Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1887 — An Iowa Ghost Hoax. [ARTICLE]

An Iowa Ghost Hoax.

Some years ago, says tho Davenport Gazette, a little town in lowa became greatly excited over a succession of strange sights and noises which had occurred in Horse-Thief Grove, where two criminals had once been buried. The reports ran that at 12 o’clock every Friday night, blue and white lights were seen to rise from tlie graves, and disappear in the branches of the trees above. An enterprising peddler, spending a night in the town, determined to investigate the ghostly phenomena ; and, having provided himself with a pistol, slipped down to the grove. An eager and expectant crowd stood on a hill at a convenient distance, waiting tb see the lights; and, says the investigator, I made up my mind to give them an afterpiece that night, as I lay snugly concealed under the bushes near the graves. I did not have long to wait before I heard the sounds I had been expecting —the trampling of feet near me. Looking up cautiously, I beheld the sons of my host, two very mischievous lads, carrying a rope and a lantern with hbie and white glass. Everything was plain, to me now. The boys would creep up a narrow and deep ditch to the graves. By the aid of a rope running over a pulley fastened in the trees, they could run the lantern up and down while concealed in the brush some distance off, relying on the superstitious’fear of the others to prevent discovery.