REDUCED TO ASHES

The Final Curtain at the Brooklyn Theater

On December 5, 1876, a crowd of excited theater goers packed into the Brooklyn Theater in New York City to see a heldover show called “The Two Orphans.” When the curtain rose for the final act, no one had any idea that it really was the final act, or that in less than 30 minutes, nearly 300 of them would be dead.

Built on the site of the old St. John’s Episcopal Church, the Brooklyn Theatre opened its doors on October 2, 1871. The theater was intended to be one of the premier production houses in the sister cities: Brooklyn and New York. Within a short time, it became highly respected within the legitimate theater. The structure, which seated 1,600 patrons, was an L-shaped building on the corner of Washington and Johnson streets, just one block from the former Brooklyn City Hall. The Dieter Hotel was tucked into the “crook” between the two wings of the theater. The larger of the wings housed the proscenium theater with the rear stage wall fronting onto Johnson Street. Included in the proscenium theatre wing was the auditorium seating area, the stage, dressing rooms and storage for scene decorations, flats, furniture and props. To accommodate bringing in and removing large scenery flats and props, there were 20-foot-wide scene doors opening onto Johnson Street. The stage doors, located on the same side as the scene doors, were smaller but still wide enough to allow people carrying large loads to enter with ease. Though these doors were readily accessible to the stage, they were used solely for production purposes and never available to the general public.

As “The Two Orphans” was nearing the end of its run, materials for the next two productions were already being stored at the theater. The backstage area, usually fairly open and spacious, was now packed with stored items. These extra materials made it difficult for actors and support personnel to navigate backstage and in the wings. The managers ordered that the fire buckets filled with water be removed, so people would not knock them over and spill them while trying to maneuver around all the extra set pieces. The additional flats were piled up against the back wall, blocking the fire hose apparatus.

The smaller wing, fronting on Washington Street, was the public face of the Brooklyn Theatre. Here were the public street entrances, the main and secondary box offices for ticket sales, the lobby and the staircases leading to the two balconies. The production offices were located on the upper floors of this wing.

Each of the theater’s three seating levels had its own special designation and commanded different ticket prices accordingly. There were six hundred floor-level seats in two sections known as “parquet” and “parquet circle.” Parquet circle seats were the best of the floor seats and tickets sold for a dollar fifty. Parquet seating was very close to the stage and considered to be less desirable so the cost was lower at seventy-five cents. The lower balcony, known as “dress circle.” contained 550 seats and tickets sold for one dollar. The “family circle,” made up the upper balcony and seated 450 patrons. These seats were farthest from the stage and nearest the ceiling so tickets were just fifty cents. The most choice and elegant seating was in eight private boxes, four on each side of the stage. Each box held up to six seats at a premium ticket cost of ten dollars.

The theater’s architect, Thomas R. Jackson, was very conscience of safety. He designed the structure so that it could be completely emptied within five minutes in case of emergency, even though there were no external fire escapes. In addition to the public entrances and the large scene and stage doors, he built three special exits into the long wall that made up the far side of the seating auditorium at ground level. These were large six-foot-wide double doors opening onto Flood’s Alley, which in turn led to Washington Street. One set was near the rear corner, the second in the center of the wall and the third just in front of the stage. Although these doors were kept locked to thwart intended gate crashers, the ushers had keys so they could be opened easily and quickly.

The staircases were also designed for ease and safety. The main flight from the dress circle on the first balcony was ten feet wide and opened into the box office lobby. There was also a narrow emergency staircase on the opposite side of the balcony that lead to the Flood’s Alley exit nearest the stage.

The family circle had a different design than the parquet and dress circles on the two lower levels. It had only one exit staircase leading from the upper balcony. Though it was a generous width at nearly seven feet, guests still needed to traverse two full flights separated by a long corridor. As was the custom of the day, the theater’s family circle was viewed much as the steerage on a ship. Third class ticket holders were basically third class citizens. They had a separate entrance, separate box office and a separate set of stairs, so they could not mingle or interact with those patrons in dress circle or parquet.

On that fateful night in December 1876, there were nearly 1,200 people inside the Brooklyn Theatre including over a hundred theater employees and members of the acting company. The house manager reported that they had sold approximately 250 tickets for parquet and parquet circle, 360 tickets for dress circle and 400 for family circle. Not quite a packed house, but still, a very sizable crowd for a frigid Tuesday night.

The lighting for the body of the theater was provided by gaslights. The stage itself was lighted with gas-lit border lights equipped with reflectors. These lights were ignited by an electric spark and the level of light from each was controlled by regulating the gas flow. To ensure that these “open-flame” lights didn’t ignite drops, props, furniture or curtains, they were covered with a protective wire frame, intended to keep objects at least a foot away from the flame.

The fifth and final act of “The Two Orphans” involved a major setting change. This act was to take place inside an old, derelict boathouse, poor Louise’s family home. First, the drop and borders from the previous scene were raised into the fly space and the new set moved onto center stage. The set was a simple wooden frame draped with dark brown painted canvas. There was little in the way of set pieces, just a pallet of straw in the center of the “boat house.”

