Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1890 — GHOSTS OF TAMARACK. [ARTICLE]

GHOSTS OF TAMARACK.

Spectral Forms Go Stalking on The HilL ’ • Airy Forms That Inhabit The Snow-Sheds. A Headlesi Man in The Yards at Summit— Superstitions That Awe The Railroad Knights. * “Go down through the shed and flag the supply train,” was the order conveyed to a brakeman by his superior the other day “on the hill,” while the train lay in a drift of snow. “Look out for ghosts at Tamarack,” ejaculated one of the snowfighters who had been trying to snatch an hour of rest The brakeman smiled grimly. There was no defiance in the look that he gave, but it was easy to discern a bit of fear. The mention of Tamarack was the signal for a general conversation upon the subject of spooks. There is more or less superstition among all mankind, and railroad men have their share of it Yet there are no braver men in the world, and no occupation where fearlessness is demanded to a greater extent It is quite often possible to impress with a spook story the most valiant of engineers who would face the boldest risk with no thought of fear. Nothing natural could daunt him, but the supernatural causes him to quail. Tamarack is the dread and dismay of more than half of the trainmen on “the hill.” It is neither a city, village nor settlement, but merely a side-track with the necessary switch in the dark shed, four miles above Cisco. The name is coupled with many dismal memories of engineers, firemen and brakemen who have been killed in collisions through the carelessness or inadvertence of those whose duty it has been to attend the switch. It is said'that no less than fifteen men have thus met with fearful deaths in the dark shed at this point, six having been killed in a collision there some eighteen months ago. Now, when trains approach the spot, in the dismal shadows of the timbers seem to lurk the ghostly forms of maimed and crippled men, spectral bodies clad in robes of white, wandering souls returned to haunt the scene of their disbursement from the flesh. Many sturdy men refuse to be convinced that it is fancy that outlines the dreaded forms. Men who are not superstitious in anything else quail before the very thought of Tamarack. Everything about the spot conspires to impart a feeling of terror in the minds of those beset with superstitious fears. Even by day the shed is dark nearly throughout its stretch of eight miles; the studding has become black and grimy from the smoky belchings of the locomotives, so that even the occasional ray of sunshine that strays through a crack in the inside of the shed murks the gloomy air. “You can call it superstition,” said a strapping fireman who was listening to the talk, “but there’s ■ ghosts there sure, for I know men who’ye seen ’em.” The brakeman who had to make the tour of the sheds stepped out unnoticed. “I know a conductor on a freight,” continued the bier fireman, “who wouldn’t pass Tamarack without locking His caboose for a thousand dollars. I hraked for him three months and we passed that switch once a week during all the time. , “ ‘Come in here and don’t leave me alone,’ cried thefrightened conductor.” “ ‘But I must set the brakes.’

“ ‘On, damn the brakes,’ lie said as he caught me by the arm and hauled me into the caboose. Then he shut, the door and locked it, and I couldn’t get him to look out of a window until we’d gone a mile.”

Jim McMasters, conductor of the rotary plow train, listened to all this. “I ain’t got a bit of superstition in me, but there are lots of men who swear thaVthere are plenty of ghosts on the hill.” Several of the men twisted themselves into a position where they could face McMasters. Trainmaster Agler had ordered that the rotary must work that night and as it was regarded as dangerous work by night the ghost stories did not put them in a very cheerful frame of mind. But Jim proceeded:

Now there’s Ed. Murray. We all know that he isn’t superstitious any more than I am. But Ed swears he saw a ghost in the yard at Summit one night His train had just pulled in and he started down tile track witTi"his lantern. Ahead stood a locomotive that sent a stream of bright li?ht from the headlight along the track so that he could see as plain as.day. Right ahead he saw a headless man standing on the track. It was just as plain us ever a man saw anything. The ghost w .sn’t one of these white things with wings either. It was dressed like anybody up here and wore a heavy rough overcoat. Murray looked at the apparition several times lo make sure. There it was and no mistake, a powerfully built man but without a head. Ed was paralyzed. He got over to the station us* quick as he could. The headless man began to move towards him down the track but in a moment disappeared. Ed was too frightened to watch very closely and couldn’t tell in What direction the startling apparition had gone. He wasn’t in a hurry to get out of the..Bt;i tion. If ever you see Ed Murray heHl tell you that he saw that headless man and that there’s no doubt of it.”

Presently and while ghosts were still the subject of discussion the brakeman, who had been sent past Tamarack opened the door of the gloomy car. “He never went at all,” exclaimed one of the men. The brakeman swore that he had actually fulfilled his orders, but none of the boys believed him.' But nobody seemed to blame him for not passing T marack on that dark and stormy night