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Haunted Anthracite Tales

The Moore Family's Poltergeist Encounter

Updated: Apr 27, 2023

Locust Gap, PA - Dec. 1882




Working long hours for his family is what Thomas Moore did. He toiled away, night after night, guarding the entrance to the Spring Colliery for the PRI&C not far from his home in Locust Gap.

The job was tedious and long, but it paid the bills and helped support his wife and seven children. The responsibilities were standard. Guard the entrance to the mine. Watch the colliery grounds. Do not allow anyone to steal property that belonged to the baron . However, the most paramount task was do not allow anyone to enter the mine.

Equipped with a revolver and oil lantern, Moore made his rounds around the grounds keeping a vigilant watch.

The watchman spent a period learning the terrain until becoming comfortable during the summer of 1881.

One late night several weeks into his assignment, Moore was busy making his rounds, oil lantern in hand. The night had been quiet as usual. He approached the pitch-black opening to the mouth of the mine. This time the situation struck him as odd. There was an uneasiness in the air. Almost as if he was being watched.


Moore looked around surveying the grounds. Without warning he peered ahead noticing a peculiar sight. A white vapor seemed to be making its way out of the mine entrance. Rubbing his eyes, Moore attempted to comprehend what it was he was seeing. Could the mine have a fire and smoke was exiting? Perhaps an odd pocket of fog accumulating? He realized neither were rational explanations in this case. The white vapor was free flowing, disjointed from the mine and making its way in his direction.

Moore stood firm, trying to decipher the vision. To his amazement and shock, the vapor slowly began taking on a shape. The shape was that of a man.

The night watchman’s mouth dropped. His gaze locked on the vaporous man attempting to comprehend what exactly he was witnessing.

The translucent specter locked eyes with Moore only 30 feet away. The night watchman’s stomach plummeted as he gave into his instinctual reaction and ran. Moore scurried and took cover inside one colliery building clutching his revolver to his pounding breast. Frozen, he stayed within the structure's safety until the new day took over the haunted night.


As the morning shift of miners and supervisors arrived, Moore weighed his options: relay what he had witnessed and possibly lose his job or repress the terrifying ordeal. Supporting his family outweighed disclosing what he had experienced. He left work, arriving home determined to keep the haunting experience to himself.


The next evening, as the day’s work ended, the watchman returned to the colliery. Filled with nervousness, he took to his responsibilities. Moore anxiously expected to encounter the specter as the night waned on. However, it was not to be, as the night slowly took on the morning.


Unfortunately for the night watchman, the specter’s absence would not last.

Within a few nights, the watchman began to see the apparition periodically gliding through the colliery grounds almost as if keeping track of the employee. Moore began to notice a sulfuric smell present right before the apparition appeared. His initial response to flee subsided and protecting himself became precedent. He had young children and a loving wife to take care of.

Nightly, he prepared himself as best he could for the worst.

Not long after his first encounter, Moore frozen as he watched the apparition exiting the mouth of the mine once again. Overcome with fear, the watchman took his pistol, steadied his shot and fired a series of bullets into the specter. All traveled directly through and sailed into the night.




The stress was taking its toll on the night watchman. He had trouble sleeping while home. He was wearing down physically. His relationship with his wife and children became strained.

The ordeal continued to worsen. One night when the dead are known to walk, Moore began to smell the now familiar sulfuric scent while completing his rounds. He held his lantern aloft, looked around and spotted the familiar apparition. However, this sight was different and even more alarming. To the watchman's horror, two other apparitions accompanied the specter. All three stared at the shaking man.

Home-life had become taxing for not just Moore, but also for the rest of his family. Thomas would sleep fitfully or not at all. He began experiencing terrible night terrors in which the watchman would extoll a blood-curdling scream. When his wife would rush into the bedroom, she would find her husband still lying in bed with his eyes wide open, staring towards the ceiling as if fixated on something levitating above him.

Moore’s wife knew something had to change. Her husband was falling apart physically and mentally in front of her and the children. The couple sat and discussed the visions that were slowly eroding their once happy household. That is when Thomas broke. The truth flooded out. Over the past 18 months, Thomas had been haunted by the apparitions not just at the colliery but also within their home.


His wife, upon hearing this, insisted her husband take on a new shift and, if necessary, a new job. The couple knew this was the only solution. Moore did not want to lose the pay of a consistently paying job and refused to let his family down. The watchman agreed to speak to his supervisor, requesting a new shift. Begrudgingly, the supervisor changed Moore’s shift to day with new responsibilities. Life seemed as if it could finally get back to normal. Unfortunately this peace was short-lived.

