by Hans Holzer
Many times have I heard a ghostly apparition described in just such terms. The motion of walking is really unnecessary, it seems, for the spirit form glides about a place.
There are interesting accounts in the rare old books about the town of Metuchen in the local library. These stories spoke of battles between the British and Americans, and of “carts loaded with dead bodies, after a battle between British soldiers and Continentals, up around Oak Tree on June 26th, 1777.”
No doubt, the Allen House saw many of them brought in along with the wounded and dying.
I was particularly interested in finding proof of Jonathan Allen’s existence, and details of his life.
So far I had only ascertained that Mrs. Allen existed. Her husband was my next goal.
After much work, going through old wills and land documents, I discovered a number of Allens in the area. I found the will of his father, Henry, leaving his “son, Jonathan, the land where he lives,” on April 4, 1783.
A 1799 map shows a substantial amount of land marked “Land of Allen,” and Jonathan Allen’s name occurs in many a document of the period as a witness or seller of land.
The Jonathan Allen I wanted had to be from Middlesex County, in which Metuchen was located. I recalled that he was an able-bodied man, and consequently must have seen some service. Sure enough, in the Official Register of the Officers and Men of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, I found my man—“Allen, Jonathan—Middlesex.”
It is good to know that the troubled spirit of Mrs. Allen can now rest close to her son’s; and perhaps the other restless one, her husband, will be accused of negligence in the boy’s death no more.
* 37 A Greenwich Village Ghost
BACK IN 1953, when I spent much of my time writing and editing material of a most mundane nature, always, of course, with a weather eye cocked for a good case of hunting, I picked up a copy of Park East and found to my amazement some very palatable grist for my psychic mills. “The Ghost of Tenth Street,” by Elizabeth Archer, was a well-documented report of the hauntings on that celebrated Greenwich Village street where artists make their headquarters, and many buildings date back to the eighteenth century. Miss Archer’s story was later reprinted by Tomorrow magazine, upon my suggestion. In Park East, some very good illustrations accompany the text, for which there was no room in Tomorrow.
Up to 1956, the ancient studio building at 51 West Tenth Street was a landmark known to many connoisseurs of old New York, but it was demolished to make way for one of those nondescript, modern apartment buildings.
Until the very last, reports of an apparition, allegedly the ghost of artist John La Farge, who died in 1910, continued to come in. A few houses down the street is the Church of the Ascension; the altar painting, “The Ascension,” is the work of John La Farge. Actually, the artist did the work on the huge painting at his studio, No. 22, in 51 West Tenth Street. He finished it, however, in the church itself, “in place.” Having just returned from the Far East, La Farge used a new technique involving the use of several coats of paint, thus making the painting heavier than expected. The painting was hung, but the chassis collapsed; La Farge built a stronger chassis and the painting stayed in place this time. Years went by. Oliver La Farge, the great novelist and grandson of the painter, had spent much of his youth with his celebrated grandfather. One day, while working across the street, he was told the painting had fallen again. Dashing across the street, he found that the painting had indeed fallen, and that his grandfather had died that very instant!
The fall of the heavy painting was no trifling matter to La Farge, who was equally as well known as an architect as he was a painter. Many buildings in New York for which he drew the plans seventy-five years ago are still standing. But the construction of the chassis of the altar painting may have been faulty. And therein lies the cause for La Farge’s ghostly visitations, it would seem. The artists at No. 51 insisted always that La Farge could not find rest until he had corrected his calculations, searching for the original plans of the chassis to find out what was wrong. An obsession to redeem himself as an artist and craftsman, then, would be the underlying cause for the persistence with which La Farge’s ghost returned to his old haunts.
The first such return was reported in 1944, when a painter by the name of Feodor Rimsky and his wife lived in No. 22. Late one evening, they returned from the opera. On approaching their studio, they noticed that a light was on and the door open, although they distinctly remembered having left it shut. Rimsky walked into the studio, pushed aside the heavy draperies at the entrance to the studio itself, and stopped in amazement. In the middle of the room, a single lamp plainly revealed a stranger behind the large chair in what Rimsky called his library corner; the man wore a tall black hat and a dark, billowing velvet coat. Rimsky quickly told his wife to wait, and rushed across the room to get a closer look at the intruder. But the man just vanished as the painter reached the chair.
Later, Rimsky told of his experience to a former owner of the building, who happened to be an amateur historian. He showed Rimsky some pictures of former tenants of his building. In two of them, Rimsky easily recognized his visitor, wearing exactly the same clothes Rimsky had seen him in. Having come from Europe but recently, Rimsky knew nothing of La Farge and had never seen a picture of him. The ball dress worn by the ghost had not been common at the turn of the century, but La Farge was known to affect such strange attire.
Three years later, the Rimskys were entertaining some guests at their studio, including an advertising man named William Weber, who was known to have had psychic experiences in the past. But Weber never wanted to discuss this “special talent” of his, for fear of being ridiculed. As the conversation flowed among Weber, Mrs. Weber, and two other guests, the advertising man’s wife noticed her husband’s sudden stare at a cabinet on the other side of the room, where paintings were stored. She saw nothing, but Weber asked her in an excited tone of voice—“Do you see that man in the cloak and top hat over there?”
