Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1868-07-11
THE HAUNTED HOUSE.
\ TRUE STORY OF NEW ENGLAND LIFE.
Rev, l. F. Bolton in the Boston Congregationalist

/ y
On the wide sandy plain which stretch
es its weary monotony between The
crowded manufacturing villages of Chic
opee River and the quiet villages of Gran
by and South Hadly, stands lonely house
ten rods from lonely road. It of two
stories and an i, though the single 70 1m
in this last is the only room that is inhab
table. The two story part, now ruin
has never been more than mere she'll
A quarter of a century age Shubacl Jones
put it up, planted little orchard around
| it, and brought to it black-eyed, high
tempered wife, But he was at that time
an incipient drunkard, and soon every
appearance of comfort and domestic hap
niuess fled the place. And one dismal
November night the wretched wife suns
monod her neighbors from their beds to
where the poor sot lay dead at the foot
of the cellar stairs. No inquest was held,
none doubted that he was killed by a fall
in drunken fit in attempting another
visit to his cider barrel.
The widow rented the place to ten
ant who neither kept it well nor paid its
rent. She went with her little. boy, who
was not quite an idiot, to work in the pa-
per-mill at the village then called ''Ship-
muck For long years she changed from
factory to factory as best she could keep
her son employed. He was always harm
less and still. lie was always obedient
when under his mothers eye and work
ing at her side. They earned more than
they spent, but the prudent people of
Ludlow, where last they had lived, feared
to allow them to "gain 4 settlement" and
thus re:der their town liable for their fu-
tarc support. So they obtained the con-
sent OF the agent that the widow and her
son need not keep strict time, and offered
to furnish a room in her old desolate house,
three miles from the factory, if she would
live there The proud woman understood
the motive, and with flash of her dark
eyes declined their kindness. But she
isooa bought a little furniture of family
that was moving away, and rc-cstablished
herself in the gloomy old wreck.
1t was now late in the fall when the
widow Jones first noticed that the grass
was disappearing from the roadside by
the bars opposite her door, 1t soon grew
obviously worse; and, though bald spot
on mans head is no great wonder, this
bare spot, with no hoof.marks on it, baf-
fled all her ingenuity. The fence, too,
seemed worn as if by loungers leaning
against ii. What could it mean? No
human gathering could have been held in
that lonely place since the day when that
moldcring frame WAS raised, except on
that sad day when the moldcrimg frame
of the owner went to its long home.
The explanation Of that mystery in
wolves us i'll deeper one. One night in
S.:stA1sber a man from Ludlow was pass
ing the house just after the factory bell
had announced the hour of nine. AS he
neared the house he heard groan. 1t
| MAS single groan, then all was still.
But it WAS stlch a groan as 10 one utters
twice, and he who hears it never wishes
to hear it again. He felt it his duty to
rush into the house, but dared not At
ter long hesitation he went his way, spec
ulating whether the widow had murder
ed her IDIOT son or bad been murdered by
hin. And when he saw them both qui-
etly come into the village the next morn
inc he doubted first his eyes and next his
memory.
But the same GRAND again brought him
past that lonely house few nights later
Again he heard the nine o'csock bell as
he approached the house, and again, as
he was opposite the house, that dreadful
groan. The next night he walked out
with neSgilbor, so timing his steps that
when near the house both heard that NOR
tai sound. Both were certain that it
came from the house
Three went out, and five, and fifteen,
and thirty. All heard the groan; and
all agreed that it was exact to its time
to Il quarter of a minpte. Old Captain
Hardcastle said 4itsd, if he were shut up
in a hold as dark as midnight, he could
tell within ten minutes when the time for
his eleven O'clock" came, but he couldn't
keep time with a ghost. One guessed the
spirit heard the bell. The agent stopped
the bell one night, but the groan was
heard as usual. And it was not a similar
groan but the same groan repeated every
night. No ear could tell any difference
aot made by the direction and force of
tuc W lHu. DUHic WOHueTeu NHcIuei IL
had been repeated every night since poor
Jones "broke his neck" Others said that
if they were the widow, rather than live
4 month i'll that house they would confess
the murder and be hanged.
One night the doctor and the lawyer
OF Ludlow, t,oih young men, went cut
quite early. They went into the house
and "wanted to wait till the moon rose"
The widow gave them scant welcome;
she had not forgotten Ludlow prudence,
and she always conjectured that her pres
ent guests had their share in that affair
Without a candle she sat there stretching
her skinny hands to the blaze, for the
night was chill The gawky boy, WHO
would be nearly seven feet long If he
Strengthened out, and who seemed to have
acquired his longitude at the expense OF
his latitude, as if put through rolling
mill, sat there in kinks and silence. They
heard the factory bell, they heard a crick-
ct, they heard a lusty rat bpt they heard
no groan. At half past nine they went
out to large, shivering, impatient crowd
that had missed their groan and felt mis-
used. In an instant more the groan was