In 1922, it was reported that a ghost revealed where he hid his gold to a family renting his former home.
I’ve always enjoyed ghost stories like the one below. It reminds me of the stories family elders would tell around the group campfire during our family vacations in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Ghost Shows Way to Hidden Gold
MENIFEE, Mo. — Thirty-two years ago Silas Menifee, for whom this village was named, passed out of this earthly existence at the ripe old age of 92 years.He had led a miserly, hermit life, and it was generally supposed that he had a tidy sum of money hidden away somewhere, as he was always skeptical of banks. But a diligent search by his relatives after death revealed nothing of any value.
So confident were his relatives that he had secreted money about the little cottage that they even tapped the walls and examined the legs of the chairs. Nothing ever came of the search, however, and the place was rented.
Osborn Shropshire became the first tenant and prospered so well that he was accused of finding the hoarded wealth, but he swore up and down he hadn’t and as none of the merchants about the village had ever seen any money that looked suspiciously old this notion was finally given up.
Hear Strange Noises
About ten years after the death of Mr. Menifee, known as “Old Si,” the Shropshire family began to be annoyed by strange noises. During the middle of the night there would be strange rappings, unaccountable from any source.
Again they would hear weird moanings as if they came from someone in distress under the hearth. They became so terrifying the family dug through the floor, but of course found nothing.
They finally moved away in terror and the report went out that the house was haunted.
Two or three braver ones scouted the idea and moved in, but they never stayed long.
In July a family driving over land in a covered wagon from Ohio spotted the abandoned shack, as it is now, and got permission to make it their home. They of course didn’t know anything of the house’s history and no one hereabouts of the old one who were familiar with it took the trouble to tell them.
It wasn’t necessary, however, if the reports of the family – Robinson by name – can be verified. And it seems they are in a fair way to be.
Two weeks after they had installed themselves in the old house, as the story goes, one of the Robinson children was awakened by heavy footsteps in the room and, looking up, saw an aged man with flowing white beard coming toward the pallet where she was sleeping with her mother.
The child’s screams awakened Mrs. Robinson, who says she saw the old man as “plain as could be.” When she arose straight up in bed terrified the old man stood still, and extended his arms, as if to say, “Be not afraid. I come to do no harm.” Then he pointed to a stone in the fireplace. So doing he vanished into thin air.
Found the Gold
Terrified beyond expression, Mrs. Robinson kept to her bed the rest of the night, but next morning she hastily summoned her husband, who had been sleeping in an adjoining room. They examined the stone to which the old man pointed and found, after a little prying, that it was loose. When they finally got it out of its place they found behind it a small crevice in which there was $567 in gold!
The facts as related here are being set down for a report to the American Society for Psychical Research, which will be asked to make an investigation of the remarkable story.
Source: The St. Charles herald. (Hahnville, La.), 02 Dec. 1922.
