Sportive Spooks.
(Atlanta Constitution)
Mr John Bauskett of Columbia is a good lawyer of long practice. He was United States commissioner here during the Cleveland administration. He is sedate, quiet and serious, and is one of the last men one would choose to play a joke on or joke with. He is also about as far from being superstitious as any one in the town. Yet Mr Bauskett has been disturbed for six nights by things supernatural.
There were newspaper men and neighbours at Mr Bauskett’s house to see some of the manifestations of spirits that had disturbed his household, and some of them were witnesses of the occurrences reported. It is uncanny. Is it one of those playful spirits that has left its stygian home to take up its abode in the Bauskett house on Laurel street?
At first Mr Bauskett’s family was annoyed, but the members of the household have bravely overcome whatever superstition would naturally have been occasioned and are now excited by curiosity rather than dread.
The house is an old one. Sherman did not destroy it on his march through Columbia, or else the ghost might have gone up in smoke as ethereaal as its own presence. It is now said that the house has before this sustained the reputation of being “haunted.”
Last Monday night Mr Bauskett’s household was disturbed by articles dropping unceremoniously from walls and ceiling. A piece of bric-a-brac would fall suddenly at their feet, and there was no evidence of human agency. Little sleep did the family get that night or the next, while the mysterious manifestations continued. Wednesday night Mr Frank Bauskett came home from his work on the Southern road. For his infidelity in laughing at “a woman’s fears” he was rewarded by being kept awake until 3 o’clock that night. Among other things a piece of carbon, such as is used in an arc light, was dropped upon his breast as he lay in bed. a large brass door key was laid upon his pillow. There was no one in the room, and the articles could not have been thrown into the apartment, for the curtains were closely drawn over the windows and there was a light in the hall, shining athwart the door.
Civil engineers’ instruments in a hand satchel were scattered promiscuously over the house. The spook took peculiar delight in handling these tools, and no sooner would they be restored than they would in an apparently supernatural manner leave the satchel to appear in another part of the house. The clock key was pitched on Mr Frank Bauskett’s bed. He returned it to its place behind the clock, and the next morning found it in another part of the house. Empty Mauser and Krag-Jorgensen cartridges, caps for the old-fashioned musket, articles of toilet from the dresser and such bric-a-brac tempted the sportive spook, and from most unexpected places would fall upon the floor.
One member of the household had an experience of a queer nature. There was a little bottle of pills on the mantelpiece. No one was stirring in the room. As this member of the family lay courting sleep, the pills one or two at a time, were thrown upon the bed, and finally the little bottle itself followed.
Mr Bauskett was naturally averse to giving the matter any notoriety, so incredible does it all seem. But a number of the neighbours witnessed some of the manifestations Friday night.
While few are disposed to believe in ghosts or spiritualism, who of those who doubt can explain these mysterious happenings? Mr Bauskett at first thought that some mischievous person was playing pranks, but every step has been taken to keep these articles from being thrown by human hands, and still the manifestations continue. There was once a celebrated case in the up country in which rocks were thrown into windows to terrify the occupants of the house. The party who perpetrated this devilment had a covetous eye upon the property. But Mr Bauskett knows of no motive which could impel anyone to do such a thing in the present case, and the “ghost” at his house has always wrought his magic where the room was occupied, and the larger the crowd the merrier grows the spook.
The people of the neighbourhood are much worked up and are anxious to find out what this unseen thing is. Who or what is the ghost?
The family of Mr Bauskett are somewhat disturbed by the crowds who attempt to get into the house to witness the manifestations. Dozens of their friends sit up with them till midnight – lawyers, doctors, newspaper men and police officers. The strange performances continue, and so far no solution has been offered.
The Rocky Mountain News (Daily), August 24th 1899.
Spook with Poker Chips.
An Uncommon Ghost in Columbia, S.C., with the Powers of a Magician.
Columbia, S.C., Aug. 31. – For three weeks there have been a series of alleged “spirit manifestations” in an old residence on Laurel street in this city. The police are harassed by the crowds that block the streets near the house; children are reduced to good behaviour by mention of the spook, while citizens have visited the place with a determination to solve the puzzle, and have turned away more mystified than ever. The family in the house has been so much annoyed that they are about to give up the lease of the house.
The building is a large, wooden, old-fashioned two-story affair, one of those that survived the fire of 1865. It is occupied by Mr John Bauskett, his wife, three grown daughters and a son. Mr Bauskett is a very matter-of-fact lawyer about 50 years old. He was United States Commissioner here during the Cleveland Administration. The family was first disturbed by bric-a-brac falling from the wall. The women were alone and much alarmed, but when Mr Frank Bauskett, who is a railroad man, came in he laughed at their fears. However, he was kept awake for several hours; a big brass key was placed on his pillow, and a piece of common carbon on his breast.
In subsequent days and nights all kinds of things have been done. A set of surveying instruments were removed from a box and scattered around; they were restored to their places by members of the family, and moved again. One of the young women was curling her hair with the ordinary tongs used for that purpose. She put them down to answer a knock on the door; on returning the tongs were gone. One prong was found in the window, another was found on her bed. Young Bauskett found the clock key on his pillow; he put it behind the clock. In the morning it was in another room. Another time on going into his room, Frank Bauskett bolted the door; the next minute the bolt was withdrawn. Another member of the family was lying on her bed, when she heard something fall lightly on the covering. Another slight noise followed, and another. All the pills from a little bottle on the mantel were thrown on the bed, then the bottle followed.
One of the favourite pastimes of the “Spook” is to place something in the hand of a member of the family or an investigator. Two very skeptical men, one an official of the Southern railroad, visited the house a few nights ago. They had been in the parlour only a few minutes, just long enough to shut down all the windows, draw the blinds and examine the walls, when it began to rain poker chips, not a hard shower, but a soft pattering of the fascinating whites, reds and blues. They did not fall from above, and could not be seen till they struck the floor. It was judged by the force of the fall that they were released about eighteen inches or two feet from the floor.
On another occasion the police were treated to a similar fall of brass-headed tacks. And so it has gone night and day, as hundreds of people of intelligence have personally observed. If it is a fraud perpetrated by members of the Bauskett family, some one is wasting magician’s powers that would bring satisfactory returns if the talents were turned to money-making channels.
The Sun, 1st September 1899 (NY).