Entry #551843, added on 11-26-07 @ 10:39 pm EST
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| The Bay Road Legacy Chapter 13 Revelation | Entry #551843 |
The BAY ROAD LEGACY
Chapter Thirteen
Revelation
Late Friday afternoon, and several news reporters were back at the farm, and had been meeting informally with the Sheriff. They had been questioning him for several minutes, when mother and I approached to find out what we could of the news reports being filed. The Sheriff became quite silent now as the reporters turned to mother. Mrs., they asked, how long have you and your family lived out here at Bay Road? Why did you move here with so many stories told about this old place? Were you afraid to be here? What about the ghosts, did you ever see one? Have all of your family enjoyed this old place? Are you considering moving now that this has happened? Where will you be moving to? Is your family all okay? What started the fire? Someone asked if she had seen any strangers on the day of the fire, and she stopped them all from asking more. She had taken enough questions and was not anxious to answer any of them. She called out to Father to come over and talk to the reporters. She stepped back a bit to listen.
Father told how we had come to Bay Road as it looked to be a real good place to be a home for his family. He had leased the property from its owners when he started work in Glens Falls. He did not see why we would have to move, and was quick to point out that no one was hurt. “No we are all just fine,” he said. As to ghosts, why he had never met one personally, but maybe some stories had sprung up about this nice old farm house, he just couldn’t think that they were all true. Well asked one young man, “did you learn of the stories before you rented the house?” “Yes.” He replied, “Yes I did, but I don’t put much stock in old wives tales and ghost stories and such, after all, this house and farm and this whole area are just so beautiful, who wouldn’t just love to live here. I know that my wife and the kids are just thrilled at living at Bay Road.” Well Sir, asked one reporter, “what stories did you hear about this place?” “Oh I would rather not go into that, like I said we are all just fine, and we expect to be around for quite a while.”
The questions were now directed at the Sheriff. “Sir, have you heard stories about Bay Road and strange things that have been reported about the place over the years?” The Sheriff was reluctant to answer, but at once, Mother spoke up and urged him to speak. She had not heard all of the stories and felt a little left out.
The Sheriff sat down now in the old chair by the side yard, and said that even growing up as a small boy, he had heard stories about the house on Bay Road, the haunted house. The first story he heard was from his father who warned him to stay away from the property because several people had been killed there, and it was not a good place to be. He recalled that others had said that some one died in a fire in one of the upstairs rooms, and that one old man had hung himself in the big old silo. Yes, he said there were reports of a body or two being buried in the cellar, and one or two people had indeed seen an old car driven by a well dressed gentleman travel up and down Bay Road and stopping at the old house. He had worked one summer on the farm and had only been inside the house on one or two occasions and personally never felt the house to be strange, but he said I did not like that old dairy barn at all. Always too cold for my tastes.
Mother stepped in now and began to ask questions, and the reporters sat quietly listening at every answer. “Sheriff, have you ever had occasion to look up in the records and see if any of the stories were true?”
“Well Mrs. I have tried to do just that, but as you may guess, records of events as far back as this old house, are few and far between?”
“Well, did you find any at all?”
“More or less, I have been able to find some casual references in old county log books, and a few notes in the sheriff’s files. Nothing official mind you, just some old notes on investigations since the start of the century. There wasn’t very much going on before then. In the first matter, of the possible deaths of two men in the house, what I found was a hand written report from a former constable who made the notes based on interviews several weeks after the incident.
It was alleged that two farm laborers probably Canadians who had been staying in the house, were allowed on Friday nights to use the small room upstairs as a sort of lounge area, as it was often times cold in the rear sleeping rooms. They had entered the room with several others and were engaged in a game of cards. According to the witnesses, one man accused the other of cheating, in a very heated argument, whereupon the accused took a knife from his boots and stabbed his accuser, in the chest. The man who was stabbed stood up, knocking over a chair, and from his coat pocket pulled out a small derringer type of gun and shot the first man dead. Not sure if there were one or two shots fired. After shooting the man, the shooter stumbled out of the room into the hallway, and tried to flee down the front stairs. The report says that the man stumbled down the stairs, and exited through the front door, and then jumped from the porch into the yard. He sat or fell down on the ground near the oak tree, and before anyone could get to him, he died there. Such events were not uncommon in the rural farm communities where outside help was employed. The owner of the house at that time had no-way of communicating to the families of these men, probably didn’t even have an address. The other laborers knew little of them, but said they would make inquiry when they returned home to Canada. The weather at that time, probably after early winter set in had frozen the ground solid, so the owner properly wrapped the bodies of both men and put them into heavy cloth bags and buried them in a corner of the cellar. He had thought that one day perhaps some distant family members may come to claim their kin folk.”