It was just past 11:00 p.m. on December 5. The border drop from the previous scene had been raised and the stage crew was preparing the stage for the boathouse scene. Shortly before the curtain was to rise, stage manager J. W. Thorpe noticed that a border that had just been raised into the fly space had a broken frame corner and seemed to be hanging down at an angle, as if it had snagged on something. More importantly, he saw a small fire, not much larger than a fist, burning in the torn corner. Apparently the drop had gotten caught on the protective wire cage over one of the boarder gaslights and had ignited.

Kate Claxton, star of the show, had taken her place on stage and was lying on her back upon the straw pallet. Also on stage were two other actors, Henry Murdock and J. B. Studley. Waiting in the wings for their entrance cues were Mary Ann Farren and Claude Burroughs. Everyone had taken their places. Everything was ready to go. The audience was waiting.

Thorpe was unable to get to the fire hose that was behind the stored flats on the back wall and the fire buckets had been removed. He thought that the fire could be easily extinguished, and not wanting to disrupt the play, he directed two nearby carpenters to put the fire out and for the curtain to be raised for the final act.

Waiting to start the scene, Kate heard a rumbling sound “as if the roof were coming down” as the two carpenters, armed with long poles, were attempting to beat the fire out over their heads. Kate, looking up as she lay on her bed of straw, could see sparks floating down from the flies. But the curtain went up and she began the scene, delivering her first few lines without hesitation. As she lay there, Lillian Cleaves knelt just behind her on the other side of the canvas, out of sight of the audience, and whispered, “Save yourself, for God’s sake! I am running now!”

More sparks and tongues of flame drifted down and were now in full view of the audience. Mary Ann Farren came on stage and knelt next to Kate, as if she were playing her roll, but instead whispered that the fire was steadily gaining. The audience, seeing the smoke and flames jumped up and began to lunge about as panic overtook them. A few, who were seated closest, tried to crawl up onto the stage. J.B. Studley, one of the actors on stage, tried to take command of the situation by addressing the audience directly. He stepped to the edge of the stage and shouted out at them that, “The play will go on and the fire will be put out. Be quiet. Get back in your seats.” The crowd began to quiet and some returned to their seats.

Kate, in a further attempt to quiet the crowd, stepped forward and tried to tell the audience that the fire was part of the play and to remain calm. Within seconds, it became apparent that this could not be true as sparks continued to rain down. As she spoke her last words, a burning piece of wood fell to the stage at her feet and all attempts to calm the crowd were abandoned and panic took over, on the stage and in the audience. Most of those in the stage area made their way to the large stage doors and out to safety, a route blocked from audience members by the growing fire.

As the crowd attempted to flee en masse, head usher Thomas Rochford was able to unlock the emergency exit onto Flood’s Alley at the rear of the floor seating area. Audience members in the parquet and parquet circle easily found their way out through that exit or to the Washington Street foyer. However, when Rochford opened the rear exit door, a rush of fresh air reinvigorated the fire and it rushed towards the back of the auditorium and up toward the balconies.

The story was quite different on the dress circle level. Almost no one knew of the emergency stairs on the opposite wall from the main staircase. In a panic, people will nearly always try to exit the same way they entered. And so, those in the dress circle all headed toward the main staircase that would take them directly into the Washington Street lobby and then out into the street. This should have been a simple process, but for the panic. As the frenzied crowd rushed toward the stairs, it quickly became jammed. Some stumbled and fell, and others piled on top of them. Feet were tangled up in the balusters. Still others pulled and clawed at those in front, trying to climb over the mass to get to safety. Escape became next to impossible.

Fortunately for these poor trapped individuals, the First Precinct Police Station was just next door so assistance was quickly at hand. Several police officers and theater employees, working at the bottom of the stairs, were able to untangle the crowd as the crush pushed them down toward the exit. Nearly everyone from the dress circle eventually made it out of the building. Almost all of their injuries stemmed from falls or the massive crush, rather than from the fire.

An anonymous witness described the scene in the dress circle balcony for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “With few exceptions, the audience in the orchestra [floor seats] rushed headlong toward the doors. Those in the dress circle followed suit, and the most fatal and appalling evils resulted. Bereft of calmness and self possession...the panic stricken throng dived headlong forward, using brute force to escape the disaster which was still comparatively distant, and which was only converted from an ordinary accident into an awful calamity by that very ruthless and reckless haste. The weaker went down before the charge of the stronger, and women and children were the sufferers, as usual. In the body of the theater and in the corridor scores were crushed and jammed almost to death, and many were thrown to the floor and trampled on.”

In the family circle, conditions were far worse. The seating area with the most people had the poorest evacuation possibilities. Within seconds, all 400 of the family circle patrons moved toward their only exit. As in the dress circle, the stairs became immediately jammed with bodies packed in so tightly that almost no movement was possible. Down below, the fire was raging, sending heat and smoke toward the ceiling where it collected in the upper balcony. In a short time, those who were trapped up next to the ceiling began to collapse, unable to breathe in the thickening smoke and hot gasses.

