A Demon Named Bob

Hey there True Weirdos, we'd like to save a seat for you at the True Weirdos table. All you have to do to sign up is go to trueweirdstuff.com, wait for the pop-up that says sign up for updates, fill out the info and you're in. And some lucky weirdos chosen at random are going to win a True Weird Stuff very high quality hoodie, fancy enough for wearing to a deposition, sturdy enough to wear for robbing a grave.

And I promise we won't spam you. And after the episode, we hope you'll stick around because we've got more to the story. Little bonus content, little conversation, some bloodthirsty stuff right after the episode. The strange tale of Esther Cox. It might be a story about arson. Arthur Davison and WT Pipes Barnes were burned this morning.

The horse and carriages saved, other contents lost. Esther Cox is a servant at Mr. Davison's and may know something about the origin of the fire. Or maybe it's a story about a man who became violent when Esther rejected his advances. MacNeil was notoriously subject to maleficent influences. Whether rum or spirits departed, he took Esther Cox out for a drive in a buggy and threatened to kill her with a revolver.

Then again, it could be a story about a haunting and a demon poltergeist who went by the very undemonic name of Bob. Bob Nickle. Esther Cox, you are mine to kill. And then they got a small beam of light against the mirror. True, weird stuff. It was late in the afternoon on August 28th, 1878, when the buggy slowed to a stop in front of the Teed Cottage in Amherst, Nova Scotia.

Daniel Teed stepped through the front door and greeted the man holding the reins, Bob MacNeil. MacNeil had made no secret of his interest in Teed's 18-year-old sister-in-law, Esther. He'd been, as the townspeople put it, paying much attention to Esther. So his invitation for her to accompany him on a drive through the countryside wasn't unexpected.

Esther was helped into the buggy. And as Daniel watched from the porch, MacNeil clucked his horse into motion. The pair rode through the village of Amherst and then down the long road leading to the Tantramar Marsh. MacNeil turned the buggy toward a small grove of trees. The horse slowed and stopped, lowering its head to graze.

MacNeil dropped the reins and leapt from the buggy. Drawing a large revolver from the side pocket of his cot, he pointed it at her and commanded that she get out of the buggy or else he would kill her where she sat. She was very much frightened, of course, but refused to leave the buggy, telling him to get in and drive her home and not act like a madman.

Her refusal to comply with his demand enraged him so that he aimed at her heart again, uttering terrible oaths all the while, and was about to fire when the sound of wheels was heard coming in their direction. The drowsy summer afternoon, heavy with clouds, had melted into dusk and rain was now falling. Just a few warm, fat drops at first, and then with a sharp crack, the sky split.

A late summer storm as sudden and wild and fierce as Bob MacNeil himself. When MacNeil saw the wagon approaching, he instantly returned to the buggy and drove Esther toward home at a breakneck pace in the now pouring rain. On reaching the cottage, the girl's clothing was wet through to her body, and she was in an hysterical condition from excitement.

The fact is, there's nothing at all remarkable about what happened that August evening in Amherst, Nova Scotia. Nothing remarkable about Bob MacNeil, a man who didn't court pleasure, but took it how and where he pleased. Nothing remarkable about Esther Cox, who, like so many women, had learned to be as wary as the deer in the forest, every sense tuned to the possibility of the hunter.

It's an old story, and most of the time, it would end right here. Violence averted and virtue protected by the sheer luck of an unexpected witness happening by. MacNeil's pride would be injured, of course, and there was always the risk that some member of Esther's family would show up at his door to avenge his dishonor.

But no one in Amherst could have predicted what happened next, because Amherst wasn't some sleepy little outpost where superstition ran rampant. Amherst was a thriving town, coal, agriculture, and manufacturing, with every major rail line and roadway running through it. It was a place rich in natural resources, with gleaming new factories cranking out everything from caskets to steam engines.

People poured into Amherst, but they weren't coming in search of spirits or demons. But then, spirits and demons can be coy. They'd much rather come looking for you. Esther Cox came into the world on March 28, 1860, so small that at nine months, she only weighed five pounds. Her mother died three weeks after giving birth.

The tiny newborn was separated from her siblings and left in the care of her paternal grandparents. Esther was described as a sweet child, with a gentle disposition, though strong-willed and relentless when it came to having her way. Equally, Esther was described as a peculiar girl, excessively enthusiastic about pickles and oddly old-fashioned in her manner.

Perhaps it was suggested because she'd spent her childhood in the company of the elderly. She was a virtuous girl and always bore a good reputation. Her appetite was excellent, and she seemed very partial to acids, having been known to drink vinegar by the cupful. An odd habit and an odd detail, but given all that happened to and around Esther Cox, folks can't be blamed for looking for clues in even the most unlikely places.

Or, you know, maybe she just chugged the vinegar when she couldn't lay hands on a pickle. At age 17, Esther went to live with her siblings, her brother William and sisters Olive and Jane. Olive was married to a man named Daniel Teed. It was Esther's job to clean the house and help look after Olive and Daniel's two young boys, Willie, age five, and one-year-old George.

Also in the house, Daniel's brother John. Now the head count matters because each was a witness to the strange and bewildering events that followed. Esther was a robust girl with every appearance of health and with a cheerful disposition. She has lived until recently undisturbed by mysterious influences. Under ordinary conditions, she might have lived so until the end of her life.

But being ill and suffering from severe nervous prostration, accompanied by mental excitement, she became the instrument of the extraordinary. Something to consider right here and now. It's just how sexual assault was talked about in the late 19th century. Spoiler alert, it wasn't talked about at all, unless it could be dressed up in the most flowery euphemisms you can imagine.

Words like outrage and insult and interference were made to do a whole lot of back-breaking labor in Victorian-era newspapers. The secluded grove of trees. Young Esther, alone with a man she knew, only as an employee of her sister's husband. What happened that August afternoon? News reports make it sound like MacNeil had a sudden fit of insanity.

Yanking the buggy to a stop, flinging himself out, and brandishing a pistol like a villain out of a novel. There's something off about that version of events, isn't there? It doesn't make sense. Like, a critical part of the story is missing. Could the critical part of that story be rape? Was Esther assaulted by Bob MacNeil?

The night I held Esther's hands and felt the electric current, or what I then supposed was an electric current, I was very much impressed with the discovery. So, I evolved a theory. That's a gentleman named Walter Hubbell. He was an actor and a sort of self-styled psychic investigator. He became fascinated and then obsessed with Esther Cox.

Or, more accurately, he became obsessed with the poltergeist making Esther's life hell. A poltergeist. And not just any poltergeist, but one of the most documented, most witnessed cases of a poltergeist haunting in history. And we have Walter Hubbell to thank for that. I reasoned that this power which came from her surrounded her form in an invisible vapor and permeated the entire house and all in it.

Even our brains. And made us imagine we saw and heard all the marvels that only really existed in her distorted mind. Whatever happened in that grove that August evening was only the beginning of the trouble for Esther Cox. Not even a full week later, on September 4th, Esther complained of feeling unwell and went to bed.

Two hours later, at 9pm, her sister Jennie crept into the room and laid down next to Esther. Suddenly, Esther woke up screaming and thrashing. It's in the mattress! Something is in the mattress! Jennie leapt to her feet and hurriedly lit the lantern. The two sisters tore the bedding off the mattress they shared. Nothing.

