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THE HAUNTING OF THE WESLEYS
By Scaife, Hazel Lewis, 1872-1939
THE REV. SAMUEL WESLEY is
chiefly known to posterity as the father
of the famous John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism, and of the hardly less famous
Charles W T esley. But the Rev. Samuel has
further claims to remembrance. If he gave
to the world John and Charles Wesley, he
was also the sire of seventeen other Wesleys,
eight of whom, like their celebrated brothers,
grew to maturity and attained varying degrees
of distinction.
He was himself a man of distinction as
preacher, poet, and controversialist. His ser-
mons were sermons in the good, old-fashioned
sense of the term. His poems were the
despair of the critics, but won him a wide
reputation. He was an adept in what Whis-
tler called the gentle art of making enemies.
Though more familiar with the inside of a
pulpit, he was not unacquainted with the in-
side of a jail. He raised his numerous progeny
on an income seldom exceeding one thousand
dollars a year. And, what is perhaps the
most astonishing fact in a career replete with
surprises, he was the hero of one of the best
authenticated ghost stories on record.
This visitation from the supermundane
came as a climax to a series of worldly annoy-
ances that would have upset the equanimity
of a very Job and the Rev. Samuel, in
temper at any rate, was the reverse of Job-like.
His troubles began in the closing years of the
seventeenth century, when he became rector
of the established church at Epworth, Lincoln-
shire, a venerable edifice dating back to the
stormy days of Edward II., and as damp as
it was old. The story goes that this living
was granted him as a reward because he dedi-
cated one of his poems to Queen Mary. But
the Queen would seem to have had punish-
ment in mind for him, rather than reward.
Located in the Isle of Axholme, in the
midst of a long stretch of fen country bounded
by four rivers, and for a great part under
water, Epworth was at that epoch dreariness
itself. The Rev. Samuel's spirits must have
sunk within him as the carts bearing his
already large family and his few household
belongings toiled through quagmire and
morass; they must have fallen still farther
when he gazed down the one straggling street
at the rectory of mud and thatch that was to
be his home; and they must have touched
the zero mark, zealous High Churchman that
he was, with the discovery that his peasant
parishioners were Presbyterian-minded folk
who hated ritualism as cordially as they hated
the Pope.
Whatever his secret sentiments, he lost no
time in endeavoring to stamp the imprint of
his vigorous personality on Epworth. For-
getful, or unheedful, of the fact that the
natives of the Isle of Axholme were notoriously
violent and lawless, he began to rule them
with a rod of iron. Thus they should think,
thus they should do, thus they should go!
Above all, the Rev. Samuel never permitted
them to forget that in addition to spiritual
they owed him temporal obligations. In the
matter of tithes always a sore subject in a
community hard put to extract a living from
the soil he was unrelenting.
Necessity may have driven him; but it was
only to be expected that murmurings should
arise, and from words the angry islanders
passed to deeds. For a time they contented
themselves with burning the rector's barn
and trying to burn his house. Then, when he
was so indiscreet as to become indebted to
one of their number, they clapped him into
prison. His speedy release, through the inter-
vention of clerical friends, and his blunt
refusal to seek a new sphere of activity, were
followed by more barn burning, by the
slaughter of his cattle, and finally by a fire
that utterly destroyed the rectory and all
but cost the lives of several of its inmates,
who by that time included the future father
of Methodism.
The bravery with which the Rev. Samuel
met this crowning disaster, and the energy
with which he set about the task of rebuilding
his home not in mud and thatch, but in
substantial brick seem to have shamed the
villagers into giving him peace, seem even to
have inspired them with a genuine regard for
him. He for his part, if we read the difficult
pages of his biographers aright, appears to
have grown less exacting and more diplomatic.
In any event, he was left in quiet to prepare
his sermons, write his poems, and assist his
devoted wife (who, by the way, he is said to
have deserted for an entire year because of
a little difference of opinion respecting the
right of William of Orange to the English
crown) in the upbringing of their children.
