The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-08-14
PateD, srove Brick are cheaDaCs
THEY SAW THE GHOST


 "A Party of Inquirers Convinced as to
 the Reality of the spook of the Be-
 headed Man.
 The spirit of a headEess, ghost, which haunts the old water tank by the sta- tion on the Lake-Erie Railway at Fla |herty's slinding, near Laporte, keeps in constant perturbation of the people of the vicinags. It is an open secret that the ghost is that of one colum- bus Cole, who lost his life there in a railroad, accident years ago.
 Cole, who was we'll known and popular resident of the vicinity of Fla herty's, was run over by an engine within a few feet of thes pot where the water tank stands. Tn the acci- dent, his head was conpletly severed from his body. At the time the body, after being decapitated, stood erect and walked several feet from the spot. After emitting a terrible shriek, it fell against the water tank. Shortly after Coles untimely and terrible death the visits of the ghost began and they have continued with more or less reg ularity ever since, causing much spec ulation as to what his ghostliness is after, The generally accepted theory is that Cole wanted to do something important beofre he died, but that the thing which he wanted to do remains undone. Hence the spirit appears there so frequently, striving to come in contact with a sympathetic spirit clothes in worldly clay to which it can communicate it's desires. So the headless ghost has a story to tell and it's story having never been told, has forever remained a mystery.
 Hearing so much of the mystery party of Laporte young men wetn to Flaherty's Sliding the other evening for the purpose of Investigating the matter and verifying the ghost story. On the first night they sat near the depot and amused themselves as best they could until daylight began to break behind the clouds in the eastern horizon. No ghost appeared that night, and they remained home, doubting the ghosts existence Their curiosity was mot satisfied, and they repeated their visit the following night, when they had an entirely different experience. Tn telling the story one of the boys says: Reaching the station early in the evening, we prepared to, take things easy, for we felt sure no ghost would be seen. However, we had hardly been there an hour when one of the boys raised his hand and cried 'Hush!' We look; and right before us. and but Q short distance from the old water tank we saw strange appararition--a form headless and carrying dinner pail. 1 It was the ghost and not 8 delusion of the. eyesight. It was the ghost of | which we had heard so much, and, frightened as we were, we could l plainly see the real, clear outline of 1 Columbus Cole as we knew him in life, and it was even the same dinner pail that he invariably carried to and from his work.
 ] "For five minutes or more we watched the apparition, as it's arms swung back and forth, as if signaling an approaching train Presently, as if spurred on by one united impulse, we rushed to the spot where we had seen the headless figure. But upon reach- l ing the spot nothing but vacancy greeted us. Coles ghost had entirely disappeared, and we stood and looked at one another in silence, n1aryeling at the supernatural incident. But our curiosity had been satisfied, and we were no longer skeptics, but beliy- CTS. Totally unstrung and i'll at case from the shock of the strange sight we had seen (which, by the way. was who'll unexpected), we walked home in silence, firm adherents of the ghost theory"
 And so it is that hundreds of people in the vicinity are believers in the ghost. They believe because they have seen. Seeing is believing. In dianapolis Sentinel.
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