In the Washington Street lobby, District Engineer Farley and fireman Cain along with several policemen and theater janitor Mike Sweeny, had finally succeeded in clearing the dress circle stairs. They made their way up to the dress circle balcony but found no signs of activity. They then opened a connecting door to the family circle stairs. Met with thick black smoke, they were unable to continue any further. They shouted up but got no response. They heard no human sound or movement upon the stairs. Believing that everyone who had been sitting in the family circle had already escaped, Farley ordered everyone out of the building. Within minutes of their evacuation, large cracks appeared in the theater wall along Johnson Street. Just under half an hour after the tiny fire was first spotted, bystanders heard a giant crash as the entire wall collapsed into the burning theater, just feet from where the fire had started.

It took only a matter of minutes for anyone arriving at the site to acknowledge that the building was lost. When Brooklyn Fire Department Chief Engineer Thomas Nevins took command just before 11:30 p.m., he understood that his job was not to save the theater, but to keep the fire from spreading to other buildings. The Dieter Hotel, nestled in the crook of the theater, was at the greatest risk. With its lower profile, the chance that floating embers and burning debris landing on the roof and setting it alight was very likely. Several other buildings in the general vicinity were also in jeopardy. Nevins ordered that fire-fighting apparatus be positioned throughout the area, on and around buildings most likely to catch and spread the fire. As for the Brooklyn Theatre, she would burn herself out without any possibility of being saved.

Several of those who had made their escape, found refuge in the police precinct next door. At some point in the night, Kate Claxton was found standing alone in the frigid street, still wearing only the thin, ragged costume of Louise, her character in the play. She seemed to be in a daze, not really aware of the chaos around her. After being led into the police station she sat quietly, only occasionally asking of the whereabouts of some of her fellow actors.

The fire raged into the night, the crowd of onlookers grew; some merely curious, others frantic with worry as they searched for friends and loved ones among the survivors. Despite the growing number of people inquiring about the missing, authorities believed that few, if any had been lost to the fire. A physical search had been done of the dress circle balcony and it was found to be empty. No one had been able to get into the family circle balcony but rescuers had found no evidence of anyone still up there. They believed they had every reason to be optimistic.

Uncontrolled until well after 1:00 a.m. when the Flood’s Alley wall collapsed, the fire began to burn down. At about 3:00 a.m., Chief Nevins made his first attempt to enter the building through the Johnson Street lobby into the vestibule but was forced back by heat and smoke. Eventually, he was able to enter the building to just inside the lobby doors where he found the body of a woman, sitting on the floor propped up against a wall. She was horribly disfigured and her legs had been largely burned away. Nevins exited the building with a new understanding that where there was one body, there would likely be many more. He kept his discovery to himself, fearing the crowd might storm the crumbling building.

No one entered the building again until well after 6:00 a.m. The fire was nearly out and nothing remained of the auditorium except for a very small portion of the vestibule (seating area) nearest the lobby doors. The entire structure had collapsed into the cellar. Chief Nevins decided it was time to take in a recovery party.

The first sight that greeted them was a mass of charred and tangled debris in the cellar toward the rear of the auditorium. As they descended into the rubble, they made a grim discovery. The tangle of debris was in reality a tangle of human corpses. They had fallen into the cellar when the family circle balcony and staircases collapsed. Though their bodies were horribly burned, they had fallen victim to the smoke and heat long before the flames had reached them.

News rose from the smoldering crater that as many as twenty people had perished. The search, and body removal continued but by 9:00 a.m. the number had risen to nearly seventy. Within two more hours, twenty more were added to the growing total. By early afternoon the true depth of the tragedy became apparent as the estimation surpassed two hundred.

It would take nearly three days to remove all the bodies from the building’s wreckage. Some had been scattered when the balcony collapsed and became tangled in the debris. The task was made particularly difficult by the extremely poor conditions of the remains. Recovery became problematic as many body parts disintegrated at the slightest touch. Some bodies simply fell apart when rescuers tried to lift them from the floor of the cellar.

The crowd around the ruins grew throughout the day. Worried, distraught, and sometimes frantic people wandered from person to person, officer to officer, imploring of anyone who would listed for information about some missing person. In several cases, the only reason someone might have been thought to have been at the theater was that they didn’t come home that night, didn’t appear for work the next morning, or simply hadn’t been seen since the previous evening.

The city morgue filled quickly. An unused market was found nearby on Adams Street for the overflow. In the end, the market floor provided the best location for the victim’s remains and shreds of clothing, jewelry and personal items that survived the inferno. Identification was going to be difficult as most faces were burned beyond recognition. In many cases, the damage from the fire was so great that even gender was not evident. The victims who were identified were largely done so by personal items found on or near the bodies.

With the large open market space of the temporary morgue, human remains, extracted from the theater, could be prepared and arranged for viewing in the hopes of possible identification. A steady flow of mourners passed through the office of Kings County Coroner Henry C. Simms, requesting passes to enter the morgue. As they moved up and down the rows of the dead, they were guided by an official because so many had collapsed or passed into fits as they saw something they recognized on a particular body. As each individual was identified, their body was removed to their home or that of a family member. This procedure ensured a fairly rapid and simple reduction in the mass of human bodies laid out upon the floor. Regrettably, it also ensured that mistakes in identification would surely be made as well.

Brooklyn fell into a period of mourning. Funerals were held all over the city. Several neighborhoods and organizations held memorial services for the victims of the fire. Prayer vigils and special church services and masses were performed for those who died and their friends and families.

