A Georgia Sensation.
From the Macon (Ga.) Enterprise, Oct. 21.
On Saturday afternoon we published a brief paragraph, stating that strange and supernatural manifestations had taken place at house No. 6, Macon and Brunswick Railroad.
Passengers coming up on the train were greatly excited about it, and represented that great excitement prevailed in that immediate neighbourhood, as indeed as far distant as the report had reached. Determined to find out the exact facts in regard to the matter, we detailed a special reporter to the scene of operations, and will now lay before our readers the full particulars as detailed to us by him.
Taking the Brunswick train on Saturday night, in company with Mr Mason and Mr Campbell, of Macon, who were also going down for the same purpose, our reporter arrived at the point of destination a little after four o’clock on Sunday morning.
Getting off the train, they found no one in the place as yet up; but going to the house of Mr A.P. Surrency, they were admitted to a vacant room, the fire in which had nearly died out. We may as well remark here that the town or depot of Surrency consists only of a station-house, one or two places of business, and the residence of the gentleman from which it takes its name. It is situated in Appling County, 126 miles from Macon, and about sixty from Brunswick. Mr Surrency is a gentleman well-to-do in the world, and is universally regarded as one of the most honourable citizens of the county, and it would seem that his house would be the last one ghosts would select in which to play mischief.
Mr Lindenstruth (our reporter), finding the fire nearly out, went to the wood pile to get something to make it up. While returning he heard a heavy thud upon the floor of another room, as if something heavy had fallen. Thinking some member of the family had arisen, he paid no more attention to it. But subsequent events convinced him that this was the first brick thrown by the ghosts or whatever agency is at work on the premises, as no member of the family had yet got up.
Soon after daylight Mr Surrency came into the room, and, after giving his guests a hearty welcome, proceeded to tell from the beginning what had taken place up to that time.
On Friday evening, a short while before dark, the family were greatly alarmed by sticks of wood flying into the house and falling upon the floor from directions they could tell nothing about, and without any human agency they could see or find out. The wood would fall before being seen, and, what made the mystery still more mysterious, the room into which the wood was falling had all its doors and windows closed. This was in the front room.
Soon after dark they stopped falling, and were succeeded by brickbats, which fell at a short interval throughout the night in every room in the house. Mr Surrency, his wife, two grown daughters, Mr Roberts, a clerk, and a Baptist minister by the name of Blitch, were present, and with the exception of the minister, who got upon his horse and left, they all remained awake the whole night. Notwithstanding the windows and doors were tightly closed, and no opening left in any part of the house, these brickbats continued to fall, but, although sometimes just missing, not one struck any person.
Soon after the bricks commenced falling, bottles, vases and glassware generally commenced jumping from their usual places, falling and breaking. Mr Surrency, seeing the destruction going on, directed a negro man to take four bottles, containing kerosene oil, out of the house, and place them in the yard. No sooner had he set them down when one flew back, fell in the middle of the room, scattering the oil in every direction. The whole family saw this. It seemed to come down from the ceiling overhead, and, indeed, everything falling did so perpendicularly – that is to say, came straight down from above.
These strange antics continued, with scarcely one minute’s interruption, until daylight on Saturday morning, when they ceased, leaving the house nearly bankrupt in crockery and glassware, and a large quantity of brickbats and billets of wood around the floor.
That afternoon, or on Saturday, the 19th, they commenced again pretty much in the same manner, and doing about what had taken place the night previously. The family, which had now been joined by many neighbours, watched every nook and corner of the house to detect, and, if possible, to unravel the mystery. But so quickly would pitchers, tumblers, books, and other articles, jump from their positions, and dash to the door [sic], the eye could not follow, and broken fragments were the first things seen, except in one instance, and that was a pan of water and some books; they were seen to start.
Chairs, shoes, and clothing were tumbled about the house as if the hand of a veritable witch or unseen devil was present. But the greatest mystery and most inexplicable incident of the day was the escape of a lot of ordinary clothes hooks from a locked bureau drawer. They also fell on the floor, the door remaining tightly closed, as usual. Nothing else of special note occurred to-day. All got quiet at half-past eight o’clock on Saturday night.
As stated above, our special reporter arrived before daybreak, and heard the story of Mr Surrency as above stated. So soon as he got through with it he stepped up to the old family clock, and was about relating how rapidly the hands had travelled around the dial when the ghosts were about on the previous day. All eyes were turned to it, and much to their astonishment the hands commenced running around at the rate of about five hours a minute. It was a thirty hour weight clock, and after seeing it run at this rate for a short while, our reporter, who is a watchmaker by profession, employed at the store of Mr J H Otto, in Fourth Street, determined at least to solve this mystery, as it was directly i his line. He stopped the clock, carefully examined the machinery and found it not only in perfect order, but nothing unusual inside or out. He could not for the life of him see the slightest thing wrong about it.
