Los Angeles herald., 1907-12-30
TOWN IN TREMOR OVER
TALES OF QUEER GHOSTS
Cool and Analytical Residents of Con-
nectIcut Village Sure Weird
Spirits Are There-odd
Noises Heard

TERRYvILLE, Conn.,, Dec. 29.-As
Psychological Research ever investigated
and vouched for by more witnesses than
usually testify to supernatural manifes-
tations, lies beyond the wild yarns of
ghostly visitations and seventeenth CEN
tury witchcraft that have been sent out
from this village in the last few days.
Many of the stories are exaggerations and
distortions of the truth, but the ghosts
OIL Town Hill are the principal subject of
discussion here; 1t is no strain on veracity
to say about going out O. nights, and 1t
is simple, plain fact that there are at
least seven persons of education, culture
and refinement, none of them in the
slightest degree believer in spiritualism
or the supernatural, vino will assure the
inquirer solemflly, in carefully chosen
language, that they have heard, not once
but each of them many times, sounds Of
footsteps when there was no person pres
ent to make the footsteps; sounds Of
voices when there was no one visible and
thj ticking of a clock where there was
no clock.
Tales Indirect
Any sort of ghost story that one may
elect to listen to may be heard among
the gossips that gather around the vii
lage postoffice. In most cases the
delator had them at third of fourth hand.
OF this class is the story that half the
village believes, that when a man-name
not given-was walking by the old Morse
place on Town hill few days ago he
saw a hat lying in the road. STOPPING
to pick it up, there issued from beneath
the hat, In sepulchral tones as though
from the depths of the tomb, the warm
ing, Don't touch that hati" Pressed for
the name of the hero Of this adventure,
the relator said sore one had told it over
in the livery stable, and that was as far
as 1t could be traced. Likewise, when one
of the group told of a man driving down
Town Hill road, whose horse refused to
go any further and exhibited symptoms
of fear when passing the old Wood house,
1t was found to have been told by some
one in the barber shop" who could not be
located.
1t is true that the tradition that old
Thinner" Morse, who died forty years
ago, still pounds tin in the woodshed
back of the old house, has been prevalent
for years, but Mrs. Joseph Sutphen, who
has lived in the house ten years, say the
thinner" has never bothered her. And
the former inhabitants of the Wood place
used to say they frequently heard a
sound like man chopping in the cellar,
but the present tenants thrifty Polish
family, with an unspellable name, de-
clare they have heard nothing to worry
them,
Fit Setting
One might search long time and not
find as fitting a. setting for a ghost story
az the old Fem house. Standing on the
crest of Town hill, where it overlooks
the broad valley of the Poquabuck river.
1t has been a landmark visible from miles
away for fully 175 years. Built In the
decade between 1870 and 1740, it's eight
foot chimney breast and foot square hewn
timbers testify to the labor the early set
tiers lavished on their habitations. Stout
oak pins hold the joists and rafters in
place, for nails were scarce and costly
when the Fem house was built, and those
used to hold the siding and partition
boards in place are hand forged and
wrought to last through the centuries.
A cyclone would not injure the old Fem
earthquake, 1t would seem,
would scarcely damage 1t. In renovating
and adding to it its present owners have
reverently preserved the spirit of the
past, so that in all essentials the old
house still stands as it did through the
French and Indian war. the revolution
and the war of 1872 The barn, as old as
the house and hoored with three-inch
hewn planks, stands another monument
to the builders of a dead century.