Evening star., 1937-03-28
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

The Star of March %. 1887, contains
the following letter signed w H. Burr"
cl. telling veritable
Soldiers Home. ON the Goth of
May, 1882, my
wifes aunt, sister and nephew. five years
old, were walking through Whitney ave-
nue., on their return from the Soldiers
Home. to the Whitney mansion, which
we had then been occupying ten days.
1t was $50 pm, twenty-five minutes
after a bright sunset and not yet dark.
At distance of about fifty PAGES they
all saw coming toward them a woman
dressed in black, without a hat, and
with plain collar and cuffs. At first
they thought it was another sister of
my wife coming to meet them, and the
little boy cried out, Aunt Chartien But
in moment 1t was evident that she
was not the person. The woman turned
to the south side of the lane and, lifting
her skirt as she stepped over the paved
gutter, disappeared behind a tree box
The other two women were astonished
and the boy was puzzled. They all
went to the tree box and the boy ran
around it. saying: oh, where has she
gomez They made no explanation to
him. who to this day perhaps has never
suspected he saw ghost.
The younger of the two women was
greatly agitated and could not sleep
much that night. She thought it fore
boded some calamity. I said, judging
from past experience, Probably it has no
meaning whatever And now, after
nearly five years. nothing has happened
so far as any of us know, as conse-
quence of that visitation.
THE next evening at the same hour
$40 pm, went and examined the spot.
Close by the tree box there was an
opening in the fence to the large
pasture lot on the south side. The grass
was not high and the only object within
a great distance was a cedar tree about
twenty-five feet from the fence. But
even that tree, with trunk not more
thar a foot in diameter and about
fifteen feet high to the branches, could
not have concealed woman behind it.
Furthermore, the two women and the
boy could see any moving object through
the upright Stats of the fence, and they
did look through the fence at the mo-
ment the woman disappeared behind the
tree box; nor could she have gotten
out of sight anywhere when they
reached the spot where she vanished.
They are all living now in this city and
can attest these facts. The tree has re-
Gently been cut down to make way for
new street.
The apparition in this case was GER
tainly not subjective, but objective, be-
cause, to my personal knowledge, all
three observers described the same wom-
an, the same dress and the same move
ments at the same time.
1T was not long before our folks be-
gan to hear hints of the place being
haunted but none of us were much
afraid of ghosts We rather courted
their society and during the three sue
cessive years that we remained there
Omost of us only in the Summer season.
there we're frequent apparitions seen
both day and night. Most of the in
mates, including numerous Summer
boarders, had some experience of the
kind. It was rather diversion to have
it. I was one of the few who saw
nothing.
"On the whole the ghosts conducted
themselves tolerably well, but sometimes
they caused annoyance and fright, as,
for example, when one of them came to
the bedside of my wifes sister and
slapped her in the face. But so far as
we all know there was no significance
to any of the manifestations
Il have refrained hitherto from giving
this ghost story publicity, out of regard
for the two worthy female owners of
the estate, but now that it has been
sold and the landmarks are being re-
moved In the march of suburban prog
ress, I give the facts to the public
through The Star"