Everyone loves a good ghost story, especially when it involves a severed human head! The following is a story that took place in Atchison, Kansas in 1907. From the February 2, 1907 edition of the Topeka Daily Capital:
Atchison, Feb 1.-- A particularly horrible ghost story is being told around town today. A man lately died (so the story goes) and strange noises were heard about the house. Wednesday night, a number of neighbors went in to sit a while with members of the dead man's family. The people were sitting in a half-basement room, off from the kitchen.
A stairway opened into this room. Suddenly strange noises were heard in the room above, where the man had died. Then there was a noise on the stairway; a noise of some object bumping from one side to another, and descending. Then the door opened and a man's head rolled into the room. The people sitting in the room fled in terror and cannot give much of a description of the head. Three people who were present have been interviewed. One says he heard the object descending the stairs but did not see the head; when those in front of him screamed and ran, he ran with them. Another says he saw the head but only indistinctly, as the room was lighted by means of a single lamp, with a large shade. The third man says he saw the head plainly, but that he can give no intelligent description of it.
Members of the family are staying with neighbors, and will not go back to the house. Last night four stout young men, armed, stayed in the house, intending to sit up all night.