They searched the sheets and blankets, carefully turning each over. Could it have been a mouse? Still nothing. Jennie soothed Esther as best she could, tucking her back into bed, then lying next to her, whispering comforting words into her sister's ear. And in the morning light, it all seemed a little silly. A dream, that's all.

Just a dream. Until that very night, when it happened again. They lit the lamp again. Underneath the bed was a cardboard box filled with patchwork. As they stood, they were amazed to see it jump clear off the floor and turn over. Jennie seized it and searched it, but there was only the patchwork. She placed it on the floor in the middle of the room when it jumped a foot in the air and turned over.

Both girls were so startled that they screamed and Dan rushed into the room. Where he promptly scolded them for being ridiculous. Boxes don't flip and jump on their own, he said. Don't be silly. He gave the box a good shove back beneath the bed and returned to his own room. Leaving Jennie and Esther shaking and fearful and wide awake until nearly dawn.

And the next night was worse. Jennie was awakened by Esther's screams. Jennie shot bold upright, fumbling for the lamp. And then Jennie screamed too. Esther stood in the center of the room with her face blood red and her eyes bulging as if they would start from their sockets. While she had clasped the back of a chair and was holding it so tightly that she left the imprint of her nails in the wood.

Olive Teed rushed into the room, followed by her husband Daniel, her brother and her brother-in-law. They all stood staring at Esther, shock on their faces. I'm swelling. I'm swelling. I'm going to burst. The girl's flesh was feverishly hot. Her hands had swollen. Her body seemed to distend to twice its normal size. And she began to grind her teeth when all at once there seemed a terrific peel of thunder.

The men raced from the room. Olive raised the window shade. The night was clear. The sky was full of stars. But the thunder cracked. Again. And again and again. Then, as suddenly as it began, the night fell quiet. And Esther, as Olive turned away from the window, she saw Esther curled in her bed, already asleep and returned to her normal size.

Olive felt chilled and smooth, the blanket covering her sister with trembling hands. Whatever piece the occupants of the cottage at Six Princess Street had known before was shattered. Strange things began happening in the house. Sounds of banging and knocking. Objects moved on their own. Knives flew around the room. Heavy pieces of furniture spontaneously overturned.

Then, three nights later, it happened again. Esther was frightfully swollen. Thunder again boomed over the cottage. Again, the night sky was clear and cloudless. The family searched for something, anything, that might be causing the noise. But the search came up empty. Then, all at once, the bedclothes were snatched off as by an unseen hand, even to the pillow under Esther's head.

Jennie screamed and fainted. The entire family remained by Esther's bedside, keeping careful watch until sunrise. Not surprisingly, Daniel and Olive Teed, they tried very hard to keep these peculiar happenings a family secret. But they were badly frightened and desperate for answers. Daniel sent for a doctor, one of the top physicians in the town of Amherst.

His name was Carrot, and after a lengthy and careful examination of Esther, he was baffled. He simply couldn't find anything physically wrong. No sign of disease or infection. Not even an indication that Esther wasn't in her right mind. As Dr. Carrot sat by her bedside... Her pillow shot outward and was suspended. It hung there a moment, then went back under her head.

The doctor was astounded. Also astounded was John Teed, Daniel's brother, who saw the entire thing. And then, the pillow shot out again, slamming into John's chest. He grabbed it and tried to hold it, but it tore itself from his arms. The doctor sprang up, and all the family stood around without speaking, fearful of what would happen next.

And what happened next? The bedclothes whipped off of Esther's body and flew across the room. Suddenly, there was a deafening, metallic, grinding noise. It filled their ears, the room, the house itself. They looked around wildly for the source of the sound, and then watched in horror as writing appeared on the wall before them.

The words scrawled by an unseen hand. You are mine to kill. The decision was made to thoroughly search the house. Could it all be a prank? A hoax? A practical joke played by a neighbor? Even Dr. Carrot joined the search. Satisfied that the house was empty, every shadowy corner, closet, and cupboard examined, the group returned to Esther's bedside.

And as they entered, an enormous piece of plaster fell from the ceiling and crashed at the doctor's feet. From overhead came loud thudding noises, like something heavy being thrown against a wall. Esther slept peacefully, seemingly undisturbed by the chaos above, above her second-floor bedroom. That thudding and crashing? Coming from where?

Dr. Carrot returned to the cottage the next morning and was surprised to find Esther up and about, helping with the housework. She was very nervous and would jump at any noise, but otherwise seemed normal. Then, as Dr. Carrot watched, olive tea emerged from the cellar with a basket of vegetables for the family meal. As she did so, several potatoes came flying through the air, and she ran to the kitchen, greatly alarmed.

Mysterious thunder, creepy writing, flying spuds. Dr. Carrot hadn't studied any of this in medical school, but he genuinely wanted to help Esther. So that evening, he returned to the cottage with a plan. Sedatives, powerful sedatives, guaranteed to make Esther sleep soundly through the night. It didn't make a bit of difference.

The heavy thudding and thumping noises returned. This time, it sounded like it was coming from the roof. The men, accompanied by Carrot, went outside, but they could see nothing to explain it. And this time, there were even more witnesses. The teen cottage was right in town, and Amherst was a bustling place. Pastor spies stopped in their tracks to listen, and the crashing and thudding continued without pause until after midnight.

And by dawn, the word was out. The teen cottage was haunted. But the haunting, or whatever it was, was no longer waiting until nightfall. The noises began in the daytime and lasted 24 hours. Esther cowered and cried. The searchers tried in every way to discover the source of the thumping, but no one was successful. The local Baptist minister, Dr. Edwin Clay, learned of these strange events and joined in the search for answers at the teen cottage.

But he found nothing, and he announced that... Esther must be possessed of an extraordinary amount of electrical power, and Dr. Carrot agreed with him. Which was all well and good as a theory, but it did nothing to solve the mystery of the noises. Another man of the cloth came to lend his assistance and expertise, the Reverend P.A. Temple.

He was in the kitchen when a bucket of cold water sitting on the table suddenly began to boil. They say that any doubts the man had as to the truth of the events at teen cottage vanished in an instant. At the time all of this happened, Daniel Teed was 35 years old and worked in a shoemaking factory in Amherst. He and his wife, Olive, were dedicated and regular churchgoers.

Daniel belonged to a temperance society. Esther's brother, William, worked with Daniel at the shoe factory. Daniel's brother, John, preferred farm work. Jennie worked outside the home as a seamstress in a nearby business, leaving every morning at 7 a.m. Life in the Teed house was described as almost monotonous. Early to bed, early to rise, the main meal served at 12 noon sharp.

Most days found Olive and Esther alone in the house with the children. But now, the family was the talk of Amherst. There were too many incidents, too many witnesses to the odd happenings at the Teed cottage. Even Dr. Carrot was forced to acknowledge that no amount of science in the form of medical intervention appeared to make any difference.

Walter Hubbell pointed out that... Carrot informed me that on one occasion he had given her one ounce of bromide of potassium, one pint of brandy, and heavy doses of morphia and laudamon on the same night without the slightest effect on her system. He stated on this same evening that all the medicine was neutralized by ghosts.

The ghosts. There it was. And said by the doctor, no less. And not just any old ghosts, but the kind that can neutralize all those medications? And then Esther fell ill. Diphtheria, which they used to call the children's plague. They'll probably need to dust that old term off and begin reusing it. Oh wait, was that out loud?

