Bristol “Ghost” No Ghost At All; Just a Great Big Old Grey Rat.
Five hundred rodents chased from beneath home of Marshall Godsey when police authorities use pick and shovel – experts say mother rats make noise like “moaning woman,” while nursing young.
Bristol, Tenn., June 18. – Scores of large wharf rats, found yesterday under the floor of the Marshall Godsey house on Woodlawn Avenue, in an investigation conducted by Bristol, Tenn., police and newspapermen were accepted as an explanation of the strange noise that has caused great excitement here during the past week. The presence of rats under the floor of the house was discovered in the morning and in the afternoon the investigation was extended and the open space under the house was found to be a network of tunnels infested by some of the largest rats ever seen here. The mysterious noise was not heard after the police began their investigations in the morning.
For the first time in a week a crowd was lacking at the Godsey home and the investigators, taking advantage of the opportunity, worked without interruption or interference. The floor was taken up and the investigators, under the direction of Chief of Police R. L. Morton, armed themselves with picks, shovels and crowbards and began what was considered the final chapter in solving the mystery. Passageways made by the rats were found in every corner of the space underneath the house and more than 500 large rats ran out from under the building while investigation was in progress. A number of small rats were killed.
Chief Morton said that there was no doubt but that the rats made the noise which alarmed the Godsey family, attracted thousands of curiosity seekers to that neighbourhood. Rat experts say that when feeding her young, the mother rat often makes a sound similar to the moaning of a woman. Two newspapermen went under the floor of the house with Chief Morton, Street Commissioner John Glover and one or two other men. What they saw there convinced them that rats were responsible for the extraordinary situation that was created when it was reported that the Godsey home was haunted.
World News, 20th June 1921.
Strange noise is still heard under house in Bristol.
Bristol, June 25. – Several hundred people yesterday visited the home of Marshall Godsey on Woodlawn Avenue where a strange noise, seemingly under the floor, had baffled every attempt at explanation for the past two weeks. It was said that the noise had been heard several times during the afternoon and evening, but at 10 o’clock in the evening when a newspaper representative visited the house it had not been heard for two or three hours.
At 10 o’clock more than fifty people were at the house listing for a recurrance of the noise. Several said that they planned to stay all night in the hope of hearing it before morning.
Mr Godsey last night again appealed to the newspapers to urge the crowd to stay away. “We have not had any peace here for the past two weeks,” he said. “Every day we are beseiged by crowds of from 20 to 500 people and it is getting beyond us. If I had any other place to move to I would leave this house in an hour.”
Since the story of the “haunted” house has been spread broadcast Mr Godsey has received no less than fifty letters, most of them bearing on means for determining the origin of the strange sound under the floor. Some of these letters betray the writers’ belief that the noise is really made by a ghost but most of them suggest looking for some natural sound.
Interest in the alleged ghost has generally subsided but with many the desire to fathom the mystery is still as keen as ever. A day never passes but what at least 100 people visit the place.
Marion Democrat, 28th June 1921.
Bristol’s Ghost Has Increased Activities.
Ghost which has been causing comment thruout state adds knocking to its entertainment.
With the circulation of reports that the strange noise at the home of Marshall Godsey on Woodlawn avenue, Bristol, had developed a knocking, rapping sound in conjunction with the mysterious moaning, interest in the occurrence was revived to a marked degree Friday. More than 50 people were at the place when it was visited by a press representative Friday night and it was said that the noise had been heard half a dozen times since six o’clock in the evening.
Three leading business men, who did not want their names published stated that they heard the noise distinctly about noon and that the groaning was accompanied by a series of raps that seemed to be on the walls of the dining room. Moreover, it was said that a sort of communication with the “spook” was established thru the rapping.
From these reports it appears that the noise has shifted around from the front room on the north side to the dining room which is on the back side. The knocking is a comparatively new phase of the mystery and could not be accounted for any more than the moaning.
Members of the Godsey family appeared to be genuinely frightened by the new developments and said they could not endure the strain much longer. Mr Godsey has been trying to find another house and a sign reading “Please Stay Out” has been on the front of the house since the great excitement about a month ago.
