A mischievous ghost.
A defunct railroad engineer’s pranks.
The wild and mysterious run of an engine.
Unpleasant experience of wipers in a pit, etc.
Special Dispatch to the “Cincinnati Enquirer.”
Vincennes, Ind., April 18.
Your correspondent fell into the hands of an employe of the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad a day or two ago, and was regaled with one of the most thrilling tales that ever fell on mortal ears. The railroad boys are pretty badly worked up over a reputed ghost at their Round-house in Cairo, and some of their stories are really startling.
Eighteen or twenty months ago an engineer,named Johnson, was run over by a Cairo and Vincennes engine, No. 4, near the Round-house, and the habitues of that vicinity claim that they have frequently seen Johnson’s spook, and have had other evidence of his presence on earth. Employes who have met it have interrogated the shadow, thinking it a human being, only to see it vanish through a solid brick wall.
The spirit of the defunct engineer does not confine himself to harmless tricks. Two wipers went down into the fire-pit for the purpose of drawing the fire out of engine No. 4, the same machine which caused Johnson’s death. While they were scraping out the fire the engine suddenly started forward, cutting off their retreat from the hot pit. They yelled piteously for help, but their only answer was mocking laughter. The engine then slowly crawled back to its proper position, and the men, glad of their freedom, rushed out swearing vengeance on the trickster, but not a soul was in sight.
A coloured man undertook to stay by himself in teh Round-house all night, but no sooner had he become comfortably ensconced than missiles of every possible nature began to play around his head. Pieces of coal, crow-bars, spikes, hammers, etc., filled the air, and he vacated, concluding that he was not proof against iron in the form it was being pushed at him.
The latest exploit of the deceased engineer – at least to his ghost is the act accredited – might have put the Cairo and Vincennes Railroad to considerable expense, and sent more than one life into eternity. Last Monday, as the engineer and fireman of a Cairo and Vincennes engine in the Cairo yards were sitting in a building eating their dinner, steam in their engine being shut off, the machine suddenly darted up the line and was out of sight in a jiffy. It went howling over streets and road-crossings, and did not slack speed till it reached Mound City, five miles distant from the starting-point, where it came to a dead stand. Those who witnessed the stop, testify that no one jumped off the engine, nor did any one see the occupant of the cab during the flight. Fortunately, however, the engine did not meet with any obstructions on the run, or the consequences would, indeed, have been terrible.
These are only among the hundreds of incidents related by the railroad boys. There is evidently something amiss, and if the Company does not do something to appease the obstreperous defunt, it is not an easy matter to conjecture what the consequences will be. The sceptical “pooh-pooh” the ghost story, but the railroad boys think something is wrong.
Reprinted in The Theosophist, December 1880.