Omaha daily bee., 1889-07-21
TWO HAUNTED HOUSES.

burg. The Burrill family occupied the
Coopertown house for nearly four years,
then abandoned it-being unable to
resell it-and occupied another, o half
mile away, which at first they rented
and afterward bought. Here the widow
OF William Burrill and one maiden
daughter were living as lately as 1884,
which was the date OF the writer's last
knowledge OF them.
At that time the old Lord dwelling,
which had stood tenantless for years,
had Just been demolished, with nan
others, to make room for a new street.
1t had long had an uncanny reputation
as q "haunted house." and although tho
sceptics were many, and repeated in
vestigations had been made Of the super
natural phenomena said to occur nightly
within its walls, it was noticeable
that even the most i~ncredulous always
spoke of them with gravity and no one
in Coopertown attempted to discredit
them by ridicule. The subject was uni
versally regarded as worthy of serious
discussion. There was reason enough,
for one of the dismal traditions of the
house-namely that no one could remain
alone in it over night and keep 10th
life and ~reason---had been twice con
firmed in the most authenticating way.
One hardy Investigator had been found
in the morning dead without any as
signable cause, IN another person "A
tramp who in all Inconsistencies OF the
dwellings, history had stolen'a lodging
there-had rushed out at the gray of
the morning i~ncurably mad. That the
hD,,zA IN haunted ~ n,Nap IN tpnnnt
doubt, but these somber passages in its
annals had at least invested that
proposition with a certain dignity
which made it inaccessible to ridicule.
The manifestations, it appears, began
on the 10th day of June, 1872, somewhat
more than three years after the Burrill
family moved into the house. On the
evening of that date, at about 7 o'clock,
while the family were sitting on the
veranda after dinner, John Easton
Lord, the former n came in at the
gate, assembled the steps of the veranda,
passed directly between Mr.. and Mrs.
Burrill and entered the house by the
hall door. Mr.. Burrell had risen to
greet him. but the proffercd hand had
remained UNDECIDED. BY not so much
as Il look had'Lord recognized any men,
Der of the family. to all of whom he was
we'll known. He wa Immediately fol-
lowed into the house by Burrill and his
son, Parker Burrill, whose astonish-
ment was great indeed at not finding
their visitor. The only door by which
he could have left the house was found
securely locked. with the key inside,
and all the windows were fastened eX-
cepting those opening on to the veran-
da. A search OF the entire house re-
suited in nothing. Lord had not been
seen by anybody else in town. and the
incident was simply without an expla-
nation. A letter to Pittsburg brought
out the fact in reply that on the day of
its occurrence John Easton Lord had
been seven weeks dead.
From this time forward, until they
left the house months afterward, the
Burrill family appear to have suffered
great annoyance and alarm from What
were affirmed to be supernatural mani
festations. The character of these is
ineXactly known; with u view to dam
possible, all the members of the
family preserved u discreet ST.
B lenee; but the most e~Xtravagant
tales we're bruited about orally
and through the local newspapers. 1t
is needless to repeat them here: they
were of the kind usually related of
houses said to be ''haunted.n BY the
time the property had been condemned
for a public use, appraised and paid for
Mr.. Burrill was dead, and the family
scattered in distant parts of the coun-
try-all except the widow, who was in
her dotage, and one elderly maiden
daughter, whose austere silence on this
subject was absolutely Intangible.
There is ample and credible testimony,
popular and professional, that when the
family moved out of the house all were
suffering acutely from insomnia and
nervous prostration-from which, IN
deed, the youngest, a girl of seventeen,
eventually died.
From voluminous notes of an i~nvesti-
CATION made by a competent inquirer in
1854 it is found hat all or nearly all, of
the least incredible account Of super
natural occurrences in and about the
Lord house relate to the visible appa-
rition of the late John Easton Lord.
| Most of the testimony MS to that ele-
ment has In it something approaching
trustworthiness. If anything at all
''out of the common" eve took place
there, something which many cool
headed witnesses took to be the ghost
of Lord habitually showed itself about
the premises by night and sometimes
by day. 1t was considered a malign
| spirit, although in life Lord had been
OF a singularly amiable disposition.
When the house was pulled down and
its site excavated for n new stree a
workman beginning a trench from the
cellar, uncovered a plain board box
which appeared to have been thrust
through an opening in the cellar wall
into a hole behind it. The opening in
the wall had been carefully bricked up,
so that the place was indistinguishable.
The box contained the remains Of a
human being-a The body was
little affected by decay, although the
appearance of the box and the mould
on the clothing indicated that a consid-
cradle period must have elapsed since
the date of interment; several years,
those said whose opinion had most
weight. The face of the corpse had
apparently undergone very little altera-
ton, and on seeing it every %acquaint-
ance of the late Mr.. Lord instantly pro-
nounced the body his; bnt two reput-
able citizens of Coopertown went TO
Pittsburg, and there found and identi-
fled the body of Lord in ii cemetery at
that city, the family having consented
to the exhumation, and an adult son of
the deceased being present.
Despite the efforts OF the OFF,
GERS of the law, assisted by
many amateur detectives, working
con amore, not the slightest clew of