From the reports of the business men of Bristol, whose word could not be doubted, it appeared that yesterday was one of the “ghost’s” busiest days. The moaning was heard no less than a dozen times and the rapping noise has been going on for more than a week.
Contrary to reports that are being circulated thruout the State, the mystery is not being capitalised. An admission was charged for a period of two days about a month ago in an effort to discourage people from visiting the place, but at the end of that time the plan of charging was abandoned when it was seen that people were glad to pay an admission price to visit the house.
Front Royal Record, 26th July 1921.
Bristol’s Ghost No Longer Makes Moaning Sounds.
Noise and tappings in Godsey home have not been heard for two weeks.
Bristol, Va.-Tenn., Aug. 13. – Bristol’s ghost, long the reigning topic of conversation and the subject of straining ears, has ceased to function. His ghostship is fast becoming a relic of a weird and mysterious past. Marshall Godsey, at whose home on Woodland avenue, the strange and exasperatingly elusive noise, a sound made as if some one was moaning or groaning and then – stranger still, the rapping noise that also defied solution, yesterday said that the noises, both the rapping and the moaning, had not been heard for nearly three weeks and that the family had come to believe that at last the place was freed from the nuisance.
The last time that the noise was heard distinctly was on Saturday, three week’s ago from tomorrow, when a party of business men was given exclusive charge of the house for an evening. The rapping noise held sway during the course of the evening, but the moaning was heard not at all. The rapping provided more genuine entertainment, however, than did the moaning in its palmiest daays. It would answer questions in the number of raps stipulated for an answer and would even accommodate the listeners by counting up to 12 when asked to do so.
And now Bristol hasn’t a single ghost to its name. No longer do eager throngs pull, push and fight for the vantage places around the “spooky” fireplace in the front room of Godsey’s home; no longer do curious crowds wait through the entire night for one little bleat from the mystery corner beneath the floor in the front room that so many came to know so well. All is quiet and serene in the neighbourhood that once made Barnum’s greatest on a busy day look like a knitting party. People pass the house and glance idly in its direction as they recall with a smile that in days gone by a ghost dwelt there and hundreds camped within earshot of the room that came to be better known than any of the hundreds of rooms that Washinton honoured for a night when the country was in the making.
Godsey’s ghost! The words were at the tips of thousands of tongues from Maine to California. Hundreds wrote from distant places asking about it and others came in person to verify what they had read. Until the baseball season opened here it was the first thing discusssed over the morning cup of coffee and the last thing argued as folks slipped into pajamas and nighties. People talked it at noon and at evetide and on the streets and in the homes; no one but the ghost himself (or herself – pardon the presumption) will ever know in numbers of people and words and printed lines how much was said on the subject.
Pictures of the house were printed in many newspapers and the Associated Press – the staid veteran of news briefly told and of news that is news – became interested in it. A Senator got off the train here and his first words were as a quizzical smile lit his features, “Say, what about this ghost you have here?” A hobo dropped off a train in Abingdon and seeing a railway employee standing off to one side went up to him and asked if they were in Bristol. “No, this is Abingdon,” he was told. “Aw, hell!” exclaimed the traveler, emphasising his disgust. “I thought I was in Bristol. I want to hear that ghost.”
Sleepy Tom Clark, “The Prophet of the Smokies,” made a pilgrimage to fathom and clear up the mystery. Local ghost hunters and spook “busters” vied for the privilege of becoming celebrities by earnest efforts to get at the bottom of the affair. But his ghostship ruled supreme despite concerted and energetic attempts, pursued day and night to dethrone him. The police took a hand, but the sly old ghost, with a twinkle of derision in his green eye, sat silently in his corner until their investigation was at an end and then, with a screech and a scream, he shook his bones and gave vent to the enthusiasm that had been for the time suppressed. He was back on the job with more zest than ever.
But now it seems that Mr Ghost has sung his swan song: that he has read the word “Exit” over the door on the rear of the stage. He has found the way out. If he decides to return will he enter without knocking?
World News, 15th August 1921.