by Hans Holzer
Before communal existence, the country all thereabouts bore the pleasantly descriptive name of Woodpecker Ridge, and Woodpecker Ridge Farm was so called in order to keep alive the memory of this early name. Tradition says that the acres now comprised within the boundaries of Woodpecker Ridge Farm once formed part of the private hunting ground of the old Indian chief Ponus.
Old Ponus may, perhaps, appear a trifle mythical and shadowy, as such long-gone chieftains are wont to be. Very substantial and real, however, was Augustus Weed, who built the house in 1780. And the said Augustus was something of a personage.
War clouds were still hanging thick over the face of the land when he had the foundation laid and the structure framed. Nevertheless, confident and forward-looking, he not only reared a staunch and tidy abode, indicative of the spirit of the countryside, but he seems to have put into it some of his own robust and independent personality as well.
It is said that Augustus was such a notable farmer and took such justifiable pride in the condition of his fields that he was not afraid to make a standing offer of one dollar reward for every daisy that anyone could find in his hay.
About 1825 the house experienced a measure of remodeling in accordance with the notions prevalent at the time. Nothing very extensive or ostentatious was attempted, but visible traces of the work then undertaken remain in the neo-Greek details that occur both outside and indoors.
It is not unlikely that the “lie-on-your-stomach” windows of the attic story date from this time and point to either a raising of the original roof or else some alteration of its pitch. These “lie-on-your-stomach” windows—so called because they were low down in the wall and had their sills very near the level of the floor so that you had almost to lie on your stomach to look out of them—were a favorite device of the néo-Grec era for lighting attic rooms. And it is remarkable how much light they actually do give, and what a pleasant light it is.
The recent remodeling that brought Woodpecker Farmhouse to its present state of comeliness and comfort impaired none of the individual character the place had acquired through the generations that had passed since hardy Augustus Weed first took up his abode there. It needs no searching scrutiny to discern the eighteenth-century features impressed on the structure at the beginning—the stout timbers of the framing, the sturdy beams and joists, the wide floor boards, and the generous fireplaces. Neither is close examination required to discover the marks of the 1825 rejuvenation.
The fashions of columns, pilasters, mantelpieces and other features speak plainly and proclaim their origin.
The aspect of the garden, too, discloses the same sympathetic understanding of the environment peculiarly suitable to the sort of house for which it affords the natural setting. The ancient well cover, the lilac bushes, the sweetbriers, the August lilies and the other denizens of an old farmhouse dooryard have been allowed to keep their long-accustomed places.
In return for this recognition of their prescriptive rights, they lend no small part to the air of self-possessed assurance and mellow contentment that pervades the whole place.
After a most pleasant dinner downstairs, Catherine and I joined the Cowans in the large living room upstairs. We sat down quietly and hoped we would hear something along musical lines.
As the quietness of the countryside slowly settled over us, I could indeed distinguish faraway, indistinct musical sounds, as if someone were playing a radio underwater or at great distance. A check revealed no nearby house or parked car whose radio could be responsible for this.
After a while we got up and looked about the room itself. We were standing about quietly admiring the furniture, when both my wife and I, and of course the Cowans, clearly heard footsteps overhead.
They were firm and strong and could not be mistaken for anything else, such as a squirrel in the attic or other innocuous noise. Nor was it an old house settling.
“Did you hear that?” I said, almost superfluously.
“We all heard it,” my wife said and looked at me.
“What am I waiting for?” I replied, and faster than you can say Ghost Hunter, I was up the stairs and into the room above our heads, where the steps had been heard. The room lay in total darkness. I turned the switch. There was no one about. Nobody else was in the house at the time, and all windows were closed. We decided to assemble upstairs in the smaller room next to the one in which I had heard the steps. The reason was that Mrs. Cowan had experienced a most unusual phenomenon in that particular room.
“It was like lightning,” she said, “a bright light suddenly come and gone.”
I looked the room over carefully. The windows were arranged in such a manner that a reflection from passing cars was out of the question. Both windows, far apart and on different walls, opened into the dark countryside away from the only road.
Catherine and I sat down on the couch, and the Cowans took chairs. We sat quietly for perhaps twenty minutes, without lights except a small amount of light filtering in from the stairwell. It was very dark, certainly dark enough for sleep and there was not light enough to write by.
As I was gazing towards the back wall of the little room and wondered about the footsteps I had just heard so clearly, I saw a blinding flash of light, white light, in the corner facing me. It came on and disappeared very quickly, so quickly in fact that my wife, whose head had been turned in another direction at the moment, missed it. But Dorothy Cowan saw it and exclaimed, “There it is again. Exactly as I saw it.”
Despite the brevity I was able to observe that the light cast a shadow on the opposite wall, so it could not very well have been a hallucination.
I decided it would be best to bring Mrs. Meyers to the house, and we went back to New York soon after. While we were preparing our return visit with Mrs. Meyers as our medium, I received an urgent call from Bob Cowan.
