By Elaine Rassel
(1) August 2, 1900—“A Haunted Apple Tree”. “It is probable that to the town of Douglass, Massachusetts, alone belongs the reputation of having a haunted apple tree,” writes Samuel S. Kingdon, in the August Ladies’ Home Journal. “The tradition of the town is that a foul murder was committed in the orchard many years ago, and that since then it had been haunted by the spirit of the victim.”
“As the story goes, a peddler, whose custom it was to sell goods from house to house from a pack, laid down to rest at midday under a tree in the orchard and before the day was ended, he was found with a cruel gash in the neck from which his life blood had ebbed away. Suspicion rested on the owner of the orchard and he was said to have been constantly followed by the spirit of the victim. In an attempt to escape from its dreaded presence, he moved away. Then the apparition became a terror to all who had occasion to pass over the road at night. So potent was its influence—standing, as it had a habit of doing, under the apple tree, with one hand at its throat and the other extended as though seeking aid, and uttering shrill eeries that could be heard half a mile away—that the location of the highway was changed and it is now a long distance from the orchard. The old trees still bear fruit and the apples from the one beneath which the peddler was killed are said to be streaked with red, resembling blood, streaks extending from skin to core.”

(2) (Year unknown) A house in Sheldon, now a museum, has a story of what the owners think is a former owner’s spirit that haunts the house. One night, a lady that had given a tour of the house that day, decided to go back to the house to retrieve her purse she had left there earlier. She unlocked the front door and entered the parlor. That is when she heard it—the sound of someone singing. As she approached the stairway leading to the bedrooms upstairs, it became louder.
She was too afraid to go upstairs so she stood motionless at the bottom of the stairs. It was a lullaby being sung by a woman. There was a sound of a rocking chair creaking back and forth as the woman was singing. There never seemed to be an end to this singing and rocking. Finally the woman who had come after her purse, left quietly and quickly. Had she been imaging this or did she really hear the lullaby and rocking chair rocking?
The next day she mentioned her experience to a co-worker who suggested that they go back to the house at the same time the woman had gone the night before. (The co-worker didn’t want to tell her friend, but she thought her friend had imagined this and the way to prove it was to go back to the house.)
As the ladies entered the house that evening, it didn’t take long for the lullaby and rocking chair incident to happen again! Now there were two women who had heard this. The next day they proceeded to tell others about what they had heard. It was then that someone told of the story of what they knew of this house.
Between two other houses, this house had stood for years with no one living in it. The neighbors had mowed the lawn all those years to keep outside appearances up. It was told that an older couple had once lived in it and had died many years ago. People said they had no family or relatives to leave it to. It was in bad need of repair so the time came when it was sold at auction. No one wanted to bid on it and the auctioneer was very frustrated when he couldn’t get a good bid. Finally there were those who thought it might make a good place to have a small museum. They purchased it for a little of nothing and began asking for donations of money and people’s time to fix the house up. They were successful in their effort to bring this house back to life again. They had no idea at that time that there would be a problem with this house.
But, now this singing and rocking incident had occurred—what was it about? The story was that the couple did actually have a baby who had died. After its death, the mother was not to be seen by anyone again. It is believed that her spirit was in this house and the lullaby being sung was by the mother as she was rocking her baby.
Once people heard this story, the media and others wanted to go to the house at that particular time of night to hear for themselves. They even said the museum could make a fortune if they charged people to come and witness this event. This is when those having connections to the museum decided to let no one in and to leave the mother alone with her baby.

(3) 1893—Mr. and Mrs. Harmon Schultz, a kindly, elderly couple, were brutally murdered in their farm home east of Fielding. They were found dead by a neighbor, Nick Halk, who had gone to help them stock grain. The woman was lying by the door, the fresh butter left in the churn, while her husband lay dead on the bed, where he had been resting.
Robbery was the motive for the crime. The couple was known to have large sums hidden away. The thieves failed to find $500 hidden in a Bible and another large sum in a fruit jar. They were known to have secured some money, however.
Suspicions point to a neighbor, by the name of Skinner, whose shoes fitted into track marks and who was seen to wear his best suit in the field the next day. However proof was insufficient, but he was ordered out of the country.
Others thought the act was done by a brother of Mrs. Schultz. The scandal so worked on his nervous system that he later was committed to an asylum, it is recalled. No one was ever convicted of the crime.
Three brothers, by the name of Montagne, continue to occupy the house where the tragedy occurred.
1894—”The Image of the Dead”. Murder will out!
Though unknown, as yet, who committed the horrible double murder of Old Man Schultz and his aged wife last summer, Nature’s camera has been incessantly at work, to bring if possible, the guilty one to justice. A marble shaft now marks the resting place of these people, but the dastard (a sneaky, cowardly evildoer) who committed the deed finds only imaginary devils to comfort him in his liberty from the law.
For some time it has been rumored that the likeness of the murdered man and his wife was plainly visible upon their tombstone, so plain in fact that those who knew them in life could momentarily distinguish the great similarity of their former acquaintances to the images in stone. So urgent has the request for corroboration or contradiction of the rumor been sought at The News office that we were induced to dispatch a representative to the scene and learn from personal experience whether there was any truth in the hallucination, as we supposed it, many were laboring under.
From the report handed in, we feel like stating that the report is well founded, and beyond the peradventure of any doubt this rumor is just as represented. To the credulous and those who are loath to believe in imaginary things, we will state that a visit to the spot will dispel any doubt as to the genuineness of the report.
A couple of weeks ago there was an article in the Marcus News about the big 50th celebration of the Grand Meadow School. Back in files from 2019 I found an article concerning a group from Sioux City that goes looking for “spirits” in old places. Recently, this group went through a school in Sioux City that was up for demolition looking for spirits before it went down.

