Page 60 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

40 Ghosts and Phantoms

M Delving Deeper while he made the trip to Jamaica. After all,
Brown, Jennifer. “Legendary Inn Haunted by Ghosts, she did have eight servants to assist her, and it
Aura of Death.” Centre Daily Times, March 1, was quite unlikely that any prowler would try
1997. [Online] http://tristate.pgh.net/~bsilver/ to take on such odds.
HAUNTED.htm.
The phenomena seemed almost to have
Hauck, Dennis William. Haunted Places: The National
been waiting for William Ricketts to leave on
Directory. New York: Viking/Penguin, 1996.
an extended trip before it began its manifesta-
Norman, Michael, and Beth Scott. Historic Haunted tions in earnest. He had only been gone a
America. New York: Tor, 1996. short time when, one afternoon while lying
down in her room, Mary heard the noise of
someone walking in the room and the rustling
The Gray Man of Hinton Ampner
of silk clothing as it brushed the floor. She
The account of the disturbances that gripped opened her eyes to see absolutely no one. She
Hinton Ampner was first set down by Mary called the servants and a thorough search was
Ricketts, who, with her children, servants, made of the upstairs rooms and closets. The
and her brother, witnessed manifestations of a cook reminded her mistress that she had heard
most eerie and frightening sort. Ricketts was the same rustling noise descending the stairs
intelligent and widely read, and her reputa- on several occasions and had once seen the
tion for truthfulness forever went unsullied. tall figure of a woman in dark clothes. Ricketts
Her brother, John Jervis, was named Baron found herself being less dismissive of the ser-
Jervis and Earl St. Vincent for his distin- vants’ stories now that she, too, had heard the
guished naval services. The Hinton Ampner spectral rustling of an invisible lady.
case was published in the Journal of the Society
for Psychical Research in April 1893. Nocturnal noises continued, and, one
night, as Mary Ricketts lay sleeping in the yel-
In 1757, Mary had married William Henry
Ricketts of Canaan, Jamaica, and they moved low room which the “gray man” had been seen
into the large country home outside of Hinton to enter, she was awakened by the heavy plod-
Ampner, England. From the very first there had ding steps of a man walking toward the foot of
been disturbances, the sound of doors slam- her bed. She was too frightened to reach for
ming, the shuffling of footsteps. Ricketts had the bell at her bedside. She jumped from her
spent many nights watching for the “prowlers” bed and ran from the room into the nursery.
that he was convinced had somehow gained The children’s nurse was instantly out of her
entrance into the house. They had lived there bed, rubbing her sleep-swollen eyes and won-
for about six months when their nurse swore dering what on earth had so upset the mistress
that she saw a gentleman in a drab-colored suit of the house. The nurse became immediately
of clothes go into the yellow room. Such things awake when Mary Ricketts told her about the
as these the Rickettses tolerated for four years, heavy footsteps. The rest of the servants were
firmly convinced that the noises were the result summoned and again a fruitless search was
of wind and prowlers, and that the gray man made to discover some human agency who
and a once-sighted figure of a woman were the might be responsible for the disturbance.
products of the servant’s imagination. It was in November that the knocking and
rappings began. A few months later, after the
For several years, Mary Ricketts accompa-
nied her husband on his frequent business first of the year, Mary Ricketts and her house-
trips to the West Indies, but, in 1769, having hold noticed that the entire house seemed to be
now mothered three children, she decided to filled with the sound of a “hollow murmuring.”
remain alone in England at the old manor A maid, who had spent the night in the yellow
house that they occupied. Because they were room, appeared at the breakfast table palefaced
convinced of a natural explanation for the dis- and shaken over the dismal groans that she had
turbances, William had no pronounced anxi- heard around her bed most of the night.
ety when Mary told him that she felt that she By midsummer the eerie sound of voices in
should remain in England with the children the night had become intolerable. They began

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