Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Offer me a newspaper item about a “queer old bugaboo,” and I’m there.  The “Wisconsin State Journal,” carried a reprint of this story from the “Fredericksburg [Maryland] Standard” on November 1, 1883:

A remarkable incident happened to a little daughter of Captain William L. Pratt, of King George County, last Monday evening. At three o'clock she started to the spring, about two hundred yards from the house, for a bucket of water. When about half way, in passing a peach tree near the path, an indescribable sensation came over her. Her hair felt as though it was standing on end and a heavy pressure on the shoulders almost crashed her to the earth. With difficulty she walked to the spring, got her water and started back. Arriving at the same tree something came out of the weeds in front of her, crossed the path and disappeared. The object appeared to be moving just above the ground, but not touching it. It was covered with something like an old coat, with the sleeves hanging down, one on each side. Its head was covered with short, kinky hair and it seemed to have no face, eyes or feet. Its disappearing in an open space seems to be the mystery, and the further fact that the weakness and pressure left the little girl as soon as it disappeared. The little girl was very much alarmed at the time and says while this object was passing she could not have moved out of her tracks or spoken if her life depended upon it. The mother reports that she was as pale as a corpse when she reached the house. 

Her father, Captain Pratt, was in town, and she feared it was a token of some accident that had or would happen to him. She watched steadily for him until he got in sight of the house on his return, when she clapped her hands for joy and shouted: "Papa is coming." Captain Pratt says he is not a believer in ghosts or supernatural things, but this is a mystery which he can not explain and which is giving him much concern. The little girl is about eleven years old.