Ghost haunts humble home.
Annoys family and mystifies policemen by mysterious rappings and outlandish noises.
Chicago – There is a ghost in town. He has put part of Chicago’s police force to flight and he has gone on with his rapping and his tapping while two sleuths and the “copper” on the beat stood around as an investigating committee. For three nights the police have guarded a house on West Sixty-First street, but the ghost has regularly made himself heard from 11 o’clock at night until three o’clock in the morning.
Mrs Laura Amos, who, with her family lives there, tried a broom, pans of cold water and heavily hurled Bibles, but they failed. The ghost rapped on. Mr Amos, being away at work at night, could only offer good advice int he case. So the police came in to prove that ghosts didn’t really exist. Patrolman Hultan, the man on the beat, swung jauntily up to the door three nights ago to put the vaporous man from the other world to flight. He failed. He found three kittens in the back yard, and he put them in the shed for safekeeping. But the ghost began a most unholy racket.
Two more of the bravest men on the force, Detectives Dohney and McWayne, were summoned by the puzzled copper. All three searched the house and stood guard. At 11 o’clock the ghost started to rattle dishpans, pound on all the windows at once, shake the curtains of several rooms at the same time, and make noises that made the copper drop his club. Detective Dohney gave up the fight and reported to his captain that he believed in ghosts. the others said they didn’t know what they believed, but they certainly couldn’t locate the man from the other side of the world.
And then a story that a man once hanged himself in the basement of the house spread. Of course no one would hang himself more than once, but the story-tellers meant it for an explanation of the ghost.
And there it rests. There’s an official report of a ghost made by a Chicago policeman, and there’s a family named Amos that wants to move, since the ghost insists on haunting the place without paying rent. The family moved only a month ago, and the ghost started on his pranks soon afterward, but behaved fairly well until about ten days ago.
The Republican Advocate, vxxv, no.2, October 6th 1909.