by Hans Holzer
“Please forgive him,” she pleaded, “I have forgiven him.”
The voice was sweet and girlish.
“Who is Samuel?”
“My grandfather.”
“What is your family name?”
“Laurie Ho-Ho-...if I could only get that name.”
But she couldn’t.
Neither could she give me the name of her beloved, killed by her grandfather. It was a name she was not allowed to mention around the house, so she had difficulty remembering now, she explained,
“What is your mother’s name?” I asked. “Margaret.”
“What year were you born?”
Hesitatingly, the voice said, “Seven-teen-fifty-six.”
“What year is this now?”
“Seventeen seventy-four. We laid him to rest in seventeen seventy-four.”
“In the church?”
“No, Grandfather could not bear it. We laid him to rest on the hill to the north. We dug with our fingers all night.
“Don’t tell Grandpa where we put it.”
“How far from here is it?”
“No more than a straight fly of the lark. “Is the grave marked?”
“Oh, no.”
“What happened to your father?”
“No longer home, gone.”
I explained to Laurie that the house would soon change hands, and that she must not interfere with this. The Cowans had the feeling that their ghosts were somehow keeping all buyers away, fantastic though this may be at first thought. But then all of psychic research is pretty unusual and who is to say what cannot be?
Laurie promised not to interfere and to accept a new owner of “their” house. She left, asking again that her grandfather be forgiven his sins.
I then asked Albert, Ethel’s control, to take over the medium. That done, I queried him regarding the whole matter.
“The father is buried far from here, but most of the others are buried around here,” he said, “during the year 1777...grandfather was not brought here until later when there was forgiveness. The body was removed and put in Christian burial.”
“Where is the tombstone?” I asked.
“Lying to the west of a white structure,” Albert replied in his precise, slightly accented speech, “on these grounds. The tombstone is broken off, close to the earth. The top has been mishandled by vandals. The old man is gone, the young man has taken him by the hand.”
“What was the young man’s name?”
“She called him Benjamin.”
“He was killed in the well?”
“That is right. He has no grave except on the hill.”
“Is the old man the one who disturbs this house?”
“He is the main one who brings in his rabble, looking for the young man.”
“Who is Lucy?” I asked, referring back to the girl who had spoken to us at the last séance in the late spring.
“That is the girl you were talking about, Laurie. Her name is really Lucy. One and the same person.”
“She was not actually married to the young man?”
“In her own way, she was. But they would not recognize it. There were differences in religious ideas.... But we had better release the medium for now.”
I nodded, and within a moment or two, Ethel was back to herself, very much bewildered as to what went on while she was in trance.
“How do you reconcile these dates with the tradition that this house was built in 1780?” I asked Bob Cowan.
He shook his head. “It is only a tradition. We have no proof of the actual date.”
We went to the upstairs sewing room where the latest manifestations had taken place, and grouped ourselves around the heavy wooden table. Ethel almost immediately fell into trance again. She rarely does twice in one sitting.
The voice reverberating in the near-darkness now was clearly that of a man, and a very dominating voice it was.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Sergeant-major....” No name followed. I asked why was he here in this house.
“One has pleasant memories.”
“Your name?”
“Sergeant-major Harm.”
“First name?”
Instead of giving it, he explained that he once owned the house and was “friend, not foe.” I looked at Bob Cowan, who knows all the owners of the property in the old records, and Bob shook his head. No Harm.
“When I please, I come. I do not disturb willingly. But I will go,” the new visitor offered, “I will take him with me; you will see him no more. I am at peace with him now. He is at peace with me.”
“How did you pass over?” I inquired.
“On the field of battle. On the banks of the Potomac...1776.”
“What regiment were you in?” I continued. “York.... Eight.... I was a foot soldier...18th regiment...”
“What Army?”
“Wayne...Wayne...”
“Who was your commanding general?”
“Broderick.”
“Who was the Colonel of your regiment?”
“Wayne, Wayne.”
“You were a Sergeant-major?”
“Sergeant-major, 18th regiment, foot infantry.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“New York.”
“Where in New York?”
“Champlain.”
“Your regimental commander again?”
“Broderick.” Then he added, not without emotion, “I died under fire, first battle of Potomac.”
“Where are you buried?”
“Fort Ticonderoga, New York.”
I wondered how a soldier fighting on the banks of the Potomac could be buried in upstate New York. But I must confess that the word “Potomac” had come so softly that I could have been mistaken.
“The date of your death?”
“1776.”
Then he added, as the voice became more and more indistinct, “I will leave now, but I will protect you from those who...who are hungry to...” The voice trailed off into silence.
A few moments later, Ethel emerged from the trance with a slight headache, but otherwise her old self.
* * *
We returned to New York soon after, hoping that all would remain quiet in the Cowan house, and, more importantly, that there would soon be a new laird of the manor at the 1780 House.
I, too, heard the ghostly music, although I am sure it does not connect with the colonial ghosts we were able to evoke. The music I heard sounded like a far-off radio, which it wasn’t, since there are no houses near enough to be heard from. What I heard for a few moments in the living room sounded like a full symphony orchestra playing the music popular around the turn of this century.
