Evening star. [volume], October 27, 1935, Page F-2, Image 58

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
CAPITAL’S GHOSTS WALK ANEW ON HALLOWEEN EVE '
■ -- I ...■ ■HI ■■■'I ■■ IWIII I.WWW— ■■ HI.— ll.l—
City Rich in Lore of Spooks—-Houses
Built by George Washington Among the
First Reported Haunted but Number
Grew Steadily Through Early Days.
A ghost-infested house on the site of the House Office <
Building, once occupied by the Bank of Washington.
By John Clagett Proctor.
“Black spirits and white,
Red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may."
MAYBE you have read this in
Shakespeare.
It is said that Halloween
has always been the occasion
of certain popular usages in Christian
countries such as the performance of
spells by young people to discover
their future partners for life, and cer
tain fireside revelries, as cracking nuts
and ducking for apples. It is thought
to be a night when witches, devils,
and other mischief-making beings are
all abroad on their baneful midnight
errands, particularly the fairies are
said on that night to hold a grand
anniversary.
Since the beginning of things there
has been a belief in the subtle power
of mysterious spells and omens in
affairs of the heart, and we find
Othello, the Moor, winning fair Des
demcna by the aid of spells, and medi
cine and charms of all kinds were
recognized assistants in determining
who was to be the future partner in
life.
i.ne same nevus aim »uuira ui
by-gone days will make their appear
ance again on Thursday night, and do
all the diabolical things we older folk
did when we were kids and possessed
of the same devils.
Youth will have Its fling, and in
the words of a good old song:
‘‘Let us be happy while yet we may.
For time flies quickly away.”
And, while we are quoting verse,
perhaps these appropriate lines from
Whittier will be recalled by my
contemporaries in point of age:
•'Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! The
old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and
brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in
its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a
candle within!
When we laughed ’round the corn
heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin—our lan
tern the moon.
Telling tales of the fairy who trav
eled like steam.
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two
rats for her team!”
Of course the witches will walk
and cut up all sorts of didos and
pranks, and many revelers will be
disguised with hideous falsefaces re
sembling witches, wizards, hobgoblins
and what not. But, fortunately, we
have arrived at a period of civilization
when we well know just who these
witches are, and the supernatural
phase is not, to a considerable extent,
given serious consideration.
T-XOWEVER, this was not always so,
* A for when few people could read
and write it was—common to believe
in witches. Indeed, along this line,
the writer will repeat an amusing!
story he heard not long since.
It seems a certain sable son of
Southern skies, in order to prove his
disdain for the supernatural and to
prove his self-asserted bravery, agreed
10 occupy a vacant nouse on wauoween
night, said to be controlled by witches.
Toward dark he built himself a cheer
ful fire In the fireplace and propped
himself in front and dozed off into
perfect serenity. But upon awakening
on the stroke of 12, a cat appeared
in the fireplace, and as it advanced
toward him it grew as large as a
tiger, and when it reached him it sat
down on its haunches and began to
lick its paws, and turning to the now
terrified colored man, said: “There
are just two of us here,” and as the
gentleman of color was leaving the
premises with the window sash still
around Vis neck, he was heard to
say: "You sho is mistaken; there is
only one of us here!”
Shakespeare seems to have been
very fond of witches and even begins
his “Macbeth” with a scene where
three witches are stirring the hell
broth. You probably recall that the
first witch says. “When shall we three
meet again, in thunder, lightning or
In rain?”
The Bible also speaks of witches
and in the eighteenth verse of the
twenty-second chapter of Exodus you
will find this injunction. ‘Thou shall
not suffer a witch to live.”
St. Patrick, it is said, was not afraid
of witches and, indeed, offended them
and She devil alike by his uncom
promising rigor against them, so much
so that they tore off a piece of rock
as he was crossing the sea and hurled
it after him, which rock became the
Portress of Dumbarton.
FRIEND of mine from Virginia
tells me there Is a belief among
certain superstitious people in his
State that when a witch comes to
one’s house he has to go in and out
of every hole and opening before he
can remain on the inside, and that
in order to keep the witch from thus
accomplishing his purpose before day
break a sieve is placed on the Inside
of the door, over the keyhole, and
that since he cannot get In and out
of every hole in the sieve before
morning, he is defeated in his pur
pose and the occupants consequently
are safe.
But we do not have to go over into
Virginia for spooks or hobgobblins,
for we can find plenty of tradition of
ghosts right here In Washington, and
strange stories arising from the re
turn of spirits back to the earliest
days of the city. Indeed, the execu
tion and burial of James McOurk In
1802 was responsible for making the
ghosts of North Washington keep
their nightly vigil in the vicinity of
old Holmead burying ground and the
nearby ’slashes. Indeed, the stories
of the nightly walks of the spirit of
this criminal were kept alive many
years after he had been put to death
and until the graveyard was oblit
erated and a block of houses erected
on the site. Thereafter the phantom,
who killed his wife, ceased to make
further appearances.
