The Devil’s Penny
Harbinger

The Harbinger collects odd, eerie, and macabre newspaper articles from the 19th, and early 20th centuries.

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20th of December, 1896Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Sentinel

GHOST OF STUMP LAKE

Wisconsin Widow’s Strange Experience With an Unearthly Thing

Deerfield, Wis., Dec. 19. – A ghost story told by Widow Olson of Stump lake is more difficult of solution than any yet published. Mrs. Olson and her 14-year-old son were living on the south shore of Stump lake, which, before the mill dam at the lower end was washed out, was about three miles long by one mile wide except at about midway from end to end where it narrowed down to a neck only about a half mile across. It was on the south side of this neck that Widow Olson lived. One day a boy came up and asked the way to a farmer living on the opposite shore of the lake. The widow directed him the way by land, but as this was about three miles, suggested that her son might take him across in his boat and save him a long walk. The stranger accepted and the two started for the landing. Young Olson took his position at the oars and invited the stranger to a seat at the stern. The strange boy took the seat as indicated but instead of facing the oarsman turned his back to him and sat motionless without uttering a word all the way across. Young Olson made some commonplace remarks but his passenger took no notice of them. His strange behavior made Olson observe him more closely and the more he looked at him the more did he appear unlike a human. His attention was first attracted by the stranger’s ears, which were abnormally large, reaching almost to the top of his head, where they came to nearly a point or sharp angle and were covered with a fine downy hair. His head was small and angular, something like that of a dog and covered with short, black curly hair that hugged the skin tightly. The hands were small, shriveled and covered with hair similar to that on his ears. Young Olson was now becoming almost frightened out of his wits at being alone in the boat with such an unearthly looking being and rowed with all his might. On arriving at the opposite landing he got out of the boat hastily to let out his uncongenial passenger. The stranger arose to leave the boat, but instead of facing about to walk out, he backed out and carefully kept his face from view. Olson, who was now thoroughly frightened, rowed back quickly and ran for the house to tell his mother of his strange passenger. As he was telling his mother, she turned around to look at her boy to see if he were joking or was in earnest. As she looked around she saw the very same lad her son had rowed across running up a little hill close to the house quick as a flash chasing her sheep ahead of him. Mother and son both made after him, but on arriving at the crest of the hill no body was to be seen while the sheep stood down the slope a little way huddled together looking frightened as if recently chased by a wolf or dog. There was nothing within eighty rods that the stranger could have hid behind. Why they did not notice his strange appearance before starting in the boat, how he got back so quickly and where he disappeared to was more than the frightened widow and son have been able to account for and they firmly believe there are still a few left of the old-time elf family.

Harbinger
Featured Story
22th of July, 1876 Scientific American Supplement

Mysterious Shower of Meat

On Friday, March 3, 1876, flakes of meat fell over an area 100 yards long and 50 yards wide near the Kentucky home of Mr. and Mrs. Allen Crouch, not far from the Olympian Springs in the southern Bath County. The sky at the time was cloudless. The flakes were from one to three or four inches square and looked like fresh beef. However, according to the opinion of "two gentlemen" who tasted it, the substance was either mutton or venison (Scientific American, 34:197, March 25, 1876).

But in July, according to a Mr. Leopold Brandeis writing in the Sanitarian, the Kentucky meat-shower was explained: the substance that fell was nothing more than Nostock, "a low form of vegetable existence" (though how this had dropped from a clear sky remained a mystery. Unfortunately (for the squeamish) this less alarming description did not prevail for long. Dr. A Mead Edwards, president of the Newark Scientific Association, called on Mr. Brandeis to see if he could obtain a specimen of the original material. Mr. Brandeis kindly gave him the whole sample, with the information that he had himself obtained it from a doctor in Brooklyn, who had in turn been given by a Professor Chandler.

Shortly after this a letter from Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton appeared in Medical Record, stating that he and Dr. J.W.S. Arnold had made a microscopic examination of material from the Kentucky meat-shower supplied to them by Professor Chandler. He added that he had identified the substance as lung tissue from a human infant or a horse ("the structure of the organ in these two cases being very similar.")

After reading this letter, Dr. Edwards called on Dr. Hamilton and was again rewarded with the sample in question, this time with the information that two samples had been sent from Kentucky to the editor of the Agriculturist, who gave them to Professor Chandler. The Professor had given one to Dr. Hamilton and one to the Brooklyn doctor who had passed it on to Mr. Brandeis.

Dr. Edwards now had possession of both samples. He confirmed Dr. Hamilton's identification and identified the sample given to Mr. Brandeis as also being lung tissue, although it was less well-preserved. Soon after, Dr. Edwards was shown a microscopic slideof a third sample of the Kentucky meat, which had been given to Professor J. Phin of the American Journal of Microscopy by a Mr. Walmsley of Philadelphia, who had in turn received it from Kentucky. This slide revealed to the observer that the material was "undoubtedly striated muscular fibre."

Subsequently Professor Phin showed Dr. Edwards a fourth specimen, this one sent to him a by a Mr. A. T. Parker of Lexington, Kentucky. This sample also proved to be muscle tissue. Still not satisfied, Dr. Edwards now wrote to Mr. Parker, who sent him three more samples, two in their natural state and one prepared for the microscope. Of these, two proved to be cartilage, and one was muscle tissue with "what appears to be dense connective tissue."

Thus, of the seven samples examined, two were of lung tissue, three were of muscular tissue, and two were of cartilage.

As a postscript to the story, Dr. Edwards relayed a theory of the event passed on to him by Mr. Parker: according to the local people of Kentucky, the meat was probably disgorged by buzzards, "who, as is their custom, seeing one of their companions disgorge himself, immediately followed suit."

As to how man buzzards would be required to cover 5000 square yards with disgorged meat, or at what height they must have been flying to be invisible, was not suggested.) (Scientifc American Supplement, 2:437, July 22, 1876)

16th of March, 1876 Warren Ledger, Pennsylvania

Shower of Flesh from a Clear Sky

On Friday a shower of meat fell near the house of Allen Crouch, who lives some two or three miles from the Olympian Springs, in the northern portion of the county, covering a strip of ground about 100 yards in length and 50 wide.

Mrs. Crouch was out in the yard at the time, engaged in making soap, when meat which looked like beef began to fall around her. The sky was perfectly clear at the time, and she said it fell like large snow flakes, the pieces as a general thing not being much larger. One piece fell near her which was three or four inches square. Mr. Harrison Gill, whose veracity is unquestionable, and from whom we obtain the above facts, hearing of the occurrence visited the locality the next day, and says he saw particles of meat sticking to the fences and scattered over the ground. The meat when it first fell appeared to be perfectly fresh.

The correspondent of the Louisville Commercial, writing from Mount Sterling, corroborates the above, and says the pieces of flesh were of various sizes and shapes, some of them being two inces square. Two gentlemen, who tasted the meat, express the opinion that it was either mutton or venison.