As a high school student in search of an “A,” this writer’s sister Linda interviewed family members to get a sense of family history. This particular interview took place with our grandfather, Adam William Thompson. In our family, this is Adam William the Younger. His grandfather, Adam William the Elder, purchased land in Van Buren Township, Pulaski County, in the 1850s. He did not live here. His son, William Henry, moved from Darke County, Ohio, in 1888. William Henry’s son, Adam William the Younger, was born at that homestead in 1891. He would have been a boy of eight when Gabe’s story became known.

The Story, As Told By Linda

As a farm boy, his life was never dull. He remembered, for instance, the sapping of the maples for syrup. Every spring they hitched horses to sleds and carried the buckets to the maple grove. There someone would have to keep watch day and night so that the syrup wouldn’t boil over. Adam was usually dealt the night shift. He mightn’t have minded so much had it not been for the company of an old-timer who specialized in ghost stories. Young Adam tried his hardest to act brave, but those stories kept him glancing uneasily into the darkness.

One of the tales was that of Gabe’s ghost. Just north of the Thornhope Rest Park, there used to be a wooden trestle bridge which supported the railroad track. At one end of this bridge was a deep well. One night a traveling cattle-buyer named Gabe was found mysteriously drowned in this well, and people passing over the bridge on certain nights of the year might still see his ghost. A few old-timers claim to have talked with it and heard the story of who had murdered Gabe, but the ghost always swears them to secrecy.

At some point, the story was corrupted. The missing cattle buyer wasn’t a traveler, his body was never found, and his name was John Baer. The rest of the story rings true. Gabriel Fickle – Gabe – was the first to meet John Baer’s ghost. Thus, Gabe’s Ghost.

Another Family Connection to Gabe’s Ghost

A friend from this writer’s youth, Tom Knebel, was up late one night. Apparently with nothing better to do, he bided his time sharing and discussing a newspaper article about Gabe’s Ghost via email. With a cryptic touch, he told me that a cousin of mine, another Linda Thompson (that is another long story that will have to wait for another day), has the dead man’s skull and that it has a bullet hole in it. According to the article he shared, townspeople reported hearing gunshots the night John Baer disappeared.

The article mentioned that John Baer had traveled to a home that was about a mile south of town but was never seen again. Tom said, several times, “Look at a plat map.” I looked at a plat map, but I didn’t have to. I knew the original Thompson homestead was in that approximate location.

I spoke with cousin Linda who said yes, she found a skull in the heavy beams of the original barn after the 1974 tornado wiped out the homestead. She still has it and brings it out on Halloween. She said our grandfather, Adam William the Younger, told her it had been given to him by a doctor.

That sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? I mean, really, if ever a murderer would be found, it would be someone who lived in the approximate location of the disappearance of this man. To have the skull in his possession would seal the deal.

Unfortunately for Tom’s telling of the tale, I did the math for him.

Per the article he shared, John Baer disappeared in 1868. While Adam William the Elder owned the land, as noted on the plat map, he did not live there. The house and original barn on the homestead were built in 1888 when his son, William Henry, moved with his family to what they called Rosedale Farm.

It’s possible John Steele rented the land and lived at that location, but the barn in which the skull was found did not exist at that time. And the Thompsons were still safely tucked away in Darke County, Ohio.

It would be something if the skull really was that of John Baer, but I suppose we’ll never know. All the elder generations are gone.

Oak PO, Parisville, Rosedale, and Thornhope: Yes, They Are Just One Village in Southeast Van Buren Township

Let’s set the stage for the location. This information comes from Counties of White and Pulaski, Indiana. Chicago, F.A. Battey & Co., 1883, 15 years after John Baer’s story began and six years before Gabe told his tale.

“The present town of Rosedale was laid out as Parisville in the month of October 1853, by R. L. Parkhurst, County Surveyor. The surveyors of the (then) Chicago & Cincinnati Railroad had just projected the road through the township, and the laying-out of the village was the result. … The population of the village is about sixty.”

From the Pulaski County Sesquicentennial book (1839 – 1989), we learn the following.

