Strength of a Sandow. [*Sandow was a famous strongman]
Athletic pranks of a West Virginian spook.
It haunts a grist mill and plays with ponderous tools and missiles.
“Capable as the Devil.”
From the St Louis Republic.
Wheeling, W. Va., Aug. 25. – Some weeks ago the Register of this city was informed that there was a haunted mill near Valley Furnace, Barbour county, and that there were many strange sights and sounds to be seen and heard there. Later a local correspondent, near Valley Furnace, sent in a letter telling of these things. They were generally discredited, but were deemed worthy of investigation, the belief being that at least the source of the strange occurrences could be located. Accordingly, a member of the staff was sent out this week to make a thorough investigation.
The gentleman selected to make the trip is the same man who investigated the celebrated McComas haunted house in Belmont county, Ohio, and found the reason why a piano moved about the room without being touched by human hands, and a teakettle hopped from one place to another on the stove. These and many other curious things were found to be done by a daughter of the McComas family who had a peculiar occult power over inanimate objects, which she could not explain and which she did not discover till she was a woman grown. The reporter returned to-day and has prepared the following for his paper:
The Devil or Someone Equally As Able.
“I have just returned from the now famous ‘haunted mill’ located near Valley Furnace, Barbour county, and which has been mentioned in the Register before. I arrived in Valley Furnace in the morning and spent the day asking questions of the people there concerning the strange things which have been going on there. I found that a number of reputable people had been witnesses of the unexplainable things reported, and that they were fully impressed with the idea that the mill is possessed of the devil or someone equally capable of making trouble and causing alarm.
The building is comparatively new, being only about ten years old, and all that time has been in operation. It is now running, the water being low, compelling the owner to keep it going night and day to grind the grists offered. There has never been a murder or other tragedy, either in the mill or anywhere about it, so far as any of the old residents know. Richard Newman, the present owner of the mill, bought it nearly a year ago from B.F. McDonald, who operated it for ten years before. McDonald says that there was never anything to disturb his peace while he had the mill, and that he is as much at a loss to account for the strange disturbances as any one can be. Newman declares he knows nothing about them, and to back up his assertion says the value of the plant has decreased one-fourth within the past six weeks, since the disturbances began. People cannot be induced to pass the place after night, and many grists have been carried past the mill to another ten miles down the road rather than stop at the haunted mill. McDonald was accused of knowing the cause of the strange capers and trying to buy the mill back at a reduction, but Newman tested this by offering to sell at half what it cost, which offer McDonald refused to accept.
There have been many stories told of what has been seen, but I will confine myself to the things which actually took place while I was there. The Devil has been mounted on wheels for ten days and his carriage has been rolling through the mill during that time. I visited the mill three nights in succession, accompanied by James W. Polling, a well-known citizen, who is reputed to be honest, not only in Valley Furnace, but all over the state. He was the only man in the neighbourhood who felt no fear and was willing to go with me. The first night some unseen hand with ponderous strength and dexterity, amazing in its accuracy, hurled rocks, old iron, glass, etc., promiscuously through the mill. A large iron spindle, weighing 300 pounds, was pitched several times onto the floor. A large crowbar waltzed across the floor of the grinding-room, settling quietly against the wall as though placed there by human hands. After resting there for a few minutes it again resumed its peregrinations and rested where it started at first.
A slow, low, heavy step was heard on the floor above and a number of dry, smooth stones, varying in weight from three ounces to five pounds, dropped through the ceiling without leaving any hole. These showers of stones were not violent. The rocks dropped one or two at a time, and although they fell all about us none of them hit either or struck any part of the machinery. Several old bolts which Mr Newman said had been stored on the top floor fell into the grinding room. Old iron weights, pieces of hammers, broken picks used for dressing the mill stones, and other pieces of iron which would naturally be found about a mill, tumbled to the floor as though thrown from one side with a rolling motion. These, after lying still for a time, would tumble about the floor, as if possessed.
An old stonedressers pick, handle and all, fell to the floor, and I picked it up. On it was the name of James Keyser. I asked if there was such a person about and was told that he lived in town. The next day I showed the pick to Mr Keyser, and he identified it as one he had lost at the English mill, thirty miles away in Tucker county, years ago, before the mill here was built. He declares he had never seen it before since it was lost. Later, while we were standing waiting for something to turn up, a wedge used to lift the millstones hopped from the floor to the scales, causing them to vibrate as though a man were jumping up and down upon them.
Mr Newman says that there are sometimes demonstrations of a similar character in daytime; though they are not usually so violent. We repeatedly accused Newman of being responsible for these strange things, but he has frequently denied it on the most vigorous terms, and, to make the proof positive, he went away from the mill and left us alone there. The freaks were as pronounced as before. The next night, Newman pitched the toll dish into a barrel and turned the barrel over it. The toll dish had been showing signs of uneasiness and this was done to test it. Newman, after throwing the toll dish into the barrel, started down to the next floor below, but before he had gotten half way the barrel turned over, and the dish flew out after him, bouncing along the floor and striking him lightly in the back as he reached the foot of the stairs.
On the last night I was there the stones were dropping from the ceiling as usual. One thing which I have not mentioned was that these stones and things would stay on the floor as long as one watched them, but, turn your head, and they disappeared. When you would turn your head to look when one fell, those which you had been watching would disappear. This night we picked up and marked several of the stones. Half an hour later these same stones were dropping from the ceiling of the garret. Several of them had been marked again on the opposite sides with marks similar to those we had put upon them.
While we were on the first floor, discussing the strange manifestations, I remarked, as the stones were dropping: ‘The stones seem to fall from about the height of a man’s hand when hanging by his side,’ suiting the action to the words and letting a stone drop from that position. Instantly another stone dropped upon the floor over our heads. The noises made by the stone I dropped and the one dropped above were almost identical. I then said, ‘We can drop them from a greater height than that,’ dropping one from above my head. Instantly there came a thump on the floor above. We went up and found the two stones which I had dropped on the floor below, they having been marked.
The demonstrations were kept up almost uninterruptedly during the three nights I was there, and there was no effort spared to find the cause of them. Nothing was discovered, however, which would throw the slightest light upon the mystery. There is no possibility of the sounds and movements of the objects being produced by mechanical means, for I looked into every nook and corner of the mill, even going to the cellar and out about the covered water wheel. But every part of the building is affected, for even in the cellar an old wooden pinion which had not been in use for several years started to turn one day last week and the combined strength of Miller Newman and his assistant could not stop it or throw it from the upright position it had assumed.
I do not believe in spirits, separate and distinct from the body, but there is strong evidence in favour of the spiritualistic contention in the things I saw in this mill in the three nights and days I spent there.”
The Morning News (Savannah, Georgia), September 3rd, 1893.