Old houses impregnated with layers upon layers of people’s emotions frequently also absorb music and other sounds as part of the atmosphere.
What about the Sergeant-major?
I checked the regimental records. No soldier named Harm, but a number of officers (and men) named Harmon. I rechecked my tapes. The name “Harm” had been given by the ghost very quietly. He could have said Harmon. Or perhaps he was disguising his identity as they sometimes will.
But then I discovered something very interesting. In the Connecticut state papers there is mention of a certain Benjamin Harmon, Jr. Lt., who was with a local regiment in 1776. The murdered young man had been identified as “Benjamin.” Suddenly we have another ghost named Harm or Harmon, evidently an older personality. Was he the father of the murdered young man?
The 1780 House is, of course, recorded as dating back to 1780 only. But could not another building have occupied the area? Was the 1780 house an adaptation of a smaller dwelling of which there is no written record?
We can neither prove nor disprove this.
It is true, however, that General “Mad” Anthony Wayne was in charge of the Revolutionary troops in the New York area at the time under discussion.
At any rate, all this is knowledge not usually possessed by a l
ady voice teacher, which is what Ethel Meyers is when not being a medium.
* 47 The “Spy House” Ghosts of New Jersey
IN JUNE, 1696, ONE Daniel Seabrook, aged 26 and a planter by profession, took his inheritance of 80 pounds sterling and bought 202 acres of property from his stepfather, Thomas Whitlock. For 250 years this plantation was in the hands of the Seabrook family who worked the land and sailed their ships from the harbor. The “Spy House” is probably one of the finest pieces of colonial architecture available for inspection in the eastern United States, having been restored meticulously over the years.
The house is built in the old manner, held together with wooden pegs. There are handmade bricks, filled with clay mortar. The house has two stories and is painted white. Every room has its own fireplace as that was the only way in which colonial houses could be heated.
The house, which is located near Middletown, New Jersey, can easily be reached from New York City. It was kept by a group headed by curator Gertrude Neidlinger, helped by her historian-brother, Travis Neidlinger, and as a museum it displays not only the furniture of the Colonial period but some of the implements of the whalers who were active in the area well into the nineteenth century. As an historical attraction, it is something that should not be missed by anyone, apart from any ghostly connections.
One of the rooms in the house is dedicated to the period of the Battle of Monmouth. This room, called the spy room by the British for good reasons, as we shall see, has copies of the documents kept among General Washington’s private papers in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
In 1778, the English were marching through Middletown, pillaging and burning the village. Along the shoreline the Monmouth militia and the men who were working the whale boats, got together to try to cut down the English shipping. General Washington asked for a patriot from Shoal Harbor, which was the name of the estate where the spy house is located, to help the American side fight the British. The volunteer was a certain Corporal John Stillwell, who was given a telescope and instructions to spy on the British from a hill called Garrett’s Hill, not far away, the highest point in the immediate area.
The New Jersey Spy House, in the center of revolutionary plotting
The lines between British and Americans were intertwined and frequently intercut each other, and it was difficult for individuals to avoid crossing them at times. The assignment given Corporal Stillwell was not an easy one, especially as some of his own relatives favored the other side of the war. Still, he was able to send specific messages to the militia who were able to turn these messages into attacks on the British fleet.
At that point, Stillwell observed there were 1,037 vessels in the fleet lying off the New Jersey coastline, at a time when the American forces had no navy at all. But the fishermen and their helpers on shore did well in this phase of the Revolutionary War. John Stillwell’s son, Obadiah Stillwell, 17 years old, served as message carrier from his father’s observation point to the patriots.
Twenty-three naval battles were fought in the harbor after the battle of Monmouth. The success of the whale-boat operation was a stunning blow to the British fleet and a great embarrassment. Even daylight raids became so bold and successful that in one day two pilot boats were captured upsetting the harbor shipping.
Finally, the British gave the order to find the spy and end the rebel operation. The searching party declared the Seabrook homestead as a spy house, since they knew its owner, Major Seabrook, was a patriot. They did not realize that the real spy was John Stillwell, operating from Garrett’s Hill. Nevertheless, they burned the spy house. It was, of course, later restored. Today, descendants of John Stillwell are among the society of friends of the museum, supporting it.
Gertrude Neidlinger turned to me for help with the several ghosts she felt in the house. Considering the history of the house, it is not surprising that there should be ghosts there. Miss Neidlinger, herself, has felt someone in the entrance room whenever she has been alone in the house, especially at night. There is also a lady in white who comes down from the attic, walks along the hall and goes into what is called the blue and white room, and there tucks in the covers of a crib or bed. Then she turns and goes out of sight. Miss Neidlinger was not sure who she was, but thought she might have been the spirit of Mrs. Seabrook, who lived through the Revolutionary War in a particularly dangerous position, having relatives on both sides of the political fence.