Nearly 100 of those who lost their lives in the Brooklyn Theatre fire could not be identified. The City of Brooklyn secured a large plot in the Green-Wood Cemetery to use as a mass grave. A large arch-shaped common grave was dug for those who remained unidentified and for families who couldn’t afford to pay for private burials. One hundred and three people, in donated coffins trimmed in silver, were laid to rest in the common grave, arranged with their heads towards the center of the arch. Over two thousand mourners braved the bitter cold to attend the graveside service and mourn the victims. After two hours of speeches, ceremonies and music performed by a sixty- voice German choir, fresh soil was shoveled over the long lines of coffins creating a large burial mound topped with a floral crown and cross. Later, the mass grave was marked with a thirty-foot-tall granite memorial, engraved with a brief history of the disaster. The memorial, also purchased by the City of Brooklyn, was placed atop the mound.

The final number killed would fluctuate for several days. It was hard to determine how many complete bodies could be made up from the piles of arms, legs, heads and torsos, and impossible to account for the body parts that had burned completely away. Henry Simms, the Kings County Coroner announced the death toll as 293 on Friday, but later scaled that back to 283. The number engraved on the memorial marker erected in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was 278. That number is by no means definitive however as researchers have estimated the true number is likely nearer to 300. Regardless of the final count, the horrific tragedy could not be denied, nor its impact on a stunned city.

Three years after the Brooklyn Theatre had been reduced to ashes, Haverly’s Theatre was built on the same site, but was torn down just eleven years later. The next structure was a simple office building, used by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle until it went defunct. The approximate site is now a lovely wooded park-like seating area just north of the New York Supreme Court Building. Sadly, there is no marker of any sort, recalling or commemorating the terrible tragedy that had taken place there.

For the first two days, while the recovery efforts were continuing, much of the work going on inside the ruin and guard duty around the crumbling structure was done by the Brooklyn Police Department. Many of these men had been working around the clock with very little rest. They were near exhaustion and there were few officers on their regular patrol of the city. It was noted in the Brooklyn Union that: “The city is comparatively uncovered, and if New York thieves should make raid it would, no doubt, be highly successful.”

One hundred members of the Thirteenth Regiment of the New York National Guard presented themselves to the Brooklyn Police Commissioner, offering their services to take over for the police officers, that they might get some rest and return to their regular duties protecting the city. The Fourteenth Regiment did likewise and it was determined that they would rotate duties every twelve hours until the work was completed. The Fourteenth Regiment would have the night shift, starting at 6:30 p.m.

Those long nights in the frigid December weather must have worn heavily on the men of the Fourteenth. At first, they kept busy, as there were still crowds of mourners, curiosity seekers and scavengers. Soon enough, the crowds began to thin down to almost nothing after the bodies had been removed and the novelty of the tragedy had worn off. The long, dark vigil had gradually become a quiet one. The men walked or stood their posts and chatted quietly when they had occasion to pass each other.

But the nights were not completely quiet. As the guardsmen spoke in hushed tones, their attention was on occasion called to the cellar floor, where they reported hearing the soft sound of a woman’s sobs. This would continue until someone would call down for the woman to come out; that it was dangerous, especially at night, and that no one was allowed inside. Two of the men went so far as to venture into the building to find and escort her safely out. They later described what they saw as the dark, shrouded shape of what they thought was a woman. She was walking through the debris, bent over and weeping, as if she were looking for something. She stopped here and there as if to peer into some cavity, then moved on. One of the men climbed toward her to entice her away from the danger, but she simply vanished as he got closer. They knew that there was no other way out and that she hadn’t gone past them. They left the cellar area frightened and confused, but wondering if a poor lost soul was left searching for someone she had gotten separated from on that terrible night. The mysterious apparition appeared two more times over the next week, then was seen no more.

This story is an excerpt by Rene Kruse from the book AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH IT by Troy Taylor and Rene Kruse. 

"Popper the Poltergeist"

“POPPER THE POLTERGEIST”

America’s First Paranormal Reality Show

In February 1958, strange things were happening on Long Island. A house belonging to a family named Herrmann was being beset by strange and inexplicable incidents that were attributed to a ghost who was dubbed “Popper” (for reasons that will soon become obvious). But what was really happening in the house? Was it an unseen force from beyond -- or was it something else? On this date, February 26, Popper even got the attention of researchers from J.B. Rhine’s famous parapsychology lab at Duke University, but they came no closer to solving the mystery than anyone else.

The “Popper” case remains unique in the annals of the supernatural for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that this became the first haunting that was actually shown on television. Wide-eyed audiences all across the country stared at their television screens in amazement as Popper literally performed for the cameras. These films became the ghost’s claim to fame, but were only a small part of the weird happenings!

The Herrmann family became the reluctant stars of America’s first paranormal reality TV show

Popper first made himself known at around 3:30 in the afternoon of February 3, 1958. The James Herrmann family lived in Seaford, New York, a suburb on Long Island, about 30 miles from New York City. Their white and green ranch-style home at 1648 Redwood Path had been built in 1953 and contained three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a small dining room, a living room and a basement that was divided between a utility room and a playroom. In other words, it was a typical 1950s-era home in a quiet, conservative neighborhood with public parks and tree-lined streets. It was the last place that you would expect anything out of the ordinary to occur.

