Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1875-07-20
A RURAL GHOST STORY.

A RURAL GHOST STORY.
correspondent writes from Lancaster, O.:
Sugar Grove, quiet, lazy, old fashioned little
village, situated about eight miles south Of
Lancaster. on the banks OF the Legendary Rock-
hooking, has 3 sensation.
For the past fifty years the good denizens of
this prosaic and diminutve borough have had
most unqualified faith ln the yisitations of a
representative OF the sweet by-and-by, aud
many of them have been frightened out of their
seven senses by actual rencounters with this
supernatural gentleman. and have supplied us
With accurate and detailed descriptions of the
appartion.
The facts Of the case are these Years ago,
over half century,, when the pleasant little
village of Sugar Grove comprised but log
cabin or lwo, one dark stormy night, when the
wind was bowling through the hoarse wilder.
ness and the sky was full of ominous clouds, a
jewelry peddler stopped at the cabin of a set
tier by the name of Pierre Bordeau, little,
weazen faced old man of Gallo extraction,
whose miserable domicile stood on what is DOW
the farm of T. L. Sharpe, esq.,. just where the
family burial ground is situated. This noma
die purveyor solicited nights lodging for
himself and horse, and, as was customary 10
those good old days, was unheslatingly
the peddler of cheap jewels turned up missing,
as it was supposed that he bad left in the night
to avoid the little compensation old Pierre
might properly expect for his hospitality.
The peddler' disappearance had already been
forgotten, when, late in the afternoon, neigh
boring farmland found his horse, with its
throat cut, lodged against food gate across a
curvature in the Hook hooking, when the start
ling intelligence was scattered abroad, and dill.
gent search was instantly instituted for the
missing traveller, but to no avail. Not the
slightest trace but pool of blood, back of the
Frenchma1s cabin, near the base of hill,
where bubbles forth spring of cold water
could be found Years flow round, and the
story of the miser peddler and the dark pool of
blood became tradition, but the weird spot
about the Frenchman's cabin was ever after
thought to De haunted, and the hunters who
stopped 10 their wandering to sake their thirst
at old Bordeau's spring, gave it the oame of
ugly water, oo account of the peculiar odor
that arose from it and its bitter taste, which
name it bears to this day.
Many night, when the sky was hidden by
the clouds, and the wind soughed and moaned
lugubrlously around the hill, has the passing
couDtryman seen the ghost of the missing ped
der, which would fit along 10 front Of the
horses uutll the spring was reached, when it
would vanish, apparently into the bowels of
the bill.
That the old jewelry peddler had been mur-
dered and robbed no one had the least doubt,
and that his troubled spirit had taken this mode
to scare the murderer into confession and
repentance they also frmly believed. Strange
to say-no, there. is nothing strange about it
elther-for old Bordeau was kind hearted,
iuoffensive farmer, aud he was never suspected
as having committed the horrible crime, or be.
Ing accessory thereto, until the day of his death
when be confessed the deed, but would not
d'vnee the spot where the body had been con-
cealed.
However, almost bis last words were: ''Un.
der the house, and on searching there the ped
dler's clothes and pack of jewels we're found,
decayed and corroded by time, but no evidence
of the body or bones. Thoroug investigation
was made, the whole hut demolished and toro
away aod the foundations upheaved, bat no
slgos OF the object for which they worked were
ever brought to light.
The confession aod demise of the wicked lit.
tie Frencbmao, however. did not soothe the
ruttied spirit of the victim of his treaehery, and
OFT and on the tall. white, weired and frightful
hgure wonld make Its appearance before the
startled vlsIoD OF some passiog farmer, and the
spot was hoally given up as hopeessiy the
ghost s. aDd detour of two miles many cour-
ageous man has made to avoid the place after
the sun had withdrawn its benign rays from
over the earth.
Much speculation has been INDUCED in az to
what disposition the old Frenchmau made of
the traveller, but no definite or satisfactory con-
cluslon could be arrived at until within few
days since, after lapse of nearly seventy wears
the whole tragedy was made plsiu. Mr. Robert
Sharp, 10 building his new residence concluded
to convey water for common usage from the
spring at the hill 8 base, around which had hung
dark mystery, to his house by means OF sub.
terrauean pipes.
10 accomplish this the spring had to be
greatly enlarged, and while at work here ip
digging out ugly water" the skeleton of a
man 10 perfect preservation was exhumed from
beneath the rocks, which correspopded exactly
10 stature with the missing and murdered ped.
der. No one who kuows the facts of the case
has any doubts whatever but that the murder
ed peddler had been buried in the spring and
carefully covered with rocks by the cunning
FreDchman, and now that Ills bones have been
given Christian burial, it is hoped that he will
lie quiet and docile unti the great day, when
all alike, the quick and the dead, shall rise and
be judged.
1t is reported that Adna Culver, of Penn
syvania, who went out to the FIJI Islands last
summer as missionary, is at home again. Her
biggest Suoday school class shufasd into her
house one morning with nothing on but neck
laces, whereupou Annals enthusiasm in the
cause melted away.