Ghost farms and murder farms were prevalent over a hundred years ago. The account below is about a piece of property where police believed people were murdered and buried. Locals considered the farm haunted and kept a fair distance away from the property.
Find Skeleton on Ghost Farm
On the site of an old farmhouse in Canarsie [New York], where police records show that one man was shot and killed, workmen digging an excavation found recently the skeleton of a man who had been wounded and buried alive more than two years ago, according to Dr. Charles Wuest, coroner’s physician. This is the second skeleton found on the premises since the excavating began.
Because after the killing there the place was known as the “Haunted Farm” and none dared go near it, especially at night. The police believe that wholesale murders have been committed and bodies brought to the spot for burial by a band. The ground will be thoroughly excavated under police surveillance.
The skeletons were found at what is now Hegeman Avenue and Powell Street. Morris Plum and Samuel Block, laborers, were digging there when their picks struck a barrel about eight feet below the surface of the ground. They excavated it and found that it was heavy when they started to lift it. “It’s buried treasure, maybe,” Block said, breaking in the barrel head with his pick. To his horror he saw the skeleton partly clothed in what had once been a blue serge suit.
Infant’s Shoes in Barrel
Captain Carey of the Seventh branch detective bureau, was summoned and the body in the barrel was taken to the morgue. There is was examined and the police found a pair of infant shoes, newspaper clippings and a memorandum.
The body had been jammed into the barrel, but the legs and arms had so shifted that the physician said the murdered man must have been alive and may have regained consciousness and struggled to get free. The frontal bone of the skull had been badly shattered and the lower jaw crushed as with a blow.
The victim had a leather belt. His head had been wrapped in a newspaper which was dated June, 1914, the exact date being obliterated. The police took the clippings and memorandum to the station.
The skeleton found last September 12 also was partly clad in a blue serge suit and wore a belt marked “S.” The man’s skull also had been fractured. With the finding of his bones the police started an investigation.
Many years ago there lived on this ground a truck farmer whose name has been forgotten, but who erected a shanty in which he lived. Six years ago Joseph Verdone, another truck farmer, rented the land, coming from Little Ferry, NJ. Soon thereafter he was joined by a Mrs. Jenny Seeley, the wife of a neighbor, who left her husband. The police allege that Seeley, who lives in Little Ferry, often came in search of his wife and frequently there were brawls at the truck farm.
Kills her Companion
On the morning of July 7, 1012, Mrs. Seely shot and killed Verdone. She was tried in the Supreme Court of Brooklyn for murder, but acquitted, on the ground of self-defense. She said Verdone was intoxicated, struck at her, and then dashed for a shotgun. She beat him to the shotgun and killed him. After her acquittal she disappeared. After that the old farm had a bad name, and was thought by many superstitious persons in the neighborhood to be haunted. Many contended they heard strange noises which they attributed to the “evil spirits.”
The police believe the deserted house may have been used as a rendezvous for murderers and thieves operating in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that not only were persons lured there and murdered but that bodies murdered elsewhere were brought there and buried. Captain Carey said he would make a thorough investigation, and while the excavations were going on would post a special guard to watch for bodies.
Source: The Keota news. (Keota, Weld County, Colo.), 20 Oct. 1916.
