Notebook of Ghosts

A ghost terrified a family near Leroy, Indiana in 1908 as reported by several Indiana newspapers. The Times of Hammond, Indiana opened their article by setting a spooky scene:

To have a pair of cold, clammy hands pass to and fro over your face, while you are asleep in the small hours of the night, to wake up and see a ghostly specter on your bed, to speak to it, and have whatever it may be, come close to your face and hiss like a snake, isn’t a very pleasant sensation to awaken to, but such are the conditions that are reported to confront the residents of a farm house near Leroy.

Such paranormal activity occurred at the home of Elmer Blocker, a young farmer renting the property from Parley Banks. Banks obtained the farm after its previous owner, William McGinnis passed away. The theory was that McGinnis was the ghost bothering Blocker, his family, and employees.

This haunting was not surprising as it was prophesized by a local fortune teller. According to the clairvoyant, the home of Blocker was “inhabited by a spirit […] who could find no rest.” Thinking nothing at the time, Blocker was eventually introduced to the hissing ghost.

The ghost could be heard running up and down the stairs at night, “laughing demonically” (“Clammy Ghost”). The children also claim the ghost confronted them in the daytime, as well. The creepiest incidents happened to a farmhand.

“The ‘ghost,” he said, had a cloud-like appearance and the shape of a miniature human form. It sat on the foot of the bed, and with the least movement changed its form to a shapeless mass, and then reappeared again in human form. The man, he says, addressed it, and it came close to his face. He struck at it, but it came still closer. He struck at it again, and then it disappeared, making a hissing sound as it did so” (“Sees ‘Ghost’”).

The farmhand quit.

Sources

“Clammy Ghost,” Anderson Herald (Anderson, IN), Sept. 12, 1908.

“Home is Haunted by ‘Spook’,” The Times (Hammond, IN), Sept. 10, 1908.

“Sees ‘Ghost’: Quits Job,” The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, IN), Sept. 11, 1908.