by Hans Holzer
“Better late than never,” I intoned. Who said I didn’t have as much of a sense of humor as a ghost?
“I was never late,” he complained. “I can walk...without you!”
Gratitude was not his forte.
I requested that Sybil return to her own body now, but to remain in trance so as to answer my questions on what she could observe in that state.
Soon Sybil’s own voice, feeble at first, was heard again from her lips.
I asked her to describe the scene she saw.
“I see a short, dark man,” she replied, “who can’t walk very well; he was insane. I think he had fits. Fell down. Violent man.”
“Do you see a house?”
“No, I see water, and a gray ship. Big ship, not for people. Not for travelling. Low ship.”
“Do you see a name on the ship?”
“...ana...can’t see it properly.”
“What is this man doing here?”
“He had a fit here, and fell down and died, and somebody left him here. Somebody picked the body up...into the water....”
Sybil showed sign of strain and I decided to take her out of trance to avoid later fatigue. As soon as she was “back” to her own self, not remembering anything, of course, that had come through her the past hour, turned to Miss Frost to find out what it was exactly that had occurred here of an unusual nature.
“Always this uneasy feeling...causing nervousness ...more at night...” she explained, “and noises like small firecrackers.”
Miss Frost is a woman in her thirties, pleasant and soft spoken, and she holds a responsible position in San Francisco business life.
“If you pay no attention to it,” she added, “then it becomes more intense, louder.”
“Doesn’t want to be ignored, eh?” I said.
“Occasionally at night you hear footsteps in the living room.”
“When it is empty?”
“Of course.”‘
“What does it sound like?”
“As if there were no carpets...like walking on boards...a man’s footsteps.”
“How often?”
“Maybe three times...last time was about three months ago. We’ve been here four years, but we only heard it about half a year after we moved in. On one occasion there was a noise inside the buffet as if there were a motor in it, which of course there isn’t.”
“Has anyone else had any experiences of an unusual nature in this house?”
“A painter who was painting a small room in the rear of the house suddenly asked me for a glass of water because he didn’t feel well. Because of the noises.”
I turned to Miss Frost’s aunt, who had sat by quietly, listening to our conversation.
“Have you heard these footsteps?”
“Yes,” she said. “I checked up and there was nobody there who could have caused them. That was around two in the morning. Sometimes around five or six also. They went around the bed. We had the light on, but it continued.”
With the help of Miss Frost, I was able to trace the history of the area. Before the house was built here, the ground was part of the Cohen estate. The water is not far from the house although one cannot actually see it from the house.
Originally Alameda was inhabited by Indians and much of it was used as burial ground. Even today bones are dug up now and again
Prior to Miss Frost, a Mr. Bequette owned the house, but what interested me far more than Mr. Bequette was the fact that many years ago a hospital occupied the land at this spot. Nothing is left of the old hospital.
In 1941, allegedly, a family lived at this house whose son was killed in action during the war. A mysterious letter reached Miss Frost in February of 1961 addressed to a B. Biehm at her address, but she could not locate this man.
None of this takes us back to 1902 when Dominic said he lived. A Japanese-born Italian sailor serving in the U.S. Navy is a pretty unusual combination. Was Dominic his family name?
I decided to query the Navy Department in the hope that they might have some records about such a man, although I had learned on previous occasions that Naval records that far back are not always complete.
On December 29, 1966, I received this reply from the office of the Chief of Naval Operations:
Dear Mr. Holzer:
In reply to your letter of 8 December, we have been unable to find either DOMINIC or Oswald GREGORY in the lists of U.S. Navy officers during this century. The Navy Registers for the period around 1902 list no U.S. Naval ship named TRIANA.
We have very little information on Alameda Island during the early 1900’s. The attached extract from the Naval Air Station history, however, may be of some use.
Sincerely yours,
F. KENT LOOMIS
Captain, USN (Ret.)
Asst. Director of Naval History
Captain Loomis enclosed a history of the Alameda installations which seems to confirm the picture painted of the area (prior to that installation) by the ghostly sailor.
The real story of the U.S. Naval Air Station, Alameda, is how it has “arisen from the waters.” How it was thrown up from the bottom of San Francisco Bay; how it was anchored to the earth with grass roots; how it was, by accident, the scene of some of the earliest flights in America. This is the romance of Alameda.
The Navy Department first began to consider the site now occupied by the air station toward the end of the First World War. The intention was to utilize the site as a destroyer base, but the war was over before the plans could be perfected. The land then lapsed into oblivion. It was a rather barren land. When the tide was out it was odious and disagreeable looking. Since people who boil soap are not fastidious concerning olfactory matters, the Twenty Mule Team Borax Company located the site of their first efforts near the “Mole” which went to San Francisco’s ferries.
The main part of Alameda was very pretty, covered with good rich “bottom land” and shade trees, from which it had derived its name during the Spanish occupation days. “Alameda” means “shade” or “shady lane.”
In 1776 the land had been granted to Don Luis Peralta, a grizzled old man who immigrated from Tabac in Sonora. His life as a soldier had been crowded with 40 years of service to His Majesty, the King of Spain, and ten children. It was only a small part of the 43,000 acres granted him by a grateful Spain.
