Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

It’s not every day that your husband’s ghost drops by to warn you that you’re going to Hell.  The “Kentucky Advocate,” July 17, 1874:

Mrs. Eliza Green, aged about 30 years, now living in this place (Springfield, Ky.), a lady of irreproachable character and of decided nerve and courage, having a fair English education, and in possession of tolerable good health, details the following curious incidents as having occurred with her and at her residence since the death of her husband last spring: 

On the 18th of March, 1874, Mr. Green died after a protracted illness, leaving Mrs. Green with a family of six young children with little or no means of support. A short time after Mr. Green's death, say about three months, Mrs. Green heard singular noises about her house after night and sometimes in the day time, heavy breathings and moans resembling a person in the agonies of death, at one time she heard a noise under the house like a horse rolling about and pawing violently as though in the agonies of death. Again she saw frequently in her room at night after the lamp was lighted, a shadowy figure resembling the head and shoulders of a medium-sized man moving around the wall next the ceiling and uniformly as the shadow reached the lamp the flame was extinguished, and this phenomenon happened as often as four or five times in a night. At one time when she and her family with some visitors were sitting quietly in the room, the front door without any visible cause, was seen to fly violently open and shut again as violently, and so violently as to jar boxes of flowers placed In the window out of it.

At other times when the lights were burning, footsteps were heard by her in the room as though a grown person in slippers were walking over the floor, and yet no object could be seen. At one time she thought she heard some person noisily approaching the front door as about to enter. Upon opening the door, however, no one could be seen. Again near the steps of the back door she thought she saw, after dark, a small, white dog resembling one she knew in the neighborhood; that she approached it with the view of taking it up and carrying it in the house, but it eluded her grasp and mysteriously passed away.

At another time the back door of her room seemed half filled with a white, gauzy cloud not resembling anything, only a white figure, which alarmed her, and she ran out of the house; the apparition disappeared. Other persons, friends and relatives, have been present on some of these occasions, and corroborate Mrs. Green's statements. 

The most mysterious and crowning development related by her is said to have occurred on the 30th ult., about 11 o'clock A.M.  She was in the cellar of the house getting kindling wood, and, in stooping down, thought she saw the lower limbs and feet of Mr. Green standing by her, and immediately felt the pressure of a cold band upon her shoulder. She turned and looked, and reports that her husband stood before her just as he appeared when she last saw him in his burial clothes, When she exclaimed: "In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed me, Dick, what do you want?" and that he spoke audibly to her in his natural tone of voice and language, telling her that the sufferings of this life were in no way to be compared to those of the other world, and that he was permitted to come back to her to advise her of her neglect of duty, and to urge her to act otherwise. He also sent by her messages to his brother Charles Green, Mrs. Rachel Walker, and to Miss Edgerton, all living here. He further requested her to have three masses said for the repose of his soul; one on the first Saturday in this month, and the others on the two following Saturdays. He further informed her that he would not visibly appear to her again, but could have appeared twice more had he desired to do so, but not to her but to other persons named by him his kindred. Then repeating the word "friend" three times he vanished from sight. Mrs. Green says she has heard loud knocking on the floors and heard groanings, as of a person in extreme distress, since, but has seen nothing more.