Ghosts | Ghosts

USA

Ghosts Home >> Poltergeists >> USA >> The Serving Girl

---

The Serving Girl

In 1868 Atlantic Monthly reported a poltergeist case centred on an Irish servant girl, Mary Carrick, who worked for a family in Massachusetts. On 3 July 1867, shortly after Mary had joined the family, all the service bells in the house began to ring even after they had been disconnected. They were mounted near the ceiling, about eleven feet up, and would ring even when she was in the room and others were watching her closely, presumably all but eliminating the possibility of a deliberate hoax.

On one occasion the girl was placing a tea tray on to a heavy stone slab weighing some 50 lbs. when it suddenly leapt up, struck the tray and knocked the crockery off. Later the same slab jumped up in the air and fell with such force that it broke in two, without the girl having any contact with it at all. It was too much for Mary, who became hysterical, raved in her sleep and had nervous attacks. On 18 September she was committed to an asylum, where, having apparently recovered, she eventually became employed as a housemaid. Whether her hysterical nature ‘created’ the poltergeist or whether it ‘latched on to’ her because of her nature is an unresolved question in this and similar cases. Italy | New York | Wiltshire | Activity | Activity | Activity | Borley | Brazil | Brazil | Brazil | Burma | Canada | Corney | East Drive | Edinburgh | Finland | France | France | Germany | Ghostly | Lincoinshire | Manchester | Middlesex | Northern ireland | Northern Romania | Nova Scotia | Paraguay | Phenomena | Poltergeist Information | Scotland | Scotland | South London | Suffolk | Switzerland | Washington State | West Norwood | Whitechapel |