He distributed his lands among his children when he felt his time had come. Although the peninsula of Alameda was in the most part fertile, the western tip of it was nothing but barren sands and tidal flats.
In 1876, engineers cut a channel through the peninsula’s tip which linked San Leandro Bay with the main bay, and Alameda became an island. Deep water was on the way and dredging was begun to effect this end.
The inability of the U.S. Navy librarian to identify a ship named the Triana did not stop me from looking further, of course. Was there ever such a ship? A Captain Treeana commanded one of the three ships of Christopher Columbus and consequently there are towns named for him in the land he and his shipmates helped discover. Spelled nowadays Triana, one of them is in Alabama, and in the city of Huntsville there is a Triana Boulevard. It seems highly likely that so famous a captain’s name should at one time or other have been chosen as the name of a ship.
Meanwhile, back at the house, things remained quiet and peaceful for 48 hours. Miss Frost was happy for the first time in years.
And then the footsteps and other noises resumed. Dominic wasn’t going to ship out, after all.
That was in July 1965. I made certain suggestions. Close the door mentally; gently tell the ghost he must go, over and over again. He was free now to do so—proof of which was the fact that his footsteps, once confined to the living room area, were now heard all over the house.
A year has gone by and I have had no news from Alameda. Perhaps no news is good news and the ghostly sailor roams no more.
* 93
The Ghost Clock
NEW ENGLAND IS FULL of ghosts. A young woman with the improb
able first name of Dixie-Lee, and the acquired-by-marriage second name of Danforth, lived in the small town of Milford, just over the border in New Hampshire. She chanced to hear me on a Boston radio program, and presto, there was a note in the mail about something pretty eerie that had happened to her.
In 1954, when Dixie-Lee was seventeen, she took on a two-week job as companion to an elderly lady by the name of Mrs. William Collar. Mrs. Collar, then eighty-two years old, had been a fine artist, and had lived a happy life all over the world. Dixie-Lee found being a companion an easy way to make some extra money. Mrs. Collar’s housekeeper went home nights, and the elderly lady wanted someone with her in the large, rambling house, at least until she could find a full-time housekeeper who would sleep in.
The Collars had met in France, both studying there, and though they married against the wishes of their parents, they had a wonderful and happy life together. When Mr. William Collar died, things were never the same. They had occupied a large double room on the second floor, with a bed on either side, and a wash basin for each. They truly lived close together.
After her husband’s death, Mrs. Collar moved out of the room, and never slept in it again. She left everything as it was, including a big grandfather clock, which was never wound again after Mr. Collar’s passing. Finally, in 1958, she joined her Bill. She may have been able to prepare herself for it, for she was often heard talking to “her Bill” when no one else could be seen in the room.
There was a fight over the will. The Collars had had no children, and a niece inherited the house.
But let me get back to Dixie-Lee and 1954. The young girl had moved into Mrs. Collar’s imposing white house at New Ipswich, as the section was called, and given a room on the second floor next to the large bedroom once occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Collar. She had barely enough time to admire the expensive antique furniture around the house, when it was time to retire for the night.
Mrs. Dixie-Lee Danforth had come to Boston to meet me, and I questioned her about what happened then.
“I went to bed,” she said, “and in the wee hours of the morning I awoke to the faint sound of footsteps and ticking of a clock. The sound of both kept getting louder—louder—till it seemed to beat against my brain.”
At first she thought she was dreaming, but, biting her own hand, she realized she was fully awake. Cold sweat stood on her forehead when she realized that Mrs. Collar was an invalid who could not walk. What was more, the big clock had not worked for years. Suddenly, just as suddenly as it had come, it ceased. Dixie-Lee lay still for a while in sheer terror, then she turned on the light. Her bedroom door was firmly closed, just as she had left it before going to bed. She checked the door leading to what was once the Collars’ big bedroom. It was shut tight, too. She ventured out onto the narrow landing of the staircase leading to the lower floor. It was shut off from the downstairs part of the house by a hall door. That, too, was shut. She retraced her steps and suddenly noticed a rope and pulley. She pulled it and another door appeared.
“I opened it, heart in my mouth,” Dixie-Lee said, “and was relieved to find a pretty, light bedroom behind it. It was furnished with modern furniture, and seemed to me much gayer and more peaceful than the rest of the house. The room was empty.”
“What did you do then?” I wondered.
“First, I checked the big clock in my room. It was not going. Just as dead as it had been all those years. I looked around the house for other clocks. The only one in going condition was downstairs in the room occupied by Mrs. Collar, and I’d have to have had superhearing to hear that one tick all the way up to the second floor through three sets of closed doors and a heavy wooden floor!”
I readily agreed that was not very likely, and wondered if she had told anyone of her frightening experience that night.
“I told the daytime housekeeper, with whom I was friendly, and she laughed. But I refused to stay another moment unless someone else stayed with me. She and her young daughter moved in with me upstairs, and stayed the full two weeks. I never heard the footsteps or the ticking of the clock again while they were with me. But after I left, housekeepers came and went. Nobody seemed to stay very long at the big white house in New Ipswich. Possibly they, too, heard the uncanny noises.”