Thus his life ran along in comparative smooth-
ness until the momentous advent of the
ghost.
This unexpected and unwelcome visitor
made its first appearance early in December,
1716. At the time the Wesley boys were away
from home, but the household was still
sufficiently numerous, consisting of the Rev.
Samuel, Mrs. Wesley, seven daughters,
Emilia, Susannah, Maria, Mehetabel, Anne,
Martha, and Kezziah, a man servant
named Robert Brown, and a maid servant
known as Nanny Marshall. Nanny was the
first to whom the ghost paid its respects, in
a series of blood-curdling groans that "caused
the upstarting of her hair, and made her ears
prick forth at an unusual rate." In modern
parlance, she was greatly alarmed, and has-
tened to tell the Misses Wesley of the ex-
traordinary noises, which, she assured them,
sounded exactly like the groans of a dying
man. The derisive laughter of the young
women left her state of mind unchanged;
and they too gave way to alarm when, a night
or so later, loud knocks began to be heard
in different parts of the house, accompanied
by sundry "groans, squeaks, and tinglings."
Oddly enough, the only member of the
family unvisited by the ghost was the Rev.
Samuel, and upon learning that he had heard
none of the direful sounds his wife and children
made up their minds that his death was im-
minent; for a local superstition had it that in
all such cases of haunting the person undis-
turbed is marked for an early demise. But
the worthy clergyman continued hale and
hearty, as did the ghost, whose knockings,
indeed, soon grew so terrifying that "few or
none of the family durst be alone." It was
then resolved that, whatever the noises por-
tended, counsel and aid must be sought from
the head of the household. At first the Rev.
Samuel listened in silence to his spouse's re-
cital; but as she proceeded he burst into a
storm of wrath. A ghost? Stuff and non-
sense! Not a bit of it! Only some mis-
chief-makers bent on plaguing them. Possibly,
and his choler rose higher, a trick played by
his daughters themselves, or by their lovers.
Now it was the turn of the Wesley girls to
become angry, and we read that they forth-
with showed themselves exceedingly "desirous
of its continuance till he was convinced."
Their desire was speedily granted. The very
next night paterfamilias had no sooner tumbled
into bed than there came nine resounding
knocks "just by his bedside." In an instant
he was up and groping for a light. "You
heard it, then ?" we may imagine Mrs. Wesley
anxiously asking, and we may also imagine
the robust Anglo-Saxon of his response.
Another night and more knockings, fol-
lowed by "a noise in the room over our heads,
as if several people were walking." This
time, to quote further from Mrs. Wesley's
narrative as given in a letter to her absent
son Samuel, the tumult "was so outrageous
that we thought the children would be fright-
ened; so your father and I rose, and went
down in the dark to light a candle. Just as
we came to the bottom of the broad stairs,
having hold of each other, on my side there
seemed as if somebody had emptied a bag
of money at my feet; and on his, as if all the
bottles under the stairs (which were many)
had been dashed in a thousand pieces. We
passed through the hall into the kitchen, and
got a candle and went to see the children,
whom we found asleep."
With this the Rev. Samuel seems to have
come round to the family's way of thinking;
for in the morning, he sent a messenger to the
the nearby village of Haxey with the request
that the vicar of Haxey, a certain Mr. Hoole,
would ride over and assist him in "conjuring"
the evil spirit out of his house. Burning with
curiosity, Mr. Hoole made such good time to
Epworth that before noon he was at the
rectory and eagerly listening to an account of
the marvels that had so alarmed the Wesleys.
In addition to the phenomena already set
forth, he learned that while the knocks were
heard in all parts of the house, they were
most frequent in the children's room; that at
prayers they almost invariably interrupted
the family's devotions, especially when Mr .Wes-
ley began the prayers for King George and the
Prince of W T ales, from which it was inferred
that the ghost was a Jacobite; that often a
sound was heard like the rocking of a cradle,
and another sound like the gobbling of a
turkey, and yet another "something like a
man, in a loose nightgown trailing after him";
and that if one stamped his foot, "Old
Jeffrey," as the younger children had named
the ghost, would knock precisely as many
times as there had been stampings.