So, diphtheria, it's a contagious acute bacterial infection that will kill one out of every ten kids that catch it. Symptoms can be as manageable as a sore throat, or you can suffocate thanks to a horrifying membrane that can cover your larynx. That thick, leathery membrane is made up of all the dead tissue in the affected person's throat.

Breathing and swallowing become difficult, and then, you know, maybe even impossible. The airways of children are small to begin with, leaving them extra vulnerable to the worst havoc the infection can wreak. In the 1880s, a doctor from Cleveland perfected an intubation technique to help get air to the afflicted children's lungs.

Because prior to that, the only real treatment for diphtheria was a tracheotomy. You know, cut the throat open, no anesthesia, force an air tube into the bloody gash. A vaccine showed up in the 1890s, but it didn't go into widespread use until the 1920s. And that was when deaths due to diphtheria began to fall. But as many as 15,000 American children died in that decade from diphtheria, and well over 100,000 were infected.

Diphtheria smacked Esther Cox down in December 1878, just a few months after the ill-fated buggy ride with Bob MacNeil. She was bedridden for weeks, coughing, feverish, unable to breathe. For the first time since September 4th, the Teague cottage was quiet. Not so much as even a tiny bump in the night. When it appeared that Esther would survive the diphtheria infection, she was sent to the home of another married sister to rest and recuperate.

During that time, no phenomena of any kind was observed. It seemed to both Esther and her family that whatever had caused the peculiar and scary events at Teague cottage was in the past. And unfortunately, that turned out to be wishful thinking. When Esther returned to Amherst, it all started up once again. But now the stakes were higher.

Mysterious fires were appearing in various parts of the house. Esther claimed she could see the ghost, said it would burn the house to the ground if she didn't leave immediately. So Esther moved into the home of a friend. And since returning to Amherst, she'd taken a job at a restaurant and saloon owned by a man named John White.

White declared that he had witnessed multiple incidents that left him convinced that Esther Cox wasn't deceiving anyone. Esther Cox was being terrorized by unseen forces, according to White. On December 4, 1878, between 2 and 3 p.m., Esther Cox was sitting in the restaurant kitchen between the cook stove and door to the saloon.

The oven door was shut, but it suddenly opened and shut again with a noise. This being repeated so frequently that Mr. White at last opened the door wide and jammed it back by means of an axe. December in Nova Scotia is cold. Esther took advantage of the wide open oven door to prop her feet on the edge to warm herself.

When presto, the oven door flew off its hinges and fell at her feet with a loud clatter. White replaced the axe which had been flung off by the spring of the door and then replaced the door itself. Scarcely had this been done when bang, it came off again to the great apparent terror of the girl. John White witnessed the entire thing and stated that no, the girl had not touched the oven door.

By chance, Amherst fishery inspector W.H. Rogers happened to be in the dining room. He was one of the loudest skeptics in Amherst on the matter of Esther Cox and her ghosts. So White fetched Rogers and brought him into the kitchen. Rogers instructed Esther to retake her seat by the oven. White retrieved the axe and again used it to wedge open the heavy oven door.

In 20 seconds, the same thing occurred. The axe was violently thrown. The stove door flew off its hinges and fell at the girl's feet. Rogers is positive that she did not touch the door or axe. Esther leapt from her perch by the oven, taking a high stool in the center of the kitchen. Her feet dangled, her legs too short to reach the ground.

Then a sharp rapping or knocking sound was heard coming from beneath the oven. There is no cellar under that kitchen, but the rapping sounds are at once heard under the floor. Mr. Rogers said in a loud voice. Give us one loud rap. Now two raps. Now three raps. In his most commanding tone, Rogers demanded. Who are you anyway? The devil?

Who are you after? Miss Cox? Are you a living human being? Are you dead? John White witnessed many other inexplicable occurrences in his place of business. There was the afternoon he saw Esther washing her hands in the kitchen water bucket, which stood on an empty wooden box. As he watched, both box and bucket began sliding away from Esther, coming to a rest next to the flower barrel five feet away.

There were two more witnesses in the kitchen that day, women employed by White. Then there was the incident with an empty iron hooped brandy cask. Esther was seated on a nearby chair. White described hearing a sound like a pen scratching. Writing on the iron hoop. It was positive that Esther had nothing to do with it.

The tea chest tucked beneath the counter in the saloon and packed with 10 to 15 pounds of tea moved repeatedly. Toward Esther, who got up from her knitting over and over to shove the thing back into place. Mr. White, the chest is following me. White came into the room, listened to her explanation and gently instructed the girl to return to her seat.

Then positioning himself so that he could see both Esther and the tea chest. He nodded at her to get up and leave the room. To his shock, as she rose to go, the chest started after her, moving until it became jammed between the counter post and a chair. Call it fate, call it chance, call it coincidence. But the Nannery Theatre Company had just come to Amherst, Nova Scotia, bringing actor Walter Hubbell with it.

The whole town could talk of nothing but Esther's mysterious ghosts. And Hubbell was instantly intrigued. I entered into an arrangement with Mr. John White to go into partnership with him and lecture on the Amherst mystery. Provided Esther would go with us and remain seated upon the stage while I delivered my lecture. My intention being to expose the mystery and make money out of it while doing so, which I considered a grand scheme for the summer season.

Well, that was honest. And now Esther had moved again, this time several miles outside the village to a farm owned by the Van Amburgh family. In her eight weeks in the country, the ghost barely troubled her. Knocking occasionally, but going no further than that. Van Amburgh's uncle happened to be a world famous lion tamer.

And some wondered if there was an inborn Van Amburgh family trait that gave the farmer the power to tame ghosts. Hubbell pooh poohed that, preferring to believe that perhaps the cycles of the moon controlled the pesky spirit. In any case, Esther was bored and homesick, believing that the ghost who tormented her had finally released the girl.

Daniel and Olive Teed asked Esther to return to the cottage. John White gave her back her old job at the restaurant. And Hubbell hit the road for the winter with the Nannery Theatre Company. It was while playing in Newfoundland that I corresponded with Mr. John White in reference to commencing a tour of the provinces with Esther Cox.

Taking her to Boston and New York at a subsequent date as the greatest wonder of the 19th century. A simple hearted village maiden followed by a ghost from Nova Scotia. Now, the hope that Daniel and Olive and Esther herself had clung to that the ghost was finished with her didn't pan out. Mr. White informed me that the terrible power still produced the wonderful works of the devil.

And urged me to come to Amherst at the earliest possible day. Write the lecture I was to deliver and start on our tour before the power either killed Esther or burnt Amherst to the ground. Hubbell replied that he would be in Amherst by early June and do try to keep poor Esther from being murdered. Hubbell advised White to remain by her side at all times so that he could pull out any weapon she or he might be stabbed with.

He also suggested having water at the ready to extinguish the devil's fires. Oh, and tell Daniel Teed to take these same precautions at the Teed cottage. When Hubbell arrived in Amherst, he met Esther Cox for the first time. She coolly informed him that two of her ghosts, a female named Maggie and a demon called Bob Nickle, had given their blessing for her to accompany Hubbell on his tour.

