Murder on High Street

During the 1970s, a young couple purchased a red brick home on High Street in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Some of the neighborhood residents had warned the couple about purchasing the building, but the new owners dismissed those thoughts. The building was structurally sound, and in a decent neighborhood, so what was there to worry about?

One night the man and woman came home and found that a piece of Aztec pottery had been shattered and thrown all over the living room carpet. They glued the object back together, but soon they found it broken again. After this happened a third time, the couple knew that there was something odd going on in their house.

Other incidents occurred. They were awakened in the night by loud banging noises. Food was sometimes pulled out of the cupboards and strewn on the floor. Paintings fell off the wall though there were no broken parts. A pair of pewter candlesticks was found tossed in a corned, completely crumpled.

One afternoon the couple came home and found an intricately carved letter J on the inside of one of the old panes of glass.

The home owners decided to talk to an elderly woman who had warned them about purchasing the property. This lady was still living in the same house her grandmother had lived in during the Civil War. It seems that the neighbor’s ancestors and others living on the street had witnessed the attempted cover up of the murder of a Union soldier.

At several points during the Civil War, the Union army had occupied Harpers Ferry. At one point, the High Street home had been used as a prison and a soldier named Jacob had been stationed there.

One night, Jacob left his post to visit his sweetheart. During his absence his superior officers conducted a surprise inspection and found him missing. Jacob’s friends tried to cover for him, but they were not successful. After the men were punished for lying, they decided to get back at Jacob for sneaking off and leaving them to explain.

When Jacob walked in the door of the house the other men jumped him and wrestled him to the floor. The punched and kicked him. As a prank, they stuffed feathers in to his ears, nose, and mouth. When they decided that their friend had learned his lesson, they let him go. Jacob slumped to the floor and didn’t move. He had been suffocated.

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