Spook Sightings Of Yester Year - No.22 - A 'Real Ghost' in Punchbowl (Part 2)

Pic from The Haunted House (1907)

 (This post is a follow-up to this one so if you haven't read that one yet, you should probably do so if you want this to make sense!)

(From the Hawaiian Star, dated Tuesday Septemeber 29th, 1908)

GIRL IN DANGER

PERSECUTED BY CURIOUS NEIGHBORS BY QUESTIONS ABOUT ALLEGED GHOSTS

Honolulu's still talking ghost and when one man meets another on a street corner and asks "What's the latest?" the other fellow wants to know if he means the latest independent candidate or the latest ghost. And when women meet, why, its "do you really think the little Spanish girl, Esperanza, is a medium?"

In the opinion of sober minded people as distinguished from merely serious minded people, the case of Esperanza, is perhaps one of the most fit subjects ever arising in this community for the careful consideration of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or the Humane Society, for the almost-woman is in a pitiful state of mind as the result of the way she has been in the last few days teased and tortured into talking about what she either knows nothing of nor could easily explain if she wanted to.

It was late last night before she retired and then she had for hours been in tears as the result of questions and cross-questions.

In the light of a day's perspective the doings of Sunday at the Pecarick mansion on Punchbowl begin to appear more and more "fishy" and there appears to be more improbability of any "true psychic phenomena."

If Mr. and Mrs. Pecarick were as scared as they say they were over the alleged doings of Sunday and they believe, as they say they do, that the dancing furniture and flying bric-a-brac was due to the pretty Spanish servant, why should they stay in the house last night with Esperanza under the same roof?

Last evening, after the police had chased away the curious hundreds, many of whom were willing to pay to get in, the Pecaricks and Esperanza and a barber and a very few neighbors sat around in the dining room with a little wine, and yawned. Had it not been for the few neighbors, still believing and hanging around to see the ghost walk, the family would have retired early.

It was not so long ago that a house on Emma street was said to be haunted. Some superstitious neighbors saw a boy or two emerge through a window, glass and all going, and terrific noises followed. They at once started the cry of ghost and the inmates of the house, when asked afterward, "admitted" that ghosts had been making a manifestation. Later the fact's proved otherwise.

Not that Sunday's case is anything similar, but such examples are food for thought when the first hue and cry is "ghosts."

Said an occult student this morning to a Star man : "Over enthusiastic people are sometimes almost hysterical in the way they recklessly identify persons as so-called mediums. We are all mediums, in a sense, but how many know what is a medium in the ordinary acceptance of the word. If, mind you I say if, there were any psychic phenomena in the Pecarick house as the result of the presence of a medium, why should the Spanish girl be said to be the medium? May Pecarick not be the so-called medium? It strikes me that there is a great deal of the impulsieness of the mob in the greedy way the Pecaricks' story of Esperanza being the medium was swallowed. I have seen the girl and I believe if she told all she knew she would relate the story of a little domestic rumpus, real or theatrical, spontaneous or for a purpose."

Mrs. Pecarick says that while the furniture was carrying-on she realized that an evil or a curious spirit, seeking something, was upon or in the house and she called out, demanding that he or she or it make known his, her or its wants and then quit fooling. But no answer came.

There were no manifestatons last night. The ghost probably realized he had the wrong number.

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(From the Evening Bulletin, dated Wednesday, September 30th 1908)

HOUSE IS HAUNTED ; GIRL IS INNOCENT

PECARICKS SAY SO, FINDING GHOSTS WERE THERE FORMERLY

The house is haunted, and Esperenza Gonsales has nothing whatever to do with the ghost.

This is the conclusion which has been reached by Mr. and Mrs. Pecarick, whose house on Punchbowl was the scene of weird happenings last week. They have now had sufficient time after the excitement to figure the matter out calmly, and have also been making a little investigation of their own, as a result of which they feel convinced that the fault lies with the house and not with the young girl, who was generally believed to be at the bottom of it all, either because she was a medium through whom restive or festive, spirits acted, or, according to the belief of others, because she was having a little fun on her own hook.

This forenoon the Pecarick family was busy packing up its houshold goods, it being the intention to remove the lares and penates to a more quiet place.

"It is the house, it is the house, and not Esperanza who made all the trouble," they asserted, and the girl's mother, who stood by, nodded frantically. She explained that the girl was the sole support of herself and family, as her husband was in the hospital, and she herself had just recovered from a serious illness. She asked with tears in her eyes, that a statement be made in the paper to the effect that Esperanza was not the cause of the trouble, as she was afraid that the girl might not be able to find employment if people were led to believe that she brought ghosts along with her. She stated as proof that Esperanza had worked for a number of families in the city, but never had any ghosts appeared at any other place where she had worked.

Mrs. Pecarick then said that she had found that the people who had occupied the house just before they themselves moved into it, had been visited by ghosts, but they had said nothing about it to the Pecaricks, who, as a consequence, feel much aggrieved.

"They said at first that they had never had any ghosts while they were here, but I had heard from the neighbors that they had, and they finally confessed to me," said Mrs. Pecarick.

"One night the daughter go to bed and she put her shoes under the bed. Then suddenly the shoes fly up and go bang against the wall. The mother calls to the girl and asks her why she throws her shoes like that, but the girl answer that she never do it. Them shoes they just fly like that by themselves.

"Another time when the husband was not home the wife she sees the blinds in front of the door fly open like if someone tear them apart, and it is hard to open them shutters, for they have hooks. She hear them bang against the wall, and then the glass doors fly open, but nobody comes in. The woman she gets scared and she hollers for a neighbor, but when he comes in there is nobody there.

"It's the house that has ghosts, and Esperanza she's got no ghosts. Why the night before last she sleep in this house, and all day yesterday she was here, and nothing happen. The house is the whole trouble."

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(Just a little side-note that in different accounts, some of the names change ...I've tried to keep them consistent throughout, but the Pecaricks are also referred to as Pecarish, Esperanza is referred to as Esperence, etc.

Also, thanks to The Hawaiian Digital Newspaper Program, where I found this story..)

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So there you go! Was it spooks? Was it horseplay? Did Esperanza have anything to do wih it, or were the Pecaricks the ones to blame? Was it a poltergeist, caused by first the daughter of the Pecarick's neighbors and then the Spanish girl, or was the house just generally old and haunted by the spirit of the old hawaiian mentioned by the Kahuna? I guess we'll never know the truth.....

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