by Hans Holzer
“What did he have for a profession?” I tried again.
“He says he brought things...seeds.”
“What are his initials or first name?”
“A. J. H.”
Sybil seemed to listen to someone we could not see. “He’s not troublesome,” she said. “He goes when I get near to him. Wants to go to the other house.”
“Where is the other house?”
“Liang...Street...Bombay.”
“Does he know he is dead?”
“No.”
I instructed her to tell him.
“Any family?”
“Two families...Bombay.”
“Children?”
“Jacob...Martin.”
It was not clear whether the ghost said Jacob or Jacobsen.
“He is shaking himself,” Sybil now reported. “What upset him? He worries about names. A. J. A. name on something he is worried about. The names are wrong on a paper. He said Jacobsen is wrong. It should be Jacob Hawsley son.”
Evidently the ghost did not approve the sale of his house by his executors, but wanted it to go to his son.
“Because of two houses, two families, he did not know what to do with the other.”
“What does ‘A.’ stand for in his name?”
“Aaron...Aaron Jacob.”
“Does he have any kind of title or professional standing?”
“A-something...A-D-M...can’t read...Administrator A-D-M...it’s on the paper, but I can’t read the paper.”
Still, she did get the admiral’s rank!
I promised to have the gift delivered to Mrs. Gerard, if we could find her, but he must not stay in this house any further.
“Who waters the plants, he asks,” Sybil said.
I assured him the plants would be taken care of.
“But what about the other house, who waters the plants there?” the ghost wanted to know.
“How does he go there?” I asked in return.
“He sails,” Sybil replied. “Takes a long time.”
Again I promised to find the house in India, if I could.
“What about a date?” I asked. “How long ago did all this happen?”
“About 1867,” Sybil replied.
“How old was he then?”
“Fifty-nine.”
I implored the admiral not to cause any untidiness in the house by upsetting its inhabitants. The reply via Sybil was stiff.
“As a man with an administrative background, he is always tidy,” Sybil reported. “But he is going now.”
“He is going now,” Sybil repeated, “and he’s taking the ferns.”
I called Sybil back to her own body, so as not to give some unwanted intruder a chance to stop in before she was back in the driver’s seat, so to speak.
None the worse for her travels in limbo, Sybil sat up and smiled at us, wondering why we all stared at her so intently. She remembered absolutely nothing.
Erlend Jacobsen spoke up.
“That basket she mentioned,” he said. “When my parents first bought the house, there was hanging over the dining room, on a chain, a stuffed armadillo, which had been shellacked from the outside. It had straw handles and had been turned into a basket. It was around the house until about five years ago, but I have no idea where it is now. For all we know, it may still be around the house somewhere.”
“Better find it,” I said. “That is, if you want those footsteps to cease!”
Just as we were leaving the house, the senior Jacobsens returned. Mr. Eric Jacobsen does not care for ghosts and I was told not to try to get him to talk about the subject. But his wife, Josephine, Erlend’s mother, had been pushed down the stairs by the ghost—or so she claims. This is quite possible, judging by the way the admiral was behaving in his post-funeral days and nights.
Our job in Whitefield seemed finished and we continued on to Stowe, Vermont, where we had decided to stay at the famous Trapp Family Lodge. Catherine had become interested in Mrs. Trapp’s books, and from The Sound of Music, we both thought that the lodge would provide a welcome interlude of peace during a hectic weekend of ghost hunting.
The next morning we rested up from the rigors of our investigation and found the world around us indeed peaceful and promising. The following morning we would go down to Goddard College and address students and teachers on the subject of ghosts, which would leave us with a pleasant afternoon back at Stowe, before flying back to Manhattan. But we had reckoned without the commercial spirit at the lodge. Like most overnight lodgings, they wanted us out of our rooms by 11 o’clock Sunday morning, but finally offered to let us stay until two. I declined.
After my talk at the college, we were taken to one of the women’s dormitories where uncanny happenings had taken place. The college was situated on the old Martin farm, and the manor had been turned into a most elegant female students’ residence, without losing its former Victorian grandeur. Reports of a dead butler still walking the old corridors upstairs had reached my ears. Two students, Madeleine Ehrman and Dorothy Frazier, knew of the ghost. The phenomena were mainly footsteps when no one was about. A teacher who did not believe in ghosts set foot in the manor and later revealed that the name Dawson had constantly impressed itself on her mind. Later research revealed that a butler by that name did in fact live at the manor house long ago.
Sue Zuckerman was a New Yorker studying at Goddard.
“One night last semester,” she said, “I was up late studying when I heard footsteps approaching my room. After a few seconds I opened my door—there was nobody there. I closed the door and resumed studying. I then heard footsteps walking away from my door. I looked again, but saw nothing.
“During this time for a period of about three weeks, my alarm clock had been shut off every night. I would set it for about 7:30, but when I woke up much later than that, the alarm button was always off. I began hiding my clock, locking my door—but it still happened.
