I was sound asleep. I didn’t hear any noise at all, but, before God, when I woke up quick, I felt something. I tried not to do it, but I couldn’t help pulling the sheet back and peeking out. There was nothing I could see, because the candles had been blown out, and there wasn’t a bit of light. But I knew there was danger.
Suddenly, I heard a steady thump, thump, thump on the stairs, as if someone was striking with a light hammer, and my eyes were riveted in that direction. It was the pitch black of night, but just as plain as if he had been made of moonlight, I saw a man slowly coming up the stairs. First appeared his head, then his body, and finally his whole figure. He held the end of a heavy rope in his two hands. At each step, he hit the step ahead of him with the rope. Although he wore heavy boots, there was never a sound from them, only the thump, thump, thump of the rope end and a bubbling sound in his throat, as if he were trying to say something and couldn’t.
After reaching the top of the stairs, he advanced straight toward the window by my bed. I thought that if I kept still and he didn’t see me, he’d go on past me and out the window, as he had done on the previous night. Then I’d be well shut of him. But just before he got to my bed, he commenced a violent grabbing and tugging at his throat with his two hands. All the time he was making the most horrible choking noises and twisting his body and striking out with his boots in a way that I thought would be the end of me.
Then, all of a sudden, he quieted. He threw out his arms and raised his head as if praying, all the while moving toward the window. I had sense enough to know that he would soon be gone, and I felt easier. But when he was right opposite me, I could see that there was a rope tied tight around his neck and hanging down behind. God, how I remember the sound of that trailing rope, for I had heard it before, not knowing what it was.
My trouble had only begun, for instead of going on past me, as I had prayed he would, he suddenly halted, dropped his arms, and stood looking down at me. I tried to call the boys but was too terrified to make a sound.
Kneeling down, the ghost threw back his head and thrust his neck, with the rope around it, close before my face. I couldn’t stir. He pointed to his throat, out of which were coming those ghastly gurgling noises, and he repeated those violent motions I had seen before. Now I saw that they were efforts to untie the rope. His face and neck were blue and swollen, and a bloody froth oozed from his lips.
He reached out and took my hands in his, raising them to his throat. I somehow found the strength to pull them back. He gently took them again, and something made me understand that he wanted me to loosen the knot. Somehow, I did it. I don’t know how. He leaped up, uttering the most devilish “Ha! Ha! Ha!” and disappeared through the window. And that is the last I remember until daybreak.
Simon, Jim, and Sam left the tavern the next day. John Klein worked a day or two longer, then he, too, left. Not that he was afraid of ghosts, he said, but because he couldn’t get Simon’s screams out of his ears. As he finished telling this story to his son, Klein shook his head and said, “What’s the use of working all day at a place where you can’t get any sleep at night?”
The Tory spy was never again seen at Seven Stars, and Klein swore that Simon’s cries had scared him off, but others believe that Simon laid the ghost to rest when he was brave enough to untie the knot and free him.
Said to be the best-preserved colonial tavern in the East, Seven Stars was built in 1762 by Peter and Elizabeth Lauterbach (later Louderback), whose descendants own the Louderback North American Van Lines. For more than a decade, the tavern was the home of Roy Plunkett, the inventor of Teflon. Though it is not open to the public, passersby may view it from the road at the intersection of Kings Highway and Woodstown–Auburn Road.
THE THING IN THE WELL
OLD FORT NIAGARA, YOUNGSTOWN, NEW YORK
One of the many legends that surround Old Fort Niagara is an old and grisly story about this building, the French Castle.
When the moon is full above the Castle on a summer night—that is when they say it happens. And for all we know, it may be happening tonight. Pray it won’t. Or pray, at least, that neither you nor I will be there to see it if it should.
But wait—in my horror, I am getting ahead of myself.
Old Fort Niagara at Youngstown, New York, is one of the northernmost historic sites in the United States. The impressive French Castle, as it is called, was erected in 1726. These fortifications, which guarded the vital water route to the West and were occupied at various times by French voyageurs, British grenadiers, and American soldiers, have been well preserved. Today the Castle is just as it stood before the Revolution, with its massive stone walls and bastions, blockhouses and stockade, moat and drawbridge. In the summer months the roar of muskets and roll of drums reverberate beside Lake Ontario as colorful pageantry celebrates the history of the old fortifications.
Most military forts have seen both good and evil days. Just as the body of a murdered man sometimes rises to the surface of the water to expose his murderer, dark deeds that once took place here persist among the legends