That was unexpected, and Hubbell was taken aback. Because the simple truth was, he didn't believe a word of the Esther Cox story. I was willing to acknowledge that there might be a power of some kind about the girl, but of course nothing supernatural, no ghosts or such delusions of the imagination. I was perfectly willing to deliver a lecture with the proper effect so as to please the large audiences her tremendous reputation could draw, but as to believing in the ghostly part of it, that was out of the question.

Hubbell, though, was about to become a believer. He accepted an invitation to the Teed cottage, and accompanied by John White, the group seated themselves near, but not at, the dining room table. We had only been seated a few minutes when an invisible power, seeming to possess intelligence, commenced to produce sounds, apparently with human hands that could not be seen.

We could all hear, even the scratching sounds of invisible human fingernails, and the dull sounds produced by the hands as they rubbed the table and struck it, with invisible clenched fists and knocking in response to questions. Mr. Hubbell, both Maggie and Bob Nickle are present, and request that you ask your questions.

I asked a number of my watch, and it was correctly knocked, figure by figure. I asked the time by the dining room clock, and it was knocked in the same manner, being twelve minutes of ten p.m. The power then beat correct time as I whistled Yankee Doodle. Whistling Hubbell asked the date of a coin in his pocket. One, eight, seven, six, came the knocked response.

All the knocks were upon the table and nowhere else during the evening. We did not put our hands on the table. I watched all the persons present, saw their hands and feet by the light of the coal-oiled lamp in the room, and no one present knew or could know the number of my watch, nor date on the coin in my pocket, not even myself.

This was my first experience with the remarkable power known as the Great Amherst Mystery. Hubbell moved into the team cottage as a paying boarder. Over the course of six weeks, he documented the strange events. Hubbell watched items vanish and reappear. He was pelted with all sorts of objects, witnessed fires spontaneously erupting, observed everyday household items levitating and moving of their own volition.

One interesting note, Hubbell believed that it was mischief and not malevolence that motivated the ghosts. And, weirdly, they all apparently observed the Sabbath and spared the family their usual devilment on the Lord's Day. Have you all lived on the earth? Have you seen God? Are you in heaven? Are you in hell? Have you seen the devil?

Hubbell was adamant that having worked as an actor from his youth, he was very familiar with all the tricks of the stage, the mechanical devices, the methods and tools used by magicians. He was certain that whatever was happening to Esther Cox, it wasn't the work of human hands. So, the ghosts. There was Bob Nickle, who claimed to have once worked as a shoemaker and was thought to be a demon.

Maggie Fisher, her sister Mary Fisher, Jane Nickle and Eliza MacNeil. Rounding out the squad was a spirit called Peter Cox who said that he was a relative of Esther's, dead now some 40 years. Do we have a hard time accepting a demon by the name of Bob Nickle? We do. We expect our demons to have more, I don't know, dramatic names.

If not like Melchior or Balthazar, then at least Victor or even Lorenzo. Just not Bob. How could any demon worth its sulfur and brimstone be named Bob? Now convinced that Esther was innocent, blameless and truthful, Hubbell was determined to hit the lecture circuit. In June 1879, he and Esther departed Amherst chaperoned at the girl's request by John White.

Hubbell promised only to describe the otherworldly manifestations to the audience. He made no guarantee that the ghosts would cooperate and perform on demand. Knowing how frightening it could be to take the stage, blinded by the harsh lights, aware of the audience only as a presence, a living thing that might first offer welcome but could turn hostile in an instant.

Hubbell gave Esther a fan so she'd have something to hide behind if she felt overwhelmed. But that audience, they came to see a haunting. On the memorable night we played Chatham, an old man arose in the audience and shook his cane at me saying, Young man, beware! Because a furious mob was waiting outside the theater. Telling Esther to take a firm hold of my arm, we started for our lodgings, followed by the mob, which threw stones and pieces of brick at us, keeping up an angry, rumbling roar all the while.

Well, I've often thought it was simply marvelous that neither of us was struck by a single missile thrown by that mob, and wondered whether the ghost guarded us through in safety on that eventful night. I was thoroughly unnerved. I agreed with Mr. White we would all eventually be slaughtered. Mr. White wanted to take me home to my sister's as he was in a position to care for me as a father.

Our few friends in the town advised us to leave that night while we had a chance, and we did at midnight. This closed the tour of the Great Amherst Mystery. On June 21st, 1879, Esther returned to the Teed Cottage. She was in excellent physical health, but in a wretched state of mind. She told me afterwards that, but for my cheering influence, she would certainly have committed suicide.

Maybe the ghosts were furious at having the prospect of fame and fortune snatched away. No sooner had Hubbell taken a seat in an easy chair with Esther and Olive Teed for company, his umbrella shot up and flew a distance of 15 feet. Almost at the same instant, a large carving knife came whizzing through the air, passing over Esther's head.

The power had burst forth. I took my satchel and removed myself to the living room, literally paralyzed with astonishment. It was a fine day, sunlight streaming through the windows, a breeze floating in from the nearby bay. My satchel was thrown across the room, and at the same instant, a large chair came rushing from the opposite side of the room, striking the one on which I was seated with such tremendous force that it nearly knocked it out from under me.

Hubbell was no longer a skeptic. I assert now and forever that I never detected in Esther or her family the slightest deception of any kind. The things that Hubbell described, a glass paperweight weighing a pound or more, flying through the air 12 or 15 feet, striking the arm of the sofa, narrowly missing his head. I felt that I had escaped a most unnatural death.

Truly, in this haunted house, murder lurked within the atmosphere. Glass bottles flew through the air in Hubbell's direction. Knitting needles soared right out of Esther's hands, flying toward Hubbell's head. Olive's little boy, George, wailed as the buttons on his clothing sprang loose one by one, the garments tearing themselves from his body.

Esther was slapped in the face by an invisible hand, one that left the visible marks of fingers on her pale cheek. The ghosts kindled a large fire upstairs. The burning papers and fire was extinguished without serious damage being done to the house or the furniture. This was my first experience with Bob Nickle, the demon, as a fire fiend.

I say it was the most awful calamity that could possibly befall any family, infidel or Christian. And how much more terrible did it seem in this little cottage, where all were strict members of the church? Hubbell recounted how, while Esther was writing a letter to her sister, Bob Nickle took possession of her hand and arm, scrawling, Go out of Amherst, you bitch!

Damn your soul to hell! Damn Hubbell's soul to hell, and yours! This was written by a power guiding her hand against her will, and was entirely different in appearance from her own handwriting in the letter. Four days later, on June 25th, knives were flying through the air. They set fire to the window curtain in the pantry.

They stuck pins into all parts of Esther's person. The next day, Esther and Jennie appeared with bloody marks scratched into their hands, necks and arms. Bloody, ragged crosses. I was kept busy pulling pins out of Esther. They came out of the air from all quarters and were stuck in all the exposed portions of her person, even her head and inside her ears.

This was followed by a day in which the sound of a trumpet could be heard echoing throughout the cottage. The work, apparently, of the demon Bob Nickle. Harmless enough. Many of these manifestations were incredibly violent. One of the demons cut a triangular gash in her forehead with an old beefsteak bone from the yard.

They tried twice to cut her throat with a carving knife. Maggie, the ghost, tried to stab her in the neck with a pair of shears. She was stabbed in the head with a fork. A young woman treated with such brutality and no one able to rescue her. Bob, the demon, often tormented Esther at night while the girl was in bed. I shall never forget being called up at once by Daniel Teed at midnight.