“Since seeing you and Cathy at our house, we’ve had some additional activity that you’ll be interested in. Dottie and I have both heard knocking about the house but none of it in direct answer to questions that we’ve tried to ask. On Saturday, the 29th of February, I was taking a nap back in my studio when I was awakened by the sound of footsteps in the room above me...the same room we all sat in on the previous Sunday.
“The most interesting event was on the evening of Thursday, February 27. I was driving home from the railroad station alone. Dottie was still in New York. As I approached the house, I noticed that there was a light on in the main floor bedroom and also a light on up in the sewing room on the top floor, a room Dottie also uses for rehearsal. I thought Dottie had left the lights on. I drove past the house and down to the garage, put the car away and then walked back to the house and noticed that the light in the top floor was now off.
“I entered the house and noticed that the dogs were calm (wild enough at seeing me, but in no way indicating that there was anyone else in the house). I went upstairs and found that the light in the bedroom was also off. I checked the entire house and there was absolutely no sign that anyone had just been there...and there hadn’t been, I’m sure.”
* * *
On Sunday, March 15, we arrived at the 1780 House, again at dusk. A delicious meal awaited us in the downstairs room, then we repaired to the upstairs part of the house.
We seated ourselves in the large living room where the music had been heard, and where we had been standing at the time we heard the uncanny footsteps overhead.
“I sense a woman in a white dress,” Ethel said suddenly. “She’s got dark hair and a high forehead. Rather a small woman.”
“I was looking through the attic earlier,” Bob Cowan said thoughtfully, “and look what I found—a waistcoat that would fit a rather smallish woman or girl.”
The piece of clothing he showed us seemed rather musty. There were a number of articles up there in the attic that must have belonged to an earlier owner of the house—much earlier.
A moment later, Ethel Meyers showed the characteristic signs of onsetting trance. We doused
the lights until only one back light was on.
At first, only inarticulate sounds came from the medium’s lips. “You can speak,” I said, to encourage her, “you’re among friends.” The sounds now turned into crying.
“What is your name?” I asked, as I always do on such occasions. There was laughter—whether girlish or mad was hard to tell.
Suddenly, she started to sing in a high-pitched voice.
“You can speak, you can speak,” I kept assuring the entity. Finally she seemed to have settled down somewhat in control of the medium.
“Happy to speak with you,” she mumbled faintly.
“What is your name?”
I had to ask it several times before I could catch the answer clearly.
“Lucy.
“Tell me, Lucy, do you live here?”
“God be with you.”
“Do you life in this house?”
“My house.”
“What year is this?”
The entity hesitated a moment, then turned towards Dorothy and said, “I like you.”
I continued to question her.
“How old are you?”
“Old lady.”
“How old?”
“God be with you.”
The conversation had been friendly, but when I asked her, “What is your husband’s name?” the ghost drew back as if I had spoken a horrible word.
“What did you say?” she almost shouted, her voice trembling with emotion. “I have no husband—God bless you—what were you saying?” she repeated, then started to cry again. “Husband, husband,” she kept saying it as if it was a thought she could not bear.
“You did not have a husband, then?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Your name again?”
“Lucy...fair day...where is he? The fair day...the pretty one, he said to me look in the pool and you will see my face.”
“Who is he?” I repeated.
But the ghost paid no heed to me. She was evidently caught up in her own memories.
“I heard a voice, Lucy, Lucy—fair one—alack—they took him out—they laid him cold in the ground....”
“What year was that?” I wanted to know.
“Year, year?” she repeated. “Now, now!”
“Who rules this country now?”
“Why, he who seized it.”
Psychic photo in the living room
“Who rules?”
“They carried him out.... The Savior of our country. General Washington.”
“When did he die?”
“Just now.”
I tried to question her further, but she returned to her thoughts of her husband.
“I want to stay here—I wait at the pool—look, he is there!” She was growing excited again.
“I want to stay here now, always, forever—rest in peace—he is there always with me.”
“How long ago did you die?” I asked, almost casually. The reaction was somewhat hostile.
“I have not died—never—All Saints!”
I asked her to join her loved one by calling for him and thus be set free of this house. But the ghost would have none of it.
“Gainsay what I have spoke—”
“How did you come to this house?” I now asked.
“Father—I am born here.”
“Was it your father’s house?”
“Yes.”
“What was his name?” I asked, but the restless spirit of Lucy was slipping away now, and Albert, the medium’s control, took over. His crisp, clear voice told us that the time had come to release Ethel.
“What about this woman, Lucy?” I inquired. Sometimes the control will give additional details.
“He was not her husband...he was killed before she married him,” Albert said.
No wonder my question about a husband threw Lucy into an uproar of emotions.
In a little while, Ethel Meyers was back to her old self, and as usual, did not remember anything of what had come through her entranced lips.
* * *
Shortly after this my wife and I went to Europe.
As soon as we returned, I called Bob Cowan. How were things up in Stamford Hill? Quiet? Not very.