In 1976, I brought Ingrid Beckman, my psychic friend, to the spy house, which is technically located in Keansburg, New Jersey, near Middletown. The number on the house is 119, but of course everyone in the area calls it the Spy House. As Ingrid walked about the place, she immediately pointed out its ancient usage as an outpost. While we were investigating the house, we both clearly heard footsteps overhead where there was no one walking. Evidently, the ghosts knew of our arrival.
Without knowing anything about the history of the house, Ingrid commented, “Down here around the fireplace I feel there are people planning strategy, worried about British ships.” Then she continued, “This was to mobilize something like the minutemen, farming men who were to fight. This was a strategic point because it was the entry into New York.”
I then asked Ingrid to tell me whether she felt any ghosts, any residues of the past still in the house.
When we went upstairs, Ingrid tuned into the past with a bang. “There’s a woman here. She ties in with this house and something about spying, some kind of spying went on here.” Then she added, “Somebody spied behind the American lines and brought back information.”
Upstairs near the window on the first floor landing, Ingrid felt a man watching, waiting for someone to come his way. Ingrid felt there was a man present who had committed an act of treason, a man who gave information back to the British. His name was Samuels. She felt that this man was hanged publicly. The people call him an expatriot. This is the entity, Ingrid said, who cannot leave this house out of remorse.
Ingrid also asserted that the house was formerly used as a public house, an inn, when meetings took place here. The curator, Miss Neidlinger, later confirmed this. Also, Ingrid felt that among the families living in the area, most of the members served in the patriot militia, but that there were occasional traitors, such as George Taylor. Colonel George Taylor might have been the man to whom Ingrid was referring. As for the man who was hanged, it would have been Captain Huddy, and he was hanged for having caused the death of a certain Philip White. Captain Joshua Huddy had been unjustly accused of having caused the death of the patriot Philip White and despite his innocence, was lynched by the patriots. Again, Ingrid had touched on something very real from history.
But the ghostly lady and the man who was hanged and the man who stared out the window onto the bay are not the only ghosts at the spy house. On the Fourth of July, 1975, a group of local boys were in the house in the blue and white room upstairs. Suddenly, the sewing machine door opened by itself and the pedals worked themselves without benefit of human feet. One of the boys looked up, and in the mirror in the bureau across the room, he could see a face with a long beard.
Another boy looked down the hall and there he saw a figure with a tall black hat and a long beard and sort of very full trousers as they were worn in an earlier age. That was enough for them and they ran from the house and never went back again.
One of the ladies who assists the curator, Agnes Lyons, refuses to do any typing in the upstairs room because the papers simply will not stand still. A draft seems to go by all the time and blow the papers to the floor even though the windows are closed. A Mrs. Lillian Boyer also saw the man with the beard standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a black hat and dressed in the period of the later 1700s. He had very large eyes, and seemed to be a man in his forties. He just stood there looking at her and she of course wouldn’t pass him. Then he seemed to flash some sort of light back and forth, a brilliant light like a flashlight. And there were footsteps all over the house at the same time. She
could even hear the man breathe, yet he was a ghost!
* 48 The Strange Case of the Colonial Soldier
Somerton, Pennsylvania, is now a suburb of Philadelphia, albeit a pretty outlaying one. It takes you all of an hour by car from downtown Philadelphia, but when you get there, it’s worth it, especially Byberry Road. How the builders of modern chunks of concrete managed to overlook this delightful country lane in the backyard of the big city is beyond my knowledge, but the fact is that we have here a winding, bumpy road, good enough for one car at a time, that goes for several miles without a single high-rise building. Instead, old homes line it in respectable intervals, allowing even a bit of green and open spaces between the dwellings.
One of the most unusual sights along this winding road is a pretty, wooden colonial house built in 1732, and untouched except for minor alterations, mainly inside the house. That in itself is a rarity, of course, but the owners who lived here since the Revolutionary period evidently were house-proud people who cared.
The current tenants are David and Dolores Robinson, whose greatest pleasure is being in that house. They don’t advertise the fact they’ve got an authentic pre-Revolutionary home, but they’re not exactly shy about it either; to them, it is a thrill to live as our ancestors did, without the constant urge to “improve” things with shiny new gadgets that frequently don’t work, or to tear down some portion of their home just because it looks old or has been used for a long time.
The Robinsons are house-proud, and they have a keen sense of the antiquarian without any formal education in that area. Mr. Robinson works for the telephone company and his wife works for her brother, a photographer, as a retouch artist. Both are in early middle age and they have three children in the preteenage group.
Theirs is a happy family without problems or frustrations: They’d like to make a little more money, advance a little faster, get a better car—but that is the normal average American’s dream. With the Robinsons lives Mr. Robinson Senior, an elderly gentleman whose main occupation seemed to be watching TV.
I first heard of the Robinsons and their homestead when I appeared on a local radio show in the area, and I was fascinated by the prospect of an apparently untouched house with many layers of history clinging to it that a psychic might be able to sense. I put the house on my mental list of places to visit for possible psychometry experiments.