Ghosts

by Hans Holzer

  “Who did him in?”

  “The runners. In the bay.”

  “What year was that?”

  “Ninety-nine.”

  “What happened to the money after that?”

  “She hid it. Outside. Near the lion’s head.”

  “Where is the lion’s head?”

  “You go down past the little rocks, in the middle of the rocks, a little bit like a lion’s head.”

  “If I left the house by the front entrance, which way would I turn?”

  “The right, down past the little rock on the right. Through the trees, down the little...”

  “How far from the house?”

  “Three minutes.”

  “Is it under the rock?”

  “Lion’s head.”

  “How far below?”

  “As big as a boy.”

  “What will I find there?”

  “The gold. Dutch gold.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, unless she put it there.”

  “Why did she put it there?”

  “Because he came back for it.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She said it was hers. Then he went away. Then they caught him, and good thing, too. He never came back and she went off, too.”

  “When did she leave here?”

  “Eighteen three.”

  “What was she like? Describe her.”

  “Round, not as big as me, dumpy thing, she thought she owned everything.”

  “How was Jonathan related to Daniel?”

  “Daniel stayed here when Johnny went away and then they would divide the money, but they didn’t because of Mary. She took it.”

  “Did you see the money?”

  “I got some money. Gold. It says 1747.”

  “Is anyone buried in this ground?”

  “Sometimes they brought them back here when they got killed down by the river.”

  “Who is buried in the house?”

  “I think Johnny.”

  I now told Mary Degan to fetch me the other Mary, the lady of the house. But the girl demurred. The other Mary did not like to talk to strangers.

  “What do you look like?” I asked. I still was not sure if Mary Wallace was not masquerading as her own servant girl to fool us.

  “Skinny and tall.”

  “What do you wear?”

  “A gray dress.”

  “What is your favorite spot in this house?”

  “The little loom room. Peaceful.”

  “Do you always stay there?”

  “No.” The voice was proud now. “I go where I want.”

  “Whose house is this?” Perhaps I could trap her if she was indeed Mary Wallace.

  “Mary Birch.”

  “Has she got a husband?”

  “They come and go. There’s always company here—that’s why I go to the loom room.”

  I tried to send her away, but she wouldn’t go.

  “Nobody speaks to me,” she complained.

  “Johnny... she won’t let him speak to me. Nobody is going to send me away.”

  “Is there a sea captain in this house?” I asked.

  She almost shouted the reply. “Johnny!”

  “Where is he from?”

  “Johnny is from the island.”

  She then explained that the trouble with Johnny and Mary was about the sea. Especially about the money the captain had.

  “Will the money be found?” I asked.

  “Not until I let it.”

  I asked Mary Degan to find me Mary Wallace. No dice. The lady wanted to be coaxed. Did she want some presents, I asked. That hit a happier note.

  “Brandy...some clothes,” she said. “She needs some hair...hasn’t got much hair.”

  “Ask her if she could do with some oil of winter-green,” I said, sending up a trial balloon.

  “She’s got a bad back,” the ghost said, and I could tell from the surprised expression on Mrs. Russell’s face that Mary Wallace had indeed had a bad back.

  “She makes it...people bring her things...rub her back...back’s bad she won’t let you get the money...not yet...may want to build another house, in the garden...in case she needs it...sell it...she knows she is not what she used to be because her back’s bad...she’ll never go. Not now.”

  I assured her that the Russells wanted her to stay as long as she liked. After all, it was her house, too.

  “Where is Johnny’s body buried?” I now asked.

  “Johnny’s body,” she murmured, “is under the fireplace.”

  Nobody had told Sybil about the persistent rumors that the old pirate lay under the hearthstone.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered.

  “How deep?”

  “Had to be deep.”

  “Who put him there?”

  “I shan’t tell you.”

  “Did you bury anything with him?”

  “I shan’t tell. He is no trouble now. Poor Johnny.”

  “How did Johnny meet Mary?”

  “I think they met on a ship.”

  “Ocean-Born” Mary, I thought. Sybil did not even know the name of the house, much less the story of how it got that name.

  “All right,” I said. “Did Mary have any children?”

  “Four...in the garden. You can never tell with her.”

  “Did anyone kill anyone in this house at any time?”

  “Johnny was killed, you know. Near the money. The runners chased him and he was very sick, we thought he was dead, and then he came here. I think she pushed him when he hurt his leg. We both brought him back and put him under the fireplace. I didn’t think he was dead.”

  “But you buried him anyway?” I said.

  “She did,” the ghost servant replied. “Better gone, she said. He’s only come back for the money.”

  “Then Mary and Johnny weren’t exactly friendly?”

  “They were once.”

  “What changed things?”

  “The money. She took his money. The money he fought for. Fighting money.”

  Suddenly, the tone of voice of the servant girl changed.

  “I want to go outside,” she begged. “She watches me. I can go out because her back is bad today. Can’t get up, you see. So I can go out.”

  I promised to help her.

  Suspiciously, she asked, “What do you want?”

  “Go outside. You are free to go,” I intoned.

