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Silent Night Walker
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
June 22, 1888
"Jamaica Plain has had numerous haunted houses and fabled rendezvous of spooks, but none heretofore have assumed such reality as the white object that has for the past few days been the terror of women, and a mystery to the men residing on Lamartine and Green streets.
As is usual with spooks, it appears only a night, generally very early in the morning, but is a ladylike ghost. It is not up to the pranks of conventional spirits, but appears always with dignity, walking noiselessly up the street. This midnight patroller evidently prepares to retire, for she appears in night robes, her head being encased in a fringed nightcap. The brick sidewalks and cobblestones also evidently tire her tender feet, for one Lamartine street resident coming home early in the morning found her seated on his stone wall, panting as if from a hard run.
This ghost made her debut in the vicinity of Lamartine street a little less than a week ago. The driver for the Riverdale milk farm was distributing his cans of milk one morning to the patrons on Lamartine street, when he was terrified and astonished at beholding a white object emerge from the shade of the trees on the right hand side of the street. The figure moved softly up the sidewalk. The milkman jumped into the wagon and started in the pursuit of the figure. The ghost started on the run, and so did the milkman's horse; but the heavy milk [truck], with its load of cans, was nowhere alongside of the spook, who was moving in an easy swinging trot. She turned up Green on to Elm street, and when opposite to the Congregational church, the milkman's eyes protruded from his head as she daintily gathered up her skirts and disappeared.
Several residents on Lamartine street have seen her go up the street towards Green, and some have noticed her returning, but were she went no one knows. She usually was seen at about 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. Early one morning Frank Mahn, the musician, was returning to his home on Lamartine street when he observed this spook calmly seated on his stone wall. John Folen, the mason, also met her one night on Lamartine street.
Officers Moulton and Driscoll of station 13 were a few nights since walking along the street when they observed this figure seated on a door step. The officers, and even as they looked the apparition arose and glided noiselessly through the door, which she apparently opened. Last night Patrolman Braissure, with a delegation of residents, walked about and watched Lamartine street from midnight until 3 o'clock in the morning, but she did not appear.
An insane woman on Clark place, who leaves the house during the night, is thought to be the spook that so completely mystified and terrorized the neighborhood."
