A Haunted House in New Jersey.
The Knickerbocker, New York magazine, publishes the following extraordinary letter from a correspondent for whose veracity it pledges itself:-
“Down in New Jersey, August 5, 1852.
Dear Knick, – You are doubtless aware that the good people of New Jersey are opposed to all monopolies not connected with railroads, and particularly to monopolies in other states. This, or some other cogent reason, has given us the benefit of a Branch Spiritual Rapping Society, not inferior in any way to the notable efforts of the defuncts of your state. At a farm-house about two miles below Newark, on the old Elizabethtownroad, resides a quiet, order-loving family, not a member of which would ever have ventured, knowingly, to call up spirits from the deep. But still the spirits came, and they have been rapping to some purpose, I assure you.
These are civil and considerate spirits, however, for they do not disturb the good people at night. No rappings are heard after eight o’clock in the evening; but at any and many hours during the day the significant three raps are heard, and so loudly that neighbours residing on the opposite side of the road, more than 100 feet distant, can hear them distinctly.
Like the rappers of Gotham, these spirits answer questions with two raps for a negative, and three for an affirmative reply. The family are much alarmed, and most anxious to have their departed friends conduct themselves more quietly for the future.
If the rappings were all, one might get accustomed to the noise, as those really do who reside next door to a copper-smith’s shop, where steam-boilers are riveted; but in addition to the rapping manifestations, the very furniture performs unheard-of gyrations, and which could not be performed by human agency. In the presence of the inmates of the house, and of visitors, chairs will pirouette about the room, pass over tables, &c. Day before yesterday, a large dining-table reversed its position, and broke one of its leaves, without leave of its owner.
A mutual acquaintance of yours and mine assures me that while he was watching for these phenomena, a number of things came from a shed outside the building and passed into the room unaided by human art. He saw them, and so did many others. A chair rose up, turned round three times, and then quietly arranged itself properly on the floor again. Fortunately no one was sitting on the chair at the time, and it has behaved with perfect propriety ever since.
A few days ago, an old demijohn, which has stood for years quietly in a closet, seemed to awake to a consciousness of what it had done for others in former years, and came forth into the room unassisted, and strolled about in a most miraculous manner.
All means seem to have been taken to solve this, but up to this time without effect. The evidences of the truth of the above are too numerous and too respectable to be contradicted; and to this very hour similar occurrences are taking place. Furniture passes occasionally from one room to another, and in one instance was piled up in a pyramidal form in the centre of the room.”
Reynold’s Newspaper, 10th October 1852.