Haunted Heartland

by Michael Norman

  One day after school, Hattie decided instead to go on home. She was soon back at the Mosey house, crying that a man was in their bathroom with his foot up on the tub shining his boots.

  Mrs. Mosey sent her two sons to investigate and waited on the porch, holding Hattie by the hand. The boys failed in their search. Mrs. Mosey tried to persuade Hattie that it must have been her imagination, but the little girl refused to go back home until her mother came for her.

  A later episode seemed to vindicate Hattie. One summer night in 1911, a frantic pounding on the front door awakened the nearby Kepner household. Crying out that her husband was ill, Anna Kussmaul had come to fetch Mrs. Gardiner, a nurse who often stayed with families. Mrs. Gardiner remembered what happened:

  I threw on my clothes and ran over with the kerosene lamp in my hand, for the street lights in those days went out at midnight. As soon as I looked at Gottlieb and heard his breathing, I knew what was wrong and called Dr. McLaughlin. . . . We worked over him the rest of the night before the doctor felt it was safe to leave him. He left strict orders not to let Gottleib sleep more than twenty minutes at a time, for fear he might slip into a coma. He was to be roused enough each time to answer a question rationally.

  I worked there ten days or maybe two weeks, and I will never forget those nights. It seemed that as soon as Hattie and Anna were asleep, the noises would begin. At first I was scared; then I got mad and would try to find what caused them.

  The only way I can describe them is that they sounded like men fighting, or anyway how I imagine it would sound if men were fighting. There were dull, heavy sounds like people wrestling on the floor; dull thumps like blows and grunting sounds. I can’t describe it any different. It always came from the back of the house, from the dining room or kitchen, and the minute I would get out of my chair to go and see what it was, it would stop short . . . I never heard a sound while I was up and moving around, taking care of Gottlieb. I always said I wouldn’t spend a night alone in that house for a million dollars!

  It was not until much later—when Anna Kussmaul described the harrowing night in an interview—that Mrs. Gardiner found out everything that happened the night Gottlieb became sick.

  As Mrs. Kussmaul told a newspaper reporter:

  It was a stifling hot day in August. Gottlieb came home from work drenched with sweat and exhausted. He said he was too tired to eat supper, but I coaxed him to eat a bowl of bread and milk, then to bathe and go to bed. It had been a terribly muggy day, and it didn’t cool off after sunset, as it sometimes does. However, he had fallen asleep almost at once and I could hear him snoring while I washed the supper dishes.

  Hattie and I sat on the porch a little while, but it was no cooler out there, so I cleaned Hattie up and put her to bed soon after eight. I was so miserably hot I took off my corset—what horrid, heavy things those old corsets were!—and decided to go to bed myself although it was not yet nine o’clock . . .

  Gottlieb was still snoring and I got into bed facing him and lay that way for a few minutes, but soon turned with my face toward the window in hopes I’d get at least a breath of air.

  As I turned, I was paralyzed with fear for I clearly saw a man silhouetted in the doorway. He was advancing toward the bed. I was too frightened to make a sound or move until he was right beside the bed, when I jerked the sheet over my head and called, “Gottlieb!”

  I got no answer and tried to kick him, but he just kept snoring. I don’t know how long it was before I got up the nerve to uncover my head and reach out and pull the string that led from the light bulb down to the head of the bed, where one end of it was tied. When the light came on there was no sign of anyone there, nothing was disturbed, and there was no sound except for my husband’s snoring.

  I fell asleep at last, but not for long. I awakened to realize that something was wrong. The snoring that I had heard so long did not sound right; it was more than just snoring. I tried to awaken him, but it was impossible to rouse him. I knew then that something was terribly wrong, and that was when I went running for [Mrs. Gardiner].

  Gottlieb Kussmaul had suffered a seizure. Although he later recovered, Anna believed that the “man” she saw had been there as a warning not to fall asleep, that her husband was ill.