None of these major marvels was vouch-
safed to Mr.Hoole; but he heard knockings in
plenty, and, after a night of terror, made haste
back to Haxey, having lost all desire to play
the role of exorcist. His fears may possibly
have been increased by the violence of Mr.
Wesley, who, after vainly exhorting the ghost to
speak out and tell his business, flourished a
pistol and threatened to discharge it in the
direction whence the knockings came. This
was too much for peace-loving, spook-fearing
Mr. Hoole. "Sir," he protested, "y u are con-
vinced this is something preternatural. If
so, you cannot hurt it; but you give it power
to hurt you." The logic of Mr. Hoole's argu-
ment is hardly so evident as his panic. Off
he galloped, leaving the Rev. Samuel to lay
the ghost as best he could.
After his departure wonders grew apace.
Thus far the manifestations had been wholly
auditory; now visual phenomena were added.
One evening Mrs. Wesley beheld something
dart out from beneath a bed and quickly
disappear. Sister Emilia, who was present,
reported to brother Samuel that this some-
thing was "like a badger, only without any
head that w r as discernible." The same ap-
parition came to confound the man servant,
Robert Brown, once in the badger form, and
once in the form of a white rabbit which
"turned round before him several times."
Robert was also the witness of an even more
peculiar performance by the elusive ghost.
"Being grinding corn in the garrets, and
happening to stop a little, the handle of the
mill was turn [sic] round with great swift-
ness." It is interesting to note that Robert
subsequently declared that "nothing vexed
him but that the mill was empty. If corn
had been in it, Old Jeffrey might have ground
his heart out for him; he would never have
disturbed him." More annoying was a habit
into which the ghost fell of rattling latches,
jingling warming pans and other metal uten-
sils, and brushing rudely against people in the
dark. "Thrice," asserted the Rev. Samuel,
"I have been pushed by an invisible power,
once against the corner of my desk in the
study, a second time against the door of
the matted chamber, a third time against
the right side of the frame of my study door."
On at least one occasion Old Jeffrey in-
dulged in a pastime popular with the spirit-
istic mediums of a later day. John Wesley
tells us, on the authority of sister Nancy,
that one night, when she was playing cards
with some of the many other sisters, the bed
on which she sat was suddenly lifted from the
ground. "She leapt down and said, * Surely
Old Jeffrey would not run away with her.'
However, they persuaded her to sit down again,
which she had scarce done when it was again
lifted up several times successively, a con-
siderable height, upon which she left her seat
and would not be prevailed upon to sit there
any more."
Clearly, the Wesley family were in a bad
way. Entreaties, threats, exorcism, had alike
failed to banish the obstinate ghost. But
though they knew it not, relief was at hand.
Whether repenting of his misdoings, or
desirous of seeking pastures new, Jeffrey,
after a visitation lasting nearly two months,
took his departure almost as unceremoniously
as he had arrived, and left the unhappy
Wesleys to resume by slow degrees their
wonted ways of life.
Such is the story unfolded by the Wesleys
themselves in a series of letters and memo-
randa, which, taken together, form, as was
said, one of the best authenticated narratives
of haunting extant. But before endeavoring
to ascertain the source of the phenomena
credited to the soi-disant Jeffrey, another and
fully as important inquiry must be made.
What, it is necessary to ask, did the Wesleys
actually hear and see in the course of the two
months that they had their ghost with them ?
The answer obviously must be sought through
an analysis of the evidence for the haunting.
This chronologically falls into three divisions.
The first consists of letters addressed to young
Samuel Wesley by his father, mother, and two
of his sisters, and written at the time of the
disturbances; the second, of letters written
by Mrs. Wesley and four of her daughters
to John Wesley in the summer and autumn
of 1726 (that is to say, more than nine years
after the haunting), of an account written
by the senior Samuel Wesley, and of state-
ments by Hoole and Robert Brown; the third,
of an article contributed to "The Arminian
Magazine" in 1784 (nearly seventy years
after the event) by John Wesley.
