Coffin Hollow and Other Ghost Tales by Ruth Ann Musick Read Free Book Online

land to his only son, but the clever man had made one stipulation; his son was not to tear down the little log cabin. The son could build anywhere else on the land, but the cabin was to remain where it was.
    A few years after the death of his father, the young man married a girl from a nearby town and took his bride to live in the cabin on the hill. His wife, a prominent figure in society, despised living in the dingy cabin and urged him to tear it down and replace it with a house that was suitable to their position.
    After much begging and pleading, the young man finally consented. While the cabin was being taken down, the money was discovered under the floorboard where the widower had left it. All the money was used to build the most extravagant house in the area.
    When the building was completed, the wife decided to give a party in order to show off their new home. The party was a success, and the guests were astonished by the beauty of the mansion.
    After the guests left, the proud owners soon retired. They locked the doors to their mansion, fearing that someone might steal their rich possessions.
    In the morning the mistress of the house found the front door standing open. Amazed by the scene, she ran to awaken her husband. He was terrified to think that someone had come in during the night. They searched the house and found nothing missing. Only a rug in the middle of the floor had been turned wrong side up.
    The next two nights the same thing happened. Then the husband decided to stay awake to catch their prowler in the act. He sat in a chair near the door with his gun in hand until the hour of twelve without hearing or seeing anything. He finally tired of the game and started up the stairs to his room.
    Just then he heard footsteps outside. The door jarred and the locks fell free. As the door swung open, the figure of his father appeared in the doorway. In his panic, the young man shot the image and it disappeared. Terrified by the thought of killing his own father, he turned the gun to himself and fired.
    His wife, standing at the top of the stairs, had witnessed the scene. She was found beside the body of her husband in a state of delirium.
    The house still stands on the hill in Glenfalls, West Virginia.

    16: The Ghost of Hangman’s Hollow
    In the 1920s, there was a vicious moonshiner in the area of Gilman, West Virginia, near Elkins, who had declared war on government agents or “revenooers.” Every time one would come around any of his stills, he would barbarously murder him and then dismember the body and cremate the remains in a furnace used to make charcoal for the stills.
    This went on for several years, but finally the murderer was caught by a group of federal men, who had combined their forces to avenge all the agents who had been murdered while doing their duty.

    Since it was almost dark when they made their capture, the agents decided to wait until morning to transport the prisoner to a federal jail. They placed the moonshiner in an outbuilding and left one man on guard, while the rest went to bed.
    The next morning the “revenooers” found their fellow worker lying unconscious outside the shed, which was empty. Immediately they started to comb the nearby woods for their prisoner. About noon one of them gave a signal shot, and they all gathered quickly. Down in a pitlike hollow, hanging from a moss-covered grapevine, was the man for whom they were searching. Evidently he had tripped and fallen into the ravine, where a vine had encircled his neck and broken it. Thus ended the life of a murderer.
    After this, the local residents stated that each time they passed that hollow they could hear a moaning noise. They said it was the voice of the moonshiner crying in pain.

    17: The Haunted Field
    My grandfather tells a strange story about a piece of land he had received from his father and later had given in turn to my uncle. One day grandfather and I were crossing Uncle Roy’s meadow,