Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1875-08-06
AGhost story.


Commercial writes from Lancaster
Ohio:
Sugar Grove, a quiet lazy, old
fastened little village, situated about
eight miles south of Lancaster, on
the banks of the legendary Hook
hooking, has sensation. For the
past so years the good denizens of
this prosaic and diminutive borough
have had the most unqualified faith
in the visitations of a representative
OF the sweet by-and-by,. and many
of them have been frightened out
of their seven senses, by actual re-
counters with this supernatural gen
tleman, and have supplied us. with
accurate and detailed descriptions of
the APART on. i1ai9 ... .,rcs1
The facts of the case are these:
Years ago-over half century
when the pleasant little village of
Sugar-Greye comprised but "a log
cabin or two, one. dark, stormy
night, the wind was howling through
the hoarse wilderness, and the sky
was full of iominous clouds, Jewell
ry peddler stopped at the cabin of a
settler by the name of Pierre Bor-
deau-a little, weazen-faced old man
of Gallo extraction, whose misera-
bic domieile stood on what is now
the farm of r. L. Sharpe, ESQ.,, just
where the family burying-ground is
situated.GS The nomadic puFveyor
solicited nights lodging for him
self and horse, and, as was customa-
/ ~ in those good old days, was un-
hesitatingly and heartily accommo-
dated. nsthe morning the peddler
of cheap jewels turned up missing,
which, however, occasioned no great
alarm, as it was supposed he had
left in the night to avoid the little
compensation old Pierre might prob
ably expect for his hospitality.
The peddler's disappearance had
! already been forgotten, when late in
the afternoon aneigboring fa1ah hand
found his horse, with his throat cut,
lodged against the flood gate across
a curvature in the Hockhocking,
when the startling intelligence was
scattered abroad, and dilligent
search was instantly instituted for
the missing traveller, but to no avail.
Not the slfghte1,Ss trace but a pool of
blood back of the Frenchman's cab
in, near the base of a hill where
bubbles forth spring of cold wa
ter, could be found. Years flew
round and the story Of, the missing
peddler and the dark pool of blood
became a tradition, but the weird
spot about the Frenchman's cabin
was ever after thought to be haunt
ed, and the hunters who stopped to
slake their thirst at old Bordeau's
spring gave it the name ugly water
on account of the peculiar odor that
arose from it and the bitter taste,
which name it bears to this day.
Many night when the sky was
hidden by the clouds, and the wind
soughed and mourned lugubriously
around the hill, has the. passing
countfyman seen the ghost of the
missing peddler, which would fit
along in front of the horses until the
spring was reached when it would
vanish, apparently into the bowels
of the hill. n -.-s-
The old jewelry peddler had been
murdered and robbed, no one had
the least doubt, and that his troub-
led spirit had taken this mode to
scaresthe Murderer into "a confession
and repentance, they also firmly be-
lieved. Strange to say, no-there
is nothing strange about it either
for old Bordeau was kind hearted,
inoffensive farmer, and he was new
jer suspected of having committed
the horrible crime, or been accessory
thereto, until the day of his death,
when he confessed the deed, but
would not divulge the spot where
the body had been concealed. How
ever, almost his last words were,
''Under the house." and on search
ing there the peddler's clothes and
pack of jewels were found decayed
and eorroded by time, but no evil
denee of the body or .bones.-
Though investigation was made, the
wholer hut demolished and tern
away, and the foundations upheav-
ed but no signs of the object for
which they worked were ever
brought to light.
The confession and demise of the
wicked little Frenchman, however,
did not sooth the ruffled spirit of
the victim ofGhisdtreachery, and off
and on the tall, white, wierd and
frightful figure would make his ap-
pearance before the startled vision
Of some passing farmer, and the spot.
was finally given up as hopelessly
the ghosts, and detour, of two
miles many a courageous man has
made, to avoid the place where the
sun had withdrawn its benign rays
from over the earth. '''D-'
2 Much speculation has been indulg-
ed7iul as to what disposition the old
Frenchman made of the traveller,
but no definite or satisfactory con-
clusion could be arrived at until, a
few days since, after lapse of
some 70 years, the whole tragedy
was made plain. Mr.. Robert Sharp,
in building new residence, conclud--
ed to convey water for common
usage from the spring at the hill's
base, round which had hung dark
MYSTERY, to his house by means of
subterranean pipes. To accomplish
this the spring had been greatly en-
larged, and while at work here IN
digging out 'sugly water" the skele-
ton of a man in perfect preservation
was exhumed from beneath the
rocks, which corresponded exactly
in stature with the missing and muir
dered peddler. No one who knows
the facts of the case has any doubts
whatever but that the murdered
peddler had been buried in the
spring and carefully covered with
rocks by the cunning Frenchman,
and now that his bones have been
given a Christian burial, 1t is hoped
that he will lie quiet and docile I'M
til the great day, when all alike,
che quick and the dead. shall rise