Schmidt asked his family to keep watch on the shack if they could, even though they would be busy doing morning milking and chores. They promised to take turns.
Schmidt hitched his team to the wagon and headed down to the Smoky Hill River bottoms where each day he dug and hauled sand for construction projects in the area. The job supplemented his inadequate farm income.
His brother-in-law, Anton Rupp, was working with him. Rupp saw that Schmidt was upset about something. He finally told Rupp about the morning’s incident and asked if he would come with him after work to investigate the shack. Rupp agreed.
At supper, Schmidt’s wife said she and the children had taken turns watching the shack and they had not see anyone go in or come out.
Their meal finished, the two men rode up to the old cabin, now cast in the shadows of a full moon. They called out. They banged on the weathered door. They called again. Schmidt said he was going in.
The old latch was rusted in place, so Schmidt gave the door a violent kick and it snapped inward. He stepped cautiously inside.
Cobwebs embroidered the corners and dust lay thick everywhere. Obviously the place had not been occupied for some time. There was no sign of a lady in blue.
Much later, in the 1940s, John Schmidt told a young friend, Robert Maxwell, the story that had perplexed the Schmidt family for nearly thirty years.
It was several days after hearing the tale before Maxwell got up the courage to ask the question that plagued him. “John, do you reckon that gal could have been Elizabeth Polly? Or her ghost?”
Schmidt took a long time answering.
“Bobby,” he said softly, “I just don’t know.”
But he told Maxwell that after he saw the woman that day, he went to see George Brown, a night watchman at the coliseum on the Fort Hays state college campus.
Brown was a youngster when the original fort still stood. He herded cattle for the officers. Perhaps he would remember something of Elizabeth Polly.
Brown was eager to talk about those long-ago days, and he told Schmidt that indeed he had known Elizabeth Polly and remembered her husband as well. He described her funeral and recalled that she was buried in a wide-brim bonnet and a long, flowing blue gown, the same outfit the Schmidt family had seen the ghost wearing that morning in 1917, fifty years after her death.
On the hundredth anniversary of Elizabeth Polly’s death in 1967, Hays City celebrated its own centennial. Men and women, dressed in nineteenth-century attire, gathered downtown for the festivities and a street dance.
Some say that at the edge of the crowd, amid the many bonnets and ankle-length gingham gowns worn that day, there was one particular lady, dressed in blue, who watched the bustling activities with a wistful smile on her face. At the coming of the night, the lady set off alone, back across the prairie to her lonely grave.
Michigan
The Soul of Stephen Strand
Battle Creek
Near Battle Creek, a decade before the American Civil War, a story unfolded so strange, so unbelievable, it reads like fiction. Even though the event originally appeared in an 1851 issue of the sensational New York Mercury, it was later cited by psychical research publications for its extraordinary circumstances. Did the events roll out as suggested, or was it a piece of fiction wrapped in the garb of authenticity? We may never know for certain, but what is alleged to have taken place was nothing less than an instance of long-term possession, the “transference” of a soul from someone dead to someone who lived on for many years.
In other words, a wandering spirit drove away the soul of a living person.
As incredible and unbelievable as it sounds, that is what is alleged to have happened.
Harper Allyn, a bachelor, worked as a wool carder at the mills of one Captain William Wallace in the years 1850 and 1851. He was a quiet man, given to long evenings alone by the fire, or to pursuing solitary sport such as hunting and fishing the shores of Goguac Lake, at that time a few miles outside Battle Creek. Little is known of him. His age was never reported, nor his personal history. The only characteristic of note is the crux of this story, Allyn’s curiosity about a solitary “hermit” who lived on an island in Goguac Lake.
It was on a hunting trip that Allyn first noticed the tidy small cabin nestled among the pine trees. The man who lived there was Stephen Strand, a private character who shunned human interaction and lived alone except for an old dog and a black cat. As far as anyone knew, he never ventured into town and appeared to provide for himself through trapping, hunting, and fishing for bass, bluegill, and walleye in the abundant waters of the lake.
Allyn, the quiet bachelor, and Strand, the mysterious hermit, were thrown together in a most unusual way when a rattlesnake trapped Strand’s black cat against a rock ledge. Allyn, who was hunting nearby at the time, happened along and killed the serpent. Strand showered Allyn with gratitude.
After that, the men frequently hunted and fished together. And although they spoke of many things, Allyn learned little about Strand’s life and even less about the circumstances that brought him to such an isolated existence.
Their friendship might have continued uneventfully had it not been for a thunderstorm. Allyn and Strand had been fishing on the lake and had just made it back to Strand’s cabin as the first wave of lightning-belching dark clouds erupted. Allyn could not make it back to the mainland and was forced to spend the night in Strand’s cabin.
He had always sensed that something lay hidden within Strand, a dark secret that would provide the key to understanding the man.
On this wild night Allyn finally heard the astonishing tale. It all began with the first clap of thunder.
Never had Harper Allyn seen a grown man react with such abject terror to a thunderstorm. While it raged, Strand paced the cabin. From time to time he nervously glanced out the shuttered windows, as if waiting for someone. He noticed Allyn’s curiosity but said nothing. At last the storm abated. Strand visibly relaxed and beckoned Allyn to join him nearer the fire.