That February 3 was a day like most any other. It was clear and cold outside and Lucille Herrmann, a registered nurse, was there to welcome her children home from school and to prepare dinner. The children were Lucille, 13, and James, 12, two ordinary kids with ordinary interests. Their ordinary world, however, was about to change.

Soon after the children entered the kitchen, chaos erupted in the house. In a matter of moments, various bottles containing liquid in different rooms of the house suddenly began to pop their caps and dance around. No one saw the bottles move or explode, but all of them heard the caps as they popped loose and the bottles’ contents went spewing into the air.

They would later discover an opened bottle of bleach in the basement utility room, a bottle of liquid starch in the kitchen, bottles of shampoo and medicine in the bathroom and a bottle of holy water that had opened in the master bedroom and was lying on its side with the contents spilled. Each of the bottles had been sealed with twist-off metal or plastic caps. There were no corks or crimped caps that might have somehow come loose.

Puzzled, Mrs. Herrmann called her husband, who worked for Air France in New York City, and reported the strange “popping” sounds they had heard. Herrmann was just as confused by the incident as his wife was, but since no one had been hurt, he decided there was no need for him to go home early.

Following his usual schedule, Herrmann took the train to Long Island and arrived home just before 7:00 p.m. During his commute, he pondered his wife’s call and was sure that he had a solution for the mystery. He believed that some sort of chemical reaction in the products had caused the bottle lids to blow and the fact that they did so at the same time was merely a coincidence. Perhaps it had been caused by some sort of excessive humidity in the house? He quickly investigated the bottles when he arrived home and confessed to being baffled when he found that they were screw-top lids. How could they have simply popped off?

The excitement over the event having passed, and since nothing more had happened, the family decided to write the experience off as “just one of those funny things.” Two uneventful days passed and the popping bottles were almost forgotten.

Then, on Thursday, once again at about the same time that the Herrmann children came home from school, another half dozen bottles popped their lids. A bottle of nail polish burst open, as did a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a bottle of bleach, detergent, starch and the bottle that contained holy water on Mrs. Herrmann’s dresser. It was an almost exact repeat performance of February 3.

On Friday night, it happened again. Only this time, when the bottles began to pop open, James Herrmann began to suspect that he knew the culprit responsible for the multiple containers’ strange behavior. He surmised that his science-loving son had somehow rigged the bottles to pop in order to scare his family. He thought that perhaps his son had planted some carbonated capsules inside the bottles and timed it so that he could get home from school in time to see the startled expression on his mother’s face.

As he developed this theory, Herrmann spent the entire weekend secretly observing Jimmy. He was determined to catch him in the act of tampering with a bottle. It’s no wonder that he was surprised on Sunday morning, February 9, when several caps popped off bottles of starch, turpentine and holy water, leaving the containers rocking back and forth on the shelves. Herrmann had kept a close eye on Jimmy, so how could the boy have managed to put something inside the bottles without his father seeing him do it? Feeling baffled and a bit angry, Herrmann burst into the bathroom, where Jimmy was brushing his teeth, and accused him of rigging the bottles to pop. The boy vigorously protested his innocence and as if to prove the point, Herrmann was startled to see a bottle of medicine suddenly move across the top of the sink and fall into the basin. A moment later, a bottle of shampoo also slid across the sink and fell with a thud to the floor.

Jimmy Herrmann, posing with some of the broken items in the house 

Still skeptical, Herrmann immediately examined the bathroom, searching for hidden wires or strings. He found nothing and finally realized that there were things going on in the house that he could not explain. Unsure of what else to do, he called the Nassau County Police Department and spent the next several minutes on the phone trying to get Lieutenant E. Richardson, the desk officer who answered the call, to take him seriously. When he heard the story, Richardson accused Herrmann of either playing a practical joke or drinking too much, but he was soon swayed by the earnest tone of the man’s voice. It helped that Herrmann had a good reputation in the community. Richardson promised to send someone to investigate.

Officer James Hughes went to the house feeling skeptical and perhaps wondering how he managed to wind up with the nutcase calls. Within a few minutes, though, he had changed his mind about the nature of the case when several bottles in the bathroom popped their lids and fired them in his direction. He quickly concluded that the Herrmanns did indeed need help.

Detective Joseph Tozzi was assigned to look into the case. He read Hughes’ report of the incident in the bathroom with interest. While not willing to pass judgment without actually visiting the scene, he was relatively sure the Herrmanns were experiencing some natural phenomenon or were simply imagining things. Or, he noted with the cynicism of a veteran police officer, the popping bottles could be getting some help a human source.

Detective Joseph Tozzi

On February 11, Detective Tozzi began his vigil at the Herrmann house. That same evening, a perfume atomizer overturned and spilled perfume in the daughter’s bedroom. There was no one in the room at the time, according to reports. Over the next few days, the disturbances seemed to center around the bottle of holy water in the parents’ bedroom. On several occasions, the lid of the bottle popped off and once, after hearing the distinctive sound, Mr. Herrmann dashed into the room and found the bottle on the floor. He picked it up and found it strangely warm to the touch.

