Spook Sightings of Yester Year - No. 31 - A Spectral Face Everywhere

(Portrait of a fashionable lady with an umbrella, Josef Löwy, 1889)
(Not related to story, but used as an example of 1889 fashion)  

This story come from The St. Louis Globe Democrat, 19th January 1889 ....

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A Spectral Face Everywhere,

Special Correspondence of the Globe Democrat.

OTTAWA, KAN., January 15. - A man named W. died a few days ago at the house of a farmer about twenty-two miles from here. The farmer, a Mr. H., bears a good reputation for veracity. He told me the story, but exacted a promise that his name would not be revealed.

"Away last spring," he said, "as I was making my hotbed, a man wearing a partial uniform, which, together with his face, had a worn appearance, languidly climbed the fence and asked me for work. He was not particular about wages - he only wanted to earn a home for the few remaining months he had to live, he said. I took him in, and he proved to be quite energetic. We took a liking to him, as he was quite affable and gentlemanly, though very silent.  Two days before his death he was taken ill, and, for the first time, explained the mystery that annoyed him by the story given below.

"W. had been a cable car conductor in St. Louis, he said. He had been doing nicely until a female form began to haunt him. Her manner of doing this was peculiar.  One day, he noticed her standing, slightly leaning, against a lamp-post at Sixth and Locust streets. There was that about the woman that any one once seeing would be impressed with. Her features were prominent. But what attracted his attention most was that she seemed searching him out, and staring in his face with a cold, dull expression that attracted his eye and sent a chill through his system.  He watched her until a block distant.  She still stood there, unmoved, but following him with that leaden stare. But, to his amazement, as he turned his eyes to the corner ahead, he saw her in the same manner and in precisely the same relative position.

1889 Fashion

He was startled somewhat, but concluded it was a coincident resemblance. As such he dismissed it.  But as the Morgan Street curve was turned, he saw the same woman again, in a similar position.  Again, near Grand Avenue, she appeared, always with that piercing gaze directed at him, and always leaning, with an indifferent air, against a lamp-post on the northwestern street corner.  At night, under the gaslight, the face looked frightfully ghostly.

"For two days he underwent the annoyance of the strange manisfestation silently. Then he told the story to his gripman, who laughed incredulously at first, telling W. it was some woman smitten with him.  The next time, however, that the ubiquitous woman apppeared she was pointed out to the gripman, who admitted he saw her, but could see nothing more to corroborate W.'s tale.  Then the conductor started toward what he declared to be a phantom, when she walked nonchalantly away, disappearing in the crowd.

"A few streets further and the figure appeared again to the worried conductor, though the gripman failed to see it.  If a woman, the question was, how did she get about faster than the car, and why did she invariably assume the same attitude.. and evince so much interest in the conductor with those glassy eyes? If a spirit -

"Here, W. and the gripman paused in their questioning. The next morning the haunted man started from the frontend of the grip car to collect fares, when, as he glanced back at the front window of the coach, he was horrified to see that white face pressed against the pane and those fearful glances directed at him.  

He hesitated a minute, then passed by the other passengers and entered the coach as quickly as possible, resolved to fathom the mystery.  But just as he entered one door she went out the other.  He stepped quicker to overtake her, but she, with no apparent effort, kept just ahead of him. he forgot himself and ran.

The cable train waited, and the passengers watched and wondered.  The race continued, but the woman did not seem to move - she seemed as if borne along by something invisible.  A police officer put himself in her way, but she seemed to pass right through him, as it were, without being interrupted, until the pursuer was so close behind that he fell against the officer just as the pursued blended with the crowd.  

(The Haunted Lane, Melander and Bro., 1889)

He saw her frequently after that. Sometimes on the grip car, but always on the other end of the train, or posing in that lamp-post position on the street.  At last he could endure it no longer.  He left the city.  Whether or not that spectral woman followed him he never disclosed to the farmer, but he would sometimes stare and stare into vacancy, with horror depicted on his face.

"The night before his death he continued the narration.  The death rattle was almost beginning to sound in his throat, when he made an effort and confessed that the *(word has faded - DF)* that had haunted him was the perfect resemblance of a woman that had been killed by his car when he was a gripman, and whose life could have been saved had he not been careless."

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Sorry for the no show yesterday...the steroids for the leg have had me feeling a bit rough the last few days, and I had a headache last night. Not as bad today though thankfully, and hopefully it will be shifted by tomorrow..Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this odd little tale I found!

Now go check out the other Cryptkeepers taking part in the Countdown by clicking the badge below, or head straight on over to see Tom at Garage Sale Finds who has a tiny blow molded witch to show off today!