The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-07-21
A HAUNTED ENGINE.
Gazing Upon Gsunt Spook Face That
Peered Out from the Fire Box.
From ST. Louis Globe Democrat

/ E6eT0Q Gut JUS T lAC LOOA'
| From st. Louis Globe Democrat.
There is a locomotive on the New Orleans
division of the Louisville and Nashville
railroad that is said to be haunted. In 1877
the engine was No 7, and was a freight
engine on the old Sc. Louis and Southeast
ern railroad. 1t has since been rebuilt.
however, given a different number, and put
into the passenger service IN the south.
There are many railroad men who know the
haunted engine. The engine pulled heavy
freight train into Mount Vernon, Ind, on
the night of the terrible lynching bee In
that town. Six colored men were hustled
off into eternity in very short time oy an
excited mob of citizens several hundred IN
number.
The mob had strung five of the colored
mea up TO limbs of trees, when the engine
pulled into town and stopped near the
crowd. The one mau left was an old col-
ored man named Harris, who had brutally
murdered popular deputy sheriff Of Posey
county. The feeling against the man Har-
ris was bitter. 1t was the prevailing opin-
Ion among the people that hanging was too
good for him. Some one III the crowd said
ito the engine with Harris, let's burn him"
In an instant the cry was taken up by the
crowd TO the engine, burn him, burn
him." The locomotive was surrounded by
LUe IIlOU Al a lew ullUQbca uo Oukl-
neer and fireman were covered with guns
and ordered off Of their engine. The engi-
ueer. John Thomas and his fireman, man
named Buchanan, promptly obeyed the or
ders Of the mob and left the engine.
The engineers story of the affair told by
him the next day was as follows: After
we had been hustled away some distance
from the engine by some of the crowd l
noticed the SKY light up by the door to the
q -. hot, ..ra. l. g..
instant the door remained open, then all
was dark AS before. The fireman saw two
men throw something into the fire-box. We
were completely in the dark as to the OBJ
ject Of the crowd in taking possession of the
engine. 1t was perhaps not more than five
minutes before we were told to go back TO
our engine, and the crowd disappeared. AS
soon as we mounted the engine | whistled
off brakes and told the fireman to coal up.
He took up the shovel of coal and opened
the door to throw It in, but he never
emptied the shovel. The sight that met our
eyes was terrible. There in the fire before
US was the grinning skull of a human being.
Good God" gasped the fireman, and he
sank down in a dead faint on the coal at my
feet. finally pulled myself together and
shoveled coal into the fire box. Madly
threw shovelful after shovelful into the fire,
but the grinning skull always appeared the
same: Finally / slammed the door shut,
pulled the throttle wide open, and we left
the town at a rapid gait. The fireman
finally came too and crewled to his place on
the seat. He remained there all night long.
shoveled the coal into the engine myself
1t was terrible night; every time opened
the door of the fire box | could see the skull
and could frequently hear terrible groans in
the fire bed. When we reached the end of
our rum" concluded the engineer, "both the
fireman and myself asked to be relieved"
Engineer Thomas was in Colorado few
years ago running an engine on the Denver
and Rio Grande railroad. Fireman Buch-
anaE took solemn oath on that terrible
night that he would never again fire an en-
CINE. He kept his oath and has never been
on locomotive since. The main facts in
| this ghost story are well known to hundreds
of readers of the Globe Democrat who know
that the story is not the imagination of a
| scribe, but 1t is true in every particular. 1t
is true that no one ever acknowledged hav-
ing seen the colored man Harris put
in the fire box Of the engine, but there
is no doubt that he was put to death in that
| way. He was one of the six colored men
that were taken from the county jail that
night. The other five were found hanging
to the limbs Of a tree, but Harris was never
seen afterward. 1t was singular fact
that the same engine that was used by q
mob at Mt. Vernon, Ind, to burn a man in
| fifteen years ago pulled passenger train
across Canal street in New Orleans last Sat
| urday while the mob was forming that
afterward lynched the Italian murderers il
| that city.