  The Kussmauls stayed in the house until 1946. During all those years they were plagued with odd noises, thumps, groans, and footsteps, but nothing serious enough to warrant them moving away.

  What, then, might have caused the disturbances? Was the house haunted?

  Could the mysterious events be connected with the previous home that had burned in the late nineteenth century, leaving only the excavated cellar upon which Daniel Shopbell built his home?

  There are two versions told of what transpired in that first house, either of which might have produced a ghost or two. The original owner had been a cattle buyer or real estate agent, depending on which version of the events one believes. In both accounts, a stranger appears one day with a good deal of money. In one story he wants to buy cattle, and in the other he is a land speculator from out of state who wants to settle in Lake Odessa. The house owner murders him for the wad of money and shortly thereafter the house burns to the foundation.

  The scenario makes sense. Mrs. Gardiner claims she heard the sound of men fighting and a body falling to the floor. Perhaps that man in Anna Kussmaul’s bedroom and the mysterious intruder Hattie saw were both the same person—the victim of that killing whose name has been long forgotten to history.

  The Spurned Suitor

  Gross Isle

  The capture of Detroit after the surrender of American General William Hull and his two thousand troops in August 1812 was one of the most humiliating defeats suffered by the American forces in the War of 1812.

  What is not so commonly known is that in the days before Hull’s final surrender, a series of smaller clashes were taking their toll on both sides. In planning one of those skirmishes, British General Isaac Brock made the decision that troops under the command of Lieutenant Adam Muir would lead an assault on American soldiers at Mongaugon—now Gross Isle—on August 9, 1812. Even with their tough Wyandot Indian allies led by Tecumseh and Walk-in-the-Water, the British knew it would be a dangerous mission from which the young lieutenant and a number of his men might not return.

  The night before he led the expedition, Muir was rejected by the woman he loved, and he was killed in battle the next day. The lieutenant’s ghost is condemned to wander the quiet woods of Gross Ile.

  Stunning Marie McIntosh was the daughter of Angus McIntosh, a Scottish businessman living in British Ontario. She and her family lived in a grand home near present-day Windsor. Lieutenant Adam Muir had been courting her for quite some time. Their courtship was rather chaste by today’s standards, as was often the case in that era. Their moments together typically came at formal gatherings or in the presence of their families. To make matters even more difficult, the lieutenant was exceedingly shy where women were concerned; he spoke to only a few close confidants of his desire to marry young Marie.

  Marie knew in her heart that the handsome soldier was the man she wanted to marry, but she grew ever more impatient with his bashfulness and began to find it quite irritating. She could not tell him of her own feelings, for that would have been quite unseemly without a formal engagement. Nevertheless, it did not occur to Marie—not yet twenty years of age herself—that, despite words of marriage never having been exchanged, Lieutenant Muir would ever doubt her love for him or that she would agree to a marriage proposal.

  If he would only ask.

  On the eve of the British raid on Mongaugon, Marie’s shy beau faced a most harrowing assignment, one from which he might not return.

  Lieutenant Muir decided he had to tell Marie of his feelings and propose marriage. He imagined that the warmth of her love would shield him from harm when the time came.

  On the night before battle, August 8, the lieutenant obtained a short leave from his company and stole away to the McInt
oshs’ home. Marie was alone save for her housemaid. He met her in the parlor and spoke forcefully of his love. Then dropping to bended knee, he asked for her hand in marriage. He told her of the coming battle, that tomorrow he would face a perilous assault on the American forces, but that with her assent to an engagement he could face the enemy with confidence.

  What then would have possessed Marie to do what she did?

  Was it her immaturity in dealing with matters of the heart?

  Or was she truly irritated at Lieutenant Muir’s timidity in not making his intentions clearer before this night? We will never know.

  Whatever her motivation, Marie McIntosh turned away from the lieutenant. She immediately rejected his earnest proposal.