Later that same day, on February 15, the activity took another turn. As the Herrmann children were watching television in the living room with Marie Murtha, their middle-aged second cousin, a porcelain figurine on an end table next to the couch began to wiggle and then shot two feet through the air, making a loud crashing sound as it landed on the floor. To the amazement of Miss Murtha and the children, the figurine was unbroken.

After this last demonstration, the Herrmanns decided to turn to another source for comfort and to aid the stumped Detective Tozzi in his investigations. They contacted Father William McLeod of the Church of St. William the Abbott for help. As devout Catholics, the Herrmanns believed that the church could help them where ordinary methods had failed. Father McLeod came to the house and sprinkled holy water in each of the rooms. Unfortunately, “Popper,” as the poltergeist came to be called, had decided that he didn’t want to leave.

During the two weeks since Popper had made his first appearance in the Herrmann house, news of the strange happenings had leaked to newspapers, radio and television reports. The story received a great deal of publicity, even meriting articles in Time and Life magazines. If the beleaguered family thought that mopping up spilled liquids and having their possessions broken by an unseen force was bad, then the onslaught of public attention was worse. During the day, the Herrmann home was surrounded by reporters, photographers, curiosity-seekers and an astounding array of television equipment. While the Herrmanns managed to get used to these intrusions into their lives, they weren’t quite prepared for some of the strangeness that came with it.

Detective Joseph Tozzi being interviewed on television

Letters and telephone calls came every day. Many of them proposed logical solutions, while others assured the Herrmanns that Martians had landed nearby or that the problem in the house was the spirit of a long-dead Indian chief or that the Russians were tunneling under Long Island to invade New York. The Herrmanns managed to stay patient with everyone, though. They never turned anyone away and they listened attentively to all the calls and suggestions that came in, even those who shouted “Repent!” into the telephone at midnight or proclaimed that “the Sputniks are here!”

Many of the letters and visitors were less easy to tolerate, however. Letters arrived in barely intelligible scrawl, condemning the Herrmanns for their sins and suggesting that they had invited these “tricks of Satan.” Ministers from all sorts of dubious faiths conducted rituals on the front lawn of the house. One man in a blue serge suit, who claimed to be a “holy man from Center Moriches,” (a nearby town on Long Island) knelt in the yard and prayed for 10 minutes. Then he stood and announced: “Everything is all right. You have been forgiven.” With that, he left -- but “Popper” remained.

But not all of the suggestions and attempts to help were so bizarre. One man who came to the house, Robert Zider, was a physicist from Long Island’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. He brought a set of dowsing rods with him and went over the property with them. When he was finished, he stated that he believed there were underground streams below the house. He thought that the water might be creating a “freak magnetic field.” Detective Tozzi examined this idea at length, but a geological survey suggested that the information was inaccurate.

Tozzi’s case file grew thicker and thicker with added notes, observations, research and facts that he collected. At one point, he had been walking down the basement stairs with Jimmy Herrmann when a bronze statue of a horse weighing nearly 100 pounds flew across the basement and hit the detective in the legs. Jimmy had been nowhere near the statue and no one else was down there. How had it happened? Tozzi had absolutely no idea.

He had checked with the Air Force and after studying their flight plans, they had told him that sonic booms from passing jets could not have caused the disturbances. He also ruled out radio waves by contacting the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). The Long Island Lighting Company had set up a delicate oscilloscope in the basement, but they had detected no underground vibrations. Building inspectors from the town of Hempstead pronounced the house structurally sound. The Seaford Fire Department even inspected a well on the property to see if changes in the water level could be causing the disturbances. However, they found that the water level had been stable for at least five years. Although puzzled, Tozzi remained determined and he tried valiantly to discover a source for the happenings.

He finally found hope in a letter from a woman named Helen Connolly of Revere, Massachusetts. She wrote that she had experienced odd events in her living room, where chairs and furniture moved about. She didn’t have a ghost in her house, but rather a heavy downdraft through her fireplace. When capped with a rotary metal turbine, the flying tables and chairs ceased to fly. Mr. Herrmann immediately had one installed on his own chimney, convinced that the strangeness was finally coming to an end.

But that wasn’t meant to be.... No sooner had the workmen completed the installation than a porcelain figurine launched itself from a table and smashed against a desk. The figurine had managed to travel a distance of more than 12 feet. It left a dent on the wood that was broadcast to television audiences all over the New York metropolitan area.

On February 20, events became even more violent. Another figurine was smashed against the desk, a bottle of ink popped its screw cap, then sailed into the air and splashed its contents on the wall and a sugar bowl flew off the table under the watch of Detective Tozzi. It had been close to Jimmy but not within his reach. Needing a break, the Herrmann family spent the night with a relative. Tozzi stayed in the house, but the rest of the night passed without incident. When the family returned the next evening, though, the sugar bowl again flew from the table and this time, it shattered into pieces.