Weber knew nothing of the ghostly tradition of the studio or of John La Farge; no stranger could have gotten by the door without being noticed, and none had been expected it this hour. The studio was locked from the inside.
After that, the ghost of John La Farge was heard many times by a variety of tenants at No. 51, opening windows or pushing draperies aside, but not until 1948 was he seen again.
Up a flight of stairs from Studio 22, but connected to it—artists like to visit each other—was the studio of illustrator John Alan Maxwell. Connecting stairs and a “secret rest room” used by La Farge had long been walled up in the many structural changes in the old building. Only the window of the walled-up room was still visible from the outside. It was in this area that Rimsky felt that the restless spirit of John La Farge was trapped. As Miss Archer puts it in her narrative, “walled in like the Golem, sleeping through the day and close to the premises for roaming through the night.”
After many an unsuccessful search of Rimsky’s studio, apparently the ghost started to look in Maxwell’s studio. In the spring of 1948, the ghost of La Farge made his initial appearance in the illustrator’s studio.
It was a warm night, and Maxwell had gone to bed naked, pulling the covers over himself. Suddenly he awakened. From the amount of light coming in through the skylight, he judged the time to be about one or two in the morning. He had the uncanny feeling of not being alone in the room. As his eyes got used to the darkness, he clearly distinguished the figure of a tall woman, bending over his bed, lifting and straightening his sheets several times over. Behind her, there was a man staring at a wooden filing cabinet at the foot of the couch. Then he opened a drawer, looked in it, and closed it again. Getting hold of himself, Maxwell noticed that the woman wore a light red dress of the kind worn in the last century, and the man a white shirt and dark cravat of the same period. It never occurred to the illustrator that they were anything but people; probably, he thought, models in costume working for one of the artists in the
building.
The woman then turned to her companion as if to say something, but did not, and walked off toward the dark room at the other end of the studio. The man then went back to the cabinet and leaned on it, head in hand. By now Maxwell had regained his wits and thought the intruders must be burglars, although he could not figure out how they had entered his place, since he had locked it from the inside before going to bed! Making a fist, he struck at the stranger, yelling, “Put your hands up!”
His voice could be heard clearly along the empty corridors. But his fist went through the man and into the filing cabinet. Nursing his injured wrist, he realized that his visitors had dissolved into thin air. There was no one in the dark room. The door was still securely locked. The skylight, 150 feet above ground, could not very well have served as an escape route to anyone human. By now Maxwell knew that La Farge and his wife had paid him a social call.
Other visitors to No. 51 complained about strange winds and sudden chills when passing La Farge’s walled-up room. One night, one of Maxwell’s lady visitors returned, shortly after leaving his studio, in great agitation, yelling, “That man! That man!” The inner court of the building was glass-enclosed, so that one could see clearly across to the corridors on the other side of the building. Maxwell and his remaining guests saw nothing there.
But the woman insisted that she saw a strange man under one of the old gaslights in the building; he seemed to lean against the wall of the corridor, dressed in old-fashioned clothes and possessed of a face so cadaverous and death-mask-like, that it set her ascreaming!
This was the first time the face of the ghost had been observed clearly by anyone. The sight was enough to make her run back to Maxwell’s studio. Nobody could have left without being seen through the glass-enclosed corridors and no one had seen a stranger in the building that evening. As usual, he had vanished into thin air.
So much for Miss Archer’s account of the La Farge ghost. My own investigation was sparked by her narrative, and I telephoned her at her Long Island home, inviting her to come along if and when we held a séance at No. 51.
I was then working with a group of parapsychology students meeting at the rooms of the Association for Research and Enlightenment (Cayce Foundation) on West Sixteenth Street. The director of this group was a phototechnician of the Daily News, Bernard Axelrod, who was the only one of the group who knew the purpose of the meeting; the others, notably the medium, Mrs. Meyers, knew nothing whatever of our plans.
We met in front of Bigelow’s drugstore that cold evening, February 23, 1954, and proceeded to 51 West Tenth Street, where the current occupant of the La Farge studio, an artist named Leon Smith, welcomed us. In addition, there were also present the late News columnist, Danton Walker, Henry Belk, the noted playwright Bernays, Marguerite Haymes, and two or three others considered students of psychic phenomena. Unfortunately, Mrs. Belk also brought along her pet chihuahua, which proved to be somewhat of a problem.
All in all, there were fifteen people present in the high-ceilinged, chilly studio. Dim light crept through the tall windows that looked onto the courtyard, and one wished that the fireplace occupying the center of the back wall had been working.
We formed a circle around it, with the medium occupying a comfortable chair directly opposite it, and the sitters filling out the circle on both sides; my own chair was next to the medium’s.
The artificial light was dimmed. Mrs. Meyers started to enter the trance state almost immediately and only the loud ticking of the clock in the rear of the room was heard for a while, as her breathing became heavier. At the threshold of passing into trance, the medium suddenly said—
“Someone says very distinctly, Take another step and I go out this window! The body of a woman...close-fitting hat and a plume...close-fitting bodice and a thick skirt... lands right on face...I see a man, dark curly hair, hooked nose, an odd, mean face...cleft in chin...light tan coat, lighter britches, boots, whip in hand, cruel, mean....”
