Salesman's Noonday Visitor Bore a Scratch Known Only to His Mother

ST. JOSEPH, MO. — A hotel room in St. Joseph, Missouri, was the scene in 1876 of an apparition case that paranormal writers are still examining a century and a half later, according to a retrospective published by Paranormal Daily News.

The account concerns a young traveling salesman from Boston, who says he was writing out orders at high noon, cigar in his mouth, when he sensed someone seated at his left. Turning, he writes, he saw his sister, who had died of cholera nine years earlier. He sprang up calling her name, and the figure vanished. The case was gathered by psychical researcher Frederic Myers and later reprinted in Martin Ebon's book True Experiences with Ghosts.

The salesman described her as lifelike and ordinarily dressed, with a collar, a small breastpin and a comb in her hair. He states that he could still pick out the very dress and ornaments from her trunk, which the family kept as she left it.

The notable detail came at home. According to his account, he mentioned a bright red scratch on the right side of his sister's face. His mother, he writes, rose trembling and said no one but herself knew of it. She had accidentally made the mark while tending the body after death, had hidden it with powder, and had told no one.

The retrospective argues that the case contradicts popular stereotypes. It cites surveys said to show that apparitions often represent relatives, appear in daylight, look solid and wear familiar clothing. Researchers named include Eleanor Sidgwick, Erlendur Haraldsson, and Celia Green and Charles McCreery. The excerpt ends mid-sentence, as the author turns to why ghosts wear clothes at all.

As with all such accounts, the story rests on the salesman's own testimony, recalled by him and his family.