(4) Old Grand Meadow School isn’t ‘haunted’ BUT It Is occupied by spirits
Washta, Iowa—”Haunted” is such an ugly, negative word. That’s why Joel Volkert does not like to use the term to describe the former Grand Meadow school.
Volkert, president of the Grand meadow Heritage Center, has a deep appreciation for the multi-story brick structure, which today serves as a museum. And, he says, the spirits love being there, too.
“Haunted? No,” Volkert said. “Occupied? Yes.”
“They (spirits) enjoy it here.”
A group of Sioux City paranormal investigators has been analyzing ghost activity at the school, located in rural Cherokee County. The school was built in 1920 and closed in 1973.
A group of alumni kept memories of the school alive, maintaining the building and other old structures on the property as a “heritage center” with an annual two-day fall festival started in 1975. The former-school-turned-museum is open other days throughout the year, allowing visitors to view a variety of historic items of local and national interest.
Dave La Fleur, the head of PARA911 (formerly known as the Siouxland Paranormal Research Society), said his crew has done three separate investigations at the property this year—first in March, then again in May and August.
They plan further investigations at the multi-building property, which for one reason or another seems to be home to several benign ghosts.
“This is one of the most active places we’ve seen in a while,” said La Fleur, who estimates he’s done about 120 paranormal investigations since 2008.
The investigations at the school began at the bequest of Tracy Lund, whose mother sits on the board at Grand Meadow and who is now one of La Fleur’s ghost-hunting affiliates.
Lund also does not like to use the word “haunted”—he prefers “active.”
“This place is active. Now, I say ‘active,’ other people say ‘haunt,’” Lund said. “A haunt, to me, is something that’s going to scare the poop right out of you.”
“Nothing here is malicious. Nothing that we’ve heard here is out to get you. It’s not here to scare you away,” he added.
The group showed of their equipment—cameras, flashlights, EMF meters, radio receivers, infrared lights, sound recorders and other specialized devices—along with some of their discoveries, to a group of Grand Meadow visitors last Friday night. The Grand Meadow ghosts communicated with the PARA911 team through this equipment.
The museum is full of antique oddities—a wooden washboard and a potato masher purportedly made by frontiersman Daniel Boone, a piece of wood removed from the White House during renovations in 1927, many old typewriters, fur coats, swords, unusual animal specimens, a blueprint-making machine, some antique housewares and a huge variety of other novelties.
Lund says the antique curiosities on display—personal items of long-deceased people—could be at least partly responsible for the alleged para-normal activity.
“If you stop and think about it, what do we have in this building?” Lund said. “This is everybody’s old property.”
The most outgoing of the ghosts at Grand Meadow, according to La Fleur and Lund’s investigations, is a young lady named “Michelle,” who has told them she was 15 years old, attended school at Grand Meadow and lives somewhere in the vicinity. How or when she died, and who she was exactly, is not known.
“We think she likes it here, we don’t think she’s going to go anywhere because, this is what she knows, this is what she loves,” Lund said.
“She’s been the most active,” La Fleur said.
Active though she may be, Michelle is not bad—menacing ghosts, La Fleur said, are very unusual; most, including Michelle, are congenial.
There are others at the site and its other buildings, including “Haley” ((exact spelling not clear), “Max” and another possibly named “Robert.” Less is known overall about these individuals, though Max may have been the former occupant of a cabin on the site. There may be others the group hasn’t yet encountered.
Volkert, meanwhile, is hopeful that someday the Grand Meadow Heritage Center can make improvements to the place Michelle and her friends love so much—he wants to get at the building’s mortar re-pointed (a very costly endeavor) and would like to do some rehab to the building’s aging interior. And, in 2021, they did get the mortar re-pointed.