An American Ghost Story.
About a year ago, says the Detroit Free Press, a house in the western part of the city was haunted by strange noises, and three or four families vacated, one after the other, believing that a ghost was prowling around. A reporter of this paper and Sergeant Bachmann, of the police force, passed a night in the house, and towards morning discovered, as they serenely believedup to a few days ago, natural causes which would account for the sighs, groans, and raps which had driven several families out.
Soon after that a family moved into the house and remained several months, hearing no unusual noises. The wife died, the family removed to Niles, and after a time another family moved in. They remained until two months ago, and then moved out in a hurry one Saturday, the man declaring that none of them could get a wink of sleep on account of the opening and shutting of doors by invisible hands and strange groans and sobs from invisible females in distress.
The house stood empty until three months ago, when it was occupied by a widow woman with three children, who were undisturbed until a week ago, when they were one night frightened half to death by the ghosts. They got out in a hurry, leaving their goods in the house, and have since been stopping with a relative in Fourth Street.
The owner of the house has examined it from floor to roof, nailed up all the windows, covered the crevices, and yet the noises continue, and he can’t decide where they come from. The door of the parlour bedroom hangs so that it will shut to if opened and not held, and yet this door flies open at midnight and people hear whispers and footsteps. Every pane of glass is in place, yet on two separate occasions the lamp has been blown out as it stood on a stand in the centre of the room. Thursday and Friday nights the owner and two friends sat up all night in the house, and though they heard the sounds which had so frightened others they could not discover their source. Unless they can soon be arrived at it is the intention to move the house or unroof it, as there is a great deal of gossip and excitement.
Renfrewshire Independent, 23rd May 1874.