A Haunted House. Silly Rumour.
Duringn the present week, Heckmondwike has been turned upside down by the unexpected visit of an apparition, said to be the spirit of a drayman, named Lamb, who, when alive, was well known. Lamb, however, seems to have gone about his business in the most injudicious manner possible, and, at a time which is inopportune to the denizens, he has wanted to communicate with the public who would be quite willing to lend a patient ear to a diatribe on matters strictly celestial.
If all the spirits do their business so clumsily, no wonder so little is known of them, for, doing as Lamb did, frightens some and disgusts others, thereby destroying all hope and confidence of ever being able to have intercourse with the occupants of the other land.
The mischief of the Heckmondwike ghost has created can only be accurately estimated by an experienced statistician, and the verdict of the people who reside in the immediate neighbourhood where the phantom appeared is that if unearthly visitors have no better mission to fulfil than that so clumsily accomplished by Lamb, they had better stay at home, or they will be in great danger of getting into trouble.
The ghost kindly heralds its approach by loud knocks on a table which stands in the centre of the room. After this a thick hazy substance is seen to envelope the table, and it gradually developes into an apparition, the mortal image of old Lamb when alive. Only one person, strange to say, is priveleged to witness this striking phenomenon, and it is a poor orphan girl – the youngest daughter of Lamb himself.
Eliza, for that is her name, is one of that unfortunate and pitiable class of children who have to be dragged up to womanhood as best they can, but it is a sorry best indeed. Training only of the coarsest character is out of the question in the present case, the girl being thrown on the tender mercies of a family who are in no way related to her, and who have barely sufficient for themselves. The girl’s brother having married into this family accounts for Eliza being there, but it is with no feelings of disrespect for the family when we state that the Poorhouse, where industrial and educational facilities are in abundance, would be a far happier home for the poor orphan.
The house in question is in High Street, near Stubbin’s Mill, and is occupied by a widow woman named Marsden, who has living with her several generations of children in addition to a common lodger or two. The girl slept in a temporary bed, made up on chairs in one corner of the chamber.
The ghost first came in “the thunder, lightning, and rain” of Tuesday, the 5th, and has been a regular visitor since. It makes as much noise as a clog dancer, and is pretty shrewd, for it will neither knock nor sit on the table in anybody’s presence but the girl’s. The knocking of the girl or the ghost has been distinctly heard outside. the visitors say that if instead of being terrified she could muster enough courage to speak to it, it would answer her and relieve itself of the burden by which it must, under such distressing circumstances, be bowed down.
The spirit mediums who have been to the house are in ecstasies over the affair, and they pronounce the girl to be a physical medium and a natural clairvoyant, privileged to communicate with the spirits at her will. We hear that one of them has had the girl transferred to him, and undertaken to give her a respectable training, and find her a comfortable home. Be this as it may, the news of the ghost being at Heckmondwike spread with the velocity of lightning, and from ten o’clock on Monday night up to the small hours of Tuesday morning, the highway in front of the house was rendered impassable by a crowd numbering at least 1,000 people, and a still greater number congregated on Tuesday evening, and kept up a perfect Babel till two or three o’clock the following morning.
Some of the young men conducted themselves rather roughly, and, had it not been for the timely interference of the police much damage to the haunted property might have been done, for the crowd seemed bent on mischief. Altogether the ghost has caused the inhabitants of that locality a great deal of annoyance, and it has frequently been wished at a place hotter than Judea.
So great was the disturbance on Tuesday evening that the girl had to be secretly removed to another house in the immediate neighbourhood, but, contrary to the expectation of some , the apparition did not put in an appearance at the new place.
The occupants of the haunted house have had a notice to quit served upon them, and the affair altogether has created a deal of excitement in the town. “Have you seen the ghost?” is now as popular in Heckmondwike and district as “Have you seen the Shah?” was a few years ago.
Batley Reporter and Guardian, 16th July 1881.
The Ghost Again.
“Angels and ministers and grace defend us!” was Hamlet’s despairing yell when he beheld his father’s spirit, but “Good Lord, deliver us!” is Mrs Marsden’s agonising cry, the woman whose domicile, a few weeks ago, was said to be haunted with a familiar spirit of some sort, and who is just now at her wit’s end through the intervention of either the same or some kindred nocturnal visitor, which, to say the least of it, is this time inconveniencing the poor woman in a manner most heartless, and committing ravages of a character that are no credit to it, but of which it ought, if it possesses any sense at all, to be utterly ashamed.