“Back in 1962, I was toying with a Ouija board I had bought more in fun than as a serious instrument of communication. I had never gotten anything through it that could not have come from my own mind, but that Friday afternoon in 1962, I worked it in the presence of three other friends, and as soon as we put our hands on it, it literally started to leap around. It went very fast, giving a message one of us took down: ‘I am dead...of drink.’ ‘Are you here now in the Manor?’ ‘One could speak of my presence here.’ There was more, but I can’t remember it now.
“Afterward, a strange wind arose and as we walked past a tree outside, it came crashing down.”
I don’t know about strange “wind,” and Ouija boards are doubtful things at times, but the footfalls of the restless butler named Dawson must have been a most unusual extracurricular activity for the co-eds at Goddard College.
* 98
The Ghosts in The Basement
MARY LIVES IN Atlanta, Georgia, a quiet woman who speaks with a charming southern accent and is rather conservative in her way of life. Even her special talent of being able to read the tarot cards for her friends used to be an embarrassment to her because of her religion and because of what the neighbors might say if they found out, not to mention the fact that everyone would want a reading from her.
At the time I met her she had two lovely daughters, Katie, a 15-year-old, and Boots, who went to college. On the day of Halloween, 1962, she and her girls had moved into an attractive 18-year-old house in Atlanta. It stood in a quiet suburban neighborhood amid other small homes of no particular distinction. Not far from the house are the tracks of a railroad which is nowadays used only for freight. Famous old Fort McPherson is not far away; during the Civil War one of the bloodiest engagements was fought on this spot.
The house has two levels; at street level, there is a large living room which one enters from the front side of the house, then there are three bedrooms, and on the right side of the house, a den leading into a kitchen. From one of the bedrooms a stair secured by an iron railing leads into the
basement. There is a closet underneath the stairs. In back of the house there is a large patio and there are also outside stairs leading again into the basement. Only the right-hand third of the basement area is actually used by the family, a laundry room occupies most of the space and a wall seals it off from the undeveloped “dirt” area of the basement.
The house itself feel cozy and warm, the furniture is pleasant and functional, and if it weren’t for some unusual events that had occurred in the house, one might never suspect it of being anything but just another ordinary suburban home.
Soon after they had moved in, Mary and her daughters knew there was something very odd about the house. She would wake up in the middle of the night because she heard someone digging down in the basement. She thought this entirely out of the question, but when the noise persisted night after night, she was wondering whether the neighbors might be putting in a water pipe. After a while, she decided to find out who was doing the digging. She left her bed and went downstairs, but there was nothing to be seen. There were no rats or mice which could have caused the strange noise. There was no freshly turned up dirt either. Their neighbors weren’t doing any digging. Even more mysterious, Mary and her two daughters kept hearing the noise of someone trying to break into the house, always at two in the morning. And when they checked there was never anyone there. They called the police but the police failed to turn up any clues. Mary installed heavy bolts inside the front and rear doors, but the day she returned from an errand to an empty house she found the heavy bolts ripped away by unseen hands.
At the time Mary was estranged from her doctor husband, and she was afraid to discuss the strange phenomena with him, since he put no stock into psychic phenomena and might have taken advantage of the information to have Mary declared in need of psychiatric treatment. Mary was in the habit of taking afternoon naps but now her naps kept being disturbed by an unseen person entering the house, walking through it as if he or she knew it well, and sometimes even running the water or flushing the toilet! Often, when she was doing her laundry in the basement she would clearly hear footsteps overhead then the sound of drawers being opened and shut and water being run. But when she checked, there was no one about and nothing had changed.
At first she kept the disturbing news from her daughters but soon the discovered that the children had also heard the strange noises. In addition, Katie had felt a pair of hands on her during the night when she knew she was alone in her room. Even in plain daylight such heavy objects as books began to disappear and reappear in other places as if someone were trying to play a game with them. At that time Boots, the older girl, was at college and when she came back from school she had no idea what her sister and mother had been through recently in the house. So it was a shock for her to hear someone using a typewriter in the basement when they all knew that there was no one there and no typewriter in the house. The family held a conference and it was decided that what they had in the house was a ghost, or perhaps several. By now they had gotten used to the idea, however, and it did not frighten them as much as before.
One night Katie was asleep when she awoke with the feeling she was not alone. As she opened her eyes she saw standing by her bedside a shadowy figure. Since her mother was in the other bedroom, she knew that it could not have been her.
Soon, Mary and her girl realized that they weren’t dealing with just one ghost. On several occasions the quick footsteps of a child were also heard along with the heavier footsteps of an adult. Then someone seemed to be calling out to them by name. One day in January 1968 when they had gotten accustomed to their unseen visitors Mary awoke to the sound of music coming from the kitchen area. She investigated this at once but found neither a radio nor any other reason for the music that could be accepted on a rational basis. She returned to bed and tried to ignore it. Just then two sets of footfalls reached her ears right through the covers. One set of feet seemed to turn to toward her daughter Katie’s room, while the other pair of feet came right toward her bed, where they stopped. Something ice cold then seemed to touch her. She screamed in fear and jumped from her bed and this apparently broke the phenomenon and again there was no one about.
