Sunday's Cemetery - Who Mourns for the Prisoners

Published in March of 1913 in the Trenton Evening Times out of Trenton, NJ

PRISON CEMETERY DISMAL PLACE WITH NONE TO MOURN FOR DEAD

     Graveyards as a rule are known to be dismal places with a sort of a spooky feeling in the atmosphere and are only frequented by relatives or friends of those interred who wish to place flowers on graves or to pray for the departed ones. The Prison graveyard, located on Cedar Lane, is the potters’ field for convicts. It is an unusually gloomy place.

     Enclosed by a high fence with a stout look to prevent curious people from entering the graveyard contains many dead convicts. Since the electric chair has been placed in the State Prison in 1907, there have been numerous graves added to this cemetery. There are several rows of markers of convicts graves in the rear of the cemetery and many have been decayed by the weather, but mound still remain.

     The graves are never touched. Unlike other cemeteries weeping relatives or friend cannot be seen standing over the graves. There are no tears or flowers for the convict dead.

     The cemetery was formerly located in the Prison yard. Just before the wall was erected around the prison, the cemetery was removed to its present location. All of the bodies interred there were reburied in the new cemetery. The majority of the bodies of convicts, who died at the prison, are claimed by relatives or friends. The officials of the prison do everything possible to locate friends or relative of the deceased prisoners.

     Among the bodies buried in the cemetery is that of Henry Jones of Mercer County, who died in 1906. It will be remembered that Jones, while serving a short term, murdered fellow prisoner and was sentenced to death. Later his sentence was commuted to life in prison. The electrocuted murders are buried in quick lime and within a few hours after interment their bodies are practically eaten away.  

Ghost Detector from Society for Physical Research

As many of you know “ghost hunters,” “spirit investigators” and “spook hunters” have been around for many years. Little did I know that there was a society out of London focused heading most of these investigations. This article was found on GenealgoyBank.com and was from the Trenton Evening Times paper out of Trenton, New Jersey and appeared in November of 1906. There are many names mentioned in this article and some might surprise you. 

“SPOOK” HUNTERS

WELL PAID WORKERS

They Verify Ghost Stories and

 Run Down Visitors from

Spiritland

Chicago, Ill. Nov. 23. –Surely one of the most unusual businesses is that of a ghost detector. There are hundreds of them scattered thoughtout the world. There are a few in Chicago and all of them, both in this country and abroad, work under the direction and for the power and glory of an association in England that is backed by some of the most conservative and best known scientists and thinkers in the United Kingdom.

A ghost detector is an investigator for the Society for Physical Research, which was founded in London in 1882. The society, which already has published twenty-on  octavo volumes of proceedings, in addition to bales and bales of records of investigations made by the ghost detectors, has had as its presidents men like the Rt. Hon. O.J. Balfour, late Prime Minister of England; Professor William James, the noted psychologist of Harvard University, and brother of the mystical Henry James; Sir William Crookes, of Crookes tube fame and Professor Henry Sidgwick, a philosopher, whose book, “The Method of Ethics,” is a standard.

Now, these men are not to be fooled by the ordinary or garden variety of ghost story. A ghost story has to be well ballasted and well buttressed to receive credence at their hands, and it is to sift the wheat from the chaff, to throw the bad ghost stories into the discard and place the real, genuine ones in the best possible light that there is in existence a class of workers whose work deals not with men of flesh and blood and has little to do with material tangible things.

LARGE SUMS EXPENDED

It is the business of these investigators to run down every case of apparition,  ghost walking, presentiment, materialization, ghost photographs, telepathy and the like that they hear of. Expenses is no object. Each investigation costs money, but influenced by a sincere desire to get to the bottom of every story of the other world and it knows that such inquiries cost money.  One of the men who has contributed liberally to the work of the society is Andrew Lang, the champion two-handed author of the world who writes as much in England as the Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady does in this country.

Every time that the officials of the Society for Physical Research hear of any extraordinary ghost story or other story that has to do with the supernatural they dispatch an investigator –a ghost detector – to the scene. It is difficult to deceive this personage. He has read about all there is to read of ghost lore. He enjoys the personal acquaintance of many persons who have seen ghosts or who have thought that they have seen them. He knows mediums, trance artists, materialists, hypnotists and other artists in spiritualism and its kindred pursuits, and what he doesn’t know about the inhabitants of the spirit would isn’t worth knowing.

