DO COLUMBIA COUNTY SPIRITS WALK WHEN THE MOON IS NEW?

We grew up with stories of how Lindenwald, former home of President Martin Van Buren, was haunted.  Well, twice in the 20th century, in both 1936 and 1958, the Chatham Courier featured the story of one Grace Van Alstyne​, a Black woman born in Kinderhook in 1877, who tells of her own personal experiences with the Lindenwald Ghosts. 

Grace Van Alstyne, Born With a Veil. Recalls Strange Experiences, In Which New Moons, Chain-Ridden Slaves And Ghostly Horsemen Play Dramatic Parts

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​By Edna M. Burnell
The Courier - October 22, 1936 

The late October sun sank in a blaze of glory over the Eichebush section of Kinderhook, as I drove along one afternoon this week—dust and fallen leaves flying in fitful swirls in the wake of my car. As the quiet hour between twilight and dark approached, my mind fell into conjecture about the countless stories of Columbia County ghosts said to wander  still along these winding country roads.

And thus it was that, as the red glory of the sun disappeared beyond the Catskills I pulled up before an old red brick house, in which now lives Grace Van Alstyne, a colored woman of generous  proportions and prodigious memory—out of which come strange tales of Columbia County ghost lore—and in whose own experience some of these very  ghosts had walked.

A thin silver sliver of new moon began to show in the rapidly falling dark as l knocked on the door of the house- dark and quiet inside—quiet with the foreboding of strange tales to come. As I knocked, a dark face appeared at one of the windows—and soon the door was opened. With Grace Van Alstyne, 59 year old negress, whose high cheekbones and brilliant black eyes bespeak the Blackhawk Indian blood which runs in her veins, I went back into another century—heard strange tales of wordless beings of another world who had appeared to her in significant presentments.

The new moon was high now, as Grace welcomed me in her deep, contralto voice. A dog's dismal howl cut through the dark, streaking the silence with sound for a moment as the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp flickered fitfully. A pot bubbled on the coal range —here was a perfect backdrop for the drama about to unfold. 

The lamplight fell eerily on the face of the colored woman, accentuating the high cheek bones—her black eyes glittered- with remembering as she unfold ed her tale. We went back, in a moment, many years as, .with eyes born to a deeper vision than* mine, Grace Van Alstyne talked on into the shadowy gloom.

Grace was born with a veil—that strange, freak of nature said to endow such children with an eerie insight into things .other humans cannot see. From childhood, she was said to be "queer"— one who "saw" strange things in the light of the new moon—who heard sounds, smelted fragrances on the evening air-dreamed dreams of deeper significance than most. Her tales of the ghosts of chain ridden slaves, gallant horsemen who left behind no prints in the snow, but whose cigar permeated the air with a fragrance beyond description, of Indian pow-wows in the meadows, when she heard voices raised in altercation, heard the stomping of the hooves of impatient horses—all defy belief, and yet, as she tells them, are imbued with the certainty of truth as having actually happened to her—she was born with the veil of penetration into things ghostly, ethereal.

Some thirty-six years - ago — Grace tells me that she never investigated this story—but that so far as it goes', it is gospel truth—she was employed at the home of the Adam Wagoners, who lived then at the Lindenwald homestead, the former residence of Martin Van Buren. Here, in the late afternoons, during the summer, she was wont to do her ironing in the storeroom. On three occasions, as she plied her iron, humming a soft negro tune, there appeared to her a tall, mullatto woman, who pointed wordlessly to the cellar door, just behind.

Accustomed to seeing strange, unusual apparitions, Grace was not frightened. But she failed to understand the meaning of the message the figure was trying to transmit. Always the appearance of the tall, well dressed figure was accompanied by a soft shuffling, as of  slippered feet, on the storeroom floor. Always she pointed, urgently, to the cellar door.

The second time the figure appeared Grace spoke of the strange phenomenon to Mrs. Wagoner, who scoffed at the possibility of ghosts in the house. The woman never came again—Grace feels that she was trying to tell her of something in the cellar and that probably she was the ghost of one of the slaves who had been quartered there in days gone by. But the story will never be told. 

