People thought this was rather singular, as the
emigrants were, most of them, well-to-do Germans, and were known to have
brought a good deal of money with them, but it was concluded that it had
gone down with the ship. Well, the poor emigrants were given pauper
burial, and the people had begun to forget their suspicions until three
or four months later there came another storm, and the sea broke clear
over the beach, just below the Old Mansion, and washed away the sand. Next morning early two men from ‘Hawkin sailed across the bay and landed
on the beach. They walked across on the hard bottom where the sea had
washed across, and, when about half way from the bay, one of the men saw
something curious close up against the stump of an old cedar tree. He
called the other man’s attention to it, and they went over to the stump. What they found was a pile of leather money-belts that would have filled
a wheelbarrow. Every one was cut open and empty. They had been buried in
the sand close by the old stump, and the sea had washed away the
covering. The men didn’t go any further. “They carried the belts to their boats and sailed back to ‘Hawkin as
fast as the wind would take them. Of course, it made a big sensation,
and everybody was satisfied that the wreckmaster had robbed the bodies,
if he hadn’t done anything worse, but there was no way to prove it, and
so nothing was done. The wreckmaster didn’t stay around here long after
that, though. The people made it too hot for him, and he and his family
went away South, where it was said he bought a big plantation and a lot
of slaves. Years afterward the story came to ‘Hawkin somehow that he was
killed in a barroom brawl, and that his son-in-law was drowned by his
boat upsettin’ while he was out fishin’. I don’t furnish any affidavits
with that part of the story, though. “However, after that nobody lived in the Old Mansion for long at a time. People would go there, stay a week or two, and leave--and at last it was
given up entirely to beach parties in the day time, and ghosts at
night.”

“But, Captain, you don’t really believe the ghost part, do you?” I
asked. Captain Jim looked down the bay, expectorated gravely over the side of
the boat, and answered, slowly:

“Well, I don’t know as I would have believed in ’em if I hadn’t seen the
ghost.”

“What!” I exclaimed; “you saw it? Tell me about it. I’ve always wanted
to see a ghost, or next best thing, a man who has seen one.”

“It was one August, about 1861,” said the captain. “I was a young
feller then, and with a half dozen more was over on the beach cutting
salt hay. We didn’t go home at nights, but did our own cooking in the
Old Mansion kitchen, and at nights slept on piles of hay upstairs. We
were a reckless lot of scamps, and reckoned that no ghosts could scare
us. There was a big full moon that night, and it was as light as day. The muskeeters was pretty bad, too, and it was easier to stay awake than
go to sleep. Along toward midnight me and two other fellers went out on
the old balcony, and began to race around the house. We hollered and
yelled, and chased each other for half an hour or so, and then we
concluded we had better go to sleep, so we started for the window of the
room where the rest were. This window was near one end on the ocean
side, and as I came around the corner I stopped as if I had been shot,
and my hair raised straight up on top of my head. Right there in front
of that window stood a woman looking out over the sea, and in her arms
she held a little child. I saw her as plain as I see you now. It seemed
to me like an hour she stood there, but I don’t suppose it was a second;
then she was gone. When I could move I looked around for the other boys,
and they were standing there paralyzed. They had seen the woman, too. We
didn’t say much, and we didn’t sleep much that night, and the next night
we bunked out on the beach. The rest of the crowd made all manner of
fun of us, but we had had all the ghost we wanted, and I never set foot
inside the old house after that.”

“When did it burn down, Captain?” I asked, as Jim relapsed into silence. “Somewhere about twenty-five years ago. A beach party had been roasting
clams in the old oven, and in some way the fire got to the woodwork. It
was as dry as tinder, and I hope the ghosts were all burnt up with it.”




A MISFIT GHOST. Every boy with a knowledge of adventurous literature, otherwise “novels
of action,” knows of the “phantom ship,” the spook of the high seas. But it has not been known that ships themselves are haunted, and that in
the service of the United States Coast Survey there is a vessel now in
commission that is by her own officers supposed to be haunted. Yet the Eagre, a 140-foot schooner of the coast survey, is looked upon
in the service as a very undesirable vessel to be aboard of. About her
there is an atmosphere of gloom that wardroom jest cannot dispel. Duty on board her has been shunned as would be a pestilence, and stories
have been told by officers who have cruised aboard her that are not good
for timid people to hear. Officers have hesitated about telling these
uncanny stories, but they have become sufficiently well known to make a
billet to duty aboard the Eagre unwelcome among the coast survey men. The Mohawk was launched June 10, 1875, at Greenpoint, and she was then
the largest sailing yacht afloat. William T. Garner, her young millionaire owner, was very proud of his
new craft, and all the then leaders of New York society were invited to
participate in the good time afloat with which her launching was
celebrated. Commodore Garner, then but thirty-three years old, and his
young wife entertained charmingly, and the trim, speedy Mohawk was
christened with unusually merry festivities. Soon after that she was
capsized by a sudden squall off the landing at Stapleton, N. Y., and six
people were drowned like rats in her cabin and forecastle. Then the Mohawk was raised at a cost of $25,000 and purchased by the
United States Government for the service of the coast survey. Her name
was changed to Eagre, for Jack Tar is proverbially superstitious, and
with the old name it would have been impossible to ship a crew. Lieutenant Higby King describes his initial experience when he was
assigned to duty on the Eagre in this way:

“She had her full complement of officers minus one when I boarded her at
Newport to complete the list. Every cabin was occupied but the port
cabin by the companion way, and to that I was assigned. “We had a jolly wardroom mess that night, and I retired from it early,
as I was tired by my journey to join the vessel. The others who were
still at the table regarded my retirement to the port cabin in absolute
silence, having bidden me good-night. Their silence did not lead me to
suspect anything, though I knew that the Eagre had once been the Mohawk. My cabin door had the usual cabin lock of brass, and the porthole was
also securely fastened.