When the writer was a youngster
and was wont to sit out on the com
mon with the boys of the neighbor
hood on warm Summer evenings and
listen to fairy stories, some one of
the older boys usually took the joy
out of life by telling a blood-curdling
ghost story, which had the effect of
sending the youngsters home out of
breath and scanning each tree box
for fear a “slap doctor” would grab
them and take them away. And when
they arrived home and went to bed
they did not forget to cover up their
heads as well as their heels, all of
which reminds me of James Whit
comb Riley’s poem, "Little Orphan
Annie.”
TJOWEVER, there was some excuse
A1 in those days for being afraid of
“gobble-uns” and slap-doctors, since
this was during the days of the grave
robber—and this Individual was by no
means an imaginary one, either, for
every now and then the press would
announce where this or that cemetery
had been entered at night and the
graves desecrated by ghouls, and nat
urally this kept the children pretty
well scared, and the older people con
siderably agitated.
Unfortunately, grave-robbing was
carried on here—and elsewhere as
well—to an appalling extent, even less
than 50 years ago. Vigo Jansen Ross,
a white man, and several colored as
sistants being the mo6t noted violators
of the law.
Occasionally others were accused of
engaging in this outrageous business,
and shortly before Christmas, 1889, a
body of a woman was taken from Con
gressional Cemetery to be used for dis
secting purposes at one of the medical
colleges. In some way or other, it
seems, after this body had been ob
tained, together with the body of a
colored woman from potter’s field, the
two lifeless forms were abandoned in
a buggy in the vicinity of the jail, the
THOSE WERE THE HAPPY DAYS! “Halloween Memories’* —By Dick Mansfield
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Beau Hickman, celebrat*
ed bummer, whose spirit
returned to its old haunts.
—
robbers, bo doubt, being frightened
away.
Later, the bodies were taken to the
morgue and the white woman Identi
fied by a man as being his deceased
wife. The people of Washington were
naturally horrified, and a demand
made for the capture and punishment
of the perpetrators of the outrage.
According to The 8tar of December
24, 1889:
“The trustees of Congressional
Cemetery have offered a liberal reward
for the apprehension of the person
or persons who desecrated the grave
of Mrs. Thomas B. Cheek last Friday
night. Although Mr. Cheek swore
out a warrant against Dr. Arthur C.
Adams, it is evident that that phy
sician took no part in robbing the
grave. The warrant was sworn out,
it is said, in order that there might be
! a legal investigation that would lead
to the detection of the grave robbers.
Dr. Adams denies that he is or was
the owner of the buggy in which the
two dead bodies were found, and men
tions the name of Dr. W. W. Beall as
its owner.
“Dr. Adams states that he was at
the medical college Friday night at
the time the body was stolen and is
corroborated by the following paper:
“ 'VV/TE, THE undersigned, most posl
’’ tively assert that Dr. A. C.
Adams was at the National Medical
College on the night of December 20,
1889, between the hours of 8 and 12
p.m., and that we were in his pres
ence, and know that he could not
have had anything whatever to do
with the outrageous proceedings
charged against him in connection
At top: The Van Ness mansion on the present site of
the Pan-American Building, the first house in America to
have hot and cold running water in every room. It was be
lieved to be haunted. Just above: The Judge Holt house
on Capitol Hill, said to have harbored ghosts.
with the Congressional Cemetery
transaction. i
•• ‘CHARLES ST. V. ZIMMERMAN.
"‘8. L. JOHNSON,
'“J. C. PARSONS.
“ HENRY LIDDELL,
" ‘J. N. OLIVER, JR.,
‘“G. BURTON'HEINECKE,
•“DANIEL CONNER.
•“Washington, D. C., December 25,
1889.’
‘‘Daniel Conner, whose signature Is
attached to the paper, is the janitor,
and the other signers are students.”
The writer interviewed one of these
students recently—who is now a well
known physician, and although he
could not shed any further light on
the incident other than reported by
The Star at the time, yet he vividly
recalled the occasion.
Beall, according to the newspaper,
before practicing medicine, kept a
barber shop in East Washington,
where he also extracted teeth. He
later received a diploma to practice
medicine. Fortunately for us mor
tals, It Is not quite so easy now to
secure permlslon to practice medicine
as formerly.
Beall, in due time, appeared In
Police Court, where Judge Miller held
him on 81,000 bail.
Washington has had its full share '
of so-called haunted houses, and even
the buildings erected by the first Presi
dent on North Capitol street between
Constitution avenue and C streets,
where he expected to make his Winter
residence, were said to be Infested
with spirits. They were not com
pleted at the time of Gen. Washing
ton's death, and in later years became
boarding houses. Admiral Wilkes
once made his home here, and in one
of the buildings the novelist, Mrs.