He investigates. It doesn’t make any difference how long it takes him. Neither time nor money is considered when the cause of truth is at stake. He stays on the ground until he has gathered every bit of available evidence, until he has interviewed everybody who by any chance might know anything about the case.

Then he prepares a long written report full of signed statements and circumstantial detail, and this he mails back to London. It is gone over by other experts and if there is anything in it worthy of preservation in the archives of the society it is filed away along with the reports made by the hundreds of other investigators.

Bald Eagle Ghost vs Jesse Pates

I can’t help it when looking through all of the newspapers on GenealogyBank.com I find so many articles that fit into the season. This one appeared in the Trenton Evening Times out of Trenton, NJ in May of 1898. Thanks to the determination of Jesse Pates and some local hobos the mystery around the Bald Eagle ghost can be put to rest. 

A RED LIGHT GHOST

IT HAUNTED THE BEECH CREEK ROAD

FOR TEN YEARS

Cool and Nervy Trick of the Hoboes

That Was Discovered and Ended by an

Unsuperstitious Railroad Man and Three

Companions.

It is not often that a nineteenth century ghost can live for years on its reputation as did the Bald Eagle ghost of the Beech Creek railroad. Almost everybody in this section has heard of the Bald Eagle ghost. It was none of your sheeted night prowlers inhabiting a tumble down country house. The Bald Eagle ghost was an up to date spirit. It was simply a red light.

Ordinarily there is nothing extraordinary about a red light, but when the red light appears on a railroad that is different matter. Had the Bald Eagle ghost been content to exercise its functions in the fastness of the mountains, in all probability it would have continued to enjoy its incorporeal existence indefinitely. But the Bald Eagle spirit was unreasonable. It insisted on making a spectacle of itself just where it was most out of place and unwelcome.

Some years ago, old railroad men say, the Bald Eagle ghost was born. The midnight express was bowling along through a gap in the mountains when suddenly dead ahead, a red light flared out on the track. The engineer, scenting danger, reversed the engine and stopped the train, but a search failed to show why the train had been flagged. The train steamed off finally. A month or so later the express was again flagged by the light, but, as before, no cause could be assigned for the proceeding. After this the signal was seen at irregular intervals, always in the lonely gap. Trainmen at length began to entertain a superstitious fear for the red light, and in time it became generally known as “the ghost.” Old hands at the break wheel believed it to be the spirit of a track watchman who had been killed at the spot where it generally appeared.

Skeptical superintendents lay in wait for the ghost. Extra watchmen were employed to patrol the district, but to no avail. It was no fool ghost. It knew its business. However, it reckoned without Jesse Pates.

Pates had long meditated an attack on the Bald Eagle ghost, and one night after his train had been delayed an hour by the light his resolution reached the point of action. Going down to the village store, he broached his scheme to the gang.

“Any of you fellows like to go ghost huntin some night.”

Everybody looked interested, and at last one young fellow demanded:

“Well, where’s your ghost?”

“What’s the matter with the Bald Eagle ghost?” he asked. Some of the crowd shivered, but pates went on: “There’s a shining mark for a good ghost hunter. I don’t believe in this fool talk of dead watchmen comin back. That Bald Eagle ghost is a pure fake, and I’m goin after him. I need about three good men. We’ll go to the Narrows to lay for Mr. Ghost. We’d better each have a gun, too, in case of accidents. Any of you fellows go along?”

There was silence for a time, but at last three young fellows volunteered to accompany him. It was arranged to start on the following evening, and at the appointed time the ghost hunters met. At the Narrows Pates distributed his men along the accustomed scene of the ghost’s perambulations and awaited results. Crouched in a clump of bushes, he himself lay for hours undisturbed except by the sound of passing freight trains. Shortly before the time for the midnight express he heard a whispered conversation off to his left.

“Have you go the lantern, Pete?” someone asked.

“Yep,” a second voice replied, “I’ve got her lit but I’ll keep her hid till I see the headlight.”

“It’s a dead easy thing,” the first voice went on. “Blow the light out and throw it in the clump of bushes before you jump on.”

Pates saw through the whole scheme in a second. Circling around, he signaled to his companions to close in, and in a short time they had the men with the lantern surrounded.

