Early in 1878, a night watchman called Joseph B. Sheppard, also known as "Old Shep," was drowned in the East River. For many years he had worked out on the piers, and had also kept an eye on the neighborhood around East 38th Street. He was hired sometimes to wake people who needed to get up early, too. It was after one of these wake-up calls that his body was found in the river at the foot of 38th Street. The death was ruled an accidental drowning, partly explained by his being drunk at the time of his death.
Old Shep was "rather small" and stooped, and wore a cap pulled down over his eyes. He walked with his hands in the pockets of his old-fashioned pantaloons, the ends of which he wore tucked into his boots. He was altogether the sort of striking figure that you'd recognize at once. Several weeks after Sheppard's death, Patrolman Thomas Kilbride of the 21st Precinct was making his rounds after midnight, down by the river. Imagine for a moment, if you will, the lonely, rather spooky setting. The
Times describes it thus:
A narrow lane, between two great rows of tall lumber-piles, leads from the street to the river-side. The bank, which is washed into drifts and tunnels, runs abruptly down to the wharf, which is 8 or 10 feet lower than the surrounding ground. On the left, jutting out from the wharf, is the skeleton of an old pier, about 20 feet square. The planking long ago decayed and dropped off, and the timbers only are left. It was under this skeleton pier, that [Sheppard] was found lying upon [his] face on a great rock...It is from under the old pier, too the that lights are supposed to come.
One night, Kilbride was so startled by something on the pier that he ran away in terror. Kilbride said he'd seen Sheppard's ghost on the skeleton pier - and what better place for a river ghost? - five feet away from him. He looked just as he always had, with his pulled-down cap and tucked-in pantaloons,"only his face looked like a dead man's face." Then the ghost simply vanished. And Kilbride added that he had
not fainted, as people were saying, "but of course I was very much surprised." Soon other people began hanging about the pier at night, hoping to see the ghost. Some claimed that they saw a "bright light...about double the size of a street lamp" at the base of the pier, which proceeded to swim around in the river.
The East River ghost had also attracted the attention of Madame
Helena Blavatsky and Colonel
Henry Steel Olcott, who had just founded the
Theosophical Society in new York City in the fall of 1875. Madame Blavatsky was a well-known Spiritualist and medium whose was one of the most fascinating and peripatetic women of her time (see links below). Olcott was a journalist and lawyer who had helped investigate the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; he was also the first American to convert to Buddhism, in 1874.
On March 20, 1878, at about 11:15 PM, Blavatsky and Olcott went down to the 21st Precinct station house. There they convinced Captain Murphy, Kilbride's boss, to go down to the 38th Street pier with them (I don't know where Kilbride was). The two Theosophists felt that the mystery was not "too deeply tangled for even the most modern of modern sciences [i.e., Theosophy] to prove." There were five reporters along for the "ghost-hunt" too. It is not clear who invited them, but they seem to have been invited by Blavatsky and Olcott.
Someone - one of the reporters, I guess - asked Madame Blavatsky about the spirits of the dead returning to the earth. She said that "the spirits of men of great genius" might come back and contact the spirits or souls of their old friends.
"But this man was not a genius," said the reporter. "He was a decrepit old man, and something of a bummer."
Blavatsky considered this. She rolled herself a cigarette and lit it. Then she said, "That is just the reason why his spirit returns in this shape. If he had been possessed of a great mind, he would not have returned in bodily shape; he would have come back mentally."
The ghost-hunting Theosophists, Murphy and the reporters joined a crowd of amateur ghost-hunters who were already down at the pier. The crowd did not include any of the watchmen - they were staying well away from the place. It was a few minutes before midnight. Blavatsky told everyone to stop joking around because "you can never see any spirits when you laugh." And it was good that the weather was dry, she added, because you didn't see them when it was rainy or wet. Olcott went off silently to sit on a pile of lumber and smoke his pipe. Madame Blavatsky had a few more cigarettes. They waited until after one o'clock. The ghost, however, did not appear.
Perhaps the spirits did not care for smoking, either.
Source: "An East River Ghost,"
New York Times, March 21, 1878.
For more on Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy:
Blavatsky Net
Blavatsky Archives
The Esoteric World of Madame Blavatsky by Daniel H. Caldwell
Madame Blavatsky's Baboon (at Amazon)