Mother was not at all surprised at the story told by the sheriff, and asked him if he would have time for a cup of coffee, and would he please tell us more of what he had learned about our house on Bay Road. He agreed to stay, but said no to the coffee.
He next went on to tell of the tragic fire that had taken the life of a young woman in the very same upstairs room that had been used by the farm hands. What he said was that it may have been just a year or two later, when in early spring, a woman, who had been using the room as a sewing room, was working in the room in the late on a Thursday afternoon. A thunder storm approached with heavy rain, and she apparently closed the windows to the room to keep the rain out. At some point during the storm, lightning struck nearby, with such a roar that it startled the woman, and she had apparently tipped over an oil lamp in the room. The oil quickly covered her clothing and ignited in flames. She started to scream. All of the farm hands within range of her voice and all the people who were in the house tried to rescue and save the woman, but their attempts to enter the room were fruitless. All they could do was to throw pails of water into the room and try to save the house.
Several men had tried to reach her by using a ladder to the rear window, but just as they tore away the screens, another bolt of lightning struck causing the ladder to fall from the house. It probably would not have mattered as the woman, in desperation tried to open the window herself, but apparently it had jammed from the heat, and the scorched paint. There were stories of the true identity of this person, but no determination was ever made. Some said she was the owner’s maid, others his niece and some had other ideas. The fire was of course an act of nature and no reports of an official nature were filed. The sheriff said he had heard some people say that the upstairs room was in some way still unusable and most folks found it cold and uninviting. Shortly after that incident, the owners wife moved from the farm and had a fine house built in Glens Falls. Her husband Mr. Spiers died very soon after.
Mother asked the sheriff if anyone knew if she or any other person in the house had been a member of the old religious group who met out by the big cross at our neighbor’s house. As he recalled, no one had mentioned that. One of the newspaper people said he had researched that sect some years ago and found some records that indicated she was a member of the sect, a woman, and her address was listed in the records as Bay Road. He knew it was the same person, as the records showed her to be the closest neighbor and a friend of the gentleman who had given the land to the group. Her death was recorded as being on a Thursday in April of 1889.
Mother wanted to know if anything had happened in more recent times, to which the sheriff nodded that there had been some tragedy in past years. There was an older gentleman who at one time owned the farm. It seems that he ran into financial difficulty and was being forced to give up and admit defeat in his efforts. He met an untimely death by hanging in the old dairy barn, now still burning before us. The records on that indicated that it was most likely an accident, but the speculation led most folks to other than accidental causes, especially because there was no need for the rope to be hanging in the silo. He said that the incident may have been reported as an accident so that his kin may claim some insurance money, or perhaps to ease their grief. The body of the man had been removed from the silo before a proper investigation could be done. In fact he said the death was not reported for several days, and then only because a burial permit had been requested.
“Were there other events at the farm that were talked about by people, or other strange things that we have not heard?”
Yes Mrs. in fact there have been several sightings of the old car that you asked about. The last man to be sheriff just before me told me he had been called several times about a strange car traveling the Bay Road. He says that he actually saw the car himself on one occasion, leaving from your driveway. He was able to get the make of the car, and trace it down in the records. Well almost track it down. The last time that type of car was offered, it was purchased mostly by undertakers. It actually had flower holders in the rear seat area and large rear doors making it easy to get in and out of. When I said he tracked it down, I should have said he tried. He contacted the car company to see if there were any records of that type car being sold in our area. Surprisingly only one of those cars had been sold north of Albany, and it was to an undertaker in Glens Falls. The fact is that that same undertaker was here on the day the man died in the silo, and he on seeing the tragic results of the “accident” provided his services free to the family, hoping that they would become users of his services as needed. Yes that car was on the road in this area right up to the late 1940s. There was an accident during a thunderstorm on Bay Road just a little south of here. The driver, fully dressed in his formal attire was on his way to this very house, to aid with the arrangements for someone who was living here. His car crashed, and burst into flame and he died instantly in the car. From that time to this scarcely a year goes by that someone doesn’t call to report seeing the car and driver traveling Bay Road on his way to pick-up someone! The sheriff asked if anyone gathered here had seen the car and driver. One reporter said his wife’s sister had seen the car, on two occasions, most recently just yesterday, just before the fire. She had seen it driving north on Bay Road toward the old farm. She said she just knew that the old guy driving was out looking for more business. There was a small laugh among the people now no longer writing, just listening.
