The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1912-11-29

partition was signifcant-the ship never
heard of again.
The rocky coasts of New England are haunted
by many ghost ships The Palatine is the best
known specter The coasters and fishermen OF
Long Island Sound will tell you that when a sight
of her is gotten, disastrous and ong-lastng
storms will follow. The Paatne, Dutch trader,
misled by false lights shown by wreckers, ran
ashore upon Block Island in the year 1852. The
wreckers, when they had stripped the vessel
set her fire in order to conceal their crime
AS the tide lifted her and carried her flaming
out to sea- agonizing shrieks came from the
blaze. and the figure of woman who had hid.
den herself in the hold in fear of the wreckers
stood out black amid the roaring blaze. Then
the deck fell in and ship and woman vanished.
The whaling in Nantucket as YOU will remem.
ber was in rs palmy days carried almost en-
tirely b. Quakers. One Sunday evening meet
ing nas in progress; the simple service seemed
as though it might pass and the spirit moved
none Of the company. The elder Friend was just
abou' to offer his hand to his neighbor in the
closing of the meeting when a stranger rose
and declared that the Lords wrath upon
certain whaling ship and that he had seen her
in vision descending a huge wave from the
hollow of which she never rose The meeting
closed hurriedy, but the speaker could not be
found, and the ship was never heard of.
Some of the best ghost stories are those which
the writer has heard from the simple folk of the
these dreary districts. for when one has said
they are fiat stretching for miles, and rather
subject to m1sts, one has said pretty we'll all that
is to b" said-the rest must be felt However
just as there is a call of the sea- so there is
call of the marshland. You shall 20 into the
saitern and feel its moist breath upon your cheek
and the breath of it's salty winds and the ozone
of its Gains. You shall be lost in it's vastness
and, threading its lnnumerable twisted narrow
WATERWAYS, which lead to nowhere We shall
fTn- toFc a
go to its very edge where the sea comes often
most and where the flowers decaying leave their
rust-colored remains. There you shall meet mud
and the cry of the curlew shall mock as YOU
FOUNDER i'll it's filth. The moon shall come IN
refracted by the mist into unrecognizable shane
which shall be blood color. You shall be a gray
shape, differing little from the common things
that are there for you shall be enshrouded by
fog; nay, 1t shall sink into your very soul until
no5 flesh and bones but particle of
fog yourself You shall listen to its silences: YOU
shall be told things by them. and strong man
that you are you shall be afraid
Is it to be wondered at then that these simn1e
Essex marsh-dwellers remember such tales as
that OF the young skipper home from a long
voyage whose haste to embrace his wife and the
oaoe ne had not yet seen, bid him to go the nearer
way of the marshes? The tale has it that in
crossing a narrow gutway near Pitsea he sanl,
in the mud. SO deeply did he sink that he couId
not eXtrlcdte himself; the more he struggled the
deeper he sank, and with the horror of knowing
that the tide was rising and would come stealing
UP the creek, he shouted. AS the tide rose higher
the louder were his screams The saIterns near
Pltsea are lonely; the cries were heard onIv nv
a halfwitted peatcutter who often in his less
sane moments heard such screams and thought
no more OF the matter So the shrieks became
gurgIes, and by the time the tide had lifted the
peatcutters punt they had ceased
The older folk at this stage of the story as
sumo a mysterious air and, with Iargeeved
giahclngs athWart their shoulders. will tell you
mat the shippers shrieks are heard on starlit
nights as the tide glides up that creek
so here are my ghost stories, and if some
times believe in them when sail all alone ON
me mldnIght deep. YOU will nGI Iauoh at me-