On February 24, Tozzi was startled to his feet by the sound of a loud noise from Jimmy’s room. No one had been in the room or near it, yet a large bookcase had managed to fall facedown onto the floor. The next night, while Jimmy was in the room doing his homework, his record player lifted and moved 15 feet across the room. A small statue of the Virgin Mary flew more than 12 feet and struck a mirror frame in the master bedroom. A bookcase filled with encyclopedias was upended. A heavy glass centerpiece from the dining room table flew up and stuck a cupboard, chipping away a piece of molding before falling to the floor. A world globe shot down the hallway from Jimmy’s room and just missed Detective Tozzi. A newspaper photographer named John Gold from the London Evening News witnessed his flashbulbs lift off a table and fly through the air to strike a wall. In addition, Popper had begun knocking on the walls to get attention, although no attempts to “communicate” with the ghost (if indeed it was a ghost) were ever made.

Tozzi had become concerned about the new violence in the disruptions. Until that point, the activity had been limited to popping bottle tops. He had explored every possible explanation that he could come up with and while he was not prepared to say the house was haunted, he was all out of fresh ideas. About this same time, the staff of scientists at the Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University, North Carolina, became interested in the events reported in the Herrmann home. This group of researchers, under the leadership of Dr. J.B. Rhine, had already compiled a mass of evidence that supported the idea that certain people, under the right circumstances, could influence the behavior of objects without touching them. They called it psychokinesis, or PK.

As the disturbances at the home continued (and in fact, increased) Dr. Rhine’s assistant, Dr. J. Gaither Pratt, traveled to New York and arrived at the Herrmann house on February 26. Pratt believed that someone in the house was unknowingly causing the strange incidents to occur. Meanwhile, other researchers came to believe that the incidents in the house were being caused by an actual ghost, a poltergeist, or “noisy spirit.” These prankster ghosts traditionally targeted religious items, as the disturbances had done with the holy water and the Virgin Mary statue in the Herrmann house.

On the other hand, strong evidence remained for the idea that there was a human component behind the haunting. It had been noted by the Duke researchers that an adolescent child, usually a girl, was almost always among the members of the household being plagued by poltergeist phenomena. They believed it was possible that this young person might be capable of psychokinesis during the height of puberty. In every case, though, the young person might be unaware that she or he was unconsciously causing the events to happen, making them as bewildered as the adults around them. In the case of the Herrmann house, Jimmy (according to Detective Tozzi’s notes) was at or near the scene of the poltergeist disturbances more than 75 percent of the time. For many incidents, he was the sole witness. However, the detective had cleared the boy of deliberately causing any of the disturbances.

Like the others who came before him, Dr. Pratt was welcomed into the Herrmann residence and greeted warmly. He explained that he had come as an observer and he spent most of the time there chatting with Jimmy, playing cards with him, helping him with his homework and generally just being around the young man. There was no sign of strangeness during the visit. Popper was absolutely quiet.

Pratt then summoned another colleague from North Carolina, William G. Roll. Together, they interviewed the family members and were convinced that none of them were perpetrating a hoax. “The family was much too shaken for it to be a colossal hoax,” Pratt told a United Press reporter.

Things were quiet for the next several days, as though the poltergeist did not want to perform for the scientists. Then, on March 2, one month after Popper first arrived, he decided to make himself known again. All of the Herrmanns were in the house to witness what took place. First, a dish vaulted from a kitchen cabinet and shattered on the floor. Then, a night table flipped over in Jimmy’s room. Popper was back and yet there was still no explanation as to who, or what, he was. Two days later, a bowl of flowers slid down the dining room table and jumped into the air. A bookcase turned end over end in the cellar.

But this would not be Popper’s farewell performance. That event would occur on March 10 while Mrs. Herrmann, Jimmy, and Lucille were getting ready for bed (James Herrmann was away on business). Pratt and Roll suddenly heard a loud popping sound in the cellar and they hurried downstairs to see what it was. They found that a bleach bottle, sitting in a cardboard box, had somehow lost its plastic lid.

For reasons unknown, this became the last act of the Herrmann family poltergeist. There had been a record of 67 recorded disturbances between February 3 and March 10. The Herrmanns had been visited by detectives, building inspectors, electricians, plumbers, firemen, parapsychologists and half of the “nutcases” on the East Coast and yet none of them had been able to present a satisfactory explanation for what had occurred in their home.

Weeks after the household returned to normal, “experts” still came to investigate and to theorize about what had taken place. As late as August 1958, the scientists at Duke still had no clue as to what had happened and why. By this time, the Herrmanns had had enough of investigations and just wanted their lives to get back to normal. James Herrmann no longer cared why the disturbances had taken place, he was just happy they were over. Mrs. Herrmann told an Associated Press reporter: “I don’t think there is a definite solution. It was just one of those things with no rhyme or reason to it. But there was a definite physical force behind it.”

What did happen at the Herrmann house on Long Island? No one really knows. “Popper” the Poltergeist, and the strange incidents that followed in his wake, is just as puzzling today as “he” was in 1958.

The story of “Popper” and many of America’s weirdest poltergeist cases can be found in my book INTO THE SHADOWS, which is available in print on the website at and as a Kindle edition!

The Cardiff Giant Revealed!

