Savannah, 1884: the haunted house on Jefferson Street.

What the paper reported

Strange figures and shadows were flickering across the front and windows of a Savannah house, and the evening paper called it haunted. A neighbor wrote in with the “true explanation”: the same kind of phantom shapes once seen on Trinity Church, thrown by an electric light through swaying trees on Jefferson Street.

Exhibit A · Transcription

That Haunted House.

Full Account of the Ghost.

Savannah, May 6.—Editor Morning News: An article appeared in the evening paper headed “That Haunted House.” I write you this to request that you correct the statements therein made. This is the true explanation:

You may recollect the figures or shadows seen some time ago on the front of Trinity Church. Well, this sensation has been caused by about the same thing. There is an electric light on Jefferson street, and intervening there are several trees. As the branches of these trees are parted and swayed about by the wind the electric light passes through the openings of the leaves and branches and throws grotesque shadows and lights upon the front of the house and in the windows. This is the true history of the would-be mystery.

Transcribed from the page image, spelling and punctuation as printed; line-end hyphens joined. Checked word by word against the Library of Congress’s OCR text (see the verification record).

Newspaper

Savannah Morning News

Published in

Savannah, Georgia

Headline

That Haunted House. Full Account of the Ghost.

Date

May 7, 1884

Page

4

Permalink

www.loc.gov/resource/sn82015137/1884-05-07/ed-1/?sp=4

Source

Library of Congress, Chronicling America. Public domain (published 1884).