I dressed and went at once into Esther and Jennie's room where the family was assembled. There upon the bed lay the poor, unhappy girl, fearfully swollen, and moving about the bed as if Beelzebub himself were in her. It was a fearful sight. Between the gasp for breath, she exclaimed in agonizing sobs. Oh, God, I wish I was dead.

I wish I was dead. Hubbell said that Esther suffered multiple such attacks of Bob, the demon, and on at least two occasions, the incident was witnessed by as many as nine people who weren't members of the household, including the family dentist. The entire month of July was one fire after another. Walls were broken by the impact of flying furniture.

Cutlery sailed through the air, guttural, unnatural voices calling the family members by name. Finally, the Teed's landlord had had enough. He declared that if Esther did not leave the cottage immediately, he would have to evict the entire family. The very next day, Esther packed all of her belongings and left for the Van Amburgh farm.

She soon found work on a neighboring property, the Davison farm. Hubbell paid her a visit not long after. He found her stitching away on a patchwork quilt, seemingly contented. I read my Bible every day. I have as yet seen nothing of the ghosts. Pray, Esther, that you might never again be so tormented by demons. Hubbell said his goodbyes, and that was the last time he ever saw Esther Cox.

For months after I left that haunted house, any sudden sound would make me start. But when I became positive that the demons had not followed me, I became myself again. Things weren't going quite so well for Esther. As Hubbell was stepping on a stage in New York in the role of Hamlet's ghost, irony, Esther's ghosts were staying busy too.

The ghosts had followed her to the Van Amburgh farmhouse, and it was the same pattern, except this time the fire wasn't put out in time. The Van Amburgh barn burned to the ground, along with several other barns belonging to Davison and a farmer named Pipes. Several nearby homes were barely saved. And Esther? Esther Cox was arrested and charged with arson.

It was the demon Bob Nickle, the fire fiend, who'd done it. Poor girl. Esther was arrested, tried, and convicted, and sentenced to four months in jail. The judge and jury did not believe in ghosts, and I was not there to explain. It was thanks in large part to the many witnesses who'd seen Esther's torment, who believed her, who'd signed notarized statements, who knew that ghosts were the true culprits in the fire, that Esther was released from prison after serving only one month.

The end of her confinement seemed to also mark the end of the haunting. By 1882, Esther had moved on. She was 22 years old now, married and the mother of a son. For whatever reason, the haunting or the poltergeist activity was over. From all accounts, Esther was never again bothered by the unseen. Stories like this can be deeply unsatisfying.

Our squishy little human brains crave order and closure. What in the world was really happening to Esther Cox? Walter Hubbell offered a theory. He wondered if Esther's chief ghost, the demon Bob Nickle, was a manifestation of the very human Bob MacNeil, the man who'd attempted to commit an outrage on Esther's person. And that's the clue to Grove of Trees in August 1878.

I thought it highly probable that the astral body of Bob MacNeil had been tormenting the girl. Those versed in psychical knowledge will know what I mean. But I concluded that such was not the case. Now, the next theory that Hubbell considered was that Esther was possessed of extraordinary electrical power. This power, which came from her, surrounded her form as an invisible vapor and permeated the entire house and all in it, even our brains, and made us imagine we saw and heard all that only really existed in her distorted mind.

But Hubbell had to reckon with the physical evidence. The busted walls, the strange writing, the singed and seared areas where fire had erupted, the unhealed cuts and bruises that covered her arms and neck and head. These were real and tangible. So here is where Hubbell ultimately landed. Bob MacNeil, the brutish would-be suitor, was in the grip of a demonic obsession.

The evil Bob Nickle was able to control MacNeil's thoughts and actions. It was the demon Bob Nickle who craved Esther's virginal flesh. Bob Nickle who forced MacNeil to serve as unwitting puppet for his own devilish desires. And Esther, having suffered such a terrible fright, such a foul violation, Esther became entirely deranged.

In that moment, Bob Nickle found a new plaything and dropped MacNeil in favor of Esther. The ultimate ghosting of Bob MacNeil, you might say. From what I saw and heard in that haunted house, I have been led to infer that the ghosts of the dead live in a world similar to ours. There are evidently two worlds existing together in the same atmosphere, each as material and real as the other to its own inhabitants.

Whether ghosts or men. Hubbell believed that some of us are born with such great sensitivity that we exist in both the world of ghosts and the world of the living at the same time. Such people live their entire lives seeing and hearing and engaging with spirits. For Esther, though, she was thrust into the world of ghosts by what we now call trauma.

As for the haunted house, Hubbell declared that a haunted house was simply a kind of record player, one that stored the electromagnetic power of the unseen in its walls, patiently waiting for a sensitive to cross the threshold and drop the needle. We have no idea really what a poltergeist is or isn't. But some theories suggest that these manifestations are driven by intense negative energy projected by an unhappy, traumatized adolescent.

You know, like an unworldly 18 year old girl who never known her mother had been raised by elderly grandparents in a rural setting who found herself fighting off a grown man attempting, or succeeding because we just don't know, to sexually assault her. In a perfect world, that whole scenario would be unthinkable. In a perfect world, the only target for a fire-happy demon would be the rapist himself.

But this isn't a perfect world. Just a haunted one. Next time on True Weird Stuff. She was three years old when her parents decided to strike out on a dream. An incredible adventure. Take their family and start over in the brand new golden land of California. Just three years old. That story would end very badly. But that child would grow up to survive.

Eliza Donner Houghton. We're going to visit the Donner Party on the next True Weird Stuff. Special thanks to our voice talents, Sam Moore, Erin Cox, Lamar Richardson, and Don Morgan. So Sherry, I remember seeing the movie called Poltergeist, and I've heard them, but I really don't know what a poltergeist is. That sounds like a German word.

Poltergeist. The kind of popular theory behind a poltergeist is that it's not the ghost of a dead person. Or in this case where they believe that she was being tormented by a demon. In our world, a poltergeist is thought to be energy that erupts as a result of a teenager in crisis. Or a teenager who suffered trauma. And when you look at the documented poltergeist cases that are out there, poltergeist activity, very often at the center of that poltergeist activity is a teenage person.

I mean, if we look at Esther, so back when this story took place, an 18-year-old would be considered a woman, right? The difference with Esther was the circumstances of her early life. You know, she lost her mother, her father. There's always stuff that we have to leave out of these stories, or these things will be eight hours long.

Her father remarried not long after Esther's mother died. And the woman that he remarried was not really interested in raising a dead woman's children. And that is how Esther ended up in the care of her grandparents. So she literally, she's orphaned, she grows up on a farm. The only people she has for playmates are elderly.

She couldn't have been more unworldly. She was not in a position to be courted by grown men. When she moved into the town of Amherst, which was a great big deal, this is not some remote place where people were worshipping the moon. This was a really bustling place in Nova Scotia, a real center for industry and railroad.

So when she moved in with her sister and brother-in-law, she moved into sort of like a big, bustling, loud, multi-blended family. And she helped out with the housework and the cooking and played with the children. There's nothing about Esther Cox leading up to that buggy ride in August 1878 that tells you that she had any idea what kind of man Bob MacNeil was or what a man might want to do with a girl when alone in the woods.

