The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding CountryBarry, Joseph
History
The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country
Barry, Joseph
Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History; Harpers Ferry (W. Va.) -- History -- John Brown's Raid, 1859
Another strange occurrence used to be related by the late Mr. Edmond H.
Chambers, one of the oldest and most respectable citizens of the place.
Mr. Chambers was a class leader in the Methodist Episcopal church, and
Mrs. Overton, whose tragic death in the flood has been narrated, was a
member of his class. On the Sunday before the awful visitation, she
attended the class meeting and seemed to be excited to a high degree
during the exercises. Her unusual demeanor was noticed by all present,
and it could not be accounted for, as she was not generally very
demonstrative in her devotions. She went 'round among the members of the
class and shook hands with them all, bidding them farewell and saying
that, in all probability, she would never again meet them on this side
of the grave. Her words were prophetic for, sure enough, on Friday night
of the same week, she passed "the bourne from which no traveler
returns." Who can tell what message she may have received from that
mysterious world towards which we are all traveling--that her weary
pilgrimage on earth was nearing its end and that in a few days she would
rejoin the loved ones who had gone before her. It is useless for the
most practical and so called hard-headed of the world to deny that many
such presentments are felt, and that events often prove their
correctness. When people of nervous and susceptible natures take up the
belief that they are doomed to a speedy demise, it may be said with
plausibility, that their imaginations contribute to bring on some
disease to fulfill the prophecy, but when the catastrophe occurs through
accident or any means that did not or could not before affect the mental
or bodily health of the subject, we are bound to confess the probability
of some communication between the incarnate spirit and one of clearer
vision and superior knowledge. But, patience! We will know more about it
some day, perhaps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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