• The 1860 census lists occupations from the towns of Oak PO (Post Office, which encompasses Parisville), Parisville and Scarborough. (Scarborough was renamed Star City in 1861.) The population of Oak PO was higher than that of Scarborough. It was a thriving community.
• The 1880 census still lists the name of the town as Parisville, with carpenters, teachers, storekeepers, sawmill workers, physicians, and shoe shop employees in the mix. Note: While the 1880 census lists the town as Parisville, a plat map from 1873 lists it as Rosedale.

Parisville, later Rosedale, was a bustling little village from the 1850s through the 1890s, the time period in which our subject disappears … and was once again found.

Another note: by the time newspaper articles began to appear about Gabe’s Ghost in 1899, the town was called Thornhope.

A Map To Set The Stage

This 1873 plat map shows Rosedale in relationship to Star City. Also pointed out are places mentioned in the articles that will follow.

• The home and business of John Wildermuth.
• The Pan Handle Railroad line.
• The grist mill, which was also the sawmill. Lest you be confused that it was not on water (and Indian Creek would not have been an appropriate waterway for a mill), this enterprise was set up to run on electricity.
• Indian Creek and the location of the railroad trestle bridge.
• The main road going south.
• Note: Mr. Baer would have walked either the railroad bed or the main road to go south.
• The land owned by A.W. Thompson the Elder in 1868, and where an impressionable 8-year-old A.W. Thompson the Younger would have spent nights in the maple grove in 1899.
• Not listed: the home of John Steele. We know he lived “a mile south” of Rosedale. It could be anywhere in that approximation in this map, or even over the county line into Cass County. He could have rented from anyone and not had his name on the plat map. (He could have rented from A.W. Thompson.)

 

News Stories From 1899

Talked With Ghost

Marshall County Independent, Friday, February 24, 1899

Weird Tale of Murder and a Visitation from Another World

Harrowing Experience of Gabriel Fickle of Thornhope – Solemn Vow Imposed by the Uncanny Visitor

Author’s note: This is the article originally shared by Tom Knebel, which started the search for the rest of the story. The rest of the articles found herein were located by the Pulaski County Historian, Mary Conner.

Thornhope, a little village between Plymouth and Logansport, is all agog over a remarkable ghost story, the details of which were made public Sunday. The most uncanny feature of the affair is the peculiar action of the ghost in binding to secrecy for a certain period the man who is the only person who has held converse with it. At last time has absolved the oath and the facts in the case have been related.

In the fall of ’65, John Baer, a stock buyer, established headquarters at Thornhope and engaged extensively in the purchase and sale of stock. He was frequently known to have large sums of money in his possession, but he scoffed at the idea of possible robbery.

He lived with John Wildermuth and on Feb. 16, 1868, he prepared to go to Star City and arrange for the shipment of a carload of cattle. He had $3,000 in cash on his person to pay for the stock and before starting to Star City he started to walk to the residence of John Steele, a mile south of Thornhope, to procure a heavy overcoat he had left there a few days previously.

That was the last ever seen of Baer. He failed to reach Steele’s and the only clue to the mysterious affair was advanced by Gabriel Fickle, a warm friend of Baer and a resident of Thornhope to this day.

Fickle and others heard pistol shots shortly after Baer failed to return to Wildermuth’s. Fickle associated his disappearance with the shots, but a close search failed to disclose any trace of the missing man, and in a few months it came to be generally believed that he was foully murdered for his money. Two men were suspected, but there was no evidence against them and no arrests were made.

Near the water, midway between Thornhope and Steele’s, was an abandoned well close to the bank of Indian Creek, and a few years after the disappearance of Baer, some school children who were fishing in the creek hooked shreds of clothing and an old boot out of the well.

The circumstances of this find were given no consideration by the children’s parents, but in the light of recent developments it suggests the truth of a weird and ghastly story of murder.

Gabriel Fickle is responsible for the present disturbed condition of Thornhope people in his solemn avowal that he saw and talked with the ghost of John Baer on the night of Feb. 15, 1898, the thirtieth anniversary of the disappearance of Baer.

Fickle explains his silence that he was bound to secrecy by an oath under conditions that would have driven many men stark mad. February 16, 1899, removed the seal from his lips and he unburdened himself of a strange account that cannot be disbelieved coming as it does from a man whose standing is unquestioned.