“I apologize for what must seem to you peculiar behavior on my part,” Strand began. “But you see, I have good reason to fear the storm. I, that is the person you hear speaking, am Stephen Strand. But the body you see is that of another.”
Harper Allyn rose and made for the door. He was not going to spend the night with a madman.
“Please!” Strand reached out to grasp Allyn’s arm. “Please, I am not mad, despite that rather odd statement. If you will allow me, I shall explain. But I warn you, it is a story you will find difficult to believe.”
Allyn hesitated. Was he close to finding that hidden secret he knew was there? Or were Strand’s words the ravings of a lunatic?
“Very well,” Allyn said at last, resuming his seat and leaning forward. “Continue. Tell me how it is possible that you speak as one man and be another.”
Strand took a deep breath and began his tale.
“That, sir, is why I fear the storm. I shall start at the beginning. I was born nearly six decades ago in the village of Becket Corner, Massachusetts. As Stephen Strand. At the age of sixteen years, I signed on with a whaler out of New Bedford. I rose steadily in rank until, at the age of twenty, I felt assured enough in my status to return home and marry.”
His eyes clouded. He gazed into the deep, red embers of the blazing fire.
“Her name was Molly . . . Molly Lawton. We had known each other since childhood. After we married, I worked ashore for five years, first as a storekeeper and then at a livery. We had a good life together . . . but for me that wasn’t enough. I knew I belonged at sea. Molly accepted that as a good wife does.”
He shipped out on a merchantman bound for France. The trip was uneventful. He stayed with the ship, even though it was to be delayed several months before its return to America.
“At last we left France, bound for Ireland, where we were to take on cargo. Late one night, as we neared Cornwall, a violent storm descended upon us. We couldn’t hold the course in the ch
annel and smashed against the English cliffs.
“I was below decks when we hit. I was thrown across the sleeping compartment and must have struck my head for I remember nothing until . . . until I . . . woke up . . .”
He was struggling with the recollection. Allyn sensed it was the first time in a long while that he had talked about himself.
“Go on,” Allyn gently urged. “You struck your head, but obviously you lived.”
“Ah, but that’s just it,” Strand continued. “I did not live! I awoke, yes, but as I did I had the sensation of floating above the cabin deck, looking down upon the scene. I could not find my body. My soul or spirit, for that is what I presume I had become, had traveled some distance. I was in a different part of the ship.”
Strand paused a moment, struggling to go on.
“I did not want to stay in that . . . limbo! I wanted to see my family again, to rejoin the world of the living. All around me, my shipmates lay dead. Suddenly, I noticed that one of the Frenchmen who had joined us as passengers was stirring.
“It was then I realized that perhaps his body could become mine! I tried to enter him, but his own soul prevented me. We fought. I remember little, except that after what seemed like hours I succeeded. His soul fled. But not far. It still . . . lingers. Close by. Always has.”
Strand was breathing heavily, the sweat visible on his forehead, as if reliving the nauseous fear that must have gripped him on the English coast so many years ago.
“Whenever there is a storm, as tonight, the soul of that man tries to repossess what once was his—the body you see before you. I am the soul and mind of Stephen Strand, but this body, this casing belongs to the Frenchman I conquered that night so very long ago.”
Allyn leaned back in his chair, not quite knowing what to say, or even whether to believe such a preposterous story.
“Did that Frenchman, er, did you find any possessions on that body you took?” Allyn asked at last.
“A few,” Strand replied. “Some letters that I destroyed and a knife and a small bag I lost years ago.” He reached into his pocket. “But this match safe I have kept since that night. You may have it. For saving my cat. Take it. Please. And for it, perhaps you would be kind enough to give me that daguerreotype of yourself you told me about. A fair trade? I want to remember you . . . and your many kindnesses.”
Allyn took the exquisitely designed gold box. The workmanship was of the finest quality. Engraved upon the outside was the name Jacques Beaumont.
“I shall certainly give you that picture. I fear this is far more valuable, however. But are you . . . is that which I see the body of Beaumont?” Allyn asked.
“Yes,” Strand said quietly, “although I know little of him. He is a vessel within which lives the soul of Stephen Strand. To me it is a stranger’s name.”
Even more questions crowded Allyn’s mind.
“What then? How did you reach this country? And end up out here far from your, er, Stephen Strand’s home?”
“I . . . or Beaumont rather was the only survivor. The ship broke apart, but I was able to ride a large piece of wood like a raft to shore. I made my way to Liverpool and thence to Boston. I must say, it was a peculiar experience. This body . . . I was not used to it! Silly things happened.” Strand laughed. Allyn had never seen him laugh before.
“I began to crave French cooking! Of course I was in England so out of luck on that score.”
Again he grew serious.
“It was as if I had suddenly been transported as a blind man into a new house, one in which I was expected to live and work, and yet I knew nothing of its rooms or furnishings. Each time I glanced into a looking glass, I expected to see Stephen Strand. Instead, this stranger stared back at me. I can tell you I was frightened more than once by the ordeal. And yet . . . I was alive!
