The Sunday globe., 1901-05-05
A HAUNTED HOUSE
Which Has Quite an Uncanny Repu-
tatiOn on Ninth Street.
A VOUCHED-FOR GHOST STORY
Tho Globe Investigates The Mystery Which Has
Excited the Special Wonder Of the Neigh
borhOod and Lays the Result
Before lis Readers.

Before lis Readers.
"In the most high and palmy days Of Rome,
A little ere the mlghtest Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantess, and the sheeted
dead
Did squeak and gbber in the Roman Streets
A quaint old writer says; "All houses
that men have inhabited are haunted"
The aged individual had no particular
reference to ghosts. He had in mind,
gentle reader, the hasty visit you have
made to the home of your youth-left
years ago, and now inhabited by stran-
geTs-where you have of an evening
walked up the lawn, through the park OF
trees, and i'm spirit roamed through the
roomy corridors, looked INTO your old
chamber, viewed the surrounding land
scape, None Of the inmates knew of your
presence, nor were they disturbed by
your ramble; and when your thoughts
came back to the city and took up the
thread of life here once more, your spirit
as quickly and queitly disappeared from
the old mansion, as the fabric of a dream
that leaves no trace behind.
But there are other ghosts than those
of the imagination. Every village has
its haunted house, which, according to
tradition, is visited by guests from the
unseen world. Every section in the
rural regions has its dismantled and
ghost haunted farm house, Of which the
simple ruralists tell weird and wondrous
tales,
Washington has a haunted house near
9th and X streets. The entire neighbor-
hood knows and has known the tale for
years, and if the reports of eye witnesses
Of the mysterious ASPIRATIONS are to be
believed, the case is as strange one as
was ever recorded in the pages of Robert
Dale owen, Moreton, COleridge, Burton,
or any of those who have endeRVored to
catch the mystic fall of loot steps OF the
sirlnge visitors from an unknown world.
The haunted house we refer TO is a place
that would delight Hawthorn when To-
eating the scenes of ole of his ghOstly
tales. ltstands in roomy yard, high on
a terrace. 1t is a twO-stOry brick, sub
stantially built, painted a dull, neutral
color, and seems to have been erected
many years ago. The entrance to the
place is gateway, with its two stone
pillars; from this there is further as
cent until the house itself is reached.
pave, and it has. all the requisites one
would ascribe TO a place such as disem-
bodied spirits would delight in. On
the east there are a number of trees,
Drowned and blackened by time. In
front is a lot of shrubbery and young
locust, through which the breezes blow,
and the swaying branches respond to the
caresses of the air.
Nowhere does the place strike one as
the home of people who have long kept
sway there, but, on the contrary, it looks
as If the property of minor heirs, neg
lected and unprofitable
Like Hamlet, when the shade of his
kiugly father appeared to him on the
battlements at ElsinOre, the neighbors
were long inclined to laugh at the ghostly
tales, but so general has been the eXpe-
rience with the spectre that the majority
OF them believe in its appearance. In
this they but follow the example OF
Shakespeare, who peoples his pages with
spirits, from the time when he brings in
Ariel, through all his plays, until the end,
as who Will not recall Hamlets fathers
spirit, the apparation of the mighty
Caesar to Brutus on the eve of Phillipi
Banquo's ghost, and thus through the
entire list. Like the master of modern
times they. may think, although i'm less
poetic words:
" There are more things in heaven and
earht, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"
Not by any means is the locality men
toned alone i'm its belief in ghosts.
Horace and Virgil as constantly speak
of the shades of the dead, as does Shakes
peare, and had an evident belief in them.
The ancients believed that the spirits of
those who got no burial could not cross
dread StyX, but were forced to wonder on
the Plutonian shores until some kind
hand performed the burial rites
Josephus writes, "what man of virtue
is there that does not know that those
souls which are severed from their fieshy
bodies in battle, are received by the
ether that purest of elements, and Joined
to that company which is placed among
the stars, that they become good spirits
and propitious heroes, add show them
selves as such to their posterity after
ward"
The locomotive and steam whistle have
been source of much discomfort TO
ghosts, they may have scared many of
the spirits from their haunts. Ghosts
are still believed in, though they enter
less into story and daily life than they
did in ancient times, or even as recently
rs the days Of Walter Scott. Again, the
American of to-day is too busy to give
his time to spirits. He is too muck en-
crossed in politics, i'm trade, or i'm cheat
ing his fellow man, and things are not
as they were among our grandtathers,
who peopled every glen with fairies, and
populated everycemetery with its ghost
ly legends. While investigating the life
and history OF the 9th street ghost, the
writer was actuated solely by a desire to
arrive at facts, and sought TO attain them
In person, as far as possible, from those
who had seen the spirit.
The story, i'm brief Is that at the man
III the 1T 1ar
frequent intervals, the form OF a tall,
beautiful woman appears, thai il glides
1oiselessly TO the gate, leans its elbow
)n the eastern gate post and glances up
.he street as If awaiting someone's COM
ng. The face, though sad, is marked
with thought, and beautiful, and the fig
are moves with easy grace and has a
courteous bearing. At other times, and
1t the same wit1hing hour of midnight,
lnseen, weird figures move the shutters
md rattle the window panes, and dis
urb the peaceful slumbers OF the in.
mates of the house. This, in brief, is the
story which has been current in the
fifteen years, and the ghostly vistant has
made its appearance as late as last
ipring, and that the ghost should thus
nhabit the same place, shows at least
hat it has all the Washington character
sites as to the pers lstent and prevailing
conservatism and dread of change.
Among those who have seen the appa-
'itiOn or heard the noises IN the house
ire Martin Grouse, Mrs. John Moll and
Ter late husband, who is now a ghost
himself; Messrs Sanford and Buell. who
ived in the house some years ago; Mrs.
katharine Fritz, now resident of New
! iOrk State; Mrs. Niblock, Mrs. Ma
hilda Barker, and others. Nelson smith
md Simon Faut are quoted as having
seen it by some of the above.
The Investigator into the ghostly went
ly the haunted house on a breezy morn