On the occasion of its last visit it brought with it indescribable turmoil and excitement, whilst the seething crowds of people who congregated to see it, or rather hear it, thump the floor boards or the table in the bedroom, were incited by some bad spirit or other to commit mischief.
At one stage there was apparent danger of the dwelling place the unearthly visitor tenanted being raised to the ground. Such was the commotion and general nuisance created in High Street at that time, that the owner of the haunted property deemed it expedient to quit the Marsdens – a practical way of getting rid of the ghost – who finally settled down in the classic region of George Street, a part of the town inhabited by men of all beliefs and of no belief at all, which street has been thrown into an unseemly state of consternation and tumult.
The girl Lumb, whose career was briefly sketched in these columns when the phantom put in its last appearance, has, during the past few weeks, been cast out to the mercy of the winds, and thouugh only eleven years of age, is stated to be unmanageable.
She has taken up her abode at houses in close proximity to the scene of the first alleged disgraceful performance by the ghost, but not a vestige of the unknown spectre has been obtained. A member of the spiritualist fraternity, and a confirmed believer in clairvoyancy, entered into a mutual covenant to take the poor orphan, feed and clothe her, and treat her as his own, in the hope, no doubt, of being able, in conjunction with his spiritualist brethren, to arrive at some satisfactory solution of the knocking mystery.
This plausible project soon came to grief, and the generous-hearted man was obliged, through reasons unfit to be detailed here, to send the girl away. After this Eliza – for that is her name – went further and fared worse.
She was sent to spend a few weeks with some relations at Halifax, but her stay there, too, was short. She was despatched to Heckmondwike, but not until those with whom she lived had enjoyed the sweets of Sunday midnight prances, in the heat of which nearly all the crockeryware in the house was shivered, and other damage done, the extent of which has not been made known.
The wretched girl had no alternative but to seek her brother’s protection, which, however, could not be accomplished without running the risk of subjecting the Marsdens, with whom he resides, having married Mrs Marsden’s daughter, to a repetition of the ghastly manoeuvers. She came. What else could the forlorn and neglected child do? And a visitor from the unknown world came too, though somewhat unexpectedly, to the Marsdens, who had never been made acquainted with its singular behaviour at Halifax.
It heralded, so the story goes, its approach and signalled its presence about half-past nine o’clock on Monday evening (after Eliza had gone to bed), by sundry and mighty kicks or knocks which positively alarmed the neighbourhood, and brought together a mass of people, including a rough element, of course, who kept the street alive till past midnight. The sounds, whether of living or dead spirits, were distinctly heard outside, and in the room beneath, where the girl lay, but the strangest feature about the whole affair is, that it won’t knock in anybody’s presence but that of the girl Lumb.
Be that as it may, it is the honest conviction of scores of local tradesmen, who have heard the noise, and are baffled as to its origin, that it is an unusual phenomenon, and they are turning quite indignant with the sceptical for laughing at their opinions.
The ghost played sad havoc on Monday, and on Tuesday evening it appeared to come hot tempered, for the lid of a disused filter pot was dislodged from its position upon a chair hard by, but near the bed where the girl lay, and there passed through sundry evolutions of a singularly unnatural character. The din and clatter it makes suggests that it wears clogs, but, unfortunately no one has as yet been privileged to see its lower extremities or any other part of its unearthly form, and this circumstance, together with the fact that the shrewd spirit will not knock in anyone’s presence but the girl’s, enshrouds the whole concern in doubt, and makes the ghost story appear little better than an idle tale.
Mrs Marsden, be it said, professes to be sickened with the nuisance, which to the neighbours is becoming intolerable. Mrs Marsden, be it said, is again under notice to quit, and where or how the matter will end she knows not, but is bent on removing the girl, Eliza Lumb, to the workhouse, as a fitting expedient for a final and effectual settlement with her spectral tormentor. The ghost, then, is the talk of the town again.
Batley Reporter and Guardian, 10th September 1881.