char *(null)="
stephenville.story
stephenville.story
From netcom.com!brianbet Thu Sep 8 00:12:40 1994
Xref: netcom.com alt.folklore.ghost-stories:6819
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Path: netcom.com!brianbet
From: brianbet@netcom.com (Brian Bethel)
Subject: A local Tale o' Terror
Message-ID:
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 03:59:55 GMT
Lines: 235
Hey ho, fellow alt.folklore.ghost-story maniacs! Here's a tale to
chill the blood and make you feel just a little less safe there in the
dark -- or wherever you get your fright fix.
This is the complete text of an article I wrote for the
Stephenville Empire-Tribune (located in bee-you-tiful Stephenville,
Texas). The story is one of the most popular legends hereabouts, and is
reproduced in full for your reading pleasure.
The article was written to fill a portion of our 250-page
"Horizons" special section. The article itself appeared in a portion
titled -- appropriately enough -- "Secrets."
Enjoy. :)
THE GHOST OF THE MCDOW HOLE
By BRIAN BETHEL
The Empire-Tribune
We're going to take a trip.
Not a long journey, but hopefully an interesting one. We're not
going to any far-off place, really. In fact itŐs right here. Close at
hand. You could even go there yourself. But somehow, this is ... safer.
Turn down the lights. It'll help. Don't strain your eyes, though.
Imagine stars. Cold, twinkling points of light overhead. Eternal.
Blue-white.
Imagine how cold they seem, thrust into an ebony sky.
Feel the night air as it caresses your cheek.
Now pan down.
See the campfire? Nice and warm isn't it? A burning shield against
the dark. Our little circle of protection against -- well, whatever's out
there.
Gather 'round. Plenty of room here.
We're going to tell you a ghost story.
Not scared, are you?
Good.
Let's begin.
+++++++
The frontier cabin where she met her fate is long gone, but
perhaps ... something of Jenny Papworth still remains at the old McDow
Ghost Hole about two miles south of Harbin, Texas.
She was a pretty girl, supposedly. No raving beauty to be sure,
but the frontier life suited her well, and she was the sum total of
Charlie Papworth's world.
She and Charlie, along with her oldest son, Temple, had undertaken
the difficult trek from Georgia to what would become Erath County in the
1870s. Charlie had made the journey earlier, and Jenny and her son
followed shortly thereafter.
They settled on a stretch of land near Green's Creek, next to a
wide meadow and near the McDow watering hole. Their neighbors, the McDows
and Keiths, came to help build their cabin, and at least for a time all
was calm. Jenny had a another baby, and the four of them lived happily
together.
Then Charlie received a letter and had to go away. Both of his
parents had died, and he had inherited much of their property, He decided
the best thing for Jenny would be to have her stay with one of their two
friendly neighbors during the evenings. He f elt she would be safe enough
during the day, but he feared the growing outlaw bands to the east.
Charlie thought his plan was foolproof. After all, the railroad
was a growing thing, and enough track had been laid to make the journey
back to Georgia much easier than their original overland trek.
He'd be back before she even knew it.
Thus, Jenny spent each day at the cabin, then she, the baby and
Temple would spend the night at the Keith's or McDow's. This continued for
several nights, until one evening -- when she did not show up at either
home.
Both families initially thought she had gone to stay with the
other. But when morning came Jenny was nowhere to be found.
Nowhere at all.
The families frantically began a search. They went to the cabin
and found it apparently deserted. Blood was on the floor. A thorough
search found young Temple, weeping incoherently, under the rawhide bed in
the room.
The search spread out far and wide. Comanche Indians were accused,
but the suspected tribe, which lived near the site of the present-day city
of Coleman,Texas, was later found to be friendly. Many of the Indians knew
Charlie and Jenny Papworth.
They were upset to hear she had vanished.
So, inevitably, suspicion fell on the man who insisted so strongly
that the Comanches were to blame, a man suspected of outlaw dealings
himself. Legend names him W. P. Brownlow.
Charlie returned and Brownlow became a certain target. Faced with
doom at the end of Papworth's rifle, he began what can only be called a
smear campaign. Papworth and Jenny had prospered in the two years they had
remained in the territory. How? Brownlow asserted it was because Charlie
was a rustler. Surprisingly, some people began to believe him.
The outcome was inevitable. After witnessing the abduction and
death of his mother, Temple woke again to see a horde of masked men coming
for his father. Along with six other men, he was hanged on a tree near the
McDow Hole.
Temple bravely climbed the tree and cut down the men. Six death
had already claimed, but Charlie Papworth was miraculously alive. They
rode off together, away from the horrors they had known.
But Jenny, Charlie's beloved, remained.
The first to see her were members of the Keith family. A drought
had gripped the land, and the McDow was one of the last bastions of good
water left in the area.
Three nights Bill Keith and his 13-year-old son attempted to stay
in the cabin, and three nights Jenny visited them, each apparition more
horrible than the last.
On the first night, someone was at the door. It was Jenny, holding
her baby. As Keith and his son looked on in terror, she vanished without a
sound.
"A dream," Keith told himself the next morning. He was determined
to stay. The next evening Jenny appeared again, gliding through the walls
of the cabin. Still, Keith thought it was all only a dream.
And then, on the third night, he knew the visions shared by him
and his son had been no dream.
She was there at the door again, so real he could have reached out
and touched her. He asked if it was truly her, if she was really alive and
had escaped from whatever fate had held her.