“Well, once in Boston, I prepared to reacquaint myself with my wife. I made my way to Becket Center and . . .”
Strand covered his eyes and began to weep.
“Go on,” Allyn urged.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” Strand stammered between sobs. “It’s so very painful for me. You see I hadn’t reckoned with the shock my new . . . self . . . would have on those whom I loved. I poured out my story to Molly, my wife. She shrank from me. She said her husband had been drowned off the English coast. I tried to convince her it was I, her Stephen, but it was of no use. She took me for a madman. My friends shunned me. I was forced to flee for my life. I was afraid they would lock me up. I wandered for several years and finally settled here on this island where you found me.”
His peculiar narrative at an end, Strand stared intently at his friend.
Allyn met his gaze but said nothing. The first light of dawn was knifing through the cabin, casting the cozy room’s furnishings in an eerie, amber-colored glow.
Allyn replied at last. “I have to think about what you have told me. It is so . . . so unbelievable. But it has the texture of truth about it. I don’t fully understand why . . . but I think I believe you.”
Allyn saw little of Stephen Strand over the next few months, occasionally stopping by the cabin to check on his welfare, but never staying for more than a few minutes at a time. He tried to find proof to support Strand’s assertions. He wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper near Becket Corner, asking for information regarding Stephen Strand. Was there ever such a man in Becket Corner? Did he go off to sea? Marry? And, most importantly, was he still living?
In reply, the editor said that a man named Stephen Strand had lived in that village. But Strand had been lost at sea. However, many years ago a stranger had arrived in the village claiming to be Strand, but nobody believed him. The impersonator was driven from town.
Molly Strand and her children had left Becket Corner long ago to live with her wealthy brother in the West and had not been heard from since, the editor finished.
The letter did seem to confirm many of the details of Strand’s baffling story.
About a year later, Harper Allyn found that Stephen Strand had vanished. A severe thunderstorm struck the Goguac Lake area, and when Allyn visited the cabin a few days later, the only living being was Strand’s starving dog cowering in a corner. The black cat was also missing.
Had Jacques Beaumont’s soul finally regained possession of its body? Allyn found the normally tidy cabin in great disarray—smashed crockery and chairs, an overturned table, windows smashed—as if there had been a tremendous struggle there. Allyn reported the missing Strand to the authorities and a search was made, even the lake was dragged, but nothing was ever found of the mortal remains of Stephen Strand, born Jacques Beaumont.
Harper Allyn did not stay in Battle Creek. He inherited some money, enough to allow him to spend his remaining life traveling and living in modest luxury.
A childhood friend of Allyn’s, Charley Bushnell, had taken up residence in France, studying at an art school in Paris. Allyn decided to visit him. The saga of Stephen Strand had remained with him, and the thought of visiting Jacques Beaumont’s native country intrigued him.
Bushnell was intimate with Parisian society and soon had Allyn attending numerous social functions. At one such gathering of artists and literary figures, Allyn was introduced to a particularly attractive woman. When she saw him and heard his name, she nearly collapsed. Allyn was at her side when she regained her composure.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “It’s just that your face and name are familiar to me.”
Allyn was dumbfounded.
“How can that possibly be?” he said. “I have only recently arrived in Paris, and, to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen you before.”
“But I have seen you. In a picture only last week,” she replied.
“Please explain all this to me,” Allyn requested. “I am quite confused.”
“My name is Lily Beaumont,” the woman said. Allyn paled. Beaumont. That name again. Could it be . . . ?
“Ah, my name means something to you?” she said.
“Last week a very old man came to my mother in the village where she has lived since my father died. He was a sailor, lost at sea near the English coast. Anyway, this man, whoever he was, claimed to be my father. My mother didn’t recognize him, nor did I. How could we? It’s been over forty years. He told this preposterous story about being possessed by another man and said he was only recently able to regain his own identity. The prefect of police came and took him away. To an asylum. I . . . we . . . thought he was quite insane. But now I see that the picture he had in his pocket was a picture of you! And your name was written on the back.”
“My God!” Allyn said. His voice was hoarse.
He quickly told Lily Beaumont the story of Stephen Strand and Jacques Beaumont and of Goguac Lake. She was speechless and nearly despondent.
Allyn left immediately for the asylum she had mentioned.
He found Jacques Beaumont in a tiny cell. He was very old, quite thin and sickly, but yes this was the same man he knew as Stephen Strand.
Strand/Beaumont did not recognize him, nor did he seem to understand English. Since he was in such ill health, Allyn stayed only a short time. Later, he showed Madame Beaumont, Lily’s mother, the match safe Strand had given him. She collapsed at the sight of it. It was the same one she had given her husband before he vanished at sea.
The incredible story quickly circulated through the small village. Was the old man indeed the long-lost Jacques Beaumont? Some people claimed he looked like the man they had known decades earlier. Others were convinced he was an imposter preying upon the kindness of a respected family. Meanwhile, the old man had grown sicker and was taken to the hospital. Doctors could do little for him except to make his final hours as comfortable as possible.
Harper Allyn was notified, as was a Catholic priest who administered the last rites of the church.
Haunted Heartland Page 16