Notebook of Ghosts

Poison Pen Letter — (noun) a letter in which very unkind or unpleasant things are written about the person it is sent to, in order to offend or upset them (Cambridge Dictionary)

Mrs. Hugh McCord of Petersburg reported in 1936 that someone was sending anonymous letters to her and her tenants for four years. The letters warned of a ghost that haunted the house and yard. My continued research to recover the “who” in the newspaper archives has proved fruitless. The search continues!

OCR: Seek “Poison Pen’ Writer At Petersburg. PETERSBURG, Sept. 15.-Mrs. Hugh McCord of this city, has asked postal authorities to assist her in locating the writer of “poison pen” letters. She has been receiving anonymous letters through the mails, and also having them placed in a mail box in front of her home for the past four years. Her home is at the rear of a house she rents and the unknown writer, not content with writing to her, writes letters to her tenants, telling them that the ghost of her mother-in-law haunts the house and yard, and in this way tries to scare renters from living in the house.

Source: Princeton Daily Clarion (Princeton, IN), Sep. 15, 1936.