The Great Amherst Mystery

Famous poltergeist case which took place in 1878-79 in Amherst, Nova Scotia. The focus of the case was 18-year-old Esther Cox, who lived in the overcrowded Teed home with her sister Jennie, her other sister Olive and her husband Daniel Teed, her brother William, Daniel Teed's brother John, and the two Teed boys. About a week after Esther's boyfriend, Bob MacNeal, tried to rape her at gunpoint, scratching noises were heard in Esther's bedroom, and she screamed to her sister Jennie that there was a mouse in the bed with her. As Jennie rushed to her aid, she saw a cardboard box move by itself, and of course, no mouse was found. The next night, Esther's face turned bright red, and her body swelled to twice its normal size. While Esther cried that she was dying, a loud booming noise was heard outside. A few days later, Esther was still alarmingly swollen. Her bedsheets were torn off her while she was sleeping and thrown at John Teed, who immediately left the home, swearing never to return. The rest of the Teed family sat on Esther's sheets to try to keep them in place.

When the local doctor visited to examine Esther, plaster flew off the walls, and, chillingly, the words "Esther Cox, you are mine to kill!" appeared on the wall above her bed. When the doctor prescribed morphine the next day, he was hit by a volley of potatoes, which struck so hard that he was actually knocked across the room. Loud noises continued for weeks, and the lurid story hit the newspapers. A local minister witnessed a bucket of cold water come to a boil while sitting on the kitchen table. Esther fell into a trance and told that Bob MacNeal had tried to rape her. Jennie proclaimed that the haunting was Bob's fault, and the poltergeist began rapidly knocking on the walls, as if in agreement. In future messages the ghost wrote on walls, it would often sign itself "Bob".
When Esther caught diptheria, the haunting ceased, but it started back up again when she recovered. She got a job at a restaurant owned by a neighbor, but while she was at the restaurant, she was hit on the head with a scrubbing brush, oven doors clanged open, and things stuck to her like she was a magnet. She was given special shoes with glass soles in an attempt to reduce some of the phenomena, but she said the shoes gave her headaches and nosebleeds. She also began to hear voices in her head which threatened to stab her and burn the Teed home down - lit matches sometimes rained down on her from the bedroom ceiling, and one of her dresses once caught fire while it was hanging in the closet.

When a magician came to Amherst, hoping to make some money exploiting the phenomena, the poltergeist threw carving knives, an umbrella, and a chair at him. Pins were jammed into Eshter's hand, fires broke out in the house, and a trumpet was heard playing in the home (later, a small silver trumpet was found--no one could remember seeing it before). Esther's brother George found himself forcibly undressed in public three different times by the poltergeist, and the family cat was levitated five feet in the air.

Concerned that the poltergeist trouble would affect the property's value, the Teed's landlord asked Esther to leave the house. She went to work on a local farm, but when items disappeared, she was accused of theft, and when the barn burned down, she was accused of arson and sentenced to four months in jail. During her time in the big house, the poltergeist activity stopped entirely and never returned. Esther was able to return to a normal life - unfortunately, that included whispers about whether she engineered the poltergeist herself and a lifelong drinking problem.

The Great Amherst Mystery (Documentary)