Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1888 — The Secret of the House. [ARTICLE]

The Secret of the House.

On the Palisades, back of Hoboken, stands a queer-looking building, in the center of a big hollow, just off a street, and not more than 300 feet from the bluff. Everything about the place is mysterious looking, and a superstitious stranger would at once feel convinced that it was a haunted house, the scene of some dark and bloody crime. People are seen at times going in and coming out of the house, and years ago this fact and the general air of secrecy gave rise to rumors of a band of robbers, etc. Then it was whispered that whisky was being distilled there, the proprietors neglecting the formality of paying tribute to the Government. Indeed so strong did this impression become that the revenue officials began to watch the place. Finally they made a raid, but their search proved fruitless, for nary a drop of liquor could ♦•hey find, nor hide nor hair of anything aring the remotest resemblance to a .11 But they found who the people in the mysterious house were and what they did for a living. The eldest in the party was a Frenchman, and he had discovered a method of growing mushrooms, it was to his interest to preserve his secret; hence the loneliness of the house and the mysterious movements of its occupants. To this day, winter and summer, mushrooms are grown there and find their way to the tables of hotels all over the' country.— New York Telegram.