There was silence as she described what I recognized as the face of La Farge.
A moment later she continued: “I know the face is not to be looked at anymore. It is horrible. It should have hurt but I didn’t remember. Not long. I just want to scream and scream.”
The power of the woman who went through the window was strong. “I have a strange feeling,” Mrs. Meyers said, “I have to go out that window if I go into trance.” With a worried look, she turned to me and asked, “If I stand up and start to move, hold me.” I nodded assurance and the séance continued. A humming sound came from her lips, gradually assuming human-voice characteristics.
The next personality to manifest itself was apparently a woman in great fear. “They’re in the courtyard....He is coming...they’ll find me and whip me again. I’ll die first. Let me go. I shouldn’t talk so loud. Margaret! Please don’t let him come. See the child. My child. Barbara. Oh, the steps, I can’t take it. Take Bobby, raise her, I can’t take it. He is coming...let me go! I am free!”
With this, the medium broke out of trance and complained of facial stiffness, as well as pain in the shoulder.
Was the frantic woman someone who had been mistreated by an early inhabitant of No. 22? Was she a runaway slave, many of whom had found refuge in the old houses and alleys of the Village?
I requested of the medium’s “control” that the most prominent person connected with the studio be allowed to speak to us. But Albert, the control, assured me that the woman, whom he called Elizabeth, was connected with that man. “He will come only if he is of a mind to. He entered the room a while ago.”
I asked Albert to describe this man.
“Sharp features, from what I can see. You are closest to him. Clothes...nineties, early 1900s.”
After a while, the medium’s lips started to move, and a gruff man’s voice was heard: “Get out...get out of my house.”
Somewhat taken aback by this greeting, I started to explain to our visitor that we were his friends and here to help him. But he didn’t mellow.
“I don’t know who you are...who is everybody here. Don’t have friends.”
“I am here to help you,” I said, and tried to calm the ghost’s suspicions. But our visitor was not impressed.
“I want help, but not from you...I’ll find it!”
He wouldn’t tell us what he was looking for. There were additional requests for us to get out of his house. Finally, the ghost pointed the medium’s arm toward the stove and intoned—“I put it there!” A sudden thought inspired me, and I said, lightly—“We found it already.”
Rage took hold of the ghost in an instant. “You took it...you betrayed me...it is mine...I was a good man.”
I tried in vain to pry his full name from him.
He moaned. “I am sick all over now. Worry, worry, worry. Give it to me.”
I promised to return “it,” if he would cooperate with us.
In a milder tone he said, “I wanted to make it so pretty. It won’t move.”
I remembered how concerned La Farge had been with his beautiful altar painting, and that it should not fall again. I wondered if he knew how much time had passed.
“Who is President of the United States now?” I asked.
Our friend was petulant. “I don’t know. I am sick. William McKinley.” But then he volunteered—“I knew him. Met him. In Boston. Last year. Many years ago. Who are you? I don’t know any friends. I am in my house.”
“What is your full name?”
“Why is that so hard? I know William and I don’t know my own name.”
I have seen this happen before. A disturbed spirit sometimes cannot recall his own name or address.
“Do you know you have passed over?”
“I live here,” he said, quietly now. “Times changed. I know I am not what I used to be. It is there!”
When I asked what he was looking for, he changed the subject to Bertha, without explaining who Bertha was.
But as he insisted on finding “it,�
�� I finally said, “You are welcome to get up and look for it.”
“I am bound in this chair and can’t move.”
“Then tell us where to look for it.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he spoke. “On the chimney, in back...it was over there. I will find it, but I can’t move now...I made a mistake...I can’t talk like this.”
And suddenly he was gone.
As it was getting on to half past ten, the medium was awakened. The conversation among the guests then turned to any feelings they might have had during the séance. Miss Archer was asked about the building.
“It was put up in 1856,” she replied, “and is a copy of a similar studio building in Paris.”
“Has there ever been any record of a murder committed in this studio?” I asked.
“Yes...between 1870 and 1900, a young girl went through one of these windows. But I did not mention this in my article, as it apparently was unconnected with the La Farge story.”
“What about Elizabeth? And Margaret?”
“That was remarkable of the medium,” Miss Archer nodded. “You see, Elizabeth was La Farge’s wife...and Margaret, well, she also fits in with his story.”
For the first time, the name La Farge had been mentioned in the presence of the medium. But it meant nothing to her in her conscious state.
Unfortunately, the ghost could not be convinced that his search for the plans was unnecessary, for La Farge’s genius as an architect and painter has long since belonged to time.
A few weeks after this séance, I talked to an advertising man named Douglas Baker. To my amazement, he, too, had at one time occupied Studio 22. Although aware of the stories surrounding the building, he had scoffed at the idea of a ghost. But one night he was roused from deep sleep by the noise of someone opening and closing drawers. Sitting up in bed, he saw a man in Victorian opera clothes in his room, which was dimly lit by the skylight and windows. Getting out of bed to fence off the intruder, he found himself alone, just as others had before him.