An Early American Ghost Story
Contributed by Ikeda, Jeremy
In the early days of America, there was a wealthy, predominant man who owned several plantations. In this period of American history, the plantations were farmed by slaves. The plantation owner was a very cruel and abusive man toward his helpless slaves. He beat them like dogs and treated them like sub humans.
At one point he noticed that one of his slaves was a skilled woodsmith. He would make things that were charming and skillfully crafted. The Master ordered his slave to build him a chest of drawers that would be used for his newly born daughter. The slave of course had no choice but to do as he was ordered. So he created the chest.
It was very beautiful when it was created. It was hand carved with intricate details. It had obviously been painstakingly carved and stained in a rich mahogany brown. But for some reason the Master did not like the finished product. It angered him and he beat the young man to death with an axe handle.
The other slaves there at the time were shocked and terrified. Being mostly from what is now Haiti, they were also very much influenced by voodoo. They called upon a Shaman that was amongst them and begged him to place a curse on the chest of drawers. He did. He used the blood of an Owl and some other magic herbs to call the froces of evil to live in the chest and curse the owner of the chest to damnation and sorrow.
The Master eventually took the chest into the house and used it as it had been planned. His wife placed their new daughter's clothes into the chest. Within one year the baby died. The Master was stricken with grief over the death of such a young child. He took his own life by hanging in the same year.
The wife of the master was left to raise their 5 children by herself. She took the chest and placed it in the attic. It stayed there for about 20 years. It didn't move until her oldest son decided to get married. That was when she gave the chest to him.
His wedding day came and went with out indident. Later when his wife was doing some cleaning she put her old wedding dress in the chest. She was later found dead upon her husband's return. The husband was very upset about this death and shipped all of his wife's belongings, incluidng the chest to her sister.
The sister was married to an Irishman. He was a kind man and a hard worker. He worked in the shipyards. Everything went fine for a while. But all of a sudden his attitude changed. He longed for city life and grew tired of life with a wife and family. One day he ran away. His wife did not have news of him until she was called to identify a body. It was him. He had been killed when a gang plank had pinned his head to the ground. Another victim of the chest
The chest disappeared from history until 1987. At that time it was given to a lady who was a descendant of the plantation master. She had heard about the curse and thought it to be only folishness, but to be safe she contacted a local woman who was a voodoo high priestess.
The Priestess said the only way to break the spell was to receive a dead owl without asking for one, then to boil some magic herbs in a pot all day with the owl in sight, then bury the two things together in the east while the sun set.
Fortunate for her that same year a friend of the chests new owner gave her son a stuffed owl for a birthday present. So the owner used this and the magic herbs to complete the removal of the curse. The two ladies finally buried the objects in the east while the sun set.
The Priestess told the lady that if she had lifted the curse successfully that the Priestess would be dead before sunrise. As sure as clock work the chest claimed it's last victim that night.
The chest is now in a NY Museaum in a vault (The book says which museum, but I cant' remember. It is waiting there until it can be used in a display. But to be safe the Museum has placed an envelope in the chest containing Owl feathers.
House That is Haunted Story
by Brian Anderson
My name is Brian Anderson and I am Doc's working partner. I've decided to send this story because it goes with the graveyard pictures as well.
This story took place in Wilno Ontario, 1993. Doc and I had gone up with a friend, Mike, who had a local talk show. The purpose of our trip was that an article had been writen about this old Polish settlement and their beliefs in Vampires. Mike's purpose was to find more information on this, while ours was to inverstigate
We arrived at the location and found what had to be one of the oldest cemeraties I have ever seen. We got out and walked through it having to be very careful not to disturb the graves as they were only a few feet below ground. Some had been broken and the casket which seemed to all wooden boxes were dimolished. We spent the day going from one grave to the other.
It was getting late and we had decided to set up camp. We had a four man tent and some camping equipment and had permission to set up on the premises for the night. Once all set up we lit a camp fire and just and chatted. An hour later we all retired for the night.
About one hour after we had all gone in, I couldn't fall asleep. It was very warm and decided to go back out for some air. As I was walking around the tent I noticed an old brick house opposite us in the cemetary lot. I noticed that there were lights on so I assumed someone was living there. I heard a noise behind me and saw Doc standing there saying the same...that it was too warm and she couldn't sleep. I pointed out the house to her. She was somewhat surprised because she said she was sure that earlier when she had seen the house it was vacant. Anyway we decided to wait till morning and go see if someone was living there or not.
Right after breakfast we all left for the house. A surprise was awaiting us there, something we had not anticipated. Once there the place was no doubt abandoned and it was clearly evident that no-one lived there. Yet the previous night it was plain to see that someone was there. It was decided to take a look inside. Nothing but old broken down furniture and spider webs. Doc suggested that maybe someone needing a place to stay had spent the night there. I agree that it was a possibility, but there was nothing showing that someone had been there in a very long time. Agreeing that we would spend another night here, we would come back when the lights were back on.
Again we waited and sure enough the house again showed lights. We approached the house slowly and quietly, not to be heard, so that whomever was there would not run. As we got closer we noticed that there was a curtain in the kitchen window and we could see a figure of a man sitting at what I assumed would have been a table. Doc took the back door and I took the front door. At the count of three we both opened the doors and just about died. The house was empty. The same as it had been during the day, except for the lights. Doc ran into the kitchen but there was no table and no-one was there. As we met in the hallway where the sairs were, we heard someone walking with a cane upstairs . We slowly started up the stairs and at that point we both froze. From the top of the stairs the walking came down step by step passing us till it got to the bottom. As it went past us we could feel a cold air, but nothing else. Once it reached the bottom it walked into the kitchen. We followed and saw just a shadow of what looked like an old gentleman and then he was gone and so were the lights. We found our flashlights and the old house looked as empty as it had in the daytime. A little scared, we left.
The next morning at one of the restaurants we asked the owner if he knew anything about the old house. He looked at us odd and said "Why?" We explained what had happened and he told us the following story. It appears that this old farm house was owned by someone called Lancaster. He had been in a car accident and had lost his wife and three kids. Being the only survivor, he became somewhat of a recluse. He had a limp and walked with a cane, having been disfigured from the crash. No one had heard from him for quite a while and a few folks from town decided to go check on old Joe. When they got there they found him dead and the whole place torn apart. It was marked as a suicide, but accoding to the restaurant owner no-one ever really knew. He said many people had seen the lights in the house at night and because of that they were never able to sell it. A strange thing is that he and his family were buried in this cemetary and when we found the graves they are all facing the house.
We never found any vampires, but we did experience something we shall not forget for a long time.
