Ghost Story #23: A Substantial Ghost

Detroit Free Press, June 18, 1875

For every bump-in-the-night, unexplainable at first groaning moonshine still in the basement ghost in the annals of Detroit history there was also one of these stories where the shade was easily traced to intelligible figures of flesh without need of scientific experimentation or seance. It was simply a man keeping watch over a vacant house on Vinewood Street in Springwells in the summer of 1875 when a nosy woman peeped into the darkened window at the inopportune time that he had finished with his bath. Out of modesty he threw a sheet upon himself while she shrieked in terror. In response to the first peeping and the subsequent neighbor's stirring about interfering upon his intended sleep he cast the figure of a phantom upon their psyches and all was well with the reasonable cast who wished to speak no more on the matter of apparitions.

Ghost Story #22: The Red-Haired, Moon-Faced Monster Man of Shelby Street

Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1866

Euphemisms are a beautiful thing because they allow even a respectable outlet such as the Detroit Free Press (Haha! As if! Foisted upon respectability anyhow.) to call somebody a whore with possibly the most ambiguous word relating to the oldest profession. The old Cyprian! Surely one could also mean a specie of bee, the worship of Aphrodite, an inhabitant of Cyprus or even the Carthaginian bishop-martyr known by that very name. Capitalized, of course. Always capitalized except when referring to a trollop. 

Anyway, some prostitutes were getting drunk with some Johns on Shelby Street and after the gin and beer had flowed all morning, Lizzie and Hattie went to "Europe" or out to get the former her sea legs back from the rollicking within and soon enough she passed out under a maple tree holding the latter woman's gold watch for safe-keeping while the latter slept in a nearby bush. 

Lo! When Lizzie awakened a red-haired, copper-faced monster man with a head the size of the moon was upon her! Was it the Nain Rouge? Le Loup Garou? Rocky Dennis? It was only a visage. A shade. A spirit of the spirits. A thief in the night. 

Whatever it was it took Hattie's watch and the owner, being the shrewd business woman that she was, took Lizzie to court. Said court cited a lack of evidence and intent to convict. The annals of time confer a similar conclusion on all accounts. Therewith resides that thing referred to as folklore. Another euphemism contained within itself where humbug formerly resided.