CDT Sept 1888

1888 Sept 30 CDT Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton

## Print Info

* Chicago Daily Tribune
* September 30th 1888
* Page 7
* Author Unknown / No Author Given
* Relevant to: Samuel Patton, Horace Ray Griswold, Arnold Paole

## Article Text

**THE LAKE VIEW VAMPIRE SAMUEL PATTON TELLS HOW THE DEMON VISITS HIM.**

It Has Followed Him for Many Years—He Has Invented a Glass to Enable Other People to See the Spirit—The Residents of Chicago's Northern Suburb Greatly Excited—Judge Thalstrom Tells How the Evil May Be Averted.

That a Vampire is at large in Lake View there seems no reasonable room to doubt. Mr. Samuel Patton, a reputable mechanic, living at No. 1297 North Paulina street, has indisputable proofs that the Vampire has visited him. Almost everybody in the neighborhood has purchased the glasses which Mr. Patton has specially prepared for watching the vampire during its nightly wanderings.

Judge Thalstrom has investigated the matter of Vampires. The judge deals in books and newspapers on Clyborn, near Fullerton avenue, and is regarded as an authority on supernatural subjects. Judge Thalstrom, then, announced to a wondering crowd of Lake View citizens gathered the other night in the sanctum behind his store that the case of Mr. Patton found a curious parallel in the year 1846. The death of Mr. Horace Ray Griswold was reported in the Norwich Courier at that epoch. He died of consumption. Two of his children soon died of the same complaint. in 1854 a third child died. The neighbors, having exhumed the bodies of the first two children and burned them under the supposition that the dead had been feeding on the living. The burning took place at Griswold, June 8 1854.

"But what,' asked a citizen-- 'what is a Vampire?"

"There appears,' said the erudite Judge Thalstrom, after consulting the authorities, 'to be no essential difference between the European Vampire and the Asiatic ghoul - a sort of demon delighting to animate the bodies of dead persons and feed on the blood of the living and bury them."

**A MURDERED PEASANT.**

Silence fell on the little gathering in the Judge's inner room. It was broken at last by the blacksmith, who’s forge lies over the way.

"Are there authentic instances of Vampires?" he asked.

"Many,' said the Judge, referring again to his books and magazine articles. 'In 1701 a peasant was murdered at Mycone, in Greece. Two days later after his burial it was noised abroad that he had been seen to walk in the night with great haste, overturning people's goods, putting out their lights, pinching them, and playing strange pranks with them. Masses were said in the chapels to drive out the Vampire which inhabited the dead man. Then the body was disinterred and the heart taken out. Frankincense was burned to ward off infection. But the inhabitants were panic-stricken. They debated, fasted, sprinkled their houses with holy water, and finally burned the body of the dead man. After this the Vampire was seen no more."

The citizens of Lake View exchanged looks of alarm. But a workman from the lumber-yard thumped his fist on the table and said "It's all bumbug!"

"Bumbug?' cried Judge Thalstrom; 'Well, here's another instance. In 1725, at Madveiga, on the borders of Hungary and Transylvania, a peasant named Arnold Paul was crushed to death by the fall of a wagon-load of hay. Thirty days afterward four persons died with all the symptoms of having had their their blood sucked by Vampires. Some of the neighbors remembered having heard Arnold say that he had often been tormented by a Vampire. So they exhumed his body, drove a stake through his heart, cut off his head, and burned his body. Nevertheless, seven years later seventeen people died in the village died in the village near about one time. The Vampire theory was revived. The seventeen were exhumed. Their bodies were burned. King Louis XV. directed his Ambassador at Vienna to make inquiries into the matter, which has puzzled science to the present day."

**MR. PATTON’S GLASS.**

“Stories for children,’ said the man from the lumber-yard.

The rest took the matter more to heart. They appointed a committee of investigation. Mr. Patton, as the principle witness, testified that the Vampire could not be seen with the naked eye. He thereupon handed a piece of glass to each member of the committee and also a card with the inscription:

**PATTON’S CLAIRVOYIC VARNISH FOR GLASS**

Develops a finer sight, that enables a person, when looking though it, to see objects which are invisible to the naked eye. There is a thin covering of the eye which is thrown outward when we look steadily for an object. When this covering strikes the varnish on the glass it becomes clear, and people in spirit life may be seen dimly moving about.

Try persistently and you will succeed. The glass must be kept dry. Specimens sent by mail on receipt of 10 cents. Address

*SAMUEL PATTON*

*1297 N. Paulina Street, Chicago, Ill.*

 Armed with these pieces of glass the committee made strenuous endeavors to see the Vampire. Mr. Patton is a mild-mannered, middle aged gentleman, with a high forehead and a bushy brown beard. He followed the movements of the committee with the keenest interest. “There,’ he would cry. ‘do you not see it now? Surely you can dimly catch sight of it. The Vampire is flying up and down Paulina street at this moment.”