Southworth, was bom.
JUST what occurred to cause these
buildings to be called haunted, the
writer cannot say, unless it was be
cause probably they had been vacant
for a considerable time during their
existence, and empty property is
usually looked upon as queer by
many persons. About 40 years ago,
when the buildings were known as
the Hillman House, a noted murder
occurred there, but this was long after
it was regarded as haunted.
In this same vicinity was once the
Old Brick Capitol, at First and A
streets northeast, where was con
fined Belle Boyd, famous Confederate
spy, and where Capt. Wire, well known
as hating been in charge of Anderson
Mrs. Surratt, whose spirit
might have troubled Judge
Holt, who convicted her.
vllle Prison, was hanged in the rear
yard. The Supreme Court now oc
cupies the block in which the build
ing stood until a few years ago.
Other soldiers beside Capt. Wire were
executed in the yard of the Old Capitol
Prison by which name it became
known during the Civil War. Of
course, with all the noted prisoners
of State who were confined there and
the executions which took place on
the premises, the structure Just had
to be frequented by nocturnal spirits
who amused themselves by running
up and down the stairs, rattling the
door knobs and by doing other strange
things attributable only to restless,
evil spirits.
On the New Jersey avenue side of
the House Office Building, where many
prominent people lived from time to
time, nearly all the houses were sus
pected of being inhabited by the
spirits of departed residents, and
strange tales are even told today of
the peculiar antics of the Invisible
beings.
inis was particularly true ui urc
Thomas Law house, where this gentle
man moved in 1800 with his wile,
the granddaughter of Martha Wash
ington. It stood near the northeast
corner of New Jersey avenue and C
street and was sold by Law in 1818
to Dr. Frederick May and became the
property of Judge Advocate Holt in
1857. It was Judge Holt who in
sisted upon a death sentence for Mrs.
Surratt and was largely to blame for
the execution. Remorse, we are told,
caused him to return occasionally to
this earth after he had been trans
ported to realms elsewhere. Other
houses on New Jersey avenue to the
south of the Holt house are declared
to have been visited by supernatural
beings.
TJOWEVER, when ground was
n broken in 1871 for a building to
house the Coast and Geodetic Survey,
an old abandoned sewer was dis
covered. It led down to the river and
was swarming with rats of unusual
sire, and, no doubt, this had much
to do with the noises the people of
Law-Holt Home “Spirits," Famed in
Their Time, Finally Traced to Rats in
Sewer—“Drummer Boy," Rock Creek's
• • # ^
Coach and Horses in Capital's Eerie Past.
The old Snow Building, which once stood at Sixth street
and Pennsylvania avenue, where, some say, the ghost of
Beau Hickman perambulated after his death.
the neighborhood attributed to ghosts.
Just when this sewer was built along
this avenue no one seemed to know,
but Its discovery and filling in had
the effect also of doing away with
the bad spirits that at times annoyed
the guests of the old Varnum Hotel,
from which, when It was known as
Conrad and McMunns, Thomas Jef
ferson went to be sworn In as Presi
dent in March, 1801.
Another house where Thomas Law
resided, at Sixth and N streets south
west. was years ago given a bad
name by people who believed In com
muning with spirits. After being va
cated by Mr. Law it was occupied by
Richard Bland Lee, uncle of Gen.
Robert E. Lee, and later by E. O.
Wheeler. According to an old ac
count In The Star, a German musician
once tried to lay the ghost with piano
music all night, but signally failed
and left ingloriously. But since this
building was close to the river, rats,
no doubt, were also to blame for
any strange sounds that might have
been heard hereabout. At any rate,
wnen tne writer vuuteu ™ uuuk
years ago, the occupants seemed to be
happy and contented.
A famous old house said to have
been haunted once stood on the
n-rthweet corner of Pennsylvania ave
nut and Sixth street. As early as 1835
It gained considerable notice when
what Is historically known as the
Snow riot occurred there. The ground
floor of the original building on this
corner was first occupied by William
Duane, printer and publisher, the
upper floors being used for many years
as a gambling establishment where the
celebrated character, Beau Hickman,
practically made his headquarters.
Later a restaurant and eating house
was conducted here by William Wal
ker, William P. Benter, P. M. Dubant
and others. In 1893 It was removed
in order to make way for a building
for the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.
rTHE Snow riot, which occurred Just
a century ago, was brought on
when the - word was passed around
that the proprietor, Beverly Snow,
had made improper remarks about
some white women. Sj^jw was a mu
latto, so we are told by Miss Josephine
Seaton, and was "at the very head
of the respectable colored population.”