The family noticed odd occurrences within their home. Sounds of items moving, footsteps of unseen entities, and sulfuric smells. Startled yet determined, the family attempted to persevere. The occurrences became so frequent, both Moore and his wife were known to carry revolvers within their home in an attempt to protect themselves and their children.

Neighbors heard the Moores screaming for the spirits to leave their family alone. They even reportedly shot at the apparitions when witnessed wandering outside the family’s home.


The Moores, in an attempt to convince themselves they were not going mad, invited the neighbors into their home to see if they too had experiences. The neighbors were in the home just a short amount of time when a sulfuric smell slowly and consistently became stronger. They then witnessed columns of whitish-blue vapor racing from room to room within the home. Horror-stricken, the invited friends left hurriedly, believing the Moores were being harassed by entities from the other side.


The apparitions intended to make their presence known in full force during a bone-chilling night in December 1882. The paranormal activity was constant and more violent than ever experienced. So much so, Moore and his wife wrangled up their children and brought them to a neighbor’s home to spend the night.



The spirits traveled throughout the home, from room to room, uprooting any peace and tranquility the family had within. The Moores rushed towards the rooms, revolvers in hand, when they heard a crash or rustling. The husband and wife attempted to banish the specters by any means necessary. For several hours, the otherworldly activity continued to gain more and more momentum. Exhausted, the couple stopped and stared at each other in bewilderment, at a loss on how to protect their family and home.

Just as quickly as the activity began, it completely stopped. The apparitions ceased, phantom footsteps were still, the movement of items and crashing stopped within a blink of the eye.

The couple waited, expecting the upheaval to begin again, yet the entities seemed to be gone. After nervously waiting, the couple agreed to settle in their home for the night.

The Moores retreated to their bedroom to lie down. Their revolvers sat within an arm's reach.

Several quiet hours passed. Moore and his wife's eyelids grew heavy and slowly closed.


Shuffling.


Movement.


Furniture being dragged.


Mrs. Moore opened her eyes. She stayed motionless, listening. Her husband was next to her, still sound asleep.


Shuffling.


Mrs. Moore sat up and calmed her breath. She took the revolver off the nightstand and slowly put her feet on the cold floor, trying not to make a sound. She stood and made her way to the door, gently opening it. She could hear rustling and banging in the adjacent room. Cautiously, Mrs. Moore made her way through the dark hallway and listened at the door.


Footsteps


Bangs


Taking a deep breath, she threw open the door, revolver raised.

She experienced nothing but stillness.

The movement completely ceased. Furniture had been moved. Articles of clothing were upon the floor. Moore’s wife stood surveying the upheaval. After several moments, Mrs. Moore turned and made her way back to the false safety of her bedroom. Closing the door, she placed the revolver upon the nightstand and settled next to her sleeping husband. After what seemed like an eternity, the matron of the home eyes slowly closed, and she drifted off into an unrestful sleep.


In a flash, Mrs. Moore’s eyes flew open. Rattled from her sleep by a sulfuric smell, she looked to the side of her bed. There, an arm's distance away, stood the apparition. Within a second of seeing the specter, the night's silence was broken by the blast of a gun shot.


Thomas, startled by the loud explosion, jumped from the bed. He looked towards his wife. She was lying in bed. Her open eyes locked with her husband's. The watchman lit an oil lamp on his nightstand to investigate. Ad he turned back, his worst nightmare became reality.

His wife’s hands pressed tightly over a bloody wound covering her ribs. The sulfuric smell had been replaced with the distinguishable scent of a fired gun.

Stunned, Thomas sprang up, gathered up his injured wife, and rushed her to the closest doctor.


Valiantly, the medic worked on Mrs. Moore. She had been shot on her left side between the seventh and eighth ribs. Conscious, Mrs. Moore told her husband the details of what she had experienced that night while he slept. Sadly, over the next several hours Mrs. Moore’s condition deteriorated. Looking into her beloved husband's eyes, Mrs. Moore gasped her last breath and joined the spirits in the otherworld.



Thomas Moore was left to raise his seven children without their loving mother. The apparitions, which had made their vocation to harass Moore and his family over the previous eighteen months, were never experienced by the family again. Apparently the poltergeist's goal, though not understood, was accomplished.




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