  “Sit on the rocks,” the voice said. “If she calls out? She can get very angry.”

  “I will protect you,” I promised.

  “She says there are other places under the floor...,” the girl ghost added, suddenly.

  “Any secret passages?” I asked.

  “Yes. Near the old nursery. First floor. Up the stairs, the loom room, the right hand wall. You can get out in the smoke room!”

  Mr. Russell had told me of his suspicions that on structural evidence alone there was a hidden passage behind the smoke room. How would Sybil know this? Nobody had discussed it with her or showed her the spot.

  I waited for more. But she did not know of any other passages, except one leading to the rear of the house.

  “What about the well?”

  “She did not like that either, because she thought he put his money there.”

  “Did he?”

  “Perhaps he did. She used to put money in one place, he into another, and I think he put some money into the smoke room. He was always around there. Always watching each other. Watch me, too. Back of the house used to be where he could hide. People always looking for Johnny. Runners.”

  “Who was Mr. Birch?”

  “Johnny had a lot to do with his house, but he was away a lot and so there was always some man here while he was away.”

  “Who paid for the house originally?”

  “I think Johnny.”

  “Why did he want this house?”

  “When he got enough money, he would come here and stay forever. He
could not stay long ever, went back to the sea, and she came.”

  I tried another tack.

  “Who was Don Pedro?” That was the name given the pirate in the popular tale.

  She had heard the name, but could not place it. “What about Mary Wallace?”

  “Mary Wallace was Mary Birch,” the ghost said, as if correcting me. “She had several names.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she had several husbands.”

  Logical enough, if true.

  “Wallace lived here a little while, I think,” she added.

  “Who was first, Wallace or Birch?”

  “Birch. Mary Wallace, Mary Birch, is good enough.”

  Did the name Philip Babb mean anything to her? That allegedly was the pirate’s real name.

  “She had a little boy named Philip,” the ghost said, and I thought, why not? After all, they had named Mary for the pirate’s mother, why not reciprocate and name her son for the old man? Especially with all that loot around.

  “If I don’t go now, she’ll wake up,” the girl said.

  “Philip Babb, Philip Babb, he was somewhere in the back room. That was his room. I remember him.”

  How did Philip get on with Johnny? I wanted to know if they were one and the same person or not.

  “Not so good,” the ghost said. “Johnny did not like men here, you know.”

  I promised to watch out for Mary, and sent the girl on her way.

  I then brought Sybil out of her trance.

  A few moments later, we decided to start our treasure hunt in the garden, following the instructions given us by Mary Degan.

  Sybil was told nothing more than to go outside and let her intuition lead her toward any spot she thought important. The rest of us followed her like spectators at the National Open Golf Tournament.

  We did not have to walk far. About twenty yards from the house, near some beautiful iris in bloom, we located the three stones. The one in the middle looked indeed somewhat like a lion’s head, when viewed at a distance. I asked the others in the group to look at it. There was no doubt about it. If there was a lion’s head on the grounds, this was it. What lay underneath? What indeed was underneath the hearthstone in the house itself?

  The Russells promised to get a mine detector to examine the areas involved. If there was metal in the ground, the instrument would show it. Meanwhile, the lore about “Ocean-Born” Mary had been enriched by the presence in the nether world of Mary Degan, servant girl, and the intriguing picture of two pirates—Johnny and Philip Babb. Much of this is very difficult to trace. But the fact is that Sybil Leek, who came to Henniker a total stranger, was able, in trance, to tell about a man at sea, a Mary, a pirate treasure, hidden passages, a child named Philip, four children of Mary, and the presence of a ghost in the loom room upstairs. All of this had been checked.

  Why should not the rest be true also? Including, perhaps, the elusive treasure?

  Only time will tell.

  * 46 The Ghosts of Stamford Hill

  “Mr. Holzer,” the voice on the phone said pleasantly, “I’ve read your book and that’s why I’m calling. We’ve got a ghost in our house.”

  Far from astonished, I took paper and pencil and, not unlike a grocery-store clerk taking down a telephone order, started to put down the details of the report.

  Robert Cowan is a gentleman with a very balanced approach to life. He is an artist who works for one of the leading advertising agencies in New York City and his interests range widely from art to music, theater, history and what have you. But not to ghosts, at least not until he and his actress-wife, Dorothy, moved into the 1780 House in Stamford Hill. The house is thus named for the simplest of all reasons: it was built in that year.

  Mr. Cowan explained that he thought I’d be glad to have a look at his house, although the Cowans were not unduly worried about the presence of a non-rent-paying guest at their house. It was a bit disconcerting at times, but more than that, curiosity as to what the ghost wanted, and who the specter was, had prompted Bob Cowan to seek the help of The Ghost Hunter.

  I said, “Mr. Cowan, would you mind putting your experiences in writing, so I can have them for my files?”

  I like to have written reports (in the first person, if possible) so that later I can refer back to them if similar cases should pop up, as they often do.

  “Not at all,” Bob Cowan said, “I’ll be glad to write it down for you.”

