The Haunted Mill
:
THE HUDSON AND ITS HILLS
:
Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land
Among the settlers in the Adirondacks, forty or fifty years ago, was
Henry Clymer, from Brooklyn, who went up to Little Black Creek and tried
to make a farm out of the gnarly, stumpy land; but being a green hand at
that sort of thing, he soon gave it up and put up the place near
Northwood, that is locally referred to as the haunted mill. When the
first slab was cut, a big party was on hand to cheer and eat pie in honor
of the Clymers, for Mr. Clymer, who was a dark, hearty, handsome fellow,
and his bright young wife had been liberal in their hospitality. The
couple had made some talk, they were so loving before folks--too loving
to last; and, besides, it was evident that Mrs. Clymer was used to a
better station in life than her husband. It was while the crowd was
laughing and chattering at the picnic-table of new boards from the mill
that Mrs. Clymer stole away to her modest little house, and a neighbor
who had followed her was an accidental witness to a singular episode.
Mrs. Clymer was kneeling beside her bed, crying over the picture of a
child, when Clymer entered unexpectedly and attempted to take the picture
from her.
She faced him defiantly. You kept that because it looked like him, I
reckon, he said. You might run back to him. You know what he'd call you
and where you'd stand with your aristocracy.
The woman pointed to the door, and the man left without another word, and
so did the listener. Next morning the body of Mrs. Clymer was found
hanging to a beam in the mill. At the inquest the husband owned that he
had had a few words with her on the previous day, and thought that she
must have suddenly become insane. The jury took this view. News of the
suicide was printed in some of the city papers, and soon after that the
gossips had another sensation, for a fair-haired man, also from Brooklyn,
arrived at the place and asked where the woman was buried. When he found
the grave he sat beside it for some time, his head resting on his hand;
then he inquired for Clymer, but Clymer, deadly pale, had gone into the
woods as soon as he heard that a stranger had arrived. The new-comer went
to Trenton, where he ordered a gravestone bearing the single word
Estella to be placed where the woman's body had been interred. Clymer
quickly sold out and disappeared. The mill never prospered, and has long
been in a ruinous condition. People of the neighborhood think that the
ghost of Mrs. Clymer--was that her name?--still troubles it, and they
pass the place with quickened steps.