Some Real American Ghosts The Giant Ghost

Scary Books: The Best Ghost Stories
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A case in point is the Benton, Indiana, ghost, which is attracting much

attention. It has been seen and investigated by many people with

reputations for intelligence and good sense, but so far no explanation

of the strange appearance has been found.



A farmer named John W. French and his wife were the first to see this

apparition. They live in the country near Benton, and were driving home

one night from a neighbor's. The road passed an old church, moss-covered

and surrounded by a graveyard, overgrown with shrubbery and filled with

the bones of hundreds who once tilled the soil in the locality. Ten

years ago an aged man who lived alone not far from the old church and

visited the graveyard almost daily to pray over the resting place of

some relative was foully murdered for the store of gold he was supposed

to have hidden about his hermit abode. The robbers and murderers escaped

justice, and the luckless graybeard was buried in the graveyard where he

spent so much time. Just as French and his wife drew within sight of the

white headstones in the churchyard the horses reared back on their

haunches and snorted in terror. French was alarmed, and suspecting

highwaymen had been scented by the horses, he reached for a shotgun

which lay in the bottom of the wagon for just such an emergency. But

before his hand touched it he was startled by a scream from his wife.

Clutching his arm she pointed straight ahead and gasped: "Look, John,

look!"



Far down the road, just beside the glimmering monuments of the old

graveyard, he saw an apparition. It was that of a man with a long white

beard sweeping over his breast. The figure appeared to be eight feet in

height and in one hand it carried a club, such as the brains of the old

man had been beaten out with ten years before. Slowly raising one arm

the ghost with a majestic sweep beckoned French to come ahead. He was

too startled to do anything except try to restrain the prancing horses,

which were straining at the harness in attempts to break away and run. A

cold sweat started out all over the body of the farmer as he realized

that he was at last looking at a ghost, and then the sound of his wife's

voice came to him begging him to return the way they had come and escape

the doom which seemed impending. French was still too much scared and

excited to control the horses, and as he gazed steadfastly at the

fearful white object in the road it slowly began to move toward the

wagon. The club was now raised to its shoulder, as a soldier carries a

rifle, and it seemed to move forward without touching the ground, like a

winged thing.



Then the farmer recovered his faculties and, whirling his team around,

he lashed the horses into a run and began the trip to the house of the

friend he had just left. When they arrived there both the man and his

wife were almost fainting from fright.



The next man to see the ghost was Milton Moon. He had the reputation for

being not only a man of intelligence but one without fear. His

experience was much the same as that of the Frenches and it brought

about several investigations by parties of citizens. In each case they

saw and were convinced of the actual presence of the ghost without being

able to discover any satisfactory explanation.