Terrified by ghosts – An American report.
The neighbourhood about Sharp’s Mill, in Killbuck township, are (says the Chicago Herald) somewhat disturbed over spiritual manifestations that are reported to be going on almost nightly in a dwelling occupied by Ransom Shilts and family. The site of the present dwelling was occupied about 12 years ago by a small log-house, in which a man named Hellman, an honest hard-working German, his wife, and six or seven children, resided. In all such cases of supposed spirit visitations there is connected a supposed origin, and this one is no exception, and this supposed origin is the fact that in the fall of 1887, after Mr Hellman threshed his grain in the absence of a granary, he stored his wheat and oats upstairs in his log-house, directly over the room where he and his wife and three of his children slept.
One night, shortly after storing the grain and they were sleeping, the logs in the house spread apart by the weight and pressure of the heavy load, letting the joists, floor, and all the grain down on the sleepers, almost instantly killing the wife and the three children, Mr Hellman escaping with some bruises. Mrs Shilts, the wife of the man now owning the farm, says she hears nearly every night soft footsteps, as that of a woman without shoes on, going to and fro through the house, as if hunting for something or someone, and then will follow a slamming and banging of doors.
Mr Shilts also says he hears the noise, and all efforts to learn the cause have been unavailing. The matter is the talk of the neighbourhood, and further investigation will be made in order to solve the mystery which so annoys the family. Mrs Shilts will not stay alone in the house, especially at night, and is living in abject fear.
Flintshire Observer, 28th February 1889.