11/15/2023
"THE BLACK GHOST"
THE DECATUR GHOST SCARE OF 1903
It began on November 13, 1903 – an event that caused terror to ripple through the Midwestern city of Decatur, Illinois. It was on that night that a local resident first encountered a chilling apparition in a black robe that began wreaking havoc on the people who lived on Decatur’s West Side.
Who – or what—this creature was remains a mystery to this day.
Growing up in Central Illinois, I can assure you that Decatur is a weird and haunted place. The first books that I ever wrote were about hauntings and legends of Decatur and the first ghost tour I ever established, back in 1994, was in this unusual little city. But I’m not sure that anything of a paranormal nature that is happening today can compare with the weirdness of November 1903.
Beginning on November 13, fear gripped the city. According to reports, a chilling apparition in a black robe, with a veil covering its face and “awful eyes that burned like fire” began terrorizing the residents of the city’s West Side.
The first sighting occurred on Tuesday night. A young lady was walking alone along West Wood Street when a black-shrouded phantom appeared from between two houses near Union Street. The “black ghost,” as it was later dubbed, came quickly toward her and she began to scream. Just at that moment, a carriage drove out of a nearby barn and the creature fled. The young woman reported the incident to the police, who assumed that it was nothing more than a prank – until more sightings began to be reported on the West Side. More black ghost appearances were noted, on West Main Street, West Wood, and along Pine Street. Who, or what, this specter might be was unknown, but it terrified people as it lurched from the shadows and then vanished without a trace.
News of the ghost quickly spread throughout the city. Sightings were reported in the newspapers and the phantom became a heated topic of conversation in restaurants, saloons, barbershops, billiard halls, and schools. The police admitted to being perplexed by the weird sightings and the average people in the city were intrigued – and a little unnerved.
Two additional black ghost encounters took place on November 14 when dozens of people were out looking for the monster. Henry Ray, a student at Millikin University, was out that evening, having taken a streetcar from the college to a downtown theater. He stayed late and the streetcars had stopped running before he needed to return to Millikin. Content to travel on foot, he had reached Haworth Avenue when he told police that he encountered the black ghost crouching in the shadows along the north side of the street.
The ghost returned again on November 15. Fred Travis and Dell Hooey, two young railroad workers on their way home from the freight house around 8:30 p.m. They had just turned north from Cerro Gordo on the east side of Monroe and were about halfway to the railroad tracks when they met the specter. They were busy talking to one another when it appeared and startled them both. They gave chase to the ghost but it easily outran them. Travis had been carrying a board with him, which he planned to take home and burn in his stove, but when he saw the ghost was getting away, he hurled the board at it. He was sure that if the phantom had been a material being, the board would have hit it. Instead, it passed through the ghost and fell to the sidewalk. Moments later, he said, the specter disappeared.
More sightings followed. By this time, the stories of black ghost sightings were sweeping through the city and the people of the West End, especially women, were becoming terrified. The black ghost appeared on the porches and at windows of several homes, terrifying the occupants. Each time, the black ghost vanished into the darkness.
By November 17, the city was in a frantic state. Plainclothes police officers were put on patrol on the West Side, looking for any sign of the black ghost. Search parties were organized to try and track the monster down. Early in the evenings, crowds of men and boys could be found in every part of the West End. Eldorado and Monroe streets were thoroughly searched. All the search parties went armed with sticks and clubs, apparently hoping to thrash the ghost if they managed to catch it. They roamed the streets and alleys for most of the night, shouting and laughing at one another. The only thing these “ghost hunters” managed to find was trouble since sleeping residents began reporting their behavior to the police around midnight.
But not every ghost hunting party was made up of local ruffians and teenagers. Dr. L.E. Conradt and about 20 members of the respected Iroquois Club took up the search for the black ghost. They armed themselves with clubs and went all over the West Side of town, exploring behind signs, down fence rows, in orchards and down alleys. They searched for more than two hours but were unable to find anything that resembled the phantom.
No additional sightings of the black ghost occurred on November 18, although the search parties were still out on the hunt. The people of Decatur remained on edge and women were still terrified for several weeks, even though the sightings eventually stopped.
Who, or what, was this strange creature? Was the black ghost merely a prankster who entertained himself by scaring people on Decatur’s West Side and then decided to give up the joke when too many people started looking for him? Or was the specter really just that -- a genuine supernatural being?
It’s certain that we can blame at least some of the sightings on the hysteria that swept through the city that long ago November, but can we dismiss them all? How do we explain the rational accounts of a ghost that disappeared without explanation, or the thrown board that passed through it?
The mystery of the black ghost will likely never be solved, but it certainly managed to establish Decatur as a weird and haunted place, even back in 1903.
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