Now, the most cursory examination of the
various documents shows remarkable dis-
crepancies between the earlier and later ver-
sions. Writing to her son Samuel, when the
ghost was still active, and she would not be
likely to minimize its doings, Mrs. Wesley
thus describes the first occurrences:
"On the first of December, our maid heard,
at the door of the dining-room, several dismal
groans like a person in extremes, at the point
of death. We gave little heed to her relation
and endeavored to laugh her out of her fears.
Some nights (two or three) after, several of
the family heard a strange knocking in divers
places, usually three or four knocks at a time,
and then stayed a little. This continued
every night for a fortnight; sometimes it was
in the garret, but most commonly in the
nursery, or green chamber."
Contrast with this the portion of John
Wesley's "Arminian Magazine" article refer-
ring to the same period:
"On the second of December, 1716, while
Robert Brown, my father's servant, was sitting
with one of the maids, a little before ten at
night, in the dining-room which opened into
the garden, they both heard one knocking
at the door. Robert rose and opened it, but
could see nobody. Quickly it knocked again
and groaned. . . . He opened the door again
twice or thrice, the knocking being twice or
thrice repeated; but still seeing nothing, and
being a little startled, they rose and went up
to bed. When Robert came to the top of the
garret stairs, he saw a handmill, which was
at a little distance, whirled about very swiftly.
. . . When he was in bed, he heard as it were
the gobbling of a turkey cock close to the bed-
side; and soon after, the sound of one stum-
bling over his shoes and boots ; but there were
none there, he had left them below. . . . The
next evening, between five and six o'clock,
my sister Molly, then about twenty years of
age, sitting in the dining-room reading, heard
as if it were the door that led into the hall
open, and a person walking in, that seemed
to have on a silk nightgown, rustling and
trailing along. It seemed to walk round her,
then to the door, then round again; but she
could see nothing."
As a matter of fact, the contemporary
records are silent respecting the extraordinary
happenings that overshadow all else in the
records of 1726 and 1784. In the former, for
example, we find no reference to the affair of
the mill handle, the levitation of the bed, the
rude bumpings given to Mr. Wesley. There
is much talk of knockings and groanings, of
sounds like footsteps, rustling silks, falling
coals, breaking bottles, and moving latches;
allusion is made to the badger like and rabbit
like apparition; and there is mention of a
peculiar dancing of father's "trencher" with-
out "anybody's stirring the table"; but the
sum total makes very tame reading compared
with the material to be found in the accounts
written in after years and commonly utilized
as it has been utilized here to form the
narrative of the haunting. Not only this, but
a rigorous division of the contemporary evi-
dence into first hand and second hand still
further eliminates the element of the marvel-
ous. Admitting as evidence only the fact
set forth as having been observed by the rela-
tors themselves, the haunting is reduced to a
matter of knocks, groans, tinglings, squeaks,
creakings, crashings, and footsteps.
We are, therefore, justified in believing that
in this case, like so many others of its kind,
the fallibility of human memory has played
an overwhelming part in exaggerating the
experiences actually undergone; that, in fine,
nothing occurred in the rectory at Epworth,
between December 1, 1716, and January 31,
1717, that may not be attributed to human
agency.
Who, then, was the agent ? Knowing what
we do of Wesley's previous relations with the
villagers, the first impulse is to place the re-
sponsibility at their door. But for this there
is no real warrant. Years had elapsed since
the culminating catastrophe of the burning of
the rectory, and in the interim matters had
been put on an amicable basis. Moreover,
the evidence as to the haunting itself goes to
show that the phenomena could not possibly
have been produced by a person, or persons, op-
erating from outdoors; but must, on the
contrary, have been the work of some one
intimately acquainted with the arrangements
of the house and enjoying the full confidence of
its master.
