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Welcome

Welcome to Relic on the Lethe. This blog is my little foray into primary sources to find forgotten tidbits of history. While I cannot guarantee what we will find and what the format will be, you're almost certain never to have heard these tales before. 📖

I am currently aiming to create a post every two weeks, but that's not a hard and fast schedule. I sometime drop hints about my next blog on my Ko-fi page. 

A large part of the work of this blog actually focus on the back-end part of making scanned newspapers accessible and easily searched/read by correcting the OCR errors. While this is my hobby, it's still hard work that's pretty much unappreciated. A couple bucks here and there for my coffee habit helps keep up the motivation!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

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Lord Londonderry and the Radiant Boy

The Alexandria Herald of January 29, 1823 , reprints a ghostly encounter in England between Lord Londonderry and a boy over twenty years earlier. The unnamed mansion of this event is located in the north of Ireland, and the writer claimed everything from the setting to the architecture and furnishings would predispose anyone to start seeing ghosts and other wild apparitions. Here is a condensed version of the story with select quotes from the original article: After acquainting himself with the room he had been assigned, settling into bed, and turning out the lights, Lord Londonderry perceived a light gleaming on the draperies of the lofty canopy over his head. Conscious that there was no fire in the grate—that the curtains were closed—that the chamber had been in perfect darkness but a few moments before, he supposed that some intruder must have accidentally entered his apartment; and, turning hastily round to the side from which the light proceeded— saw—to his infinite astonishment—n...
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The Dog-Eating Monsters from the Great Dismal Swamp

In the early 1900s, reports of animals - primarily dogs - being killed by an unknown creature around Suffolk and Norfolk were attributed to a nebulous Great Dismal Swamp Monster. The first wave took place in 1902, with stories originating in Suffolk. The Times printed a story that ran one day earlier in the local paper of a strange creature that has been attacking people and dogs around Nansemond in February of 1902: The Strange Monster That Eats Dogs in Nansemond. (Special Dispatch to The Times.) The strange Dismal Swamp monster, which one day this week killed seven of Ed. Smith's dogs, ate two of them, and later attacked Mr. Smith, himself, has been seen again. Mr. Smith lives about twelve miles from Suffolk. Last night L. Frank Ames, a merchant, who lives near Bennett's Creek, saw the same thing and suffered from its ravages. Hearing a strange noise, Mr. Ames went out with a pistol. He thought at first it was a strange dog. When he learned it was the much-sought monster Mr....
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The Cloaked Creature of Mexico, Missouri

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 ...
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