After funeral services in the Episcopalian Church, in Eighty-second street, crowded with friends (among whom was the usual group of half a dozen ladies, who looked like pyramids of black crape…we had rather a long journey to the grave-yard on the further end of Staten Island, called the Moravian Cemetery, where the remains of Mr. Newman were to be buried.
[The narrator attends a séance on the same day and sees ghost of Mr. Newman.]
“Do you see me?” he asked in a whisper which all could hear. “Yes, William. It is indeed you. You know see that I was right in regard to this.” “Do you see me well?” and he advanced so as to bring his face under stronger light. “Yes, in all my experience I have never seen a materialized face more distinctly.” He held out his hand, and his warm, natural grasp pressed mine as I have pressed his in its icy coldness just about twelve hours before. “Have you any message for me to take?” I asked. “Tell her I still live. Tell her I LIVE”—(the capitals representing the strength of the emphasis thrown on the word)….”Tell my wife not to wear those hideous black things. Tell her to wear this. [shows white handkerchief.] And again: “Tell her not to look for me in the grave.” And again: “Tell her not to weep for me—tell her not to weep for me.”—the voice dying out as the form slowly disappeared.
That he was William H. Newman, not exactly as I was familiar with him in life, but as I had seen him beautiful in death six hours before, and through the preceding two days, with his parted white hair, his mustache and his white beard clipped to a rounded point, I positively affirm. Neither the medium nor any one present knew of my relations with him, nor my object in going to the séance. Of Spiritualism he knew nothing until he became himself a spirit. He had occasionally expressed the wish to accompany me to some good séance but the idea had never come to a practical head. He shared my own opinions about the common practice of black crape mourning, and, as a spirit certainly gave emphatic practical expression to them.
The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 13 February 1887: p. 13
Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead.
The Victorian Book of the Dead 