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Portsmouth Poltergeist
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
1838
"On June 11, 1682, showers of stones were thrown by an invisible hand upon the house of George W—, at Portsmouth. Whereupon the people going out, found the gate wrung off the hinges, and stones flying and falling about them, and striking of them seemingly with great force, but really affecting them no more than if a soft touch were given them. The glass windows were broken to pieces by stones that came not from without, but from within; and other instruments were in like manner hurled about.
Nine of the stones he picked up, and some were as hot as if they came out of a fire. He marked them, and laid them on a table; but in a little while found some of them flying about again. The spittoon was carried up the chimney; and coming down with the point forward, stuck in the back log; and when one of the occupants tried to remove it, it was by an invisible hand thrown out at a window.
This disturbance continued from day to day; and sometimes a dismal hollow whistling would be heard, and sometimes a trotting and snorting of an horse, but nothing to be seen. The man went up the great bay in a boat to a farm he had there, but there the stones found him out; and carrying from the house to the boat a stirrup iron, the iron came jingling after him through the woods as far as the house; and at last went away, and was heard of no more. The anchor leaped overboard several times, and stopped the boat.
A cheese was taken out of a press, and crumbled all over the floor; a piece of iron stuck into a wall, and a kettle hung thereon. Several squares of hay mowed near the house, were taken up and hung upon trees, and others made into small wisps, and scattered about the house.
The man was much hurt by some of the stones; he was a Quaker, and suspected a woman who charged him with injustice in buying some land from her, did by witchcraft occasion these supernatural occurrences.
However, at last, they came to an end."