THE PETRIFIED MAN

The Cardiff Giant Hoax

On this date, February 2, 1870, one of the greatest hoaxes in American history was finally revealed to be just what it was --- a colossal practical joke gone awry. The Cardiff Giant, a 10-foot-tall purported “petrified man” was first uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. The worker’s astounding “discovery” shocked post-Civil War America and made headlines around the world.

What should have been a short-lived “wonder,” created by George Hull, became a national sensation thanks to famous showman P.T. Barnum and the story lives on today.

The Cardiff Giant – One of America’s Most Famous Hoaxes

The Cardiff Giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. Hull, an atheist, decided to create the giant after an argument at a Methodist revival meeting about the passage in Genesis 6:4 stating that there were giants who once lived on Earth. Thinking that he would teach the Christians a lesson, he devised a plan about a “real” giant that could be discovered, put on display and then revealed to be a hoax. His simple plan soon ran amuck.

Hull hired men to carve out a 10-foot long block of gypsum in Fort Dodge, Iowa, telling them it was intended for a monument to Abraham Lincoln in New York. He shipped the block to Chicago, where he hired Edward Burghardt, a German stonecutter, to carve it into the likeness of a man and swore him to secrecy. Various stains and acids were used to make the giant appear to be old and weathered, and the giant's surface was beaten with steel knitting needles embedded in a board to simulate pores. In November 1868, Hull transported the giant by rail to the farm of William Newell, his cousin. He buried the giant behind his cousin’s barn and then sat back to wait. By then, he had spent over $2,500 on the hoax and invested countless hours of time.

Nearly a year later, Newell hired Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, ostensibly to dig a well, and on October 16, 1869 they found the giant. One of the men reportedly exclaimed, "I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!" The amazing giant was pulled out of the ground and it’s “discovery” made newspaper headlines.

Newell set up a tent over the giant and charged 25 cents for people who wanted to see it. Two days later he increased the price to 50 cents. People came by the wagon load, invading his property, all anxious to see not only a real-life petrified man, but proof that the giants in the Bible actually existed.

In spite of the crowds flocking to see the giant, archaeological scholars pronounced it a fake, and some geologists even noticed that there was no good reason to try to dig a well in the exact spot the giant had been found. Yale paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh called it "a most decided humbug.” But the public didn’t want to hear it. Some Christian fundamentalists and preachers defended its authenticity and crowds continued to flock to the site, often with well-worn Bibles clutched in their hands.

Eventually, Hull sold his part-interest in the giant for $23,000 to a syndicate of five men headed by David Hannum. They moved it to Syracuse, New York, for exhibition. The giant drew such crowds that showman P. T. Barnum offered $50,000 for the giant. When the syndicate turned him down, he hired a man to model the giant's shape covertly in wax and create a plaster replica. He put his giant on display in New York, claiming that his was the real giant, and the Cardiff Giant was a fake.

P.T. Barnum

As the newspapers reported Barnum's version of the story, David Hannum was quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute" in reference to spectators paying to see Barnum's giant. Over time, the quotation has been misattributed to Barnum himself.

Hannum sued Barnum for calling his giant a fake, but the judge told him to get his giant to swear on his own genuineness in court if he wanted a favorable injunction.

By now, things had gone too far for George Hull – and he had his richly deserved revenge on the Methodist minister who told him that the Bible was meant to be taken literally. On December 10, 1869, Hull confessed to the press. On February 2, 1870 both giants were revealed as fakes in court. The judge ruled that Barnum could not be sued for calling a fake giant what it actually was – a fake.

Believe it or not, even after the Cardiff Giant was soundly revealed as a hoax, a number of other similar hoaxes followed in its wake. In 1876, The Solid Muldoon emerged in Beulah, Colorado, and was exhibited at 50 cents a ticket. There was also a rumor that Barnum had offered to buy it for $20,000. One employer later revealed that this was also a creation of George Hull, aided by Willian Conant. The Solid Muldoon was made of clay, ground bones, meat, rock dust, and plaster.

In 1877, the owner of Taughannock House hotel on Cayuga Lake, New York, hired men to create a fake petrified man and place it where the workers who were expanding the hotel would dig it up. One of the men who had buried the giant later revealed the truth when drunk.

In 1892 Jefferson "Soapy" Smith, de facto ruler of the town of Creede, Colorado, purchased a petrified man for $3,000 and exhibited it for 10 cents a peek. Soapy's profits did not come from displaying "McGinty," as he named it, but rather from distractions, such as the shell game set up to entertain the crowds as they waited in line. He also profited by selling interests in the exhibition. This was a real human body, intentionally injected with chemicals for preservation and petrification. Soapy displayed McGinty from 1892 to 1895 throughout Colorado and the northwest United States.

In 1897, a petrified man found downriver from Fort Benton, Montana, was claimed by promoters to be the remains of former territorial governor and U.S. Civil War General Thomas Francis Meagher. Meagher had drowned in the Missouri River in 1867. The petrified man was displayed across Montana as a novelty and even exhibited in New York and Chicago.

The Cardiff Giant still exists today. It appeared at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, but did not attract much attention. An Iowa publisher bought it later to adorn his basement rumpus room as a coffee table and conversation piece. In 1947, he sold it to the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown, New York, where it is still on display today. It is a very physical reminder that either P.T. Barnum or David Hannum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”