His startling tale is substantially to the effect that on the night of Feb. 15, 1898, as he was returning from Royal Center to his home via the railroad he dimly descried a form approaching as he neared the old water tank. The figure was walking slowly and as Fickle approached it stopped in front of him. Fickle crossed to the other side of the track and the figure did likewise at the same time extending a hand and exclaiming, “Why Gabe, don’t you know me.”

Fickle replied negatively and put forth his hand to shake hands with the friendly stranger when to his horror he found himself grasping thin air, although in other respects the apparition was lifelike.

Before Fickle could make an effort to speak, the spectre further frightened him by continuing, “I am the ghost of John Baer, murdered on this spot thirty years ago tonight.”

Fickle declares he was seized with the most abject fear. His hair stood on end, his throat was parched and strive as he would not a sound came from his lips.

He tottered past the vision of the dead, but the latter followed, conjuring him not to be afraid, and finally Fickle retained his courage sufficiently to ask how Baer met his death.

The ghost then told of the foul murder naming as his assassins two men still living, binding Fickle to never reveal the names or tell of his meeting with the ghost until one year from that time.

A request for another interview was also made but a compliance was not authoritively imposed.

The ghost detailed minutely the circumstances of the murder. The gruesome recital ended near the abandoned well, and “This is where they put me,” said the ghost, stepping into the opening and sinking into its dark depths.

Quaking in mortal terror, Fickle ran homeward and for days his peculiar actions occasioned comment. He was tempted to tell of his singular adventure, but the admonition to keep silent was not to be forgotten. For a year he kept the secret and then unable to longer forbear, he told of the turn he experienced in meeting Baer’s ghost.

On one thing only is he silent and that is in regard to the identity of the murderers.

Some night soon he proposes to return to the old tank at night to find if the vision will again appear.

Every man in Thornhope believes every word of Fickle’s experience. Not a man has the courage to seek an interview with the ghost and the haunted spot is shunned like the plague.

Fickle is one of the most respected citizens in the village. He enjoys the confidence of everybody and is in no sense an idle talker. He is much averse to discussing the affair. He does not believe in ghosts, is not at all superstitious, but says the memory of that fateful night will haunt him to his dying day. He does not attempt to explain the occurrence; it is beyond his understanding. He is positive that the end is not yet and that he will sooner or later be impelled to visit the scene of the crime and submit to another clasp of that shadowy hand from another world.

Baer Ghost Reappears

The Indianapolis News, Saturday February 25, 1899

A Brakeman Selected as a Messenger by the Wraith

Gabriel Fickle Chosen as the Instrument to Avenge a Murder Committed Many Years Ago Near Thornhope

(Special to The Indianapolis News)

In that it establishes beyond doubt that some sort of an apparition is making its abode in the abandoned well near the old water tank, south of Thornhope.

The trainman does not believe in ghosts, and he is much averse to figuring as a man to whom the “spook” revealed itself. His encounter with it was disconcerting.

As his train was nearing Thornhope, he stepped to the rear platform, and was startled by the sight of a luminous object crouched on the step of the caboose. He felt instinctively that the thing was not human, and at the sound of his voice it floated to a standing posture, and, steadying itself by the hand-rail, requested the brakeman to tell Gabriel Fickle he must have a second interview, saying that the time is near at hand for a full explanation of the John Baer murder.

“Tell Fickle,” said the spectre, “that my bones are crying out for vengeance, and he is the instrument through whom my murderers are to be brought to justice.”

The train having reached the old well, the figure loosed its hold on the hand-rail and sank into the gloomy opening.

Many believe that the strange vision is the result of a practical joke, and a few hardy individuals are trying to organize a party of investigation. The majority of Thornhope residents, however, are convinced that it is the genuine ghost of Baer and are awaiting the next move in superstitious dread.

Will Not Down

Logansport Reporter, Tuesday, May 30, 1899

Thornhope Ghost Once More in Evidence

Viewed by Gabe Fickle and a Friend

The Mission Not Yet Fulfilled

Note: “Will Not Down” is vernacular used in the 1890s.

The spirit of John Baer, murdered thirty years ago for his money, persists in returning to earth with a frequency highly disconcerting to residents of Thornhope. Reporter readers are familiar with Gabriel Fickle’s first interview with the spectre several months ago.

