Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

You don’t normally see Mystery Blood, a sinister Woman in Black, and poltergeist activity all in the same newspaper story, but I guess this is just our lucky week.  This story from the “San Francisco Bulletin” was reprinted in the New Orleans “Times-Picayune” on September 20, 1862.

A Telegraph Hill Ghostess. The Woman in Black. Allusion was recently made in the Bulletin to a Telegraph Hill ghost story, and as there really is something remarkable about the matter, we now present the whole story as received from an intelligent disbeliever in "spirits." Said he:

It is a week ago last Monday when the first visitation came to a house on Kearney street, between Greenwich and Lombard. George---- something he's an Englishman by birth and a stevedore by occupation lived there. Long ago he married a widow who already had a daughter. The widow died, and George (he's got a curious name that I can’t recollect, so I always call him by his Christian name,) married again; this time to a servant girl in my house. By the last wife George has two children; so the first girl has a step-father and step-mother, you see.

Well, on Monday week, George and his wife had gone out to a neighbor's near by, leaving the children at home.  The little ones after a while saw a lady, dressed in black, walk into the house and through the rooms, to the bedchamber of their parents. There was nothing ghost-like about the woman in black--she looked natural enough, and it was not until she entered their parents’ bedroom that the children became curious and followed her.  They saw her go in and lie on the bed.They then were frightened and ran to find their parents.   The father came in with the little ones, but as he could see no one, he supposed the visitant was simply one of the neighbors, looking, perhaps, tor his wife.

On Tuesday the mysterious visitant again appeared. The father and mother couldn't see her, but the little ones (4 and 5 years of age) could.  She again walked to the same bedchamber. "There, don't you see her?  She's going to the bed again!" cried tho children. The parents saw nothing. "Her face is all bloody!” whispered one of the frightened children. "She's lying down on the bed, and now her face is on the pillow!" As the little one spoke, sure enough, the parents saw a great blotch or wet blood appear on the white pillow, but they could see nothing else.  It was very singular.

From that time until Saturday, dishes and furniture were capsized and broken, and there was the old Harry to pay generally. The eldest girl (the step-daughter) seemed to be the most affected. George's wife, too, who didn't believe at all in spirits, was also attacked. She was sitting in a chair, when she suddenly felt and heard a rap under it. Looking under it, she could see nothing. She had heard how Spiritualists convene with spirits, so she asked: "Are there any spirits present?”   when a loud voice close to her ear exclaimed "Yes!" Yet she was alone.

"Do you want me?" she queried. 

"Yes," said the voice.

“Then you can go to the old fish," she replied; whereupon her chair seemed to be seized by hands on either side and carried all around the room as she sat in it. 

The eldest girl, too, had frequently been slapped on the face by the woman in black, and blood always appeared upon her cheek on such occasions. It was found best to leave the house, so annoying had this come to be, so the family moved to a house on Montgomery street, near Green, still on Telegraph Hill. But the singular woman in black also appeared here. On Saturday, the oldest girl went to the house of Mr. S. It was broad daylight, and, attracted by the mysterious rumor, some thirty or forty persons also went to the house to talk with the girl. While they were there she suddenly declared that the woman in black was approaching her with her bloody hand. Then she was struck again, and bloody marks of fingers suddenly appeared upon her face. The blood even ran down upon her neck. 

Mrs. S. with a damp towel removed the blood from the girl's face, and was standing beside her, talking, when all at once Mrs. S. was herself struck in the face, and blood appeared all over it!  That's about the whole story, but it may be well to add that Mrs. S. and the eldest girl believe to a certain extent in "spiritual manifestations.”

The blood discolored all the water in a basin at Mr. S.'s house, so it is believed to be genuine blood--blood of the body. Some clots of it that dried on the pillow and bed clothes have been preserved for analysis, so as to be sure that no one has been squirting blood-colored liquid at the supposed victims of spiritual assaults.

Very many persons supposed to be rational disbelievers in spiritual manifestations assert most positively that this occurred, and it is rather perplexing to account for it. The father was a firm disbeliever, but now says he can doubt no longer. He hates to talk about it. The mother firmly disbelieved, and won't believe now. although she was carried round a room, heard strange voices, and so on. The eldest girl was perhaps a believer before this happened. The two children knew nothing about such things. Mrs. S. believes in it a little, but not much. 

Part of it is accounted for in this manner: Medical books say that where the skin of the face has been diseased, then from a spasm of fear or pain it sometimes happens that the vicarous blood rushes through the skin just as though it had been brought out by a blow. And it so happens that the girl's face was affected by poison oak some time since.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to learn anything more about this first-rate ghost story.