Haunted House.
The inhabitants of Northwood Green, near Wem, Cambridgeshire [sic, evidently Shropshire] are in the utmost consternation, in consequence of some extraordinary disturbances in a house near the turnpike. Brick bats, stones, and lumps of coal are reported to have dropped through the ceilings, where not a crevice is visible; while similar materials arise from the cellar floor, or trundled up stairs by some invisible hand!!!
This ghost, it appears, began its freaks on Wednesday the 19th ult. while the owner of the house was gone to the opposite habitation of his mother-in-law, then dead; and two mantua-makers, who were preparing mourning, were so much alarmed that one of them fainted.
Some few stones have also fallen into the house where the corpse lay.
On Saturday and Sunday, upwards of 50 persons assembled to witness this extraordinary scene! but as we have not heard of any broken heads, we presume they gazed at a respectful distance. However, when some person possessed of sufficient strength of nerve, or hardihood of skull, shall have ventured to pry into this haunted dwelling, we trust he will furnish us with a development of the mystery.
– Since writing the above, we have received a letter from a friend in the neighbourhood, in which he observes, “The story is universally laughed at by all intelligent persons here, who think it is a trick played by some wag, to amuse himself and disturb the old women, and men who are but one remove from old women. I rather think it is a vile trick, played by some person about the house to answer some sinister end; one end, however, it has answered, namely, to fill the landlord’s pockets, and to empty those of his wise customers. – Shrewsbury Chronicle.
Suffolk Chronicle, 5th January 1811.