Until this time he was popular and
was*held In high repute by every one,
and we are further told: "All the
gentlemen of the city protected Snow
as far as they could, not believing
him guilty, and even had such been
the case they were the friends of only
law and order.”
It Is said that order was restored
by the crowd becoming fatigued in
following the many rumors as to the
whereabouts of Snow, and this, to
gether with a heavy rainstorm, had a
cooling effect, while Snow made his
escape.
Col. Beau Hick, as he was called,
and who made this corner his rendez- ,
vous, and whose ghost is said to have
frequented the place after his death,
was born in Virginia in 1813 of re*
putedly respectable parentage. He
was a gentleman roafer who was never
known to work, but who lived by his
wits. He first sane to Washington
about 1833, when nearly 30 years of
age. He had some money when he
arrived, but he spent it all within two
years. This he had little trouble in
doing, since he loved to follow the
races, where he could always be seen
dressed in the most approved style,,
sporting a diamond pin, a gold watch
and massive fob, a cane and a beaver,
which afterward became so character*
istlc of the individual.
“As a gentleman of elegant leisure
and fashion,” it is said “his tout en
semble was proverbial for neatness,”
elegance and simplicity.
tjeau'S end came at Providence
Hospital on September 1, 1873.
Pint, his body was interred in potter's
field. On the day following his burial
in a pauper’s grave several of his
admirers and friends, who had just *
learned of his death, contributed a
sum sufficient to give his remains
a respectable burial place. The re
moval of his body to Congressional
Cemetery must have been an interest
ing event.
The grave had evidently been robbed
by some “body-snatchers” and, being
frightened from their Inhuman pur
pose, fled and abandoned the re
mains. The last rites were hastily
performed and the new grave closed *
forever over the mortal remains of
a most remarkable man. possessed In
life of a character strangely com
, pounded of all the contretemps of
an erratic genius.
The old bridge erected over Rock
Creek at M street in 1788 had its
ghostly tradition, too, according to
Hugh T. Taggart, who says: • • •
“it gave way one stormy night and
precipitated into the creek—then a
considerable body of water, as w«
have seen—a stage coach, which was
crossing it, and the driver and horses
were drowned. After this occurrence
and the repair of the bridge a lively
fancy, aided by a little superstition
on the part of the denizens of the
vicinity, had no difficulty in outlining
on stormy nights the ghostly figure
of the driver, with his coach and
horses, crossing it as he had been
wont to do in the days of his mor
tality. The traditions of the town
are particularly rich in stories of
ghosts and hobgoblins. Among them
may be mentioned the ‘Drummer -*
Boy of the Little Palls’ and the ‘Head
less Man of K Street Bridge.'
Although the former has never been
actually seen since his death, it may
be asserted upon the authority of
several more or less veracious persons
that the roll of his drum can be dis
tinctly heard at the gruesome hour
'when night and morning meet,' when
churchyards are supposed to yawn
and graves give up their dead.
“’T'HE tradition in regard to the
drummer is that during the early
part of the Revolutionary War he was
drowned in crossing the river while
proceeding to a muster on the Vir
ginia side. What caused the appear
ance of the headless man of K Street
Bridge I have not heard, and whether
his forbearance has been due to a
moral perception of the impropriety
of taking what did not belong to him,
or of the inutility to a spook of such
an appendage as the head, it seems
that he has never made an effort to
supply himself with that article at
the expense of any of those who
have had occasion to pass that lo
cality. The only losses of heads which
he has been known to have caused
have been of a purely figurative char
acter.” i
But, ghosts or no ghosts. Hallowe'en
has for many years given the people
of Washington—especially the younger
ones—a great amount of pleasure in
attending masquerade dances and
parties. Old-timers will never forget
when Louis Bartels, L. Moxley and
the De Neales, out on Georgia ave
nue, were the costumers who fur
nished the funny faces and ridiculous
costumes and the gay and attractive
ones, too, which many of us wore to
the Halloween night dances given by
Louis O. Marini, Flora C. Dennison,
later Flora C. Dyer; James G. Gill,
Pistorio E. Proctor and Qeorge T.
Sheldon. Indeed, we were not much
bothered about ghosts in those days!
Duck Hunting Curbed.
HP HE duck-hunting season has opened
1 and with Its opening hunters
find themselves set about with regu
lations stricter than usual and cer
tainly more energetically enforced.
The heavy slaughter of birds, together
with the loss of breeding grounds, due
J to drought, has so seriously cut Into
the migratory bird population that It
has been necessary to limit hunting
until the trend starts the other way.
The season this year will last 30
days, with hunting permitted only
from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The dally bag limit Is 10 ducks of
all or any kind and the weapons to +
be used are limited to shotguns which ■*■
contain not more than three shells.
I