Trying to trap the ghost.
Six days and nights of terror in a Brooklyn tenement.
Listening to the profane and vulgar voice coming from the scuttle.
Mrs Scott’s vain attempt at moral suasion – A discovery.
The tenants of the four-story brick house at 469 Atlantic avenue, near Nevins street, Brooklyn, who since last Wednesday night have been disturbed by strange noises and profane conversation of what they took to be a ghost, were yesterday morning, soon after 6 o’clock, awakened by a frightful yell. The noises then began as usual, and the frightened occupants of the house began another day of distress. The house is one of the most orderly tenements in either of the two cities. It is owned by Mr Hoffman of this city, whose agent in Michael Cummings, a crockery dealer, who lives over the store. There are accommodations for six families in the house, but for some time there have been only four. Care has been taken to have desirable families in the house, and Mr Cummings has been there twenty years, while another family has been there ten.
On Wednesday last Mrs Scott, an intelligent lady, and her daughter, Julia, a slight girl, moved into the house, and that night the ghostly sounds were begun. Mrs Scott says that the spooks gave her a grand reception. There were poundings and knockings and moanings, but she heard no words uttered. The neighbours in the tenement heard the rapping, and thinking that it was at the street door went down a half dozen times to open it, but no one was there. On Thursday morning a voice that seemed to come down from the scuttle exclaimed, full and strong, as Mrs Scott timidly stepped into the hall: “You’ll have to get out of the house, or I’ll kill you!”
The household was alarmed, and spent most of the time in the hall of the second story. The young girls, women, and children huddled together at the foot of the stairs, and heard the threats of the wraith and the strange noises, all of which seemed to proceed from the scuttle. Mr Cummings was as much disturbed as his tenants, and he searched about the house in vain for the ghost. Whenever he went above the third story all was quiet, but as soon as he returned to his own floor, bang! went something near the scuttle, loud enough to be heard in the street. Then there followed loud pounding, and a long, loud wail of distress. “Am I to be left here alone to starve?” pitifully cried the ghost. “No ventriloquist could talk like that,” said Mr Cummings. “Oh, you’re a liar,” said the ghost. “Perhaps its a telephone that has got in here,” exclaimed the good but frightened Mrs Scott. “Telephone, telephe, telepha-a-a-ah,” said the ghost, with demoniacal laugh.
The ghost did not tolerate polite conversation long. No sooner was it fairly engaged in talking than it rattled out the vilest possible language, which would cause the mothers to hurry their children out of hearing. The tenants passed sleepless nights and unhappy days. The disturbance began after most of the male tenants had departed in the morning, and continued at intervals through the day until they returned at night, and then the noise subsided, with perhaps an occasional thump, until 10 o’clock. The only person in the house who did not seem to be terrified was the young wife of Cornelius Corson, a conductor on the Atlantic avenue line of cars. She is a slender and comely woman, about twenty years old, and she lived with her husband and two children on the third floor in the rear, next to Mrs Scott’s apartments. She was very reticent, and little was known of her except that her mother’s name was Anderson, and she lived in East New York.
On Saturday night, after the ghost had been on the rampage somewhat more than usual, and had been foul-mouthed and profane, Miss Julia Scott sought to soothe her mother by singing her a song entitled “Far Away.” Mrs Scott was weak with excitement, and wished she was indeed far away. Suddenly there was another knock. This time, however, it was respectful and at Mrs Scott’s door. Mrs Corson stepped in and offered to join in the singing. Mrs Scott said that she was frightened; she thought it was that horrid ghost. A ringing laugh, not unlike that which had been ringing in the distressed tenants’ ears, was Mrs Corson’s only response. She went to the piano and sang sweetly, “Do they think of me at home?”
On Sunday Mr Cummings went away to be gone over night. One of the tenants told the ghost, and the latter began operations. “Who-o-o-o-p” shouted the wraith. “Now I’ll raise the devil.” “To my way of thinking you are the devil,” said Mrs Cummings, who was now thoroughly incensed at the spook. “Ha! ha! ha!” was the reply: “I am; I am!”
Mrs Scott said that, it being Sunday, she would talk religion to the ghost, and she took her position in the hall and fixed her eyes on the scuttle. Rattelty bang went the noise, and Mrs Scott jumped in fright. “I’ll burn the house down,” said the ghost. “Now,” said Mrs Scott to her neighbours, “hush; be still; I’ll begin now.” Then in kind, gentle tone, with her eyes fixed on the scuttle, she said: “If you are a spirit, you should be good, and not say bad words and threaten to kill us all. If any one, sir, has done you wrong, why don’t you come out like a man and say who it is. If you burn the house, the innocent as well as the guilty will suffer. We don’t mean to do any one any harm, and why should you, sir, want to disturb us in this way?” “If you don’t get out of the house,” said the ghost,” I will kill you.” “Just hear him!” said Mrs Scott, in distress. “I ain’t a religious ghost,” said the voice, adding abundant proof that this much, at least, was true.
