Ghost #2

The Big House at Burnside was given in the will to Sally and her sister N. when their mom died. Unfortunately. Sally loved it, and loved living there, but N. lived elsewhere and wanted the $$. No one had replenished the family fortune enough to buy N. out, so after 132 years of continual family ownership, it was sold -- first to a family that had McDonald's franchises (actually they took great care to renovate it and update the archaic electrical and plumbing, which cost a fortune -- don't know how they furnished the inside, Excy and I had left MD by then), and then they sold it to another family..breaks my heart...

As to another question about ghost #1, maybe it wasn't 10 minutes we stared at each other, it just felt that long! And I had no thoughts -- I was stunned and thinking that this couldn't be happening.....

One would think after that experience I would be better prepared for the next incident. It didn't involve actually staring through a ghost, though, so it even though it was weird and eery and unexplainable, it was a bit less traumatic.....

John Bowers Ecceleston was born in 1857. Excy is named after him, though Excy's full name is James Houston Eccleston Johnston, Jr. (see why we call him Excy?!). When John Bowers Eccelston was a boy, he was rather frail. The story goes that when his parents told him they were going abroad, he told them that if they left him, he'd die before they got back. Some in the family maintain it was of a broken heart, but that sounds just a wee bit Victorian to me.

On the landing of the front stairs is a tiny footprint, reputedly his. It has been sanded out and painted over through the years but it remains. I actually was living in the house when the stairs were repaired and watched one attempt. It was a clear outline, and looked shellacked, about the size of a young boy the age of 6 or 7.

On afternoon I was doing the laundry when I heard the heavy, huge front door open. Someone then lightly and quickly ran up the stairs. It sounded like a child. I was alone in the house, but it didn't bother me because S. and C.'s grandson often came in the house and his mother, B., often did to drop off mail or whatever. The front door, though, was seldom used, so that surprised me. The laundry is just off the main hallway on the first floor and I took two steps, opened the laundry door, and shouted hello, that I was downstairs, who ran upstairs? No answer. The front door was open. Hearing no reply, I went back to the washing machine and when I turned my back, I heard someone run down the stairs and slam the front door. This time I RAN to the front door to peek out on the terrace. The door was locked. When I peered out the sidelights, no one was running off......I had the distinct feeling I had just 'met' little John Bowers.....

We have his pastel portrait hanging in our hallway, along with his dad's and Uncle's portraits. We looked up his death in the family book -- 1870, so he was about 13 ....