The Ghost of Farmer Taylor

About twenty years ago we lived in a house that was located on property originally deeded by William Penn to a family named Taylor. The family had lived on the property from 1682 until the late nineteenth century. At that time there apparently been some financial difficulties, which forced a sale of the property.

My first encounter with Farmer Taylor occurred one winter morning about six, I awoke feeling a very cold breeze on my face, thinking the furnace had stopped working I ran downstairs. As I entered the living room I saw that the front door was standing wide open and the cold wind was blowing in. Now my habit every night before going to bed was to lock the front door and apply the security latch at the top. I am sure that was done the previous night, how did the door get open?

A few months later, again about six AM, I was awakened by the doorbell ringing. It rang in a very shaky and irregular manner, six or seven times. It continued ringing as I ran downstairs and was still ringing as I unlocked the door and opened it. It immediately stopped ringing as I opened the door, no one was there. It was just dark and foggy outside, not a person in sight.

I began to imagine the ghost of Farmer Taylor trying to re- enter his lost property and told the story to my daughter. She then began to attribute every unexplained occurrence around the house to the Ghost of Farmer Taylor. It became a family joke.

The next and last event was about a year later. One day my son and daughter had several of their friends in our living room. While they were standing around talking to each other, suddenly there appeared a slightly transparent and shimmering figure of a tall bearded man wearing old- fashioned nineteenth century clothing standing amongst them. It only appeared for a few seconds, I was startled and did not speak, but my son, standing across the room said, "What was that?" The shadowy figure vanished.

We moved away from that house shortly thereafter.