Reward for a ghost.
Mrs S. Harris of 1243 Glenarm Street appeals to police for help.
Uncanny knocks and noises disturb her midnight slumbers.
Armed guards unable to plant cold lead in the vitals of the spook which vanishes into misty vapor when mortals raise the alarm.
This is a gruesome tale. If you tremble in your boots at every shadow on the wall at night, don’t read it. If the sound of the death watch sends the shudders palpitating down your spinal column, put it aside. if the distant baying of a dog covers your spirits like a pall, hesitate and consider. If your nerves are weak and you cannot bear the thought that all around you flits the shadowy unknown, peopled with weird and ghastly shapes that take strange ways of communicating to you their presence, this story is not for you. It is only for the man with the iron of unconquerable courage in his heart that can read it and continue to walk the streets in the early morning hours. If all these things are unpleasant to your sensitive and fastidious soul, turn to the tales of the divorce court or the weather predictions.
This is the story of a spook. Three years has this spook been raging of a night in the vicinity of Glenarm street, between Twelfth and Thirteenth. When you stop to think of its age you will realize how much worse this spook is than a week, a month or even a year old spook would be. It comes out at midnight. It is sometimes later, and it makes the poor little old lady who has been pestered by it all these years shudder to think of the havoc it may be creating elsewhere. It gets around any time between 12 and 3 in the morning. You can’t count upon it, which adds to the terrors of expectation with which it is awaited.
There is now a price set upon its head, which makes it the most unique spook that has ever gone on record. The police have been appealed to for relief, and Chief Farley has been about distracted over the case. He has been anxious to keep the fact concealed from the neighbours, as he felt it would turn out in the end, as one of the most stupendous mysteries ever trailed to its lair. It has kept him awake at night, and when he slept his dreams have been haunted with its superb possibilities. the eternal eye of vigilance has been defied. The keenest detectives on the police force have been detailed on its track. It was no avail.
The spook has not been located, but continues to tap on the door in the early morning hours of the neat little cottage belonging to Mrs S. Harris, 1243 Glenarm street. She is a widow and resides there with her son, who is deaf and is never awakened by the tap-tap, steadily and low, which comes upon the panels and which the mother has begun to dread as you would the plague.
The house has been surrounded with an armed guard again and again. The wraith flits in. Suddenly the sepulchral knock comes, sometimes once, sometimes twice or thrice. The armed guards spring to their feet and – a white mist vanishes in mid-air. This is all.
“What shall I do?” asked Mrs Harris of Chief Farley. The chief shook his head. “I have a scheme, madam, but you must promise not to give it away. I’ll allow you to try it, but, of course, you understand, we never resort to it except in the most extreme cases. I think we can, with no exaggeration, call this one of that kind. You know that everything has failed. Bullets will not reach the matter, and it has assumed such a desperate condition that I now advise hot water.”
“Hot water?” exclaimed Mrs Harris. “How can I pour hot water on it when it will not wait for me?” “I cannot say,” replied the chief, “just how you are to land it on the right spot, but if you succeed in so doing I feel it will be a most effective remedy.” And the chief bowed the lady out.
Mrs harris has now offered $20 for the spook. If there is more than one concerned in it, she thinks the price will entice a confession. When the spook is brought before the bar of justice it will get the full sentence that the law allows.
Mrs Harris said yesterday that a 17-year-old son of Dr Bock, the state veterinarian, and a boy of 13, named Willie cavanaugh, had annoyed her ever since she moved into the neighbourhood, almost three years ago. That two boys should keep up for three years this form of worrying Mrs Harris, just for “devilment”, as she expresses it, seems somewhat improbable, but she will consider she is getting off for a very reasonable sum if the individual, be it spook or boy, is identified by someone for the reward she now offers. If it is a spook, she is determined to try Chief Farley’s hot water scheme which he recommends when all else fails.
The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), v41, no. 89, March 30th 1900.
Mystery of uncanny raps not yet solved.
The case of Susan Harris and her “haunted” house is beginning to be boiled down to grave circumstances. Paul Frye, one of Sheriff Jones’ deputies, said yesterday that he has been working upon the strange proposition for several days and nights. He was paid $3 one night to guard the premises and apprehend the marauders – mortal or spiritual. But the spooks kept out of sight.
It develops that Mrs Harris and her daughter visited the sheriff’s office recently and asked for assistance in fathoming the mystery. Frye was employed, and inasmuch as $20 is offered for the ghosts, he will probably run the thing to earth. The deputy is of the opinion that boys are doing the rapping. But it is improbable that they would stay up several nights so as to do the work between midnight and 3 in the morning. It is possible that they are hired for the purpose.
Mrs Harris and her son-in-law, who is a driver for a brewery, are not on friendly terms. He lives a couple of doors away, yet the mother does not speak to him, it is said.
Mrs Harris is nearly 70 years old. She owns the property in which she lives and draws a pension of $16 a month. It is believed by some of the sheriff’s men that efforts are being made to compel her to move. Meanwhile the little house at 1243 Glenarm street remains an object of curiosity for passers by.
Susan Harris and her haunted house.
The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), v41, no.90, March 31st 1900.