The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

If you believe in ghosts, you probably believe there are many different kinds of ghosts.

When I was a boy and we were using the old log Johnson House as a fishing cabin, we knew that we had a ghost around the house that protected us when we needed protecting.

The Johnson House was a wonderful, large four bedroom log building that was built on two cliffs of Clear Creek. I don’t know if it started out being built on two cliffs. I can’t imagine so but by the time we stayed there one fifty foot cliff had Clear Creek cutting into it every day. The other cliff was an old channel but it was still dangerous being another fifty feet high and about four feet from the back door of the cabin.

So, what about those ghosts you must be asking? After all, this is the Halloween Issue of “The Mountaineer” this week!

Two things happened on the same night which led all who were there to know that something was looking out for all who stayed at that cabin.

One woman and her husband had been there for supper and were now playing cards with the others. It was the night before the first day of stream fishing and there was much excitement in the air. This lady had to go to the bathroom. She was told where the outhouse was. It was on a sort of abutment between the two cliffs. She said there were too many snakes by the outhouse and it could go flying into the abyss so she would go to the bathroom around the corner of the house. That she did, only to look down between her legs and see a large rattlesnake taking life easy. Well, she let out a scream and came hobbling in with her pants down. Why she did not get bit by that snake was the question of the night. Must have been the saving ghost at work. By the way we never did find the snake.

That couple had no more taken off for their own cabin when one of the Bay Brothers drove up and asked if he could stay the night to be prepared for fishing the next morning. He was playing cards and wouldn’t you know it, he had to go to the bathroom too. He had no knowledge of the cliffs around the house and no one told him. He walked out the back door, and off the cliff he went. No one in the house knew that and apparently no one missed him until he came in the front door, his clothes all in shreds a couple of hours later. He was bleeding from a million sticker bites and looked simply horrible. He had to climb back up the cliff after falling down it and was not up to fishing the next morning. So he left quickly. Dad and I figured that that same protective ghost must have been watching out for that Bay brother or he would have been killed going down that cliff.

Good ghosts? At least at the Johnson house on Clear Creek!