“Throw up your hands and show your light.” The ghost hunter ordered.

In an instant out came the light and up went three pairs of hands. The hunters found themselves gaming at a trio of dirty, grinning tramps.

“So you’re the ghost that has been walking here all these years?” Pates asking in disgust.

“We never said we was no ghost,” one answered.

“Well, what in blazes have you been flaggin trains her for ten years, then?” Pates continued angrily.

“I guess, since we’re caught, we might as well give the snap away,” one of the tramps said, with a grin. “You see, we come over the hill from the Pennsy, and, not carin to walk more’n is necessary, we got on the graft of flaggin the trains and baggagin to the end of the division. It was a great snap, but we spoilt it now. Every hobo on the road knew about this easy mark. We kep’a lamp there in the bushes especial for the occasion.”

“Well, I’m jiggered.” Pates remarked, “if that ain’t the coolest piece of nerve I ever heard.  No look here. Drop that lamp and git, and if I ever hear of this here ghost walking ag’in there’ll be a hobo walkin in his future home before his time. Git and spread the news that the Bald Eagle ghost is dead. Git, I say, for we’re goin to shoot after we count 50!”

But before Pates finished the tramps had disappeared, and the Bald Eagle ghost hasn’t walked since.  

–Altoona (Pa.) Letter in New York Sun.

Bad Boy's Ghost

This is such a perfect article for so many reasons. First of course the obvious would be the Halloween season with the ghost, witches and bats coming out.  The second would be it’s so funny and typical of many kids. Finding a way to scare each other is a blast but finding a way to scare your parents that’s classic. I’m sure we have all done it or at least thought about the best way to see our mom jump and our dad run. I would have to say I never made my dad run but oh yeah I made my mom jump with the help of my brothers. I’ll save that story for later.

January 8, 1884

Trenton Evening Times from out of Trenton, New Jersey 

THE BAD BOY’S GHOST 

How He Made His Esteemed Pa Think the House Haunted.

From Peck’s Son.

“Well, you see, last night we got to talking about haunted houses, and pa said there was no such thing as a haunted house. He said whenever any unusual noise was heard in a house, instead of investigating it, people got scared and went around talking about the house being haunted, and before long everybody believed it, and everybody was nervous. Pa said that haunted houses was on a par with spiritualism, and people of sense never took any stock in either. He said if I ever heard of a haunted house to let him know, and he would go through it and investigate in in the dark. That evening my chum’s cat came over to visit our cat, and when it was time to go to bed the two cats were sleeping by the stove, and pa told me I better put the cats out doors and go to bed. So I took the cats up carefully and raised up the cover to the piano and laid the cats down in the back side of the instrument, among the strings, and petted them, and they went to sleep, and shut down the cover, and we all went to bed. Pa and ma sleep right over the parlor and I sleep at the back of the house. Along about 2 o’clock in the morning, about the time cats usually get wok up and begin to prowl around, there was a faint scratching of toe-nails on the strings, and a yowl that sounded as though it came from the sewer. It was evidently music, such as you get at boarding houses where a boarder practices on the piano for her board. I got up and went to pa’s room, and ma was sitting up in bed with her nightcap off, her hair standing right up straight, and she was trying to get pa to raise up and listen, but it wasn’t pa’s night to listen, and he put his head under the bedclothes and tried to snore. I told pa that I wasn’t afraid, but I wished he would let me sleep on the lounge in his room, and pa raised up and wanted to know what the row was and just then the cats in the piano seemed to have come together for their regular evening fight, and of all the music you over heard that beat everything. Pa listened and said it was somebody next door trying to play opera, but ma said something was in the house, and I told pa the house was haunted, and for him to get up and investigate. Pa was kind of ‘shamed to be afraid, so he got up and went out in the hall, and just then the cats go to fighting another round, and pa rushed into the bath-room and closed the door, and yelled for me to open the window and holler for the police. I got up and asked pa, through the door, if he was afraid, and he said no, he wasn’t afraid, but he thought, seeing he was in the bath-room, he would take a bath, and I told him if he was afraid I would go down and investigate, because there was no haunted house that had any terror for Hennery, and I went down and let the cats out, and they got on the back fence and had a real sociable time, and after it was all still pa came out with a towel in his hand and tried to make us believe he had taken a bath at 2 o’clock in the morning with cold water.