The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1904-10-26
SPOOK PLAQUES SERVANTS.
DICK CONNOLLY,S OLD HOME
HAS ROUGH HOUSE GHOST.


under the Tweed ring, is walking again In
the old Connolly mansion, overlooking the
Hudson In lslst street. It's wild. ex-
citable ghost, that slams shutters and I'M
locks doors and pulls people out OF bed,
and just eats servant girls alive. As II it
weren't hard enough to keep girls out there
in the suburbs, the ghost has butted In
on the family of Howard b. Moore, who
lives In a wing Of the old mansion, and
scared out squadrons Of maids in the past
year.
The Connolly house is about fifty years
old. 1t was built by brother OF DICK
Connolly az country mansion in the time
when that upper corner OF Manhattan
was the wilderness. 1t was splendid
house in those times-twenty rooms and
servants quarters in the basement, stables,
an imposing carriage entrance and view
which swept the Hudson. Dick Con-
molly lived there after his brother He
used to spend his share Of the Tweed swag
in lavish entertaining. Connolly went
abroad after he crash. His bro her followed,
and both died in France. The mansion
passed into the hands of administrators,
and the McInerny family moved in as
Garcia kers.
About that time the ghost made it's ap-
pearance. First it used to slam shutters.
They couldn't keep shutter tied, say the
McInernys. They used to hear it slam
ming in the night and find the cords
loosened. Neither could they keep any
door locked In the morning it would be
open and banging in the wind.
One evening a wayfaring woman came
down the road and begged lodging for the
night The McInernys charitably took her
In. An hour or so after every one had gone
to bed the household was reused by wild,
awful scream. They rushed into the big
main hall Of the mansion. There was the
guest on her knees in her night clothes,
crossing herself and praying aloud.
When she got calm enough to talk she
told them that she had been awakened by
a man who was looking into her face. She
put her hands over her eyes. Something
seized her. dragged her into the next room,
slammed her on the floor and left her. She
dressed and left In hurry, but all that night
they heard footsteps from the upper floor.
The next wayfarer was an. old Irish
woman. She sat on the porch in the twi-
light, when the family cav her drop on her
knees as the other woman had done and
beat her breast.
-Lookl Lookl' she cried. Don't you
see the gentleman in the tree-the, little
gentleman wearin' the white cockade?"
No one else saw it, but the old Irish woman
took her pack and fled the premises.
Two servants from the Connolly house
hold UP to the fo house awo to pack Se up R tne
with their yells. They had been Weakened
by an awful banging of shutters, and had
seen a man who came over and peered
into their faces, 1t was a ghost, sure.
They could see through him. They took
their bedding and slept on the lawn.
After the furniture was packed and the
McInernys gave up their job as care,
takers the place was leased for an old
peoples home. The home didn't succeed
servants Ser sntsra wo rGes staS negro ser,
want had her face peered into I'M the dead
of night. ASwedish girl had the experience
of being dragged into the hall and slammed
on the floor. Indeed, this ghost seems to
zens Of Harlem who believe that it is the
spook Of one who encountered the suburban
servant problem in life and il getting
even in eternity
It's mean advantage to take OF other
struggling householders.
The house was left to the ghost for a
long time, until Howard B. Moore, painter,
took a wing of il several years ago. From
the first, he had a desperate time with
servants The first girl he hired came down
full state of nerves. She dropped every
thing she touched. Then she developed
Mysteries, in the midst Of which she took
her bundle in one hand and her hat in the
other and ran for car without waiting
to talk about pay.
The next was Swedish girl. She got
dinner the first night, but when the family
got up next morning there was no breakfast
They inspected her room. She had gone,
leaving all her baggage. She never came
Sunday gown and her manicure set No
girl over stayed with them a week.
The Moores never saw the ghost. Nothing
but queer noises ever betrayed its presence
to them.
In desperation, Moore went to Rudolph
Heig. Superintendent Of the Newsboys'
Lodging House, and hired likely negro
boy, In the morning the boy was green
and trembling. He sneaked away from
the house and back downtown like whip
ped dog. Afterward he told Mr.. Heig
the same old story about noise at mid
night end face staring into his own. The
ghost had pulled the bed clothes off him,
dragged them to the floor and departed:
When the boy got nerve to crawl out and
cover himself again the clothes were mys-
All wouldn't stay for hundred week.
boss, he told Mr.. Heig.
The Moores got another servant last
week, likely Irish girl. She left yesterday
NlluOut thpldHuuoHs Jusp IuShcu
and skipped
The region is great on ghosts, It's
where the battle Of Fort Washington was
fought in the Revolution. One can dig up
cannon bali almost anywhere There used
to be a headless Hessian roaming those
banks Of the Hudson, hereabouts, but he
hasn't been seen lately.
But just after the Connollys built there
they dug up in their garden the skeleton
of man in a British officers uniform
Many Of the old inhabitants of Harlem
believe that he's the ghost. They've added
to it story of buried treasures. Others
hold that it is Connolly, the slippery Dick
Of the Tweed gang, come back to the spot
where he squandered the earnings OF the
ring.
Those who hold to the theory Of the
British officer say that the Connolly servants
would have recognized slippery Dick" If
he had been the spook which peered into
their faces the night when they packed up.
Still, IL this is the British officer, it's rather
irregular for ghost to haunt house which
was built long after he became n ghost.
The identity Of that spook is worrying
4 l.