Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com



The following is a pretty stereotypical poltergeist case, but it's still of interest.  The "Philadelphia Times," September 10, 1885:

John Seitzinger, wife and children live in a modest two-story house in this place. For the past several days their lives have been made miserable, owing to some unseen force, which moves the furniture from one end of the room to the other and which throws stones and other missiles. The police went there today to investigate. Stones wore hurled in a continuous shower from the air, but no one could see who threw them. One of them struck Lucy Seitzinger, aged 10, severely injuring her. Pies, bread, etc., were hurled out of the larder and the plates, cups and saucers commenced dancing on the table. While the members of the family were in bed for the past few nights they were turned upside down, sometimes as often as a dozen times in an evening. 

Large crowds of excited people visit the house to see the furniture dance and see the stones thrown through the air. When the stones commenced to fly the thickest, the policemen who went to the house left in a hurry. Frequently after an hour's absence Mrs. Seitzinger will find all the furniture disarranged. Superstitious people believe that the place is haunted and some of the stones have been given to a witch doctor to use his influence in destroying the power of these strange and mysterious forces.

As is all-too-common with such reports, I couldn't find any conclusion to the story, so I can't tell you if the witch doctor had any luck.  I rather doubt he did, though.

1 comment:

  1. Firstly, I wouldn't mind having pies tossed in my direction, especially if they were someone else's. But a witch doctor? In Philadelphia?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated. Because no one gets to be rude and obnoxious around here except the author of this blog.