  The lieutenant was entirely unprepared for such a stinging rebuke. He quickly rose to his feet and dashed from the room.

  Now it was Marie’s turn to be distressed. She was just playing a game to scold him for his timidity. She thought he would linger a few moments in the hallway before returning to press her to marry him. When he did not return, she hurried out to find the front door open and Lieutenant Adam Muir mounting his horse.

  She cried out his name, scrambling down the wide porch steps, but he did not hear her as he rode away.

  The young housemaid ran to her side.

  “He must certainly know that I love him,” sobbed Marie. “Men are so stupid, so matter-of-fact. They take months to make up their minds to woo a girl, and if she does not immediately say ‘yes’ they feel themselves aggrieved and wounded.”

  The maid nodded sadly and held her mistress close.

  Marie had no choice but to await Muir’s return from the dangerous mission. She had no knowledge of how long that would be, of course, whether a single day or several.

  Nightfall came and there was no sign of the young officer. At her maid’s insistence, Marie at last went to bed. The maid drew tight the window shutters and pulled the curtains around the bedstead.

  Sleep eluded Marie for many hours. She went over and over the circumstances of that brief encounter with the one man with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life but had rejected in a fit of pique. How could she have been so foolish! She was filled with so much regret at her thoughtless behavior.

  As the morning sun began its ascent above the horizon, Marie fell into a disturbed slumber. She soon woke abruptly to the sound of the door to her chamber being thrown open. Rapid boot steps crossed the floor. Marie drew aside the bed curtain and gasped. She shrank against the pillows. Young Lieutenant Muir stood a few feet away, his face as pale as moonlight. A brutal gash angled across his forehead. Blood that had oozed down his pale cheeks left long, dark stains on his muddy uniform.

  “Fear not, my dearest Marie,” came a hollow, unfamiliar voice that bore some similarity to the lieutenant’s own. “Though the Americans were victorious, they will not long rejoice. England will soon triumph. I was shot through the head, yet I fell in honor. My body lies hidden in a dense thicket. I beg you for one final act of kindness. Rescue it from the wild beasts of the forest so that I may be remembered with an honorable burial. Farewell, my love.”

  With that he reached out and with a calm borne of death laid his fingers on her right hand. The coldness of that touch, the iciness of the grave itself, sliced through her skin. She fainted against the soft pillow.

  The sun was high when Marie finally awoke.

  Her first thoughts were of that dream—for is that not what it must have been?

  She glanced down. Across the back of her right hand were two deep, dark impressions—scars as if two fingers of a man’s hand had burned into her flesh.

  She leaped from bed. Calling to her maid, she hastily dressed and ordered that a horse be saddled. Her servants pleaded with her to let one of them accompany her. She ignored them and raced off to General Brock’s encampment at Malden.

  She was able to find Walk-in-the-Water—the Wyandot British ally who was also an old friend of the McIntoshes—and haltingly told him of her dilemma. She pleaded with him to be taken to the battle site. He reluctantly agreed and together they went by canoe across the Detroit River. Once they reached shore, Marie moved as if in a trance toward a bramble thicket.

  “This is where we shall find him,” she whispered.

  It did not take long. The blood-spattered remains of Lieutenant Muir lay as he had fallen. In the cold light of a new dawn, the fatal bullet wound on his forehead was even more terrible than it had appeared on his ghost the night before. But she had found him. That was all that mattered.

  Walk-in-the-Water and several of his men removed the soldier’s body to Sandwich, Ontario, where he was buried with military honors.

  At the funeral, Marie wore a black glove on her right hand.

  Marie McIntosh did marry. Her husband was a decent man who had heard the bittersweet story of Lieutenant Muir and Marie’s courtship. They remained childless.

  The dark impressions left by Lieutenant Muir’s touch stayed with her for the rest of her life—a reminder perhaps that impetuous behavior and careless words can have consequences far greater than we might ever imagine. She wore the black glove to remind her of his love.

