Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-09-26
ExrRAoRDINAaY GHosr SronY Most ghost

ExTRAoRDINARY GHosT SToRY Most ghost
stories are only foolish and laughabe; but this
one is melancholy in the extreme
Within the past year the people Of a village
in western State became greatly excited by
the alleged nightly appearance Of ghost in a
village graveyard. Few Of them, indeed, had
dared to see it but some had; and they, with
out making too familiar with it, had still seen
it come and 60, walk about, seat ITSELF &c.; and
the statements of all those were too well au-
thenticated to be disregarded. What the few
saw the many believed; and the whole COM
munity soon became excited upon the subject
of this strange nightly visitation to the graves
of the dead. OF course the ghost was in the
usual grave clothes, in which, SO far as we
know, ghosts always appear; and it was en-
tirely regular in its hour-always arising among
the tombs at just midnight, and leaving at near
early dawn. 1t had otter been seen to come
and go, passing over fences in its course but
no one had learned whence it came or whittier
it went s a
AT length the matter from being the town
talk became the town dread. Numerous indi-
viduals got excited, and superstitious ones grew
melancholy and taciturn people looked doubt
ingly at each other as they passed in twilight,
and all contrived their journeyings at that hour,
so as not to approach the last resting place OF
their departed friends.
This growing dread at length became insult
ferable; and engaged all minds There CHANGED
to be in the village, a youth of nineteen, from
Western New York, whose domestic education
had carefully excluded all faith in supernatural
agencies, and who, therefore, looked only to
natural causes for explanations OF the events
and occurrences of this life. This youth re-
solved to fathom the mystery of the graveyard
ghost. He found one associate and the two
after nightfall secreted themselves among the
tombs to observe. Punctually, as the hour of
twelve drew nigh, the ghost which had caused
so much dread was seen approaching. The
moon was shining brightly, and the white
robed object was seen most distinctly. Over
coming two fences, thus entered the graveyard
within actual reach Of the youth who had set
on foot the investigation, and as the light fell
| fully upon the face of the ghost, he recognized
the well-known featurrs of an acquaintance,
who was then in her early widowhood. Her
husband had recently been buried there, and
SO dreadful had been the shock, that the reason
| of the wife had been dethroned by it, and she
was now wandering maniac. She saw not
her observers, but seated herself, as she was
wont, upon the grave Of him she had loved
but too fondly. The two then approached the
unfortunate, and addressed her in kindness.
| She knew them not, but conversed freely with
them, calling them angles, and craving their
| protection. She was in her night clothes, and
her wandering thus through the agony she had
suffered, and her nightly occupying this sad
seat, had converted that poor mental wreck Of
humanity into ghost. On this occasion she
could not be induced to abandon her post, and
of necessity she was left there to compile the
hours of that nights pilgrimage. She is now
| in a lunatic asylum.-Bufdlo Commercial.