Dismissing the incident from her mind, Grace continued her duties in the Wagoner household, without further Interruption until a day, some months later, when she was sorting potatoes in the cellar, where the slaves' quarters had been. There she was busy, with head down, among baskets and bags when, suddenly, she heard the faint jingle of chains,  a rustle and something behind her seemed to force her to look up.  Behind her was a great black- woman, head enwrapped in a bright bandana, pointing. This time, Grace was certain it was the ghost of a dead slave, and frightened by the damp, dark of the cellar and the huge proportions of the dusky apparition, fled to the upper regions—glad to be away. And so ends the tale.

On the advent of the new moon - about once each month, while Grace lived in the lower gate house on the Lindenwald property, there fell on the night air, the sound of galloping hooves. Impelled by curiosity, Grace would go to  the front porch and search the night for the rider who paid these monthly visits to the big house. But no man was there, only the faint smell of the (illegible word) cigar which perfumed the air.

Many tales are told of ghostly visitors to the Van Buren home—perchance this, too, was the spirit likeness of some young gallant, paying court at the home of the great Statesman, riding to the front door astride his spirited steed, nonchalantly smoking a fine cigar. Some will say it was the magic of the new moon—but Grace says the ghost rode— regularly—and always smoked the same brand of cigar. Some will say a passerby interrupted the colored woman's evening reverie—and that easily explained sounds gave rise to the theory of the galloping horse, but Grace says she  could not be mistaken—she was born with a veil.

Then there was the figure that staggered out from behind the great Van Buren elm—Grace saw him in midwinter. After the first and second time, she decided to investigate—thinking possibly he was a neighbor who, perhaps, had imbibed a bit too freely and that perhaps she would make sure he did not fall into the snow and freeze. But there were no footprints! And no man!

Telling her husband about it, later, Grace was scoffed at for "seein’ things." But she tells me that he, too, saw the strange apparition late one night, and thereafter held his tongue—and stayed close to the home fire! On several, cloudy nights, when returning from card parties, where she had served to the local white folks, to her home on the old Post Road, Grace tells of meeting, what she at first thought was a man, walking with head down, with abstracted air! Closer investigation revealed to Grace that this was not a man—but a ghost. Was it a neighbor who walked in the evening, thinking, thinking—even.as he had in life?

Near the Ichabod Crane school—about which was built the immortal tale of the headless horseman—Grace says on many evenings she heard the loud talk of many voices and the impatient stomping of horses, tethered there. But there were no men in evidence, nor horses—only disembodied voices and noises —Fact' is, many years ago, the Indians did meet there to pow-wow—might it not be true that their spirits returned there—aghast at the despoiling of their fields and meeting places? All these things Grace Van Alstyne tells as truth—on the spirit of her Indian Grandmother and the fact of the veil* that covered her face at birth, she swears they are truth.

Who can say whether the logical explanations of such experiences made today, by cold blooded, fact seeking scientists are truth—or whether Grace Van Alstyne and those like her see what is really truth—and Ghosts do walk our earth—trying to tell us what lies beyond 'the, thin veil, of human experience that divides the living from the spirit world?

I find myself wondering, just a bit - Grace dreams her dreams and I write my tales—each in our own way. She reminisces of strange things that have been her experience — I  seek the facts that lie behind the telling of the tales may we not both be wandering in that strange hour between twilight and dark of human experience — one day to stumble into the real truth?

The dark was descended upon a sleeping world as I left Grace Van Alstyne's home—the pot still bubbled on the stove — I said goodnight and, as I drove homeward I found myself unconsciously sniffing for the fragrance of that long dead cigar. 


*  Archive editor’s note: In African American culture being born a baby who is ‘born under a veil’ (born with part of the amniotic sack still covering its face) is said to have second sight. That is, a peculiar shamanistic ability to see beyond the ordinary.