I nodded and asked about Mrs. Collar. Could she have gotten out of bed somehow?
“Not a chance,” Dixie-Lee replied. “She was a total invalid. I checked on her in the morning. She had never left her bed. She couldn’t have. Besides, the footsteps I heard weren’t those of a frail old woman. They were a man’s heavy footfalls. I never told Mrs. Collar about my experience though. Why frighten her to death?”
“Quite so,” I agreed, and we talked about Dixie-Lee now. Was she psychic to any degree?
Dixie-Lee came from a most unusual family. Her great-grandmother knew how to work the table. Her grandfather saw the ghost of his sister, and Dixie-Lee herself had felt her late grandfather in his house whenever she visited, and she had numerous premonitions of impending danger.
On at least one such occasion she had a feeling she should not go on a certain trip, and insisted on stopping the car. On investigation, she found the wheels damaged. She might have been killed had she not heeded the warning!
We parted. Mrs. Danforth returned to her somewhat-more-than skeptical husband in Milford, and I took the next plane back to New York.
But the haunted house in New Ipswich never left my mind. I was due back in New England around Halloween, 1963, and decided to join Mrs. Danforth in a little trip up to the New Hampshire border country. A friend of hers, their children, a Boston-teacher friend of ours named Carol Bowman, and my wife and I completed the party that drove up to New Ipswich on that warm fall day. We weren’t exactly expected, since I did not know the name of the present owner of the house, But Mrs. Danforth had sent word of our coming ahead. It turned out the word was never received, and we actually were lucky to find anyone in, luckier yet to be as cordially welcomed as we were by the lady of the house, whom we shall call Mrs. F.
Mrs. Jeanette F. was a sophisticated, well-educated lady whose husband was a psychiatrist, who was once also interested in parapsychology. She asked that I not use her full name here. A strange “feeling” of expecting us made her bid us a cordial welcome. I wasn’t surprised to hear this—in this business, nothing surprises me anymore.
The F.s had only had the house for a year when we visited them. They had not intended to buy the house, although they were on the lookout for a home in New England. But they passed it in their car, and fell in love with it...or rather were somehow made to buy the place. They discovered it was built in 1789. That wasn’t all they discovered after they moved in.
“I always had the feeling,” Mrs. F said, “that we were only allowed to live here...but never really alone. Mrs. Collar’s bedroom, for instance. I had the distinct feeling something was buried there under the floorboards. My sister-in-law slept upstairs. The next morning she told me she had ‘heard things.’ Right after we moved in, I heard footsteps upstairs.”
“You too?” marveled Dixie-Lee, shooting a triumphant side glance at me, as if I had doubted her story.
“Last winter at dusk one day, I heard a woman scream. Both of us heard it, but we thought—or rather, liked to think—that it was a bobcat. Soon thereafter, we heard it again, only now it sounded more like a child crying. We heard it on several occasions and it gave us the willies.”
On another occasion, there had been five people in the house when they heard the scream, followed by a growl. They went out to look for a bobcat...but there were absolutely no traces in the fresh snow, of either animal or human. There had also been all sorts of noises in the basement.
“Something strange about this child crying,” Mrs. F. continued. “When we moved in, a neighbor came to see us and said when they saw we had a child, ‘You’ve brought life back to the Collar house.’”
Dixie-Lee broke in.
“I seem to recall there was something
about a child. I mean that they had a child.”
“And it died?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Mrs. F. said. “But there were diaries—they were almost lost, but one of Bill Collar’s best friends, Archie Eaton, saved them. Here they are.”
Mrs. F. showed us the remarkable books, all written in longhand. On cursory examination I did not uncover the secret of the child.
There is a hollow area in the basement. We went down to get impressions, and Dixie-Lee felt very uneasy all of a sudden, and didn’t feel like joining us downstairs, even though moments before she had been the spirit of adventure personified.
We returned to the ground floor and had some coffee.
I decided to return with a medium, and hold a séance next to the chimney down in the basement, underneath the room where Mrs. F. felt the floorboards held a secret.
But somehow we were thwarted in this effort.
In December 1963, we were told that our visit would have to be postponed, and Mrs. F. asked us to come later in the winter. Too many living relatives in the house were making it difficult to listen for the dead.
“Something happened yesterday,” she added, “that will interest you. My housekeeper is a very bright and trusted woman. She has never mentioned anything strange about the house. Yesterday I was telling her about our plans to sell the house. As I spoke, she was looking in the room next to me—I was standing in the kitchen. She was looking into the dining room, when she turned pale and interrupted me. She had seen a short, old woman in a long gray dress walk through the dining room. Now I questioned her about anything she might have seen in the past. She admitted she had seen figures on several occasions, but was afraid to be ridiculed. Strangely enough, she wants to buy the house despite these experiences. She calls it ‘the house that watches,’ because she always feels she is being observed while she cares for the children, even when she has them in the garden.”
In February 1964, we tried to fix a new date to visit the house. My letters remained unanswered. Had the house changed hands again?