The ghost, as it is commonly termed in that vicinity, was seen again a few weeks ago and it has appeared a third time in such a convincing manner that scoffers are put to rout and the placidity of the little village is seriously disturbed.

Last Wednesday evening a gentleman representing his name as Miller called at the residence of Mr. Fickle and requested information about the singular mystery, finally inducing Mr. Fickle to accompany him to the spot where the ghost makes its habitation in the abandoned well south of Thornhope. The two men visited the place at midnight and true to expectations the uncanny visitor from the other world showed itself in plain view. Miller addressed It once or twice, but received no answer and the supernatural qualities of the interview so worked upon Mr. Fickle and Mr. Miller that they did not tarry long. Mr. Fickle gave the matter considerable thought and on Thursday evening proceeded alone to the old well.

The wraith met him and explained its silence of the previous night by saying that Miller was not to be trusted to know the secret. The time is not ripe for the fulfilment of the mission of punishing the slayers of Baer and after again telling Fickle the names of the guilty and binding him to secrecy, the ghost left him.

The details of the three visitations have become known in Thornhope and there is scarcely a citizen in the town but that is firmly convinced of the actuality of circumstances as related by Mr. Fickle. He is not a superstitious man and never believed in ghosts until the night John Baer’s spirit selected him as the earthly instrument of carrying out its mission of justice.

While the theory of ghosts may be pooh poohed by some, the fact remains that science is beginning to recognize the phenomena and attribute it to psychological grounds. A recent book upon occultism speaks thus of these earth-bound spirits:

“In the case of earth-bound spirits,” said my authority, “some one dominant idea obsessing them at the hour of death is sufficient to hold them in this material world. They are the amphibia of this life and of the next, capable of passing from one to the other as the turtle passes from land to water. The causes which may bind a soul so strongly to a life which its body has abandoned are any violent emotion. Avarice, revenge, anxiety, love and pity have all been known to have this effect. As a rule it springs from some unfulfilled wish, and when the wish has been fulfilled the material bond relaxes. There are many cases upon record which show the singular persistence of these visitors and also their disappearance when their wishes have been fulfilled or in some cases when a reasonable compromise has been effected.”

Shade of Baer

Logansport Reporter, Saturday, June 17, 1899

Thornhope Ghost Mystery Yet Unsolved

Reporter Man Visits the Uncanny Spot

Spiritualist Society After Fickle

[Article copied as written, even when it doesn’t make sense.]

It would seem that the alleged Thornhope ghost will not down or that the people there won’t let go of the pleasurably exciting terrorism associated with it. That neighborhood is again disturbed over the fact that the shade of John Baer, supposed to have been robbed and murdered there a generation ago, is thought to be going through the preliminaries of another visitation.

Readers of the Reporter and Advance were fully informed of the details of the asserted original appearance of the spectre to Gabriel Fickle, about a year ago; how it gave the details of the murder, disposed of the remains in an old railroad tank well; said its bones ached for justice; gave names of murderers, but under injunction of secrecy till further orders and finally after a handshake, disappearing over the site of the long-abandoned tank.

In view of the renewal of the excitement, a representative of the Reporter, who affects to be an expert in ghost lore, was assigned to that field to deal with the situation according to facts found and the ordinary standards of common sense. Temporary digression may be permissible to deal with the subject of ghosts so called, generally, prior to discussing the Thornhope type specifically. There is no doubt that to a greater or less extent a leaning toward belief in the apparently possible or supernatural, enters as an element into every human character. The aggregate of this belief even in very small communities is sufficient under provocative circumstances to seriously disturb their tranquility.

The case of Thornhope is strongly illustrative in point. A respected elderly citizen especially noted for truthfulness, sees or believes he sees an apparition. Straightaway his neighbors without exception are ready to swear by his story. Subsequently a railroad brakeman solemnly and circumstantially avers a similar experience and the event passes beyond the realm of doubt for all of that hamlet. Now the genus ghost like all others is divided into species, so say those who credit its existence at all.

