A Convent Ghost.
Haunted house of the Domininican Sisters.
About a quarter of a mile east of the San Leandro railroad depot stands a convent conducted by the Dominican Sisters. The building is ancient, or, at least, part of it is, and was formerly the courthouse and jail of Alameda County, when San Leandro was the county seat. Surrounding the structure, which is two stories in height, is a large lawn studded with trees of various kinds and pretty gravelled walks and drives. The old building is full of story. It has been racked by earthquakes and scorched by fire. Cold-blooded and brutal murderers have slept within its walls, and two of them paid the penalty for their crimes in the yard, where a hideous-looking gallows formerly stood.
Various hobgoblin tales have recently gone the rounds about ghosts infesting the basement of the convent building, where murderers’ row used to be. Strange and mysterious rappings were heard after dark, and a faint halo of light could be seen moving past the cells. Last week a “Chronicle” reporter visited San Leandro to investigate these reports. The building was found nestling away in the shade of the tall trees, the grass and the shrubbery looked cool and inviting, and the visitor entered. The gardener, a middle-aged Scotchman, was encountered in the grounds, and a visit to the old prison cells was permitted.
Going down ten or a dozen stone steps, the footfalls on which echoed dismally and reverberated down the corridor with ghostly sound, the reporter found himself in the old gaol, with four cells on each side of the corridor. The two cells in front of the building are very commodious, measuring thirty by twenty feet. It was in one of these that the mysterious noises were first heard – cell No. 1 – wherein was confined Ramon Amador, a brutal murderer, who was executed in the gaol yard on the 22nd day of September, 1871, for the murder of Henry Hiscock in January of that year. Henry Hiscock was a professional hunter, and during January was missed by his friends. A search was instituted, and the dead body of the huntsman was found lying prone on its face, in a secluded bunch of chapparal on the hillside abovee the residence of Augustine Bernal, near Pleasanton. A gunshot wound in the side of the head revealed the cause of death, and the object was robbery, as the pockets of the dead man’s clothes were turned inside out.
Suspicion pointed to Ramon Amader, an ex-convict, as the murderer, and he was arrested. A search of Amador’s hut on the mountain side brought to light a shotgun and rifle belonging to the dead man; and, although at first strenuously denying his guilt, subsequently in an interview with a “Chronicle” reporter he confessed to the murder of the huntsman, and as an excuse for the deed stated that Hiscock had maltreated a little brother of his, and on the day of the killing had claimed a horse with which he was herding cattle, and at the same time threatened to kill him unless he gave the animal up. A quarrel ensued, and Amador, getting possession of Hiscock’s rifle, shot, and killed him, afterwards concealing his victim’s shot-gun and rifle. Amador’s story was disbelieved, and the theory of the prosecution that the murderer killed an inoffensive fellow-being for a rifle and shot-gun was sustained by the verdict of the jury, who, on the 21st of July following found him guilty of murder in the first degree, and he was sentenced by Judge Sam McKee to be executed on the 22nd of August. A reprieve from Governor Haight, however, spared the murderer’s life until the 22nd of September, on which day he was executed, with Harry N. Morse, then sheriff of Alameda County, as executioner.
This old place where Amador spent his last days upon earth is now full of rubbish. The blackened bars at the grated window looking out of the lawn are dust-covered and rust-eaten. The heavy brick arch that formed the roof of the cell has crumbled away, and has been replaced by a pine ceiling that forms the floor of the convent reception-room. It was there in the dismal darkness of the gloomy cell that the ghostly noises and phantom light were first heard and seen. Soon after the old gaol was reconstructed into a convent, about a year ago. After the first few nights the rappings shifted, and were nightly heard in various portions of the old prison, and were followed by the appearance of the light, which was carried through the corridor with a slow and measured tread by some unseen agency.
A Scotchman named “Pat” Gibbon, employed at the church near the convent, who was until about two months ago the gardener at the convent and slept in the cell formerly the quarters of Hiscock’s murderer, was the first to hear the rappings and see the light. He described the noises as very thrilling and awe-inspiring, and stated that they first came from underground, then gradually ascending the walls, the tappings could be heard on the upper floor or roof of the cell, and o n the stone steps; then followed the passing of the light through the corridor at short intervals during the night.”
To the reporter Gibbon had no theory as to the cause of the phantom-like proceedings, but in his simple way said – “It was the Devil.” Gibbon admitted having been so badly frightened at the unusual proceedings that he first changed his sleeping apartment from the cell to another portion of the convent, but, still hearing the noises and seeing th elight, he beat a retreat and left the convent, going over to the church. He says that he could not see anything resembling a human or animal form carrying the light, which appeared to move through the air, guided by invisible hands. When questioned as to the probability of the noises being made by rats, he said it was impossible. Sometimes the noises were exceedingly loud and resembled the falling of a half-ton of coal a distance of probably ten feet; then again they would be exceedingly gentle and light. Gibbon’s successor, an old Scotchman named McIntosh, who has only been at the convent two months, says he has heard the stories, but has never seen or heard the manifestations. He does not sleep in Gibbon’s old quarters, but on the outside.
The story of the manifestations was the all-exciting topic in San Leandro recently, and several persons say they heard the noise in the night. Some of the old-timers state that after the great earthquake of October 21, 1868, which partly demolished the old building, and in the fall killed John Josselyn, a deputy County Clerk, mysterious noises were heard and the place was considered haunted. After the execution of Amador some of the prisoners in the gaol claimed that he revisited his old quarters nightly, and a light, something similar to that which Gibbon claims to have seen, appeared. That some trust was placed in Gibbon’s story is manifest, for about two months ago Archbishop Alemany and another high Church dignitary visited the convent to exorcise the ghosts. The exorcism was secret, and performed under the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church, which teaches that the Devil has great power over matter. If he possesses himself of a good person’s body, and appears for the purposees of evil, and one of the bishops of the Church, for the purpose of exorcising him, questions him, his language will betray his bad intent, and when the spirit is apprehended the Bishop has the power to cast him out and consign him to the place whence he came.
The exorcism was successful to a certain extent only, and it was some two weeks afterwards before the manifestations ceased, as Gibbon says positively that every night, for two weeks after the visit of the Archbishop, he saw the light and heard the rappings, but that afterwards they disappeared and he saw and heard them no more, but is under the impression that it will be heard of soon in some of the neighbouring buidlings or some other convent. He is an old man, with whiskers of a sandy hue tinged with gray. He is not more superstitious than many others, and firmly believes that what he says he saw. At all events, he would not spend another night in the convent cell at San Leandro for all the money in the town.
Auckland Star, 10th June 1882.