So the theory on, one theory is, one theory, because we don't know, one theory is that she was brutally assaulted. And the incident was described as insult, outrage, all of the things, all the code words that we know. And that she, in the trauma of that event, caused this manifestation of energy that we call a poltergeist.

When you think about the poltergeist movie, it wasn't a teenager. It was little Carol Ann, the little girl that the poltergeist was fixated on. And that was kind of genius because there's something, there's a thing that happens in our little primitive amygdalas, our reptile brain, when a very young, innocent child is threatened by the darkest possible forces of evil.

That's a different kind of emotional reaction, which is probably why they made Carol Ann so young. But if you look up, you know, if you read the poltergeist stories, you can find them all over the place on the internet. But very often the cast of characters will involve a troubled teenager, which is kind of fascinating when you think about it, right?

It is, yeah. I thought it was interesting that Esther Cox was voiced by our own Erin Cox. Neat if there was a distant relation. That would be very interesting. You know, you've heard stories about haunted houses, but apparently these poltergeists were like, yeah, we're not staying here in this house. We're going to go wherever.

Well, that's what makes the poltergeist phenomenon interesting is that it's targeted at or around a person. This wasn't targeting just Esther. This was also targeting, I mean, look at all the little, her little nephew. Oh, my God, that child was terrified in that house. Hubbell himself. Hubbell is interesting because he comes into the story thinking it's just bullshit.

He's a complete skeptic. And by the end of it, he's her most passionate defender. Right. Because he witnessed all of it. He experienced it. But what I was going to say is the thing about the poltergeist aspect of this, like other poltergeist accounts that have been studied and documented, the haunting ends as the target teenager, adolescent, whatever, ages out of it.

So the haunting, the manifestations and the activity followed Esther for the most part from place to place. But then, you know, Esther grew up, got married, became a parent, and she was never troubled again, which is why this is considered a poltergeist incident and not a classic haunting or demonic possession. And one of the things that I liked about Walter Hubbell, when you brought this up with the story, he was like, okay, the story is BS, but I'm a performer, and I see an opportunity to make some money here, and we can put this on stage and people are going to buy this BS.

But it turns out, you know, as you say, he ended up becoming a believer with all this. That's like my favorite part of the story, is Hubbell's personal transformation and journey. Right. Yeah. Because he really did, he came in, he took one look. So you have to picture the Nannery Theatre Company, it's a traveling troupe of actors.

This is not like the fanciest, high-flying theatrical troupe. This is like, you know, they go from town to town putting on shows. And Walter Hubbell was, Max, you know the type. He was acting genius, you know, that kind of guy. He was very theatrical. And he was a good-looking, I mean, I found a picture of him. He was a good-looking guy, so he was the part.

Yeah. I mean, and he performed all over the place. They came into Amherst, Nova Scotia for a series of performances. The only thing people in town could talk about was the ghosts that were terrorizing poor sweet Esther Cox. And Hubbell, who as an actor had an ear for a story, and as an entrepreneur had an eye for a quick buck, decided this is all fake, but I know what I'm going to do.

You realize that the great Amherst Mystery Tour, they had one performance. And Esther was so frightened, and the crowds were so violent because what the crowds wanted, and I think it's in the nature of crowds and theatrical entertainment, they would have loved to see a real ghost on stage, but they just wanted a show.

They don't want a documentary film. You're right. They want to be entertained. Even if it's not real, make an effort. Show me a ghost. What was interesting about this, too, was Bob MacNeil was such an awful person. If you don't believe that he was possessed, if you say, oh, he was possessed and that's what made him awful, or you believe that he was just an awful person, she did seem to have men in her life who were looking out for her well-being.

She did. Ultimately, Walter Hubbell did. I mean, yeah, he might have said he wanted to make a buck on it, but I didn't get the feeling that he had any other motives. No. And then John White, and it's funny because you ended up, as you were telling the story, one of the things that I wrote down was what was John White's motive, and he apparently was just a good guy, the guy that owned the restaurant where she worked.

He was looking after her well-being as well. All of these people in this story were really solid citizens. I think I pointed that out at one point. Her brother-in-law, Daniel, belonged to a temperance society, temperance as in teetotaling, as in alcohol is the demon. They were regular churchgoers. They were hardworking, good people who lived right in the center of town.

They knew all their neighbors. All their neighbors knew them. And neighbors, passersby, people in the town of Amherst heard the crashing and thumping and the thunder that was centered over the Tead Cottage, which was in town with other cottages all around it. So the fact that you had that many witnesses who were not in a position to profit from it, you guys, Walter Hubbell, who openly declared that he was going to make money off this, didn't profit off of it.

Unless you count the book that he wrote and the fact that he's long dead and we're sitting here talking about him as a prophet. This is another one of those cases where if they did it to get rich and famous, who got rich, who got famous? That's what makes this case so distinctive is that you have all of these witness accounts and they're outside of the family and they're prominent people in the community, prominent people who had everything to lose by looking at your face and going, oh, yeah, that girl has ghosts.

She's being haunted. So you answered another question that I had with all of this business with this thunder was that was something that they only heard in the house, but apparently everybody in the community did hear it, despite the fact that there were no clouds around them. People would gather outside the cottage and stare.

And it was a two-story cottage. So I know because I deal with this kind of thing all the time. Well, yeah, but. Well, actually. It's a humble little house. I've looked at a picture of it. There were animals in the attic. No, there weren't. There weren't. A half a dozen fully grown men searched that house, found nothing and no one.

There was no one on the roof. There was no one like clinging to the side of a chimney. Either you believe these people or you don't. And maybe there's a middle ground where you say, I believe these people. I just don't believe what they say was happening because now you're asking you're in order for you to debunk this.

If the only way you can debunk this is to go every single person in this story from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia is lying. All of them. Well, that's like saying the moon landing is fake. That means everybody that was connected with that. Everyone's lying. So, you know. Doctors, clergy. All of them. Inspectors, farmers.

We're all just liars. Everyone's just lying. And I think the other thing about this was it wasn't just that things were flying around one time. It was many times. But this baffling thing that happened to her with this sickness where her body swelled and she got a fever and all of that stuff. I mean, those are things you can't fake.

I mean, I don't know. You could fake with fishing line and string stuff flying across a room, I suppose. But you can't fake that level of sickness. And the swelling. Like what? Like the only disease, the only physical affliction that Esther Cox experienced that we know exists in this world on this side of the veil is diphtheria.

Which, by the way, please get your DTAP boosters and vaccinate your kids. Yes. Because old cemeteries are filled with children who died of diphtheria. And they didn't die peacefully in their beds with a sweet smile on their face. They died being stabbed in the throat trying to get them to not suffocate. It's terrible.

I can't say it enough. It's awful. Please get your diphtheria booster. Anyway, that was the only real physical affliction that Esther had. And that diphtheria, that infection, she took weeks. She almost died. She took weeks to recover from that. But what you're describing where her skin temperature shot up and she turned bright red and swelled to twice her size.

Yeah, we don't have a name for that. Especially when it happened and then she was back to normal within a span of That's creepy, isn't it? You just can't fake that. You said she was five pounds at nine months? Yeah. That's tiny. I mean, there's babies that aren't even born. That would be considered small for birth, wouldn't it?

Yeah. I try to take whatever the people of the past tell me. I try not to argue with them, but I'm going to argue with that. I think somebody didn't know how to use a scale. A five pound nine month old? Listen, just to tell you, I was 30 pounds at a year. I was big. I was a big child. Max's parents had one of his baby shoes bronzed.

