Girl Involved in Antigonish “Haunting” Committed to Insane Asylum (1922)

Added By: R. Brock On: April 8, 2010

Syracuse Herald, Syracuse, New York23 October 1922

GIRL WHO ROUSED WORLD BY GHOST HOAX IN ASYLUM

Mary Ellen McDonald of Antigonish Fame in Solitary Confinement

Mind of a 4-year-old - Content to Sit All Day at Window and Look Out Upon the Ocean

Special Dispatch to the Herald

Halifax, N.S. Oct. 23–Little Mary Ellen McDonald, who a few short months ago set two continents to discussing the “ghost of Antigonish,” sat today in solitary confinement at the Nova Scotia hospital for the insane at Dartmouth, looking out over the blue waters of the ocean.

She has been passing all her days this since her confinement to the institution where, the physicians say, she should have been committed fully two years ago. Mary Ellen shows no desire to be in the company of other persons and seems perfectly satisfied with life as she finds it.

There is a chance, the physicians say, that the ghost girl may develop into a normal woman, but the probabilities are against it. It is more than likely, they contend, that she will pass the remainder of her days in the asylum.

Amazed World for a Time

This is the inglorious exit of Mary Ellen and also the end of the weird manifestations which amazed the world for a time, which brought Dr. Franklin Prince and his intricate ghost traps and jingle bells from New York to the mid-winter of Caledonia Mills, and which called forth the theory from Sir Conan Doyle that the girl was the medium of the ghost of a naughty boy and unconsciously set the several dozen mysterious fires which drove her foster parents from their home in terror.

The superintendent of the insane asylum at Dartmouth said today that Mary Ellen was simply a “common or garden variety of the moron family and not a particularly interesting moron at that.”

It was Mary Ellen’s part to start the Antigonish ghost on his way to the front pages again that caused her commitment to the asylum. Several weeks ago a report came from the authorities that caused her commitment to the asylum. Several weeks ago a report came from the authorities that the McDonald ghost had reappeared and was about to become as active as ever. Immediate investigations were made and the authorities became convinced Mary Ellen was to blame. No horse’s tail had been plaited this time but several mysterious fires had appeared in the McDonald homestead.

Forgot Usual Cunning

The authorities were right. Mary Ellen wanted a fire so badly that she forgot her usual cunning and was caught red-handed by provincial officers. She was immeidately hustled off and placed in the Dartmouth institution.

The fact that the author of the Antigonish interruption had been removed to the asylum was kept secret, not only from the general public, but from the other inmates of the institution, for the superintendent said he did not want to give Mary Ellen a chance to impress his other “boarders” with her wonderful powers. To this end she was place in solitary confinement, and has no means, earthly, or ghostly, of communicating with the outside.

Matches being kept entirely out of her reach, there have been no fiery manifestations at the asylum as yet.

Superintendent Lawler stated that the girl has been a model patient thus far, but needs more careful watching. She had been a good girl at home and had never given the rest of the family any trouble. It was the lack of watching which caused the happenings at Antigonish can sent the McDonald family out into the midst of a blizzard.

Not a Distinctive Type

Mary Ellen, the superintendent said, has the mind of a 4-year-old child and may never improve it. She is a type, she added, but by no means a distinctive one. When she arrived at the institution she was half laughing, half crying and told the nurses who spoke to her that she had been taken from home because she broke a number of dishes.

She had been under close observation since the day of the arrival, but no one has been able to detect any symptoms of a puzzling nature. She shows no restlessness as yet but is content to sit calmly gazing out the window of her lonely room. After a time she may be induced to engage in some work which will occupy her hands and her backward brain, but it is the present policy of the superintendent to leave her strictly alone.

The McDonald family still refuse to talk about Mary Ellen’s commitment. Though this action, according to the officers, made it possible for them to go to bed in safety, the foster father and mother resent it and still blame Dr. Prince and “jingling” as well as the horde of newspapermen who accompanied him.

Ghost Smells Like the Grave

The Daily Chronicle invites the Psychical Research Society to investigate the highly unpleasant manifestations of a unique ghost which haunts an old-time country cottage within twenty miles of London.

Several persons while sleeping in a certain bed room of the house have felt a cold, flabby, ghostlike hand placed on their mouths. But the most extraordinary feature of the spook is that the ghostly presence is always accompanied by the indescribable, suffocating smell of the charnel house.

Sometimes the ghost can be heard descending the stairs at noonday. He makes a noise like that of a huge, corpulent man whose slippers flap on each stair. The ghost goes into a room and seats himself at the luncheon table, driving everybody away by his malodorous presence.

There is a local story of an imbecile man of huge proportions who died in the garret of the cottage many years ago. The body being so large, there was unusual delay in getting it out of the house, and decomposition was far advanced before the burial.

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A MONSTER, hideous and disgusting in form has lately arrived from France. Its manners are brutal although its species is human. In this horrid being is exhibited a junction of both sexes, but its apparel is female. A girl of some beauty and address lives with it for purposes the most vile, and it has been visited by the first men in the country. Decency will not allow a more minute description, either of the MONSTER or its abominable practices.

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