contradictory evidence, some police officers resorted to the simple, straightforward theory that it was a murder/suicide, with someone--probably Ray Temke--removing the gun afterwards.  Harry Sandman, the Chief of Detectives, could only grumble to reporters that “everything we have checked so far seems to lead nowhere.”  Such statements were small comfort to the late couple’s neighbors, who were understandably petrified that a homicidal lunatic might be in their midst.

Although police doggedly continued investigating the case for some months, their inability to find a motive for the murders or any plausible suspects led to an inevitable conclusion:  someone had committed an impossible-to-solve crime.  The deaths of Dennis and Evelyn Coby drifted into the “cold case” file, where they will probably remain forever.  However, many years later, true-crime writer J.T. Townsend interviewed the couple’s now-adult son Tom, who was able to provide one previously-unreported detail:  a few days after his parents were killed, his grandmother received a phone call from an unknown woman who said that her son had committed the murders.  She added that he did not intend to kill “the Mrs.” but she “got in the way.”  Then the woman hung up.  This caller was never identified, leaving it impossible to say if her statement was truthful, or--as seems more likely--just the ramblings of some crank.

In the words of Detective Sandman, “The intangible elements have fallen in favor of the killer.”  That is what makes this unusually baffling case so terrifying.