The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-09-27
WEARING OUT A GHOST.

A Shade Who Tried in Vain to Drive Out
the Occupants of His Old House.
Detroit Times
In a rural spot, not remote from Detroit stands
house OF singular shape and construction. 1t
Is octagonal, two stories high, and crowned with
cupola and flags TWAS built about thirty
years ago by German a man of such intense
national feeling and distrust and dislike of
Americans that he would only employ German
models and German labor in its construction.
The material used for the house is grout or con-
crete, and forms a wall impervious to air or
moisture-to all intents it is a solid stone wall
All the partitions on the ground floor are of this
material, and when, after the old German
died. his cherished home passed into the
hands of an American, who wished to alter its
internal arrangements, the partitions could only
be removed with the aid of a pickaxe, and
any extensive remodelng was found to be
impossible A kitchen and servants room was
therefore build out in the rear. When the new
mistress, whom we will call Mrs Jones, took
possession, she began very soon to be annoyed
by constant sense of the presence of some
body in the room wherever she might be, with
the exception of the new kitchen. She was a
woman wholly free from superstitious feeling,
and by no means cowardly, and she ignored and
strove to Danish the impression. She soon
found it difficult to keep servant girl one after
another complaining of being afraid, hearing
queer noises and having bad dreams. The room
off the new kitchen was appropriated to the
W man; WulO tHO Slf1o fOOm WAS OH Gu0 SET
ond floor of the octagon. Mrs Jones never al
luded to her own uncomfortable impressions,
and laughed at the girls fears. Friend after
friend visited the family, and each and all had
some curiously unpleasant experiences to relate
One lady asked Mrs. Jones why she did not rid
the house of the rats, which she constantly heard
racing through the partitions and walls,
ignorant that they were solid as stone
Another cut her visit short after two or three
nights of inexplicable terror. She declared that
choo eol4
like coarse towel with knot in the corners
was Tapped in her face, and she was sure there
was somebody, or something in her room A
courageous woman stayed two weeks and slept
alone in one of the upper rooms all the sleep
she got being after the day began to dawn, when
a normal condition Of things ensued. Her tor
ture consisted in the impression of hostile face
being thrust into her own the moment she closed
her eyes, an impression so distinct that she was
able to describe the face. DISTRESSING the reali-
ty of her experiences, she invited a young girl
friend to share her room one night The moment
the girl began to browse she started wide awake
with terrified scream, and on recovering
herself laughed and said she thought something
black thrust itself into her face, to strangle
or smother her, and forthwith addressed herself
to sleep again, when the same thing required
and continued to recur until near dawn, when
the annoyance ceased Mrs. Jones quietly and
persistently defied the influence, discouraged all
mention of unpleasant experiences, refused to
repeat her own, and after three or four years
the annoyances gradually disappeared and the
house is now as canny as any other. The face
which was seen by several persons, including
Mrs. Jones herself, was coarse, masculine one,
the face of an old man, in fact, the face of the
German who built the house, and hated the in
terloping Americans who presumed to desecrate
it by their presence and improvements. That it
was the same face seen by the various persons
was demonstrated by the fact that each one de-
scribes a sort of cap much like a fools cap, the
point drawn over to one side and ornamented
with tassel, which the ghost specter, wrath,
or objective fancy had on its head, the German
peasants nightcap