The Haunting on Hogback Hill Road

This new story is, as always, a true tale.
This story was posted on another site.  However, the site was
moved around and I think it finally vanished.  So, I am posting
here on my own site with all my previous stories so it will be
easier to find and will not disappear.  Here it is...

   Sometime around the early 1970’s, my dad established a friendship with a co-worker.  They became good friends and we often went to visit them in the neighboring town of East Palmyra.  We lived in Marion, NY and I was around the age of 12 or so.  My dad’s new friend Al, was married with 3 children.  They had two boys and a girl.  Unfortunately, a short time after we started visiting them, Al’s wife developed cancer.  Within a month of being diagnosed, she suddenly passed away.   Al and his family continued to live in the same house.  A short time later, his Mother-in-law came to stay with him to help with the raising of the children.

   At this point, I must explain a few things to give a picture of the situation.  They lived in a very old house that was not in the best condition.  The house had a wood furnace in the basement and they had no water heater.  Water was heated on the stove for all hot water needs.  Although this was the 1970s, there were still homes like this scattered throughout the rural regions of Upstate New York.  Once, we explored the small attic in this house and found some very old shoes and some “Farm and Fireside” newspapers from the 1870’s. The house was one of two lonely houses standing next to each other on the east side of Hog Back Hill Road in East Palmyra, about a quarter mile from Whitbeck Road.  There was only one other home on the road near them.  That was near the corner of Hogback and Whitbeck Road and was a farm.  Al’s neighbor was an older single man named Myron.  He was probably in his late 50s at the time.  He rented the barn that belonged to the house at the corner and raised cattle.

  The boys were my age and I often visited them and spent the night over the weekend.  They basically had a small farm themselves as they raised rabbits and chickens.  In the winter, the boys would haul in wood from the woods over the back hill and cut it together in the basement using an old two-man saw.  Myron, the neighbor, turned out to be around their Grandmother’s age and the two hit it off well.  Whenever she wasn’t busy, she would spend time at his house.  Their Grandmother was the grumpy sort and could be hard to get along with.  She and Al did not get along real well.  You could say that they tolerated each other.  She was of another era and was also very strict with the kids.  She was very protective of her granddaughter and often kept her well away from any boys including her brothers.  She was about 5 or 6 and her brothers were going into their teens.

  It was on one of my weekend stay-overs, about a year or so after their mom passed away, the boys told me of a strange occurrence that had happened since my last visit.  This was during the winter months, because, they had returned from dragging wood, brought it into the basement and they were cutting it for the furnace.  While they were cutting, they naturally assumed that their Grandmother was upstairs working around the house as usual.  While they were cutting, they heard the organ playing upstairs.  The electric organ had been their mother’s, who enjoyed playing it now and then.  They knew that their Grandmother could play but, had never heard her play.  They commented between each other that it was nice to finally hear her play.  The playing only lasted a few minutes and then stopped.

  A short time later, they finished their wood cutting and went upstairs.  Access to the basement was from outside only.  When they arrived upstairs, no one was there.  They went about their normal day.  They just assumed that their Grandmother had gone next door.  Later that day, when they were all together, one of the brothers mentioned that it was nice to hear her play the organ.  She sharply told them that she did not play the organ and that she was next door all morning.  They told her what had happened.  There was no physical explanation for what ad happened and no one could offer any other input except that it must have been their imaginations.  The boys decided that it must have been their mother’s spirit letting them know that she was there as, she enjoyed playing the organ when she was alive.  Nothing else ever occurred.

  In 1977, I graduated from Marion High School and went into the Air Force.  Shortly after that, Al and his family moved out of the house.  Al had met a woman and they moved into a home together.  My dad, having divorced his last wife, moved into Al’s old house.  It was out in the country and my dad liked that.  When I came home on vacation, I had met a girl, who later became my wife.  After my departure from visiting home, she had slept overnight in the house with my dad and his new girl friend.  The two girls mentioned that they heard what sounded like a marble rolling across the floor above them.  There was no floored attic above them.

  Fast forward until about 1998.  I left the Air Force and was working at Garlock in Palmyra, NY.  I met many people there.  We worked in groups of two and three with plenty of time to chat.  One of the young ladies that I met there needed her computer tuned up.  It was having problems and running a bit slow.  So, we set a date and my wife and I went over for Pizza and a tune-up.  While we were in one room tuning up the PC, my wife and the girl’s boyfriend were visiting in the living-room.  My wife interrupted the tune-up and stated excitedly that I “must” hear this story that the boyfriend had just told her.  So, he retold his story.

  Sometime in the mid 1980’s, his parents and family moved into a house on Hogback Hill Rd.  It was the house my dad and Al’s family used to live in.  Furthermore, one night while they lived there, everyone was in bed and at some point they heard an organ playing downstairs.  Oddly enough, they also owned an electric organ.  The family converged on the playing only to find nothing but a quiet, unplugged organ sitting there.  They were never able to explain that strange event.  Then, I told him about Al’s family and what the boys heard.  He was obviously amazed!

  More people have lived in that house since but, I have not had the opportunity to talk with them yet.  In 2008, both houses were torn down and only the farm house near the corner of Whitbeck and Hogback remains.