The scene of the Vampire’s operations is one of those desolate spots which fringe the outskirts of Chicago. Through nominally a continuation of Paulina street, it is really a bit of desert secluded from the bustling avenues in the vicinity. Mr. Patton has a room in a small frame house at the end of the street. It is here that he makes his clairvoyic varnish; here that the Vampire visits him.

**A MYSTERIOUS SIGHT.**

“I was born in Brooke County, Virginia, Sep. 3, 1833,’ he says. ‘When I was about 10 years old I saw what looked like a lantern in the fields. As soon as I called my sister’s attention to it, it began to rise in the air until it looked like a star of the first magnitude. I watched it about two hours.”

“How did you explain it?”

“It was a premonition. I served three years in the war. In the field I dreamed of strangers whom I found at home on my return.”

“What were these dreams?”

“More premonitions. At the close of the war I had five children. One by one I saw them go. Willie was the last to go. He died Jan 19, 1876, aged 8 years. I am told that came out of his grave a week after he was buried. At any rate, I attended a circle held for the purpose of obtaining spirit manifestations. I had seen evidence that there was something in the mind which we have not fathomed. Spirit photography staggered me. If they could give us human faces on the plates, why could not friends come to us in this way? I had no faith in the holy books. I wanted facts. I could found belief on nothing else. One night I felt a stinging sensation on my forehead. The letter W was imprinted there as if with a needle. The name “Willie Patton” was then formed in about the style of letters that Willie had learned to make before he died.

After that, the spirits wrote messages on my forehead. I procured a covering of thick silk to wear on my forehead. I understood that the spirits had killed Willie and tortured my other children. I did not know to what race they belonged, but afterwards found that they were made from cones and bubbles. One of them use to sing as he thrust a sharp instrument through the silk covering on my head. His song ran like this:

*“Over there*

*“Where all is prayer*

*“I’ll sit and swear.*

*“Whoora for me,*

*“Whoora for me,*

*“Whoora for me.”*

“Gentle persecution followed. My spirit cap was torn from my head. My naked brain was gored with instruments. When they had exhausted their ingenuity they put a Vampire on me.”

“What was the Vampire like?”

“It had a human shape.”

“Not like a bat?”

“O, nothing like a bat. It sucked at my mouth and nostrils. It followed me to my children’s graves. It dogged me to the only place on earth that I felt was sacred. I knew of a method of self-defense. A poisonous vapor exhaled from my forehead. I threw it therefrom like spray. A drop of it was to be feared as a plague spot. People whom it has touched have committed murder. It is the poison of the Vampire.”

“Does the Vampire trouble you now?”

“Constantly. I have invented this clairvoyic varnish to enable everybody to see it.”

**EFFECTS OF THE GLASS**

“Do they succeed {illegible}”

“Hundred of people have succeeded! Or if they have not seen the Vampire, they have seen spirits. If you fail to see anything at first, try again. But mind, the glass must be kept dry.”

The glass is in general use in this corner of Lake View. Most of he men in the Harvester Works bought a sample or two. Their wives have made continual efforts to see the Vampire; and if the husbands stay out at night they generally come home with the story that the Vampire has been seen at last. Young Henry Davis is a youth of jocose disposition and is improperly disposed to make fun of Mr. Patton. So there is no authentic evidence that the Vampire has yet appeared in person to anybody but Mr. Patterson himself.

“I see nothing improbable about vampires,” says Judge Thalstrom. ‘The great thing is to be ready if they come. I have read of one who would only suck blood from the soles of the feet. Two cunning fellows lay down to sleep with the feet of the one under the head of the other. In the night the vampire came, felt the bed-clothe, and found a head. Then he felt at the other end and found a head there also. ‘Well’ he cried. ‘I have gone a blood-sucking through ll these mountains, but never yet did I find anyone with two heads and no feet.’ So saying he ran away and was never seen again.”

“Do you advise everybody in Lake View to sleep at opposite ends of the bed?”

“I recommend suitable precautions.” said Judge Thalstrom, magisterially.

## Citations

* ***MLA:*** Unknown, No author given. “Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton.” Chicago Daily Tribune, 30 Sept. 1888, p. 7.
* ***APA:*** Unknown, N. (1888, September 30). Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton. Chicago Daily Tribune, p. 7.
* ***Chicago:*** Unknown, No Author given. "Lakeview Vampire Samuel Patton." Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois), September 30, 1888.