She screamed. The terrible sound reverberated through the
twilight, and then Jenny was gone. Only the night remained, cold and
unforgiving.
Thereafter, Keith avoided the Papworth cabin at all costs.
After that, Jenny's shade was reported ranging all over the Erath
County countryside. She would appear holding her baby on nearby railroad
tracks. The engineer would hurriedly throw the brakes, bringing the
thundering locomotive to a stop -- usually too late. Yet, when the
panic-stricken crew would leap out to examine the tracks, there was never
any trace of Jenny or her infant child.
Tales of Jenny's hauntings continued. Many thought she was looking
for her killer. Others said she wanted to lead someone to her bones.
Perhaps, though, Jenny got her revenge on her murderer and her
husband's would-be killer.
Brownlow had moved far east along the county and lived a secluded
existence. Word came that he was sick, that he had a disease no doctor
could cure.
On his deathbed, Brownlow is said to have confessed to the murder
of Jenny Papworth. She had seen him talking to known cattle rustlers, and
he had to kill her.
Just before he confessed, Brownlow supposedly writhed under the
influence of a terrible dream, screaming "Don't let her touch me!" and
"The blood!" over and over again.
After his confession, Brownlow gave up the ghost himself. Most
believe it was also Brownlow who led the masked men who tried to hang
Charlie Papworth.
Brownlow wasn't the only casualty of Jenny's wrath, though. A
Pennsylvanian coffin-maker had moved into the territory. He was supposedly
a talented fiddle player, and his music could be heard easily. Then for
several days his fiddle fell silent.
Finally, neighbors came to visit the cabin. They found the
coffin-maker on the floor, his face drawn into a rictus of fear and dread.
The coffin-maker was suddenly in need of a coffin himself.
Another time, a group of robbers visited the cabin. They suffered
the same fate, their fright-contorted faces the only testament to whatever
ghastly events had transpired.
Far and wide, stories of Jenny spread. One legend says Green's Creek
changed course and some human bones were found in an old well. Popular
opinion holds that these were the mortal remains of Jenny and her baby,
but the validity of the story is quest ionable.
Even today, though, stories are still told about the McDow Hole
Ghost.
In fact, so many stories have been told the legend has even
attracted "professionals." Mary Joe Clendenin, a local author, says her
father, Joe Fitzgerald, told her the story of Jenny many years ago when
she was a young girl. It is from her father's account that many of the
"Jenny" stories spring.
Among the many souls who have attempted to lay Jenny's spirit to
rest included a traveling medium who came to the area in the 1950s, she
said.
The medium said he intended to free Jenny's wandering shade.
Clendenin said she wasn't certain he did.
"He stopped at our house to ask directions to the McDow Hole," she
said. "He claimed he was planning to lay Jenny's spirit to rest. We never
saw him after that, so I don't know if he was successful."
Wes Miller of Morgan Mill said he had fished, swam and worked the
land around the McDow Hole all of his life, ever since 1927. Often, his
mules would become skittish around the watering hole, and he felt a
presence around the hole itself.
Once, when he was a young boy, he came there to swim one day. A
chill suddenly filled the watering hole. Miller and several of his young
companions built a fire, but it scattered and went out quickly.
"What would cause a cold like that and a fire to go out so
suddenly?" he asked. "I don't know. I've had a lot of time to think about
that incident, though."
Miller said he felt more-or-less accepted by whatever he felt at
the watering hole. He said he sensed no real danger there, but he added he
would still find it hard to spend the night there alone, even at 77 years
of age.
So, the question remains: Is Jenny still around?
Did Clendenin's mysterious spiritualist release her soul?
If those bleached bones really were hers, did she slowly weaken
and fade?
Or does some remnant of Jenny Papworth even now remain, lost and
fated to haunt the darkness?
Clendenin said she didn't know.
"I certainly believe that she was real," Clendenin said. "I've
never been fortunate enough to see a ghost, though. Something of Jenny may
still remain, but I can't say."
Miller agreed, saying where Jenny was couldn't be known.
"Of Jenny's ghost, who can say?" he said. "Who knows what sort of
place she is in here in our world -- or out of our world?"
A worthy question.
Where is Jenny Papworth?
How long does she have to stay where she is?
And is she alone there in the dark?
+++++
A good story, eh? Thought you'd like it.
Getting kind of cold out here, isn't it? The fire's just about
out, I see.
So, poor Jenny Papworth, out there all alone. Breaks your heart,
huh?
Before you go to bed tonight, just before you surrender to sleep,
stop for a moment. Remember the stars we conjured up earlier, cold and
icy, our small fire the only protection we have against the shadows.
That fire really is getting dim, isn't it? Pretty soon there'll
only be only coals left.
Some chill coming on, eh?
Anyway, just before you go to sleep, think about poor Jenny. Poor
little lost Jenny and her babe out there alone in the dark. Where is she
out there?
She could be close to home.
Well, there goes the fire. Best you were "heading that way."
Thanks for listening. Pleasant dreams.
The rest is silence.
Portions of this article were compiled from Ghost Stories of Texas by Ed
Syers, copyright 1981 Texian Press, and The Ghost of the McDow Hole by
Mary Joe Clendenin, copyright 1979. Special thanks to Ms. Clendenin and
Wes Miller for all of their help.
++++++
Hope you enjoyed it. Pleasant dreams. And don't worry -- as far
as we know, Jenny's reach doesn't extend beyond Texas.
At least, we hope it doesn't. ;)
--
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