It has been suggested that there may be a large magnet about or under the house, but magnets do not attract wooden substances, and, besides, while the clock was running at its rapid rate, Mr. L. had his watch in his pocket, which kept on its usual way and was not in the least affected. He set the clock right, when it continued to keep correct time up to the time he left.
Nothing else unusual occurred until seventeen minutes before twelve o’clock, when the performances reopened by a pair of scissors jumping from the table to the floor. At that time Mr Lindenstruth was sitting in a chair, when, without the slightest premonition, a large brickbat fell with great force right beside him, breaking in two. He immediately picked up a piece of it and handed it to Mason, and both found it hot. Then taking up the other piece he tried two or three times to break it by throwing it on the floor, but he failed. He then laid this second half on the sill of a window in the room, intending to bring it home. Resuming his seat near the front stoop, he was again startled by the piece he had placed on the window falling at his feet and once more breaking in two pieces. He did not pick it up again.
At twelve o’clock a smoothing iron jumped from the fireplace about six feet into the room. It was replaced, and again jumped out. He noticed that the iron was also hot, but this my have been heated at the fire.
At about this time dinner was announced, when the family and many guests walked out to the table. Soon after being seated, an ear of corn, apparently from the ceiling overhead, fell between Mr James Campbell, of Macon, and Mrs Surrency; striking the floor with great force, it broke in two, scattering the grains all round the room. Later in the day another ear of corn fell in another room, striking near Mrs Burns, a Northern lady, who at the time had an infant in her arms.
Soon after this, while Mr D M McGaulley, Allen Walls, Robert R Prestall, C C Easton, Jno. M Walls, J.W. Roberts, and Daniel Carter, of that neighbourhood, and Campbell, Lindenstruth, and Mason, were standing in the front room, a chamber glass was smashed into fifty pieces in the centre of the room. They were at the time intently watching everything visible in the room, but none saw this until after the vessel was broken.
So rapidly had the news spread, and so great was the excitement, the Macon and Brunswick Railroad despatched an extra train on Sunday. It arrived at Surrency about three o’clock in the afternoon, with seventy-five people on board.
But the ghosts, spirits, or whatever else they might be called, did not choose to give them any manifestations, and the train left in about an hour, taking most of them back. A few remained, however, determined to see into the matter. There were at least three or four hundred persons on the ground during Sunday, and up to the time our reporter left fully five hundred had visited the place.
While these things were going on in the house the kitchen department was by no means idle. Butcher’s knives, pots, skillets, and crockery ware were falling around loose to the terror and horror of the cook.
Another mysterious thing occurred on the first or second day. Little piles of sugar, totally unlike anything of the kind then used by the family, were found upon the floors of the residence. In one of these a few pins and steel pen were found. There were various other incidents of this totally incomprehensible mystery related to and seen by our reporter, but enough have been given.
No one who has as yet visited the place can give any rational theory as to the agency which produces these strange sights. Mr Surrency is a plain, old-fashioned Georgia gentleman, and is greatly annoyed and disgusted with the whole proceedings. He peremptorily refused any compensation from any one of the two or three hundred persons who have eaten at his table. If they are produced by magnets, they must be of a different kind from any ever known.
We must leave the question to some one else for solution.
Belfast News-letter, 8th November 1872.
An American Ghost.
There is a ghost hard at work in Georgia at the present time, who, to judge by the account given of his proceedings by the Macon Enterprise seems to be quite as troublesome as the Peckham Ghost. The Georgia ghost has taken possession of a house, No. 6, Macon and Brunswick Railroad [Surrency], and its atrocities excited such a widespread sensation that the above journal despatched a special reporter to the scene of its operations. It would take up too much space to recount at length all that the special reporter saw and heard, but the following are a few of the performances of the ghost which came under his immediate observation.
Before he arrived the ghost had broken nearly all the crockery and glass-ware in the house, and scattered all the furniture and the contents of the wardrobes about the floors, and almost immediately after the reporter entered the house, it set an old family clock going at the rate of five hours a minute, although its works were in perfect order. Having finished with the clock, the ghost set a pair of scissors jumping about the floor: it then threw a red-hot brickbat at the reporter, and incited a hot smoothing-iron to jump at him. The reporter by this time needed refreshment; dinner was served, but was disturbed by a shower of corn from the ceiling, and the smashing of glass.
In the meantime horrible occurrences were going on in the kitchen, where knives, pots, skillets, and crockery were falling around the cook, to her intense horror and disgust. The house, it seems, is occupied by a quiet old gentleman, M. Guenency, but it is to be feared his quietness must be rather disturbed, for by the latest accounts there were at least three or four hundred persons surrounding his dwelling, and the Macon and Brunswick Railway had despatched an extra train to the spot filled with excited passengers. It was also stated that people were “coming in from all directions.”
Belfast Telegraph, 16 November 1872.
