The Strange Story of Harper's Ferry, with Legends of the Surrounding Country — John Shaqi
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
In some time after the trial a man named Jenkins moved into the
neighborhood of Kabletown and took up his residence in the house
formerly occupied by McFillan and in which he had died. Jenkins was a
bachelor and he lived without any company, except that of some slaves
whom he had brought with him. Feeling lonely, he extended an invitation
to the young men of the vicinity to visit him and assist him to pass
away the long winter evenings in a social game of "old sledge" or
"three-trick loo." One night Chamberlain visited him and engaged at a
game. Their conversation was cheerful and not, at all, calculated to
excite their imaginations disagreeably. While they were playing, a
shuffling of feet was heard in the hall and, presently, a knock was
given at the room door. Jenkins said, "walk in," when the door was
opened and in came two men who were strangers to the proprietor.
Chamberlain instantly fell to the floor in a swoon and Jenkins jumped up
to assist him. While stooping to help his friend, the host, of course,
took his eyes from the strangers and when he had succeeded in lifting
Chamberlain to a seat, they had vanished unseen and unheard by any other
person about the house. The negroes, on being questioned, denied
positively their having heard or seen them arrive or depart, and it was
impossible that any one in the flesh could enter the house and proceed
to the room occupied by Jenkins and Chamberlain, without being
discovered by the servants. Chamberlain exhibited signs of the most
abject terror and his host was obliged to send some five or six of his
slaves to accompany him to his home. Of course, the matter got noised
abroad and the neighbors eagerly questioned Jenkins about it, but he
could give no explanation of it, beyond describing the appearance of the
strangers. The description of one of them answered exactly to that of
McFillan. The height, make, complexion and dress of the supposed spectre
corresponded closely with those of the deceased overseer and the other
equally resembled Chamberlain's father who had been dead some years. The
latter apparition wore the peculiar dress of the Society of Friends of
which the old gentleman had been a member and, in other respects, its
description coincided exactly with that of the deceased Quaker. Of
course, no one ventured to question Chamberlain on the subject, but it
is religiously believed in the neighborhood that the apparitions were
the ghosts of the men whom they so much resembled, but why they should
travel in company or what the object of their visit was is as much of a
mystery as the dream which suggested this episode. Jenkins had never
before seen either of them, being as before noted, a stranger in the
neighborhood and, certainly there was no reason why =his= imagination
should conjure up those apparitions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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