Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1890 — A CLOCK THAT FORETELLS DEATH. [ARTICLE]

A CLOCK THAT FORETELLS DEATH.

It Has the Death Knell for 130 Years. ‘We have not exactly a banshee in our family, who foretells by her wailing an approaching death,” said a lady to the writer recently in Boston, “but we have had mysterious warning of such given us time and time ag tin by nn old clock which has been in oar family for the last 120 years. The works were ruined by a shot tired by a British soldier during the revolutionary war at my great-grandfather, which snot, passing entirely through his bodv, killed him instantly, and then bioke the glass door, penetrating the works and stopping them forever, for though innumerable attempts have been made to repair them it seemed that some unknown power kept the clock silent, except when death flapped his black wings 0 r the household, so it was banished to I j garret. “The first instance of its warning was when my grandfather died. He had been very ill, but the physicians had at last jronouoced him out of danger, and his family were just congratulating thejnsehes on this news, when the loud tones of a clock striking twelve, slowly a-»d solemnly, like the tolling of a bell, was heard. ‘ Why, what is that? ’ said my grandmother. There was but one other clock in the house, which was in full view, so it was evident that it was not that one. 'lt is my father’s clock,’said her husband. 'lt has struck the close of my day.’ And before they could reach him he was dead, just as the last stroke had died quivering away. “This occurrence was repeated when my grandmother herself lay dying. The old clock struck twelve just as she drew her last breath, and my father at last believing that there was something supernatural in the affair, had the old works removed, leaving only the hollow ease; but a few years after, when my brother was brought home dangerously wounded after the battle of ChanceUorsville, the long, slow, solemn tones of the old clock were heard as before, and poor Leon’s life went out as. thev died on the air. They struck for my father and for my little child, who died last year. The clock warned me, too, when my sister died in Japan. I had just got--en a letter irom her. in which she had spoken of feeling very well, when I heard the old clock which was in the remote store room strike so rapidly that the notes almost mingled, and then began slowly • to strike another twelve strokes. ‘My sister is dead,’ I said to my husband, ‘and has died very suddenly, but who the other strokes are lor I cannot imagine.’ My husband tried to reason and then ridicule the idea, but I mourned for my sister as earnestly as though I had seen her die, and when, as I knew I should, I heard the news of her sudden death, I found it had taken pl ice on the same day and at the same hour as that on which the clock struck, allowing for the difference of time between Japan and Boston. Her baby, a few hours old, died a tew minutes after the mother.”