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Farrandsville is a place that just looks haunted. Lying on the north side of the Susquehanna River, in Colebrook Township, Farrandsville is a small, historic community. With only one practical way in or out, old buildings and surrounded by forests, Farrandsville is one of those places that looks haunted, whether it is or not.
Farrandsville was founded by William Farrand, when he came to develop the coal mining industry in the area. That's where Colebrook Township got its name; originally it was "Coalbrook." This obviously showed a lot of creativity in the naming of the communities, which continued with Minersville, about the same time.
Minersville was a smaller community, lying just north of Farrandsville. This is where many of the local coal miners lived with their families. The two communities are close enough that they could actually be one community, with Minersville within easy walking distance. And, yes, there seems to have been a ghost there.
The Clinton Democrat reported on this very casually on March 3, 1892. In the "Farransville Items" column, first they reported on new officers elected for the literary club, and then they mentioned the haunting.
"Farrandsville, or rather Minersville, now sports a new ghost," the column said. "The uncanny critter is located in an old house which has been untenanted for some time, but is now occupied by two miners who report all sorts of queer noises during the 'silent watches of the night.'"
The miners mentioned that there were all sorts of sounds going on, moans and footsteps late at night, with nobody else in the building. Minersville had a small cemetery, and if you're going to look into who might be haunting the place, the answer would lie with practically anyone buried in the Minersville Cemetery.
A lot of the stones in the Minersville Cemetery aren't readable, but the ones that are tell a disturbing story about life in the area at that time. The earliest documentable stone seems to be for Elizabeth Shergood, the daughter of James and Rebecca Shergood, who died at four months old on Oct. 2, 1836. Her mother, Rebecca, died very soon after, on Oct. 25.
Elizabeth isn't the only child buried in that cemetery. Thirteen-year-old Eleanor McRandull died on June 9, 1837. Seven-year-old David Cree died in 1850, and is buried next to his baby brother, whose stone reads,"Here sleeps the dust of blooming youth, their spirit mounts the sky, but whispers now this awful truth, that all are born to die."
Those stones are gathered back in the woods in a small cluster. A bit closer to the path, in another section, lies John Shade, whose stone notes that he died in a mine cave-in.
When I investigate ghosts, I always look into the history of the property. What I'm looking for is young death, violent death... The accidents, the murders and suicides, the untimely tragedies. That's what causes a haunting. You rarely hear of a credible haunting caused by a 90 year old who died quietly in their sleep. Ghosts are caused by the terrible tragedies.
By that standard, it's not too shocking that Minersville was considered to be haunted. Just about anyone buried there would be a good candidate to be a ghost, and maybe they all are. This cemetery was apparently just thrown there because it was an available space. The Minersville Cemetery was so creepy, even for its time, that there is a letter documenting one woman who refused to be buried there.
A Farrandsville worker named Edward Thomas was an immigrant from Wales. On Jan. 11, 1836, he wrote to his sister, Bess, saying,"The place allotted for the burying grounds in the woods, in the very midst of it without any preparation whatever - open to the wild beasts out of the wilderness, no sort of inclosure whatever."
Thomas told of a carpenter who refused to have any clergy at his wife's funeral, and a woman named Nancy who attended that funeral and requested that her own burial be practically anywhere else.
"With tears in her eyes she begged of me - should she die here, not to be buried here," Thomas wrote. Nancy had said she would rather be buried in Dunnstown nearby. And it's not too hard to figure out why, with the frightening reputation the Minersville Cemetery had even back then.