Old News - New Stories: Creepy Columns

I love using Newspapers for genealogical research.  Not only do you find out things about your ancestors but you also get to read the same publications that they very well might have read.

Since it's Halloween, I used Newspapers.com to search some of the newspapers from areas where my ancestors are from or would have access to those publications to see if I could find any spooky ghost stories written up in the local papers.

So, here is one of my favorite spooky columns I found searching through the papers this week:

A Real Ghost

On November 4, 1873, an article ran in the Bristol News reporting on four train engineers which had all had odd sightings by the train tracks. 

A fortnight ago Thomas Campbell, who was temporarily acting as engineer of [the] train that left Troy at forty-five minutes past four P.M., when passing Stoney lane, near the Aqueduct, saw a man standing between the tracks waving his hat and gesticulating vehemently. Campbell whistled "down breaks", and keeping his eye on the man, and being fearful of running over him, whistled again.  While the speed of the train was being slackened the man seemed to disappear from sight. Campbell and his fireman both express a willingness to swear to this statement. They affirm that the man did not walk away: he vanished into the air. After the train arrived in Scheneetady they related the circumstance to the other men employed on the train. There are several hypotheses by which this circumstance if it stood alone could be explained. But we can offer no explanation for what follows. On Monday of this week William Mower, the engineer on the train, saw on the same spot two human arms. When the train reached the place the arms disappeared. Tuesday evening the roof of the cab was struck by a stone which the engineer says would have come from only one direction - the sky. Wednesday evening John Lawrence, engineer of the gravel train, at precisely the same spot saw arms. The hands attached thereto were not clenched as before, but were open and held two balls of glowing fire. Last evening, at exactly the same time and place, Lawrence discovered the body of a man lying across the track. In vain he essayed to stop the train. His efforts were futile. The locomotive and all the cars passed over the prostrate form. As speedily as possible the train was stopped, and all proceeded to the place where the form had been seen, expecting to see a bloody and mutilated corpse. They found nothing, not even a spot of blood. Then the conclusion forced itself upon the mind of the engineer that he ran over a ghost. He is an ardent spiritualist, and he is positive in the belief that something about the occurrence was supernatural. -- Troy Times

"A Real Ghost" Bristol News (Bristol, TN), 04 Nov 1873, p. 4, col. 2; Digital image (https://www.newspapers.com/image/76176961/); Accessed 25 Oct 2017.

New Weekly Blog Posts!

While driving to work this morning listening to a new podcast, I had an thought for an interesting blog serial I could focus on.

I know I have totally not been posting like I had wanted this year.  Honestly 2016 has not been a particularly fantastic year for me, I won’t bore you with all the details but let’s say the hospital staff know me a bit too well.  So, I haven’t focused on posting or on doing ancestry research this year.

But, back to my idea!  So, this morning I was listening to a new (to me) podcast called Medieval Death Trip.  It sounds more ominous than it is.  It is a literary focused podcast examining various excerpts from medieval primary sources along with commentary.  I was listening to the prologue this morning where the author of that podcast (author, host – what is the correct term for that?) said he was inspired by the book, Wisconsin DeathTrip.  That book is a non-fiction work published in 1973 that is based on a collection of late 19^th century articles, photographs, narrations from Wisconsin – most of them kind of “news of the weird” but as a collection highlight the lives, thoughts, fears, etc. of the people living at that time.  I haven’t read this book, but I think I’m going to because that sounds fascinating.

So, after being inspired by a podcast inspired by a book, I thought of a weekly blog serial taking the ideas of using print media from the various locations and times of my ancestors to flesh out their lives. 

I LOVE looking at old newspapers!  While a great place to find a wealth of information in your genealogical research, it also is a unique glimpse into the lives of the people in that region and time.  Often our research takes us to the time before internet and computers, before Skype and email, and usually before TV or telephones or radio.  Local newspapers were the lifeblood of information.  It’s how you learned what was going on in your community, your state, your country and the world.  Not only are their articles about the main events happening, but also you find very mundane articles about who is having dinner with who. 

So, my plan is to have a weekly post called Old News - New Stories highlighting an article, excerpt, advertisement, photograph, etc. from a publication which is local to one of my ancestors during their time.  So, hopefully you will find it interesting and perhaps inspire some of your own research into the lives and times to help bring your ancestors to life (figuratively speaking).