It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approached the
strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose
detailing are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared

to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all
such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief.
I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple
and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed
under my observation, in the month of July last, and which, in the
annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.
I live at No. -- Twenty-sixth Street, in New York. The house is in some
respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the
reputation of being haunted. The house is very spacious. A hall of noble
size leads to a large spiral staircase winding through its centre, while
the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some
fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A----, the well-known New York
merchant, who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions
by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A----, as every one knows, escaped to
Europe, and died not long after, of a broken heart. Almost immediately
after the news of his decease reached this country and was verified,
the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No. -- was haunted. Legal
measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was
inhabited merely by a care-taker and his wife, placed there by the
house-agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or
sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural
noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of
furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night,
piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and
down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen
silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive
balusters. The care-taker and his wife declared they would live there no
longer. The house-agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their
place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The
neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for
three years. Several persons negotiated for it; but, somehow, always
before the bargain was closed they heard the unpleasant rumors and
declined to treat any further.
It was in this state of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a
boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up
town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. -- Twenty-sixth Street.
Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of
boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she
had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which
she wished to remove us. With the