If that was passed around at a party and you were doing shots, you'd be out cold. That baby shoe was enormous. It was enormous. I think that's one of those times where I think maybe that's not accurate. I'm not sure about that one. Yeah. A lot of times the information that you have, if you only have one source on it, you have to take the word on that source.

You know my policy here. In these stories, not all of them, but in some of the stories we tell, one or more of the people involved had never ever been loved a day in their life. I'm thinking of Elmer. Elmer McCurdy, the hapless alcoholic. Oh, yeah, that poor guy. In a real stiff. It's my job to love the people that have never ever been loved and to believe the people who were not believed.

So I'm like, okay, I believe you people of the past, except for the part about a nine-month-old weighing five pounds. But the other thing about Esther was, I mean, she got married and she had a son. That's correct. Did she kind of get some kind of happily ever after? I mean, after she sort of aged out of this? Well, she disappears like these people do.

It's frustrating. They disappear into the slipstream of time. She didn't have a Facebook account? I know, isn't it shocking? Girl, where's your TikTok? But from everything that we know of Esther, she was a sweet girl. She wanted the life that her sister Olive had. She wanted to fall in love and have a family, and those things did happen for her.

And if you look at other documented incidents of poltergeist activity, you kind of see that as a pattern. These kids that are the target of this poltergeist whatever phenomenon, they grow up and they move on and this ends. And that's because, as Walter Hubbell pointed out, she didn't live in a haunted house. She herself was the source.

That's the thing about a poltergeist, Max. You're the source and the target for the phenomenon. The energy is coming from you and targeting you and your environment. And that's why one theory is that poltergeist activity can happen in the wake of trauma. And I don't know of many things that would be more traumatic for Esther than being told, my friend Bob MacNeil wants to take you for a buggy ride.

Well, I want you to go back. I want you to imagine that it's the year 1878, and you live with your sister, and your days are spent cleaning and babysitting, and you've seen very little of the world, and a buggy ride on a summer evening, that's an adventure. Yeah. You're kind of excited about that. And maybe you're not 100% real clear on what happens when a man and a woman are alone together, but to have a man assault you and pull a weapon on you?

Yeah, because even if an assault did not occur, that is traumatic all by itself. I mean, terribly traumatic. Let's say he tried very hard and did not succeed in sexually assaulting her. He was still screaming at her and holding a gun on her. Yeah, yeah. You guys, that would be traumatic for you today, and you are a worldly person who has lived in a technological, fast-paced, media-saturated environment.

Now imagine you're Esther Cox in Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1878. I mean, if something was going to happen to you that might bring about a poltergeist experience, that sounds likely, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, I mean... Yeah. But this went on. Sherry, I'm sorry, I should submit these questions before I ask them. How long did this go on?

Do you know off the top of your head? So the sexual assault happened in late August 1878, and it continued for the next year. She got sick with diphtheria that December of 1878. And, you know, she was with her other sister in Newfoundland, and then she came back to Amherst and was at the Van Amburgh farm. Then she was working with Mr. White at his restaurant and saloon.

Then she was, you know... And all of the manifestations happened when she went back to work for White. There were a few, like, weird noise incidents on the Van Amburgh farm, but once she was back in the town of Amherst and fully physically recovered from her sickness, it went haywire at White's establishment. And he was protective of her.

He was a man who had children of his own, and he probably felt... It's sad that we live in a world that is so freaking vile and cynical, that we're marveling that this man felt compassion for this orphaned girl. Well, it seems like... And I'll say this again, and I forgot about the Van Amburgh farm as well. It seemed like there were a lot of people that were like, how can we help in this situation?

Amherst was, like I said, it was a bustling place, but, you know, people were good, and this was a very good, well-regarded, decent family. They're Canadians. Of course they're good people. Of course they're good. You know, they were worried about Esther and her spooks. Yeah. So, the whole thing took place... Esther was 18 when it happened, and about 19 and a half when it was all said and done.

And then, you know, by 22, she was married with a little baby son, and moving on, and as far as we know, was never troubled again. And part of the reason I think that we know so little about what happened next is the same reason that the star of this story, Esther Cox, we have so few of her words. Right. Yeah. That's usual too, isn't it?

And you can understand, I mean, she was not somebody who was certainly looking for the limelight, so you can certainly understand why, after this ended, she was like, okay, fine, I'm done, let me go live my life. She suffered. I mean, I want you to think about how this girl suffered. All the physical stuff, the swelling, the fever, all the gouges dug in her skin in the shape of crosses, the pins that were flying through the air and plunging into her body.

Hubbell was pulling, you know, the kind of straight pins like you use for sewing? Hubbell was pulling pins out of her ears, like out of the inside of her ears. This girl suffered. You can believe she was happy to live a boring life after that. Right. There was one point along the line she was like, my God, I don't want to live again.

I had that happen once, Sherry. What I had was an intestinal virus at the same time I had a broken tooth. So I can remember that's why I was laying on the floor and I went, okay, God, now, take me now. Well, Max, knowing what you know now about Esther, wouldn't you rather have a demon named Bob Nickle than another infected tooth and intestinal problem?

Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's just, I mean, this is, like when I say this is an unsatisfying story, because people get really mad. Well, was it real? Did it happen? It's real and it happened. The part we don't know is exactly what happened or why. I absolutely believe that this happened. I think there's a lot of things that we just have to be able to chalk up to, so I don't know. It's unexplained.

And that's just how it's going to be. But I do believe everything that's being told. I don't believe that this would, and we'll go back to this again, despite the fact that Walter Hubbell says we might be able to make money doing this, I don't think anybody benefited from anything connected with this. Including and especially Walter Hubbell, whose grand money-making scheme collapsed after one night.

I mean, you look at what happened at John White's restaurant slash saloon. Right. He went and got the biggest skeptic in town, who happened to be eating at the restaurant, when the incident in the kitchen with the oven door happened. And this, by the way, this oven door, this isn't KitchenAid. This is the old wood and coal-fired ovens that were made of cast iron.

Right. That was, I know I had a picture of that. I did have a picture of that. Like you could kill somebody with that oven door flying through the air. The biggest, most cynical skeptic in town walked into the kitchen, played by Max, walked into the kitchen and put that demon through its paces. And came away, the girl is telling the truth.

So when you look at the variety of witnesses and the high position many of them held in the community, you kind of are left going, well, I don't know what, but something happened here. And if you have the capacity to do the mental gymnastics, to come up with a whole story about people hiding under the floorboards, pulling strings and banging on kettles, you missed your call and you should have been like, I don't know, some sort of detective or novelist.

Because when everyone in the house is in the room and it's happening and people are gathered outside staring up at the house and it's happening. And we're in the late 1800s in Nova Scotia. Please, like how did you imagine they pulled this off? In all these different locations, in all these different ways. Yeah. I mean, do you really have a theory that makes sense?

No, no, I don't think anybody reasonably can. So I don't know, you know, I've been wanting to do, you'd like to do ghost stories, but this is true weird stuff. And we always look for, we always look for, did this really happen to real people? Can you find these people? And in this case, you can find everyone and you can find the statements and you can find pictures and you can find everything except for the demon, Bob Nickle, the invisible stuff is what, is what you can't see.