“Last June,” Bob recalled, “Dottie and I were at home with a friend, a lady hair dresser, who happens to be psychic. We were playing around with the Ouija board, more in amusement than seriously. Suddenly, the Sunday afternoon quiet was disrupted by heavy footsteps coming up the steps outside the house. Quickly, we hid the Ouija board, for we did not want a potential buyer of the house to see us in this unusual pursuit. We were sure someone was coming up to see the house. But the steps stopped abruptly when they reached the front door. I opened, and there was no one outside.”
“Hard to sell a house that way,” I commented. “Anything else?”
“Yes, in July we had a house guest, a very balanced person, not given to imagining things. There was a sudden crash upstairs, and when I rushed up the stairs to the sewing room, there was this bolt of material that had been standing in a corner, lying in the middle of the room as if thrown there by unseen hands! Margaret, our house guest, also heard someone humming a tune in the bathroom, although there was no one in there at the time. Then in November, when just the two of us were in the house, someone knocked at the door downstairs. Again we looked, but there was nobody outside. One evening when I was in the ship room and Dottie in the bedroom, we heard footfalls coming down the staircase.
“Since neither of us was causing them and the door was closed, only a ghost could have been walking down those stairs.”
“But the most frightening experience of all,” Dorothy Cowan broke in, “was when I was sleeping downstairs and, waking up, wanted to go to the bathroom without turning on the lights, so as not to wake Bob. Groping my way back to bed, I suddenly found myself up on the next floor in the blue room, which is pretty tricky walking in the dark. I had the feeling someone was forcing me to follow them into that particular room.”
I had heard enough, and on December 15, we took Ethel Johnson Meyers to the house for another go at the restless ones within its confines. Soon we were all seated in the ship room on the first floor, and Ethel started to drift into trance.
“There is a baby’s coffin here,” she murmured. “Like a newborn infant’s.”
The old grandfather clock in back of us kept ticking away loudly.
“I hear someone call Maggie,” Ethel said, “Margaret.”
“Do you see anyone?”
“A woman, about five foot two, in a long dress, with a big bustle in the back. Hair down, parted in the middle, and braided on both sides. There is another young woman ...Laurie...very pretty face, but so sad...she’s looking at you, Hans....”
“What is it she wants?” I asked quietly.
“A youngish man with brown hair, curly, wearing a white blouse, taken in at the wrists, and over it a tan waistcoat, but no coat over it...”
I asked what he wanted and why he was here. This seemed to agitate the medium somewhat.
“Bottom of the well,” she mumbled, “stones at bottom of the well.”
Bob Cowan changed seats, moving away from the coffin door to the opposite side of the room. He complained of feeling cold at the former spot, although neither door nor window was open to cause such a sensation.
“Somebody had a stick over his shoulder,” the medium said now, “older man wearing dark trousers, heavy stockings. His hair is gray and kind of longish; he’s got that stick.”
I asked her to find out why. “Take him away,” Ethel replied. “He says, ‘Take him away!”‘
“But he was innocent, he went to the well. Who is down the well? Him who I drove into the well, him...I mistook...”
Ethel was now fully entranced and the old man seemed to be speaking through her.
What is your name?” I asked. “She was agrievin’,” the voice replied, “she were grievin’ I did that.”
“What is your name?”
“Ain’t no business to you.”
“How can I help you?”
“They’re all here...accusin’ me...I see her always by the well.”
“Did someone die in this well?” Outside, barely twenty yards away, was the well, now cold and silent in the night air.
“Him who I mistook. I find peace, I find him, I put him together again.”
“What year was that?”
“No matter to you now...I do not forgive myself...I wronged, I wronged...I see always her face look on me.”
“Are you in this house now?” I asked.
“Where else can I be and talk with thee?” the ghost shot back.
“This isn’t your house any more,” I said quietly.
“Oh, yes it is,” the ghost replied firmly. “The young man stays here only to look upon me and mock me. It will not be other than mine. I care only for that flesh that I could put again on the bone and I will restore him to the bloom of life and the rich love of her who suffered through my own misdemeanor.”
“Is your daughter buried here?” I asked, to change the subject. Quietly, the ghostly voice said “Yes.”
But he refused to say where he himself was laid to final—or not so final—rest.
At this point the ghost realized that he was not in his own body, and as I explained the procedure to him, he gradually became calmer. At first, he thought he was in his own body and could use it to restore to life the one he had slain. I kept asking who he was. Finally, in a soft whisper, came the reply, “Samuel.”
“And Laurie?”
“My daughter.... oh, he is here, the man I wronged...Margaret, Margaret!” He seemed greatly agitated with fear now.
The big clock started to strike. The ghost somehow felt it meant him.
“The judgment, the judgment...Laurie.... they smile at me. I have killed. He has taken my hand! He whom I have hurt.”
But the excitement proved too much for Samuel. Suddenly, he was gone, and after a brief interval, an entirely different personality inhabited Ethel’s body. It was Laurie.