Thus our inquiry narrows to the inmates
of the rectory. Of these, Mr. and Mrs.
Wesley, may at once be left out of considera-
tion, as also may the servants, all accounts
agreeing that from the outset they were genu-
inely alarmed. There remain only the Wesley
girls, and our effort must be to discover which
of them was the culprit.
At first blush this seems an impossible task;
but let us scan the evidence carefully. We
find, to begin with, that only four of the seven
sisters are represented in the correspondence
relating to the haunting. Two of the others,
Kezziah and Martha, were mere children and
not of letter-writing age, and their silence in
the matter is thus satisfactorily accounted
for. But that the third, Mehetabel, should
likewise be silent is distinctly puzzling. Not
only was she quite able to give an account
of her experiences (she was at least between
eighteen and nineteen years of age), but it is
known that she had a veritable passion for
pen and ink, a passion which in after years
won her no mean reputation as a poetess.
And, more than this, she seems to have
enjoyed a far greater share of Jeffrey's atten-
tions than did any other member of the
family. "My sister Hetty, I find," remarks
the observing Samuel, "was more particularly
troubled." And Emilia declares, almost in
the language of complaint, that "it was never
near me, except two or three times, and never
followed me as it did my sister Hetty."
Manifestly, it may be worth while to in-
quire into the history and characteristics of
this young woman, Her biographer, Dr.
Adam Clarke, informs us that "from her
childhood she was gay and sprightly; full of
mirth, good humor, and keen wit. She in-
dulged this disposition so much that it was
said to have given great uneasiness to her
parents ; because she was in consequence often
betrayed into inadvertencies which, though
of small moment in themselves, showed that
her mind was not under proper discipline;
and that fancy, not reason, often dictated
that line of conduct which she thought proper
to pursue."
This information is the more interesting,
in the present connection, since it contrasts
strongly with the unqualified commendation
Dr. Clarke accords the other sisters. From
the same authority we learn that as a child
Miss Mehetabel was so precocious that at the
age of eight she could read the Greek Testa-
ment in the original; that she was from her
earliest youth emotional and sentimental ; that
despite her intellectual tastes and attain-
ments she gave her hand to an illiterate
journeyman plumber and glazier; and that
when the fruit of this union lay dying by her
side she insisted on dictating to her husband
a poem afterward published under the moving
caption of "A Mother's Address to Her Dying
Infant." Another of her poems, by the way, is
significantly entitled, "The Lucid Interval."
There can, then, be little question that
Hetty Wesley was precisely the type of girl
to derive amusement by working on the super-
stitious fears of those about her. We find, too,
in the evidence itself certain fugitive refer-
ences directly pointing to her as the creator
of Old Jeffrey. It seems that she had a prac-
tice of sitting up and moving about the
house long after all the other inmates, except
her father, had retired for the night. The
ghost was especially noisy and malevolent
when in her vicinity, knocking boisterously
on the bed in which she slept, and even knock-
ing under her feet. And what is most sug-
gestive, two witnesses, her father and her sister
Susannah, testify that on some occasions the
noises failed to wake her, but caused her "to
tremble exceedingly in her sleep." It must,
indeed, have been a difficult matter to
restrain laughter at the spectacle of the night-
gowned, night-capped, much bewildered par-
son, candle in one hand and pistol in the
other, peering under and about the bed in
quest of the invisible ghost.
To be sure, it is impossible to adduce posi-
tive proof that Hetty Wesley and Old Jeffrey
were one and the same. But the evidence
supports this view of the case as it supports
no other, and, taken in conjunction with the
facts of her earlier and later life, leaves little
doubt that had the Rev. Samuel paid closer
attention to the comings and goings of this
particular daughter the ghost that so sorely
tried him would have taken its flight much
sooner than it did. Her motive for the decep-
tion must be left to conjecture. In all proba-
bility it was only the desire to amaze and
terrorize, a desire as was said before, not in-
frequently operative along similar lines in the
case of young people of a lively disposition
and morbid imagination.
Finish