But I believe like you, Max, I believe Esther Cox. I do. I do. And whether or not you believe in that theory of poltergeist activity, that it is energy created by the extraordinarily overwhelming negative emotions being experienced by an adolescent person in trauma, whether or not you believe that theory, you have to admit, weren't you a teenager once?

Maybe you've lived with teenagers. Now, trauma is another thing altogether. And what happened to Esther, I believe would be enough to send anyone. Whether you believe it or not, it's a theory that makes sense. It's a theory that holds together. So, yeah. Listen, I'm just happy that she was able to find a way to survive and make her way in life after all this, because some people might be so traumatized, they might have to be institutionalized the rest of their lives.

So I'm just happy that it worked out for her. She had a happy ending. And I want to say this about Walter Hubbell, who entered this story a skeptic and exited this story a believer. And what I'm going to tell you, and you tell me if I'm wrong, I think is going to give Hubbell more credibility, what I'm about to say. So here we go.

So first he thinks it's BS. Then he becomes a true believer. Then he writes a book called The Great Amherst Mystery. And he begins a side career of investigating psychic mediums and clairvoyance and proving where they're lying and cheating and tricking. Hubbell became a believer in what happened to Esther Cox. He didn't become a believer in everything.

He maintained his skepticism and his doubt and went looking not to prove these psychics and clairvoyants wrong. He went looking to see if it was like Esther's case, if it could prove him wrong. And more often than not, he debunked these people as charlatans and scam artists. Because, you know, that's out there too. Even now there are people that will advertise themselves as psychic or, you know, terror readers.

Some people have legitimate gifts or talents and some people are just trying to make a buck off of you. So the fact that Hubbell entered a skeptic, left a believer, but only in Esther Cox, made Hubbell more credible for me. Because he didn't leave Amherst, Nova Scotia as, I am an expert on ghosts and I will now do nothing but go to places and tell stories of people having ghosts.

It was the other way. He believed so strongly that what had happened to Esther was real that it pissed him off that people would fake. Now, what does that make you think of the guy? Yeah, he's a good guy. I mean, here's the thing. He might have an eye for being able to make money, but he wasn't some sort of sociopath or a psychopath.

He was, to his heart, he was a good guy. He was very much an actor, capital A, and a showman and an impresario and all of that. But he believed. He believed this, what did he call her? A pure maiden from Nova Scotia. He believed her. And because he had seen it and experienced it and had come pretty close to significant injury himself while in the house with Esther, he was protective of her.

And did he ultimately profit from Esther's experience? He did. He did write the book, The Great Amherst Mystery. I don't think he got rich off of the book, but he became known because of this in a way that he would not, like we wouldn't be saying his name if he had confined himself to the stage. He wasn't some, I mean, Max is an actor and a theatrical actor at that, and this isn't one of the greats, right, of the olden days.

No, he probably, I mean, you know, he probably made a living doing it. Apparently he was, if you, you know, in just listening to the thing you told the story, he did touring companies and that, which is how you made money as an actor a lot at one time. So, no, I think I'm with you. I think that he's a showman. He was a guy with an eye for a way to make money.

But ultimately, I think he took pity on Esther with all that was happening with her. From all, from everything I could find, part of the reason that Esther had so much support and so many people protecting her is, you know how you meet people in this world that you just feel that way about? You're like, this is a good, this is a good person.

Something terrible is happening to this good person. She inspired that. She inspired that in people. So, yeah, whether you believe in ghosts or poltergeists or not, maybe like Walter Hubbell, maybe you leave this story believing in Esther. And as frustrating and unsatisfying it is, maybe that's all we get to do. We get to believe that this happened to this girl, even though we can't explain what happened to this girl.

And if that were happening to you, wouldn't being believed be at least, if not enough, a good start? Yes. Nobody likes to be terrorized and then called a liar or a faker. Well, she was convicted of arson. Oh, my God. She went to prison. Went to prison for four months. I mean, you want to talk about a hapless situation.

Good Lord. Even as they convicted her, boy, like all justice back then, it was swift and harsh. Even as they tried her and convicted her and sent her off to prison, everyone in the town was like, well, this is a damn shame. Because she inspired that kind of tenderness in people. So next week is a departure in two ways on True Weird Stuff.

It is so rare. What we have for you next week is the rarest of all things. Like a lot of kids who went to school out West, a lot of my social studies classes were around Manifest Destiny and Lewis and Clark and the pioneer wagon trains and all of that. And because I grew up in a heavily LDS part of the world, the journey of the Mormon pioneers from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Salt Lake.

So if there's one thing I spent a lot of time with as a kid, it was this idea of traveling to start anew via covered wagon. And the Donner Party has always fascinated me. And most people, if you say, what do you know about the Donner Party? They will talk about cannibalism. Right. Right? But. But when you dig a little deeper, and I mean just a spoonful deeper, you discover that it's not a story about cannibalism.

And if that's the only story we tell, we miss the real thing that happened to the Donner Reed wagon train when they left Springfield, Illinois. And fun fact, Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were almost part of the Donner Party. Did you know that? Did not know that. Here's why they didn't. They seriously considered it.

And all of the history in the world would be different had they gone on that expedition. They had a small child. They had a baby and a toddler. And Mary Todd Lincoln was like, Abe, I don't think that I want to journey on the Oregon Trail with a baby and a toddler. I'm just not really up for that. And Abraham Lincoln was like, you know, you're making sense.

And so they didn't go. And instead, the Donner Reed Party headed west and Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln headed east, and the rest, of course, is history. So here's what's so incredible about the story we have for you next week. The youngest member of the Donner Reed Party was one of the few survivors. And most of the people in the Donner Reed Party were children, and most of the survivors were children.

And she was the youngest. She lived a very long and very interesting life. And before she died, she wrote it all down and gave it to the Library of Congress. Oh, wow. So next week, we're going to go across America on the Oregon Trail, and we're going to make a very fateful decision when we get to Fort Bridger. And we're going to hear the facts of what happened from someone who was there, because Eliza took the time to tell her story.

And she didn't spare any of the details, not from the decisions that were made that changed the fate of everyone, their destiny, everyone on that trip, to the fact that even in the worst of it, children are children. And even as Eliza Donner and her sisters, Francis and Georgia, were huddled under a blanket, starving to death, they were entranced by the way the sun lit up the snow and the ice all around them.

It is an amazing thing. And it's a woman's voice, which this part of history tends to not give us very much of. And I cannot wait for Eliza to tell us what really happened to the Donner Party. And some of it you know, and some of it you don't. And at the end of it, this won't be a story about cannibalism at all. This will be a story about the American dream and how costly that American dream can be, whether it's today or 200 years ago.

We will see you on the next True Weird Stuff. And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner, and now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered. And we really appreciate it if you subscribe, rate, and review True Weird Stuff. Hit our website, trueweirdstuff.com, for show notes and photos and videos when we have it, and bonus content.

Everything True Weird is waiting for you at trueweirdstuff.com. And follow True Weird Stuff on Instagram. True Weird Stuff is a Now! Media production. Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia. The show is written and hosted by me, Sheri Lynch, along with my deeply weird director, Max Sweeten. Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser.

Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr. Original graphics by Kevin Nash. Original artworks by Olivia Axland. True Weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and Zane Nash. Copyright 2025 Now! Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs remembered.