Is the Building Haunted?–”Jeff” Will Tell the Supervisors a Strange Story
For several days four or five persons in this city (among the number a Democrat reporter) have known of certain occurrences that have taken place at the new court house, and which Mr. McPherson and the contractors are trying to keep quiet and hush up, at least until the building shall be accepted by the county. But the Full facts cannot much longer be kept from the public, and The Democrat, as a newspaper, owes it to the people of the county, if not to science, to publish the facts, so far as they can be gathered from interested parties, who are reluctant to have the matter get out.
Since the completion of the steam-heating apparatus in the new court house, a fire has been kept up night and day to dry out the walls and make the building ready for occupancy as soon as possible. Jeff. Davis, well known to nearly every body in the county as the faithful janitor for many years of the old county buildings, has taken charge of the fire during the night, and has been the sole occupant of the building from 9 p. m., every day, until late the following morning. He has a lounge in the boiler room in the southwest corner of the basement, and occasionally takes a nap when not firing up or pumping water into the boiler, which he has to do several times during the night. One night last week Jeff was
startled while pumping
By hearing the clock, which is fastened to a brick pier in the room, commence striking at half-past one. The striking continued, slowly but regularly, Jeff thinks, for at least ten minutes, at the conclusion of which a strange, unearthly sound like the last gasping groan of a dying man seemed to issue from under the lounge in the corner of the room. Nothing further occurred that night. But the next night, at precisely half-past one o’clock, the clock began striking again, striking 59 times, but no sound was heard from the sofa. The next night, which made the third night this phenomenon had occurred, the clock struck again 59 times, commencing at precisely half-past one, and at the end of the striking
the sofa moved from the corner
of the room to the brick pier under the clock, Jeff being several feet away.