“SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST” AT 437 HALSEY (1889)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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The Brownstone Detectives investigates the histories of our clients’ old houses. In the process, we have come across no small number of incredibly juicy stories featuring the houses and their lineage of occupants. Every once in a while, those stories – as stories sometimes do – feature a topic we rarely wade into – the paranormal. While most properties we investigate do not involve the supernatural, it is even rarer still to find an old brownstone that comes with a thoroughly debunked ghost story. No. 437 Halsey Street – in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn – is one of those houses…
In late 1889, during a strong snowstorm in the City of Brooklyn, word began to get around about the “haunting” of an apartment house at the corner of Halsey Street and Lewis Avenue, along with its complement of frightened and fleeing former residents…
“…the snow was blowing everybody in doors yesterday,” started the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, setting the scene for its readers of “an ambitious little ghost story-started out on its career of making trouble.
The “trouble” mentioned in this story was the reaction that the rumor of ghosts in the apartment house had engendered. It brought to the sole remaining occupant of the structure a whole host of other problems, namely those curious souls whose job it was to investigate such rumors.
“After knocking briskly around the streets it put straight for the newspaper offices and came awfully near running through at least one edition before it could be headed off. It had made a mistake, however, in choosing its victims and late in the afternoon it was caught in a woman’s firm grasp, was dragged half way across the city through the inclement weather and forced to confess that it never ought to have been born.
“When the story called on the Eagle it had all its references of good character right along with it,” the Brooklyn newspaper of record continued. “It was, in fact, as respectable appearing a ghost as ever dared to intrude upon a city editor.”
The address of the “haunted house” was 437 Halsey Street, noted the paper, “on the corner of Lewis avenue, in a fine brown stone apartment house.
All that remained for the Eagle to do was to pay a visit to the “haunted house” and write a story for its curious public…
THE “GHOSTS” AT THE CORNER OF HALSEY AND LEWIS
No. 437 Halsey Street was not an incredibly old house – where one might expect to experience the undead, stories of the supernatural, and ghosts noisily rattling chains. Likely no more than a decade or so old at the time, it was already being feted for its real live ghost story.
In the “flats house,” noted the Eagle, there had once lived “four responsible families, a genial grocer and a rattling real estate agent.” These folks, the Eagle continued, lived there no more…their sudden departure was coincident with the birth of the ghost story. No one remained in the big building now except a family by name of Follenus, who had moved into the upper flat within a few weeks.
“To this family the ghost story specially referred itself. Then it said that Mr. David Ferares, a clothing dealer of 219 Bedford avenue, could give such evidence to a reporter of the absolute truth of the remarkable characteristics of the story that the reporter who would hear his evidence must have a firm grip on his teeth or they would shake out. A physician in the Eastern District, a detective at the ____ precinct, the real estate dealers who had the renting of the building were all also confidently referred to.”
And so an Eagle reporter “visited the alleged haunted house shortly after noon.” He found that “the grocery was vacant and the property agent had gone, that five out of the six of the suites of apartments were empty and that George H. Follenus lived on the top floor, the only tenant of the house.”
The reporter rang his bell.
ENTER THE IRISH SERVANT
“The weird semblance of a voice came from somewhere in interrogating tones. At last the reporter traced it to the speaking tube under the bell knob. ‘Who’s there?’ was asked. The reporter curbed his desire to be frank and reply, ‘A gentleman to see the ghost,’ and inquired if either Mr. or Mrs. Follenus was at home. ‘Neither ov thim,’ came the response and the door was swung open by unseen hands.
The reporter still heard the weird voice at the tube while he was mounting the stairs, and its last words joined onto the loud tones of the Irish servant girl who was hollering into the other end of the tube when the reporter reached the top of the stairs. The woman came out into the hall and remarked, ‘And so yez got in. An’ what do you want?’
“‘I wish to see Mr. or Mrs. Follenus.’
“‘Ah, you’re wan of thim detectives,’ said the woman, shaking her finger at the reporter, ‘an’ what do you want coming around here bothering an innocent family. You’re the fourth that’s been here to-day an’ it snowin’ out doors like howly blazes. Now, I don’t know nothing about this house, though I’ve washed for this family for nine blessed years. Begone, I say, to the flat.’
“‘Why, what is the matter?’ asked the reporter.
“‘Matter is it? Now see here, gentleman, I know you are a detective, yez needn’t deny it, and it isn’t my affair to know what you want in this house or who’s of a sendin’ you here, but I want yez to understand that we’ve had about enough of this. It’s a shame to be drivin’ people out of a good house and Christmas coming and the carpets just down. Thim there,’ pointing to the flats on the floor below, ‘is gone and the folks who lived below thim are cut out an’ the grocer, and avin the rail estate agent couldn’t stand it. Now, tell me what it’s all about?’
“‘That is what I have called to learn. Is there anything mysterious about the house?’
“‘Well, I should think so whin two reporters and a whole regiment of detectives come troopin’ in here. I’m not for telling what made the people leave the house, but,’ in a stage whisper, ‘me lady is going to leave here come 1st of the month. Mysterious, is it? I heard tell that a man said to his neighbor: ‘Ye’ll niver live to enjoy yer new house.’ Wan night the man saw in his house a man all dresses in a long black robe. He got his gun and shot him right through the rubber overcoat. And when he looked at the man’s face it – was – his – neighbor.’
“‘What was the man’s name?’
“‘He was a Dutchman, for that happened many years ago in Germany.’
“‘Nothing of that kind every happened in this house.’
“‘Howly smoke, no.”
The reporter finally learned that Mrs. Follenus had received intimations that a story was abroad regarding the house and had gone to investigate it.
THE REPORTER RETURNS; ENTER SHAKESPEARE’S GHOST
Late in the afternoon the reporter called again at the house and this time was fortunate enough to find Mrs. Follenus at home. The lady had heard of the former visit, and inviting the reporter in immediately began:
“‘You have come about that absurd story. It has caused me a good deal of worry and trouble, as I have spent almost the entire day trying to discover where it originate and to put an end to its further circulation. I can’t help laughing now that I know all there it to it, unpleasant as it has been. We have been in this house two months and we have no intention of moving.’
“‘When we first came, one night the doors in the vacant flats slammed and the windows rattled so that I told my husband that I thought someone was in the house. He, however, laughed me out of the notion. Another evening we went down stairs with a light to stop the noise, and I then saw the doors moving. I said, laughingly, ‘I guess it is Shakespeare’s ghost.’ It was, however, only the wind blowing through some of the windows that had been carelessly left open.’
“‘I told Dr. Creamer, a friend of ours in the Eastern District, about the slamming of doors, and made the same remark about Shakespeare’s ghost as I had to my husband. Dr. Creamer repeated this to Mr. Ferares, and from him it got to the reporter. A young reporter – or a detective – I could not tell which, called on me this morning. He seemed quite serious and spoke of Mr. Ferares as one of the authorities for the queer story he had.’
“‘I went right down to Mr. Ferares to ask an explanation. He laughed and said it was only a joke. He had not intended that his repetition of what Mr. Short had told him should be taken really seriously, but it was, and I wish I could be sure you would be the last man from either the detectives or the newspapers that will be here to ask me about it.'”
“‘As to the vacancies in the house, Mrs. Ferares said she attributed that to the fact that the rent was high, from $30 to $35, and that by a mere coincidence several families had moved our late in the season when it was difficult to re-rent.'”
So the sweet little ghost story was killed.
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Brownstone Detectives is an historic property research agency. Our mission is to document and save the histories of our clients’ homes. From our research, we produce our celebrated House History Books and House History Reports. Contact us today to begin discovering the history of your home.