The tenants retired again, but the moaning and wailing around the scuttle did not cease. Mrs Scott, finding religious talk did no good, became exasperated, and taking a long, keen-edged k nife, darted out of her rooms and up stairs, and then, mounting the scuttle ladder, brandished the knife and said: “It’s the holy Sabbath day, and it’s a sin to say it: but if you will only show me your body, I promise you i’ll run this knife through you.” A laugh of glee was the only response, “Dear me!” said Mrs Cummings, almost weeping, “I have live here now nigh on to twenty year, and the likes of this never occurred before.” “And,” said the voice in the scuttle, mocking her in tone, “I’ve been here nigh on to ten year, and the likes of this never occurred before.”
Mr Cummings lost all patience over the presence of the supposed spook in his house. The voice every time seemed to come from the scuttle, nothing was seen. A policeman came in, but after knocking about for a while, he said: “Ah, it’s nawthing,” and he sauntered out. Mr Cummings on Monday had the lining of the scuttle hole torn out, and a search made between the ceiling and the roof, but without discovering anything. As soon as the scuttle was abandoned by the workmen, there was a sound as though the ghost was dancing a clog on the scuttle cover. Then came that same horrible chilling laugh, and the ghost exclaimed, in the same gutteral tones: “You didn’t get me, did you? You may look for twenty years and you won’t get me.”
After the terrible whoop with which the spook opened yesterday’s operations, the tenants came into the hall again and discussed their troulbe. “When will it end?” exclaimed one. “Soon, soon,” said the voice from the scuttle. “I’ll kill you all today. I am coming down now to knock Mrs Cummings’s head off.” Mrs Cummings sent for a policeman. Mr Cummings tried to talk to the ghost, but he was at once told to go to a hotter clime, and when a young woman spoke, she was grossly insulted. The neighbours came in from other houses, and among them was Mr John Millen, a tall, spare man, who is a plumber. The whole household, excepting Mrs Estelle Corson, was gathered at the foot of the second story stairs, listening to the strange sounds and the offensive language. When anyone ascended the stairs even one step, the sounds ceased. Mr Millen lay full length along the steps, with his head close to the baseboard, and fixed his eyes intently on the door of Mrs Corson’s apartments. He saw that the door was barely open, and it moved a little to and fro as though an unsteady hand controlled it. Mrs Cummings’s son, returning called out that the policeman had come. The door opened about a half inch, and a voice, sounding still as though it came from the scuttle, said: “I don’t care for a policeman. You had two here yesterday. One was named Doyle.”
“Ah, my lady, said Millen in great excitement, “I’ve caught you, I’ve caught you!” The door of Mrs Corson’s room shut instantly, and the key rattled in the lock. Mr Millen then explained that by crawling along the baseboard and keeping his head well down he got into a position where he could see Mrs Corson’s room door, and when the voice of the supposed ghost sounded he saw her appear at the crack, and, holding her hand up to her mouth, throw her voice, like a ventriloquist up to the scuttle. As soon as he spoke she closed and locked the door. The policeman asked Mrs Corson what it all meant. She said that she was nervous and did not know, and he went away satisfied. In a few minutes she quitted the house, with her two children. The family, Mr Cummings said, had been in the house since March 26, and seemed in every way desirable. He was, however, anxious now that they should go. He did not intend to have Mrs Corson arrested, although he fully believed that she was the cause of all the noises, and he looked upon her as a first-class ventriloquist. He could not, however, understand how she made the thumping sound so plainly from the scuttle. There were no noises after Mr Millen’s discovery, and he did not think there would be again.
A young girl in the house said that when she was in Mrs Corson’s room one day since the noises began, she saw her go about and strike the wall and kick the woodwork in a sharp and sudden way, but the girl thought nothing of it until Mrs Corson was suspected. The tenants last night prepared for a good sleep. Nearly all were weak, haggard, and pale from prolonged fright.
Mrs Corson returned to the tenement last evening and a reporter saw her in her apartments. She is a soft-spoken young woman, of blond complexion, of subdued manners, and seems incapable of the use of the language attributed to the troublesome ghost. “Upon my word,” she said earnestly, “I am innocent. I know nothing of throwing my voice, and I positively deny that I made any of the noises. Why, it is plain that it was a man’s voice, for it was hoarse and strong, and it frightened me as much as any one else. I was peeping out of the door in curiosity, and the babe in my arms was fretful, and when I put up my hand to quiet it a man jumped upon the stairs and swore at me and said, ‘Now I’ve caught you, my lady.’ Men have been seen on the roof here, and a stick was found at the scuttle on which was written the words, “Shut the door,” and they also found a piece of iron. I heard the thumping at noon, three hours after they say the noises stopped. I can’t explain the sounds; but Mr Cummings has made enemies who would be up to playing such a prank as this. I never could make the sounds or use the language that ghost did.”
Mr Anderson, Mrs Corson’s father, said that his daughter was not a ventriloquist, and was always a quiet, modest girl. He thought the noises came from the top of an adjoining tenement.
Mr Cummings had a mason examine the house between the ceiling and the roof, but could find no displaced bricks, or any opening where a person might be heard talking. The agent says that he had men on the roof, watching, while the noises were heard inside, and that from 4 o’clock yesterday morning men were watching the house from the roof of the houses across the street. They saw no one at the scuttle or on the house top. None of the sounds have been heard in the house, since the time of the alleged discovery yesterday morning, by any one except Mrs Corson. Mr Cummings was positive last night that the ghost had been found in the person of the light-haired young mother of the third floor, back. He explained that Mrs Scott’s apartment were the more desirable of the two.
The Sun, 20th August 1879.