Startling manifestations in a dwelling house.
The papers of Macon, Georgia, give long accounts of some strange occurrences declared to have taken place recently at the residence of Mr A.P. Surrency, at Station No. 6, on the Macon and Brunswick Railroad, in Appling County, Georgia.
Supernatural demonstrations of no remarkable character, it seems, have been frequent there for the last twenty years, but it was not till Thursday, October 10, that they became incomprehensible, violent, and even frightful. A reporter of the Telegraph and Messenger visited the scene of these phenomena, and from his account we obtain the following:-
Mr Surrency’s house is a two-story frame house, plastered and weather-boarded. Mr Surrency, on returning home on Thursday, 10th inst., was astonished to observe the glass goblets begin to tumble off the slab and the crockery to roll from the table, and falling on the floor breaks into atoms. Books, brick-bats, pieces of wood, smoothing-irons, biscuits, potatoes, tin pans, buckets, pitchers, and numerous other articles flew about the house promiscuously without any visible cause. They seemed to spring up involuntarily, and often were never seen to move until they were shattered at the feet or against the wall.
On Sunday morning the strange phenomena were renewed. The first demonstration occurred about eight o’clock, when a pair of scissors, which had been lying on a distant table, were observed to descend on the hearth. A brick, which had been lying near the fire in one room, was seen to fall in another apartment of the house, producing a loud noise. Pieces of crockery were shattered against the doors, but no one saw them move until they were broken to pieces by the sudden percussion against the door.
Late in the afternoon, while all the inmates of the house were at their supper, a noise was heard in an adjoining room. A gentleman was promptly at the door, the windows were all secured, and it was impossible for anyone to escape without being observed. Presently a book fell in the passage, which only a few moments previous was certainly seen in the book-case.
On Monday the manifestations were again renewed, in a more wonderful and frightful manner. While a company of ladies and gentlemen were seated in one of the rooms of the house, a hog suddenly appeared in the middle of the floor and without the slightest manifestations of fear, executed a few manoeuvres and evolutions, when it quickly retreated to an adjoining room, where in full view of the company, it suddenly vanished like a ghostly apparition.
An old sea captain who has been an eye-witness to the phenomena and strange demonstrations incident to a sailor’s life and several voyages around the world came to the place determined to solve the mystery. He watched with fixed attention for some time a smoothing-iron, which heretofore, by its supernatural exploits, seemed to be ringmaster of the game. Becoming exhausted and thirsty, he longed for a bottle of the ‘crater,’ which he understood was in the other room, when instantaneously the bottle fell on the floor at his side. He partook of the liquor, replaced the bottle and resumed his watch, but the bottle disappeared as mysteriously as it came.
Mr Surrency is represented as a man of intelligence, and during the time of these strange manifestations he has never been able to offer any explanation of them. Despairing of any relief from such weird demonstrations, he has determined to abandon the place. It is confidently believed that the human agency which directs these phenomena, will soon appear.
Clare Freeman and Ennis Gazette, 30th November 1872.
Spiritual Manifestations.
Some time back certain spiritual manifestations of an undoubted character caused a considerable degree of excitement in the district of Georgia, United States of America. It was admitted on all hands that the phenomena exhibited were certainly non-natural and wholly inexplicable, and as a consequence the spiritualists triumphantly pointed to them as clearly demonstrating the truth of their doctrines. Such is the logic of spiritualism; any manifestation, or supposed manifestation, from table dancing to floating in the air, from showers of ice and flowers to self-playing accordions, is to be regarded as a point scored in favour of spiritualism.
In the Georgia case, the house of one Mr Surrency was for a time turned into a perfect pandemonium by the spirits. Crockery uninvited fell from the ceiling into the middle of the rooms, and brickbats, billets of wood, and other articles flew about in the most mysterious and unaccountable manner. There was no human agency traceable, or apparently possible, and greatly was the faith of the spiritualists strengthened in consequence, while many new converts were added to their ranks. At length the spirits grew weary, or felt that their mission was accomplished, and the phenomena ceased.
More recently, very similar manifestations commenced to exhibit themselves in another quarter of the State, the crockery, brickbats, and other portable articles performing exactly the same freaks to the astonishment and terror of every one. Unfortunately for the spirits, a certain vulgarly practical man, sadly wanting in faith, named McMillan, took the matter in hand, and after some close observations, detected a coloured servant girl in the act of taking a brick from her dress and hurling it into the middle of the room. Under the fear of legal prosecution she confessed that she was the sole author of the phenomena that had so puzzled and alarmed the household, and on further investigation it turned out that she had been in Mr Surrency’s service when the previous manifestations took place, and she admitted being the author of them.
There are cleverer rogues than that coloured help whose tricks have escaped detection, but the difference between the tricks as between the rogues, is only one of degree . — Globe.
Hull Packet, 10th September 1875.