Nashville, 1872: the house near the fair ground that twelve young men fled in daylight.

What the paper reported

One Sunday afternoon a party of young men walked into a house near the fair ground that had been called haunted for years. The door they had shut flew open and wouldn’t close, a window sash flew up, the floor rocked, and groans and shrieks came from every direction. They fled, and the paper asked someone to investigate.

Exhibit A · Transcription

A Haunted House.

Strange But True Story.

On Sunday afternoon, a party of young gentlemen visited a house in the vicinity of the fair ground, that has for some years past had the reputation of being haunted.

After the party arrived in front of the building they debated the propriety of entering as they felt well assured that there was nothing to be seen or heard; in a few moments, however, one of the party gained an entrance, by the front door; the whole party then entered, pausing to give the shadowy occupants an opportunity of commiting some overt act. They had not long to wait. The door by which they entered, and had closed behind them, flew open with a bang that well nigh lifted them out of their boots. The entire party then seized it and tried to close it, but found to their astonishment it would not budge. Just then a window sash flew up, the floor began to rock and tremble as if seized with a tremendous “fit of ague.” At this the party looked at each other in blank astonishment; a kind of weakish feeling seized them, causing them to wish themselves well out of the “scrape,” yet out of pure brvado they stood their ground. Not long, however, for in a few moments groans and shrieks issued from every direction, as if the building was literally packed with unearthly beings. That was more than any one of the party could stand, so they turned and fled in wild dismay, regardless of shame, prefering the jeers of men rather than the company of spooks.

This is not the first party that has fled from that building, and the strangest part of it all is that each time it has been in broad daylight. The above is vouched for by twelve reliable young men. We were not of the party, and tell it as ’twas told to us. Will not some one investigate this mystery?

Transcribed from the page image, spelling as printed (“commiting,” “brvado,” “prefering”); line-end hyphens joined, and two printing gaps (“’tw as,” “thismystery”) joined as “’twas” and “this mystery.” The whole item is in the image. Checked word by word against the Library of Congress’s OCR text.

Newspaper

Nashville Union and American

Published in

Nashville, Tennessee

Headline

A Haunted House.

Date

March 27, 1872

Page

4

Permalink

www.loc.gov/resource/sn85033699/1872-03-27/ed-1/?sp=4

Source

Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain (published 1872).