The Ghost of Haunted Spring
A lonely homesteader near Lake Washington discovers the source of a terrifying, mournful wail that had been disturbing his cabin nights.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It was a lonely homesteader in the deep recesses of the forest, which borders the eastern shore of Lake Washington, from whom we obtained the particulars of this 'true tale.' 'Night after night,' said he, 'I had been startled by a weird, unearthly wailing, which seemed to proceed from the neighborhood of the Haunted Spring, which, edged with poplars pale, is shunned with superstitious horror by the aborigines and rarely visited by the most adventurous of the pale faces. Night after night my faithful collie sank into the cabin quivering with fear, as the demoniac wail shuddered through the startled air. I could bear it no longer, and shouldering my trusty rifle and, leaving my faithful watchdog whining piteously as he saw me depart for the unhallowed spot, I followed the serpentine trail which led to the Haunted Spring, picking my way over fallen logs and rocky boulders by the struggling moonbeam's misty light. As I neared the locality the mournful cadence of the mysterious sound rose fitfully above the sighing of the wind through the somber pines. Not in the place suffering where lost wretches leave hope behind could there be heard a more frightful sound. Treading lightly, I stole unawares upon the cause of the hideous horror. Just then the moon, hitherto partly veiled in clouds, shone out in all loaded brilliancy, and there in the forks of a willow, close to the turbid waters of the Haunted Spring, I beheld an empty bottle that had once contained Swamp Angel's Rheumatic Cure, the only known sure cure for rheumatism in all its forms, left there by some one, unmindful that it would be to me a divine message of a divine gift, for with one dollar I obtained one bottle from the S. A. R. C. Mfg Co. Seattle, Washington Territory, which entirely cured me of the terrible rheumatic pains which I had had for thirty years.'
“Night after night my faithful collie sank into the cabin quivering with fear, as the demoniac wail shuddered through the startled air.”
This piece masquerades as a local legend but is actually a clever piece of 19th-century 'native advertising' for a patent medicine. It reflects the era's obsession with miraculous cures and the way newspapers used narrative 'human interest' stories to disguise aggressive product placement, a precursor to the influencer marketing and sponsored content that clutters modern digital media.
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