• 23Oct

  PRESENT AT A HANGING

  Creative Writing No Comments

  PRESENT AT A HANGING

  

  An old man named Daniel Baker, living near Lebanon, Iowa, was
  suspected by his neighbors of having murdered a peddler who had
  obtained permission to pass the night at his house. This was in 1853,
  when peddling was more common in the Western country than it is now,
  and was attended with considerable danger.

  The peddler with his pack traversed the country by all manner of
  lonely roads, and was compelled to rely upon the country people for
  hospitality. This brought him into relation with queer characters,
  some of whom were not altogether scrupulous in their methods of
  making a living, murder being an acceptable means to that end. It
  occasionally occurred that a peddler with diminished pack and
  swollen purse would be traced to the lonely dwelling of some rough
  character and never could be traced beyond.

  This was so in the case of “old man Baker,” as he was always called.
  (Such names are given in the western “settlements” only to elderly
  persons who are not esteemed; to the general disrepute of social
  unworth is affixed the special reproach of age.) A peddler came to
  his house and none went away - that is all that anybody knew.

  Seven years later the Rev. Mr. Cummings, a Baptist minister well
  known in that part of the country, was driving by Baker’s farm one
  night. It was not very dark: there was a bit of moon somewhere
  above the light veil of mist that lay along the earth. Mr. Cummings,
  who was at all times a cheerful person, was whistling a tune, which
  he would occasionally interrupt to speak a word of friendly
  encouragement to his horse. As he came to a little bridge across a
  dry ravine he saw the figure of a man standing upon it, clearly
  outlined against the gray background of a misty forest.

  The man had something strapped on his back and carried a heavy
  stick - obviously an itinerant peddler. His attitude had in it
  a suggestion of abstraction, like that of a sleepwalker.
  Mr. Cummings reined in his horse when he arrived in front of him,
  gave him a pleasant salutation and invited him to a seat in
  the vehicle - “if you are going my way,” he added. The man raised his
  head, looked him full in the face, but neither answered nor made any
  further movement. The minister, with good-natured persistence,
  repeated his invitation. At this the man threw his right hand forward
  from his side and pointed downward as he stood on the extreme edge
  of the bridge. Mr.Cummings looked past him, over into the ravine,
  saw nothing unusual and withdrew his eyes to address the man again.

  He had disappeared!

  The horse, which all this time had been uncommonly restless, gave
  at the same moment a snort of terror and started to run away.
  Before he had regained control of the animal the minister was at
  the crest of the hill a hundred yards along. He looked back and
  saw the figure again, at the same place and in the same attitude
  as when he had first observed it.

  Then for the first time he was conscious of a sense of the super-
  natural and drove home as rapidly as his willing horse would go.

  On arriving at home he related his adventure to his family, and
  early the next morning, accompanied by two neighbors, John White
  Corwell and Abner Raiser, returned to the spot. They found the
  body of old man Baker hanging by the neck from one of the beams
  of the bridge, immediately beneath the spot where the apparition
  had stood. A thick coating of dust, slightly dampened by the mist,
  covered the floor of the bridge, but the only footprints

  Were those of Mr. Cummings’ horse!

  In taking down the body the men disturbed the loose, friable
  earth of the slope below it, disclosing human bones already
  nearly uncovered by the action of water and frost. They were
  identified as those of the lost peddler.

  At the double inquest the coroner’s jury found that Daniel Baker
  died by his own hand while suffering from temporary insanity,
  and that Samuel Morritz, the peddlar, was murdered by some
  person or persons to the jury unknown.

  

  Tags: ghosts, halloween, hanging

• 03Aug

  Can/Am Trivia from 1911

  My Thoughts No Comments
  

  Image via Wikipedia

   

   

  I was looking for something totally unrelated to what I found today.  I was surfing the past history of the Yukon, mostly Whitehorse, [where I was born] and came across these facts from this site

  CANADIAN HISTORY FROM CONFEDERATION TO PRESENT

  1911  Canadian census;

  Roman Catholic    39.91 %
  Presbyterians        15.48 %
  Methodists            14.998%
  Anglican                14.47 %
  Baptist                    5.31 %
  Lutheran                 3.19 %
  Greek church          1.23 %
  Jews                       1.03 %

  Here are some more statistics for the Year 1911: 

  –> The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.

  –> Fuel for the car was sold in drug stores only.

  –> Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.

  –> Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

  –>  There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.

  –>  The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

  –>  The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !

  
  United States Facts

  –>  The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.

  –>  The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..

  –>  A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,

  –>  A dentist $2,500 per year,

  –>  A veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,

  –>  A mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

  –>  More than 95 percent of all births took place at home .

  –>  Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
  Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as “substandard.”
  
  –>  Sugar cost four cents a pound.

  –>  Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.

  –>  Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

  –>  Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

  –>  Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.

  
  The Five leading causes of death were:

   1. Pneumonia and influenza
  2. Tuberculosis
  3. Diarrhea
  4. Heart disease
  5. Stroke

   

   

   

   

   

   

      

  –>  The American flag had 45 stars…

  –>  The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!!!

  –>  Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.

  –>  There was neither a Mother’s Day nor a Father’s Day.

  –>  Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

  –>  Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.
  Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, Regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health!”
  
  –>  Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help ….

  –> There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  As Jeff from CanadaAM says;  ”That’s what I learned on the Internet today.”

  

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