Girl of Unnatural Power | Urban Legends

THE PIONEER EXPRESS — JANUARY 10, 1902

GIRL OF UNNATURAL POWER.

Peculiar and Mysterious Things Happen in an Indiana Home.

Elkhart, Ind., Jan. 4.—According to Mr. and Mrs. James McCarthy of this city, several boarders and ten or twelve neighbors, some very peculiar and mysterious things happened at the McCarthy house, and for the want of a better explanation they ascribe the manifestations to some unnatural power possessed by thirteen-year-old Bessie Currier, the daughter of a woman who lives with a daughter-in-law, Mrs. William Currier, just south of this town.
The manifestations occurred only in the presence of the girl and ceased when, at 4 o’clock, the girl was sent away, going to her sister-in-law’s home.

CHAIRS TURNED OVER

on the floor; a stick of wood found its way to the center of a room twice; a joint of stovepipe came up the cellar stairs and stood in the room; plates rolled off the diningroom table; a sewing machine tipped over gently and rested on its side on the floor; a pail emptied its water three times; the clothes line broke three times and further efforts to fix it were abandoned; a lamp chimney floated from its place on the lamp to a bed and the lamp followed, and various other things equally as puzzling happened, according to the apparently sincere statements of the witnesses mentioned.
Bessie Currier had been with the McCarthys about a week, and nothing unusual occurred until after Mrs. McCarthy.