PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 9–Frank D. Worlay of Sharpless, Worley and McNeill, grain and flour merchants, who is also treasurer of the Commercial Exchange, lives in a large house at Gwynned, Montgomery county. For a week the dwelling has been the scene of the most mysterious occurrences, and the entire village is in a state of excitement. The singular happenings consist in the unaccountable breaking and movements of crockery, china and glassware in the house, and people have come from all over the county to witness the peculiar disturbances.—-
One evening about 3 o’clock a stone jar weighing four pounds placed on a table in Mr. Worley’s dwelling slid from its position and rolled out of a door, striking the ground about ten feet from the starting point and breaking into minute fragments. A reporter arrived soon afterward and saw a mirror in the parlor crack as though it had been heated and suddenly chilled. Mrs. Worley is confined to her room, prostrated by nervousness resulting from witnessing the queer manifestations.
The troubles began Friday of last week when several fruit jars were found broken in the cellar. Later in the day Matthew, Mr. Worley’s son, saw an empty fruit jar fly out the cellar window as if it had been thrown by some one. With his father he started down cellar to investigate and as soon as the door leading to the cellar was opened several crushes were heard and the glass and china ware in the house began rattling at a terrific rate, several glass cups bursing as though heated beyond the powers of endurance. Father and son then went into the cellar, where it seemed as if all of the hundreds of jars of fruit were trying to see which could burst the quickest.
Upon examination nothing could be found which would cause them to break, except that some of them were a little warm, and it was thought that the fruit had become fermented for some reason. Nothing more was said or thought of the matter until Saturday night, when the strange proceedings began again. Crockery and glassware on the shelves began to rattle,the lamps shook and everything bore the appearance of an earthquake, with the exception that there was no shock or jar to the house.
Tuesday the brittle articles began waltzing around the rooms and shooting through windows and doors. A number of neighbors came to see and remained about an hour. Several picture glasses broke while they were there. The windows were left open, and glass cupand two glass chimneys placed on a table in the centre of the room gave a warning shake and suddenly disappeared as though shot from a cannon, passing through windows and striking the ground fully thirty feet away.
The destruction was not accompanied by any supernatural noises, the only sound being that caused by the wares striking the ground. Almost hourly similar happenings took place, and the unaccountable doings are vouched for by Mrs. Annie Lewis,Mrs. J. Wiltbank, Dr. D.C. Land, William J. Leonard and others.
On Wednesday, however, the occult influence became no joking matter. Mr. Worley went to his post on change and his produce business at Broad and Race streets, as usual in the morning. At noon he was called home by a telegram from his son. He found his entire family on the lawn, and most of the neighborhood, including the ticket agent at Gwynned Station, there with them watching things jump through the windows. The mustard-pot had been the first to go. The dining room is in the front of the house, which is a double one. The mustard-pot leaped from the table on which it stood, whirled in the air and went through the window. It landed in a rosebush halfway across the lawn. A salt cellar, which was one of the articles which followed it, came clear to the gate. The velocity of these objects was such as to leave round holes in the glass instead of shattering the panes.
Yesterday proved to be the most eventful day of the week. As the little adopted daughter of Mr. Worley was carrying a glass dish from the dining room into the kitchen it broke with a crash and her husbands severely in several places. About noon, as Matthew Worley was standing with a small china platter in his hand, he says that it began to move in a circle. He became frightened and let it go, thinking it would fall to the floor, but instead of doing as he expected it through a window as though thrown by some invisible handand struck the road about thirty feet from where he stood. Toward evening affairs became much worse, and by night scarcely an article made of earth, glass or marble was left in the entire house.
It was thought best to take the brittle articles from the house and Thomas Jaquettes, a butcher of Gwynned, volunteered to take them away, but while they were being placed in a wagon several mirrors broke. One marble statue was seen to fly to pieces after it had been placed in the wagon.
Later all of the debris was gathered up and dumped in an adjoining field, where it now lies, less the many broken pieces which have been carried off by visitors. There was a large wagon-load of it. It is estimated that more than a thousand persons visited the house yesterday.
Various theories are being brought forward as the real cause of the phenomena. Those who have the least tendency to believe in spooks think the house is bewitched by a magnetic influence. This insistence, they say, comes from the little girl who was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Worley. She is twelve years of age, of a very nervous nature and has been living with the family for about six weeks. She was taken from a house in this city, and these people think that her every look seems to indicate that there is something exceedingly strange and weird about here.
Several scientific men from this city called at the house and informed Mr. Worley that the phenomena was due to an electric belt passing under a cistern in the cellar. A further investigation will be made.
Mr. Worley says that his actual loss will be about $500. Of the three hundred jars of fruit in the cellar two hundred and eighty were demolished.
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