  The next morning I received his report, along with a brief history of the 1780 House.

  Here is a brief account of the experiences my wife and I have had while living in this house during the past nine-and-a-half years. I’ll start with myself because my experiences are quite simple.

  From time to time (once a week or so) during most of the time we’ve lived here I have noticed unidentifiable movements out of the corner of my eye...day or night. Most often, I’ve noticed this while sitting in our parlor and what I see moving seems to be in the living room. At other times, and only late at night when I am the only one awake, I hear beautiful but unidentified music seemingly played by a full orchestra, as though a radio were on in another part of the house.

  The only place I recall hearing this is in an upstairs bedroom and just after I’d gone to bed. Once I actually got up, opened the bedroom door to ascertain if it was perhaps music from a radio accidently left on, but it wasn’t.

  Finally, quite often I’ve heard a variety of knocks and crashes that do not have any logical source within the structural setup of the house. A very loud smash occurred two weeks ago. You’d have thought a door had fallen off its hinges upstairs but, as usual, there was nothing out of order.

  My wife, Dorothy, had two very vivid experiences about five years ago. One was in the kitchen, or rather outside of a kitchen window. She was standing at the sink in the evening and happened to glance out the window when she saw a face glaring in at her. It was a dark face but not a Negro, perhaps Indian; it was very hate-ful and fierce.

  The Stamford Hill house—the restless stairs

  At first she thought it was a distorted reflection in the glass but in looking closer, it was a face glaring directly at her. All she could make out was a face only and as she recalls it, it seemed translucent. It didn’t disappear, she did!

  On a summer afternoon my wife was taking a nap in a back bedroom and was between being awake and being asleep when she heard the sounds of men’s voices and the sound of working on the grounds—rakes, and garden tools—right outside the window. She tried to arouse herself to see who they could be, but she couldn’t get up.

  At that time, and up to that time we had only hired a single man to come in and work on the lawn and flower beds. It wasn’t until at least a year later that we hired a crew that came in and worked once a week and we’ve often wondered if this was an experience of precognition. My wife has always had an uneasy feeling about the outside of the back of the house and still sometimes hears men’s voices outside and will look out all the windows without seeing anyone.

  She also has shared my experiences of seeing “things” out of the corner of her eye and also hearing quite lovely music at night. She hasn’t paid attention to household noises because a long time ago I told her “all old houses have odd structural noises”...which is true enough.

  Prior to our living here the house was lived in for about 25 years by the Clayton Rich family, a family of five. Mr. Rich died towards the end of their stay here. By the time we bought it, the three children were all married and had moved away.

  For perhaps one year prior to that a Mrs. David Cowles lived here. She’s responsible for most of the restoration along with a Mr. Frederick Kinble.

  Up until 1927 or 1928, the house was in the Weed family ever since 1780. The last of the line were two sisters who hated each other and only communicated with each other through the husband of one of the sisters. They had divided the house and used two different doors, one used the regular front door into the stair hall and the othe
r used the “coffin door” into the parlor.

  Mr. Cowan added that they were selling the house—not because of ghosts, but because they wanted to move to the city again. I assured him that we’d be coming up as soon as possible.

  Before we could make arrangements to do so, I had another note from the Cowans. On February 9, 1964, Bob Cowan wrote that they heard a singing voice quite clearly downstairs, and music again.

  It wasn’t until the following week, however, that my wife and I went to Stamford Hill. The Cowans offered to have supper ready for us that Sunday evening, and to pick us up at the station, since nobody could find the house at night who did not know the way.

  It was around six in the evening when our New Haven train pulled in. Bob Cowan wore the Scottish beret he had said he would wear in order to be recognized by us at once. The house stood at the end of a winding road which ran for about ten minutes through woodland and past shady lanes. An American eagle over the door, and the date 1780 stood out quite clearly despite the dusk which had started to settle on the land. The house has three levels, and the Cowans used for their dining room the large room next to the kitchen in what might be called the cellar or ground level.

  They had adorned it with eighteenth-century American antiques in a most winning manner, and the fireplace added a warmth to the room that seemed miles removed from bustling New York.

  On the next level were the living room and next to that a kind of sitting room. The fireplace in each of these rooms was connected one to the other. Beyond the corridor there was the master bedroom and Bob’s rather colorful den. Upstairs were two guest rooms, and there was a small attic accessible only through a hole in the ceiling and by ladder. Built during the American Revolution, the house stands on a wooded slope, which is responsible for its original name of Woodpecker Ridge Farm.

  Many years ago, after the restoration of the house was completed, Harold Donaldson Eberlin, an English furniture and garden expert, wrote about it:

  With its rock-ribbed ridges, its boulder-strewn pastures and its sharply broken contours like the choppy surface of a wind-blown sea, the topographical conditions have inevitably affected the domestic architecture. To mention only two particulars, the dwellings of the region have had to accommodate themselves to many an abrupt hillside site and the employment of some of the omnipresent granite boulders. Part of the individuality of the house at Woodpecker Ridge Farm lies in the way it satisfies these conditions without being a type house.