I looked toward mother, and she toward me. She put a finger to her lips and I knew that she did not want me to speak out on what we had seen before the fire, and she was certainly not going to get in the news for seeing ghosts at her front door.
There were several other people now listening, some who had been working on the still smoldering remains of the barn, several of the volunteer firemen, and some neighbors. As the sheriff’s accounts drew to and end, other people spoke out of the stories that they had heard or witnessed, and of strange occurrences around the area. The reporter who had written about the religious group, said that he went to the old revival sight on a Sunday morning to “get the flavor” of the old site. He said as he sat there on a rock quietly thinking of the folks that met there, he had a sudden awareness of another person in the clearing. In fact, he went on to say he had seen the vision of a woman dressed well in clothing of the last century, just as she emerged from a pathway that led to the old farm house on Bay Road. He also felt the presence of a great number of people that seemed to have gathered in a circle around the old cross. He could not see them, but he insisted that he felt their presence. He remained at the site for two or three hours, and said he felt the people, or their spirits leave, all but one. He looked around and there not more than ten feet from him was the image of the woman that he had seen before. Up close he recalls that she looked to be very afraid, and she turned and ran from the circle back to the path to the house on Bay Road. Very strange to him was that after she left he could smell the smell of lamp oil in the very spot where he last saw her standing.
The sheriff got up from his chair and excused himself for not being able to stay longer, but he said he was the only man on duty at that hour and he had things to tend to. He asked if he could come back at a later date, and if there was anything that he could do to help. Mother thanked him and Father walked with him back to his car still parked in our driveway. All of the other people, who had heard the revelation of the days gone by, had their own opinions of the events. As they walked away, I could hear them talking of other events, or other stories, and they spoke of the need to see the rest of this old house torn down before anything else happened there. I do not think the razing of the house would have had any affect on the visitors still in residence. No, this was our home and we were family, at least for now.
We came to Bay Road as strangers within the framework of a dysfunctional family, and had grown to reach a far better understanding of life, of loving and caring, of each other. We had coped with the unknown, and led by mother we did not show fear. We had been taught much about the lives of others, and shared in laughter and in deed in some personal sufferings. We had reached new levels of maturity and responsibility and had been tested by fire in the full sense if the word. Through all of the events, none of us, not even mother had grown to know or understand Father. He was and would remain an enigma. His own troubled past had in some way misshaped him and his thinking.
We learned from him several lessons that did not hold with his own beliefs. “Bigger did not mean better.” There was and is a need for open exchanges of ideas even when it comes to decisions affecting family life. Input from every family member was a necessary ingredient in planning. The biggest house in town also taught us lessons in self sufficiency and in being prepared for almost any situation. Bay Road and our days and months spent there would always hold a legacy for each of us, and in the days and weeks and years ahead of us it would be a turning point in all of our lives.
The unnatural spirits of Bay Road taught us lessons as well. We could see the danger in card playing and cheating. No bad deeds have good endings. We could see that even in tragedy, faith can play a major role in our lives. We learned that even in death there can be honor. We could each benefit from the Legacy of Bay road. Our lives would continue to unfold and we would become what we are today.
It was now Friday night once more and electricity had been restored and water again ran and we eventually moved on with our lives. After the last of the crowd had left, with one or two firemen staying the night, we returned to our routine of having a late supper and moving out onto the porch to sit and talk. The air was clean and the breeze kept the foul smell of the still smoldering remains from coming at us. We could smell the sweet grass and hear the sound of night birds calling. Nana and Lorraine and her boyfriend and our new friend Helen and her husband and my brother and sister Joan were all at home now on Bay Road and each held only one question, one unanswerable question. What Next?
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© Copyright 2007 Peter Yule (UN: peteryule at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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