  On August 9, 1813, and for decades thereafter on that date, Marie dressed in a pair of wood sandals and wrapped herself in plain, black sackcloth. She went door to door from Windsor to old Sandwich as a mendicant pleading for money or goods for the ill and for the poor. No church or churchman required such atonement for her transgression. She placed the burden of self-sacrifice on herself.

  The shaded woods once plentiful in Grosse Isle—what was once Mongaugon—remained the soldier’s ghostly home forever after, his bloody form slipping quietly among the ancient oaks toward the soothing river.

  Minnesota

  The Ghost Wore Plaid

  St. Paul

  Nancy Bagshaw-Reasoner hoped to make some extra income working part-time at the box office at St. Paul’s storied Fitzgerald Theater, the “Fitz” as it is affectionately known. As an actor and producer, Bagshaw-Reasoner loved being around the Twin Cities theatrical community in most any capacity and the Fitz is a venerated Twin Cities live entertainment venue.

  One fall afternoon she was on duty in the small, unassuming theater box office off the main lobby. It had been quiet—a few walk-up sales, the odd telephone order. Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion had ended its fall run at the theater some time before and was out on the road. A few special events were scheduled—an author interview, an early holiday staging—but not much else.

  The ticket booth is adjacent to the theater’s cozy lobby but can be accessed through a separate outside door, around the corner from the box office, when the theater is closed.

  As darkness settled across the city, Bagshaw-Reasoner started pulling together statistics on the day’s modest sales, her final responsibility before she locked up for the night. The business offices were closed.

  She saw someone looking at her through a little-used side window, so she poked her head out the main ticket window, looked down the dimly lit passageway, and called out, “I can help you over here!”

  She had caught only a quick glimpse but did note it was a man. He had quickly backed away. She saw he had dark hair and that he appeared to be wearing a dark plaid shirt. His face was hidden in shadow.

  She felt a little queasy when no one came around the corner. A minute or two ticked by. She realized that the outside door buzzer had not sounded. It had been installed to alert ticket staff that someone had come in. Other staff had been working that day, but by now they had all gone home. The only way to the ticket booth would be to come through the outside door.

  When it was obvious this shadow man, as she now thought of him, was not going to show himself, she thought she must have been mistaken. Maybe it was her reflection in that old window he had used; yet that did not seem probable.

  Oh, well, she thought, that was a little strange . . .

  She turned her attention back to t
he sales figures.

  Suddenly she caught a slight movement outside that same side window. Was this guy back?

  Now her unease grew to sharp anxiety. Had someone, somehow, slipped into the theater undetected? Was he now playing games with her? Perhaps intent on doing her harm?

  Again, she leaned out the window. “I can help you over here!”

  He must be down there, around that corner, she thought. But she was not going down there to find out.

  Again Nancy Bagshaw-Reasoner waited.

  Her growing uneasiness turned from anxiety to fear. If someone was playing a prank on her, it was not funny.

  “I’m closing up the box office!” she yelled out. She waited. Would he show himself again?

  This man in the shadows did show himself, but in a manner Bagshaw-Reasoner could never have anticipated.

  As she sat back, she detected another slight movement through the side window. The stranger had returned.

  The first two times he had been at the window, he dodged away when she looked directly at him. This time she shifted only her eyes to the right to focus on him. He was standing still, watching her. She could see that he was a slightly built man of early middle age with thick, brown hair and prominent sideburns. He wore a dark-brown, plaid shirt. A workman’s clothes.

  She thought his expression seemed very, very sad. He did not move.

  She quickly turned to face him.

  The two stared at each other for a few moments, and then, as she remembers the encounter, the stranger moved laterally in a blur, like the Road Runner in a Warner Bros. cartoon.

  “It was the scariest thing in the world,” Bagshaw-Reasoner said of the man’s bizarre vanishing act.

  He had not been transparent nor was there anything even vaguely ghostly about him, she said. He looked at her and then wooosh, he was gone.