Amherst Mystery

Entry in A Dictionary of Ghost Lore
The Amherst Mystery is perhaps the most famous case of a poltergeist on the North American continent. It took place during the years 1878 and 1879 in the small township of Amherst in Nove Soctia and concerned the strange occurences that went on there in a small timber-frame house. The mysterious noises, movement of objects, and messages scratched onto the walls, were centered on a nineteen-year-old girl, Esther Cox, and followed shortly after her ill-fated courtship by a man named Bob McNeal who attempted to rape her in August 1878. In the months that followed, Esther was subjected to numerous attacks by the poltergeist, which also left several dramatic messages scrawled on the walls of the house, including one in foot-high letters that read, "Esther Cox you are mine to kill." What made this affair so remarkable is that the phenomena were actually seen occuring by a number of highly respectable witnesses, including two local clergymen and a neighbor, Walter Hubbell, who, though initially skeptical, eventually became so convinced the poltergeist was genuine that he wrote what is now considered the classic study of the events, The Great Amherst Mystery (1879). When the controbersy was at its height, the ghost ceased it's attacks as suddenly and mysteriously as they had begun. Esther Cox herself soon left Nova Scotia and settled in America wher shhe refused to speak again about the terrifying events that had surrounded her, for fear, as she said, that they "might begin again."