Mary began to wonder who was the person in the household who made the phenomenon possible, because she knew enough about psychic phenomena to realize that someone had to be the medium. One night she received the answer. She awakened to the sound of a voice coming from her daughter Katie’s room. A female voice was saying a phrase over and over and Katie was answering by repeating it. She could clearly hear “golden sand,” spoken in a sweet, kindly voice and her daughter Katie repeating it in a childish voice totally different from her normal adult tone. Then she heard Katie clap her hands and say, “Now what can I do?” When Mary entered Katie’s room she saw her daughter fast asleep. When questioned the next day about the incident, Katie remembered absolutely nothing. But the incidents continued.
One day Katie saw a woman in her forties, and felt someone fondling her hair. It seemed a kind gesture and Katie was not afraid. By now Mary wondered whether she herself might not be the person to whom the phenomena occurred rather than just her daughter. She had always had psychic ability so she decided to test this potential mediumship within her. Relaxing deeply in an effort to find out who the ghost was and what the ghost wanted in the house, Mary was able to hear with her inner voice the psychic message sent out from the woman. Over and over again she heard the phrase spoken within her—“I need your help to cross the stream!” Several days later she heard the same female voice whisper in her ear, “I need your help!” “Where are you?” Mary said aloud. “In the basement, in the dirt,” the voice answered. Soon Mary realized there was another ghost in the house, this one male. Mary woke from an afternoon nap because she heard someone come through the front door. She sat up and yelled at the unseen presence to go away and leave her alone. But a man’s gruff voice answered her. “She can see me!” But Mary did not see anyone. Still, she become more and more convinced that the man was angry at her for having paid attention to the female ghost and Mary wondered whether the two of them had a connection. Mary called on sincere friends to form a “psychic rescue circle,” that is to try to make contact with the restless ghosts and, if possible, send them away. It didn’t help. Soon after, Mary heard the pleading voice again, “I need you. Come to the basement.” Mary then went to the basement where she said a prayer for the departed. Whether the prayer did it, or whether the ghosts had finally realized that they were staying on in a house that belonged to another time, there were no further disturbances after that.
* 99
Miss Boyd of Charles Street, Manhattan
ONE OF THE OLDEST and historically most interesting sections of New York City is Greenwich Village, where many houses dating back to the early nineteenth, eighteenth, and even seventeenth century still exist. The people living in them sometimes have to share the appointments with an unseen entity or even a seen one, but ghosts and old houses seem to go together and those among the people living in this part of New York whom I have interviewed over the years because of ghostly manifestation have never thought that there was anything remarkably horrible about them. If anything they were curious about the person or persons they shared their houses with.
Some years ago I had the pleasure of meeting a certain Miss Boyd down on Charles Street and the meeting was mutually useful. Miss Boyd of course was a ghost. All of this happened because Barrie, a friend, had taken an apartment on Charles Street, and found that his ground floor apartment contained a ghost. Halloween 1964, I visited the apartment in the company of medium Sybil Leek, and I had no idea whom I might meet there apart from the flesh-and-blood people then occupying the apartment. There was a fire in the fireplace and an appropriate wind howling outside, but it was novelist Elizabeth B., Barrie’s friend, who set the proper mood. She explained that the whole thing started when one of Barrie’s house guests, Adriana, had been awakened in bed by a rather violent push of her arm. At the same time
she felt herself compelled to burst into tears and wept profusely, although there was no reason for it. Somehow she partook of another person’s feelings, involving a great deal of sorrow. This happened several nights a row. However, Adriana did not tell Barrie about it. There really was no need to because one night he arrived around 1 in the morning to find Adriana practically drowning in her tears. When his house guest left, he tried to dismiss the whole thing, but he, too, felt a “presence” watching him all the time. On one occasion, he saw a whitish mist, and was sure that someone was looking at him.
Miss Boyd used to live here on Charles Street.
Sybil Leek felt that communication with the unseen entity was possible. Gradually falling deeper and deeper into a trance state, she made contact with the unhappy woman who could not leave the spot of much suffering in her own lifetime. “Her name is Boyd,” Sybil explained and then the entity, the ghost herself, took over Sybil’s speech mechanism and I was able to question her about her grievances. Apparently Miss Boyd was looking for a document having to do with ownership of the house; the year was 1866. The owner of the house was named Anussi. At that point we had to end the séance.
We returned a few weeks later, and again Sybil Leek made contact with the ghost. Picture my surprise when Elizabeth B. informed me that she had done some research on the house since our first meeting, and discovered that the house had indeed belonged to a family named Boyd ever since it had been bought by one Samuel Boyd in 1827! Even the landlord named “Anussi” turned out to have some basis in fact except that the name was spelled differently, Moeslin. According to the records, this man had rented the house to Mary Boyd in 1866. But what about the paper the ghost was trying to recover, the paper that apparently caused her continued presence in the house? “Find the paper, find the paper. This is my house,” the ghost said, through the medium. The paper, it appeared, was in the name of her father, Bill, and the landlord did not have any right to the house according to the ghost. That was the reason for her continued presence there.