The Wheeling Register seems to be an unending font of strange tales suitable for Halloween. In the December 14, 1883 edition was a reprint of a story that ran one day earlier in Mexico, Mo., about a strange creature roaming the area around Hopewell Church. Exactly what the creature was seemed to be up for debate. At least some people thought it was a ghost, but most of the reports call it a "lean monster man, between eight and ten feet in height, wearing a long cloak, and going about with his head bowed in an abstracted way, but occasionally glaring at those it meets with small, glittering eyes said to resemble those of a cat or some wild beast." A number of sightings happened in the fall of 1883, to the point that farmers were going armed and the school was nearly abandoned in fear. Two separate accounts of seeing the creature were related in the paper, which we will reprint here: John Creary, a well-known old resident, declares that yesterday afternoon [Dec. 12] as he was
Our next ghostly tale is recounted in Cooper's Clarksburg Register on November 30, 1853 . This is a second or third-hand account by this point of an event that happened in Wetzel County, West Virginia, though the newspaper editor claims it was presented as-is to make it as factual as possible. Like the Radiant Boy tale, it's on the lengthier side, so certain areas will be paraphrased (but the full tale is linked above). The original tale seems to have been printed as a letter to the editor in the Wheeling Argus, Nov. 4, 1853. The week before, there had been something of an uproar about the arrest of a man on charges of murder, based "upon a revelation from the other world." The rumor mill had begun to circulate this man was detained only on the testimony of a ghost. The letter writer wanted to set the matter straight that it was not just this ghost's word against a living man. To present the full facts, they started at the beginning of the case: Three years ago th