Enumeration of these would be impossible because for believers in ghosts, there are as many kinds as there are variations of fertility in the human imagination. This writer is constrained to disclaim distinct personal acquaintance with any class of spectre but the universally popular ghost which walks on Saturday night or other stated time for the boss to cough up the weekly stipend. He however, in later childhood enjoyed the educational advantage of attendance from an Abigail fresh from the Emerald Isle who was a perfect encyclopedia of ghost lore so much so that no ghost story ever heard since failed to duplicate some one of her numberless repertory till the one under discussion for the purpose of which it is necessary to take some standard of ghostly orthodoxy of demeanor.

To return to Thornhope, however, this paper’s commissioner started for that point with instructions to spare neither time nor trouble in getting at the facts in the disquieting situation. Beginning at Royal Center, he found the people scornfully incredulous, with the exception of two or three that had at one time or another undergone a little ghostly experience of their own. However, once this town’s limits were passed, no farmer could be found who was not either a believer in old Gabe’s ethereal find, or chary of disputing its genuineness. At Fickle’s own home there are no heretics, and such has been the effect of this faith of his neighbors that the nerves of all, especially women and children, are kept at a constant tension of half yearning expectation of some marrow freezing experience with the shade of the unfortunate John Bair.

This makes Thornhope a peculiar community of home bodies from the early gloaming of one day to the dawning of another. Indispensable movement of any distance at night is invariably made with as numerous companionships as possible. Among the other unique features of this ghost as described by Fickle is something in the nature of a headlight, as he says something like a miner’s lamp. Now, a number of persons in and around the little burg profess to have seen this light often of late, hovering over the old tank site for more or less extended periods, but the wealth of the world would not induce any of them to investigate it at close range.

To get at the cause of this phenomenon, if it exists, the Reporter visited and bivouacked on the side of the old well from midnight till morning.

The Thornhope Ghost

Logansport Reporter, Tuesday, October 31, 1899

The Spectre Walks Again in an Uncanny Guise

The Thornhope ghost has been seen again and the man who gazed upon the wraith thus describes his experience.

“As I was walking along the Pan Handle railroad through the cut after nightfall, I looked at the old well where the spectre had appeared on several occasions, and I saw a sight that made my hair stand on end. I saw a blueish light kindle up from the mouth of the well, and out of the weird glow arose a misty form that seemed to float about enveloped in a sheet of dazzling brilliancy. The shape was not substantial, yet it had the appearance of solidity. The face was the most striking feature and from what I know of the murdered man’s appearance the ghost bore a strong resemblance to him. It beckoned for me to follow it into the woods, but I was afraid to do so and proceeded homeward as fast as possible.”

In Conclusion…

Here are a few notes of interest on Gabriel Fickle. He was 21 when John Baer disappeared, 51 when he met the ghost, and 52 when he told his story. He died at the early age of 64.

This writer was frustrated not to find any news articles about the disappearance of Mr. Baer from a newspaper in 1868. We have only the reports of ghost sightings from 31 years after the fact.

We can encapsulate a few notes of interest.

• Baer disappeared in February 1968, and on the night of his disappearance, gunshots were heard.
• A few years later, articles of clothing were snagged from a deep well along the route Mr. Baer would have traveled.
• This could be called the story of “three Johns.” John Baer; John Wildermuth, his friend and housemate; and John Steele, the man to whose house he traveled.
• Per accounts, Gabe Fickle’s story was to be believed.
• Fickle’s accounts were verified by others that same year.
• The deep well seems to have a valid connection to Mr. Baer’s death, since the apparition appeared near it and disappeared within it, from more than one source.

This author wants to know who the two suspects were and if they were the same men told by the ghost to be the murderers. Perhaps a ghost hunter could hang out just north of the Thornhope Rest Park and meet the ghost. S/he might be told the story.

Knowing if the skull was John Baer’s would also be good. That will never happen.

Now, I return the reader to the beginning of this tale, when my sister Linda, in search of an “A,” focused on family history. That particular teacher required that each student do one of two things: write a story on family history or write and illustrate a children’s book.

Sister Linda took the family history. One year later, I had no choice but to write and illustrate a children’s book. I was competent in neither task. I remember I wrote a book about an ant, because I could figure out how to draw an ant. I don’t remember the story, and I don’t remember the grade … except it was not an “A”. Thank you, sister Linda.