SHOWERSOFSTONES
DR KAREN STOLLZNOW examines the case of the the Guyra Ghost, the stone-throwing spook that became a 1920s newspaper sensation and Australia’s most famous poltergeist
DR KAREN STOLLZNOW looks back at the case of the Guyra Ghost, the stone-throwing spook that became a 1920s newspaper sensation and Australia’s most famous poltergeist
Half a century before the infamous cases of the Columbus and Enfield poltergeists, there was the Guyra Ghost, a poltergeist that terrorised a sleepy town in rural Australia and caused a media sensation across the country. The case was widely reported and documented at the time, both at home and abroad, and the curious events can be pieced together from contemporary newspaper articles.
On 1 April 1921, the Bowen family awoke to the sound of “tremendous thumpings.”
1 “Showers of stones” then rained down on the galvanised iron roof of their cottage on the outskirts of Guyra, in northeastern New South Wales.2 For over a month, council worker William Bowen, his wife Catherine, and their three children were plagued by apparent poltergeist activity. The stone-throwing attacks increased until eventually “every window in the house – a four-room weatherboard cottage – had been smashed”.3
The next night, the Bowens contacted the Guyra police for assistance. Constables Stennett and Taylor went to the house to investigate the matter.4 Their only clue was that, the previous day, a strange man had chased 12-year-old Minnie Bowen across the paddock of the family’s property. He pelted her with pebbles as she ran away from him, but he disappeared before she reached home.5 Armed with this information, the police suspected the prowler was to blame for the subsequent attacks. They soon heard stones thudding against the walls of the farmhouse. As they looked around, they noticed that one of the windows had been smashed by a small object such as a pea rifle bullet. A search ensued, but no culprit could be found.
The peculiar activity continued. The occupants of the house complained of knockings on the inside and outside of the house. Unseen hands thumped on the walls, which shook from the force. Rocks were thrown at the house, smashing the windows. The rocks ranged in size from tiny pebbles to half a brick. Much of the activity seemed to involve young Minnie. Stones crashed through her bedroom window and fell upon her bed. Heavy blows upon the walls followed her from room to room. The constables returned the following evening,
Stones crashed through her window and fell upon her bed
this time assisted by Sergeant Ridge, while a band of civilians kept an all-night vigil around the house. The police initially attributed the attacks to the man who had supposedly pursued Minnie. They soon proposed another theory: that “larrikins”, mischievous young boys, were responsible, firing stones with catapults at the house as a prank. But an intensive search of the house and property revealed nothing.
The Bowen family called on their neighbours and townsfolk for help. The band of civilians grew to 40 volunteers that night, then 80 the next.6 Now they were armed with rifles. Led by Sergeant Ridge, the sentinels formed a human fence around the cottage to prevent any would-be attacker from getting close to the cottage. Other
men patrolled the fields; using a powerful searchlight they swept the beam across the house and surrounding countryside. The group soon heard sharp bangs and thumps that were “sufficient to shake the cottage to its foundations.” Constable
7
Taylor remarked that it sounded “just as if someone had a pumpkin in a sugar bag and was thumping the wall with it.” To
8 those standing outside the house, the noises seemed to come from within, but for those inside the house, they appeared to emanate from outside. The police isolated the family in one room and guarded them closely, but the activity persisted. At one point, a constable sat down on the bed beside Minnie in her bedroom, and as he did so, stones rained down on them.
THE MYSTERY DEEPENS
At the same time, the small community was traumatised by another strange occurrence. Guyra resident Mrs Doran, an 82-year-old Irish woman, had disappeared. She was last seen wandering in a field on 5 April, carrying a potato in each hand. A farm worker saw her in a paddock and asked where she was going. She replied, “I’m taking the spuds to old Ireland.” 9According to the worker she then “topped a rise and was gone”. Search parties combed every yard of the district, but no trace of her was ever found; or so the story goes. Her
10 disappearance was believed to be somehow linked to the events at the Bowen cottage.
In response to the mysterious stonethrowing, members of the community began arming themselves and even sleeping with loaded guns in hand. Predictably, this led to disaster. One woman purchased a revolver to protect her family from the “spook”. She placed it on a bedside table, where her fiveyear-old son found it. Thinking it was a toy, he accidentally shot his older brother. The
11 little boy survived, but was left with a bullet in his skull that could not be removed. The nervous locals also managed to shoot at a horse, a dog, grazing sheep and cattle, and numerous trees.
Night after night, the men of the township threw a double cordon around the cottage. Night after night, the stone-throwing and thunderous rappings on the walls continued.
Then they began occurring during broad daylight. After a day of working the fields, the entire Bowen family returned home to find the heavy shutters and battens of the house, and boarded-up broken windows, torn down and piled high on the patio. The police discovered the boot marks of a man leaving the house, but they couldn’t find the culprit.12 The phenomena soon spread to neighbouring homes. The McInnes and Hodder residences were bombarded with stones. The damage to the latter family’s house was so extensive that they abandoned it. Passing motorists were even attacked by the stone-thrower. A stone hit a visiting motorcar. Upon inspection, the stone was found to be marked with a red cross. Sick
13 residents attributed their illnesses to the “uncanny doings” at the Bowen home.
14 With no culprit found and apparently “no human agency” involved, locals began to come up with their own explanations for the phenomena. Mr Cox, the owner of the house, believed that the activity heralded the second coming of Christ, who would occupy the haunted cottage. Many people
15 sought a supernatural explanation for the happenings at Guyra. In 1921, Spiritualism was still the height of fashion. World War I was still fresh in the public memory, and many had lost loved ones whom they hoped to contact via spiritual means. It was thought that the stone-throwing “spook” was a poltergeist (German for “noisy ghost”), a type of spirit responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises or objects – like stones – being thrown. In alleged poltergeist cases, the activity often seemed to focus around a child approaching adolescence, and usually a girl. In the case of the Enfield Poltergeist (1977-79), the activity seemed to surround 11-year-old Janet Hodgson (FT32:47-48, 33:4-5, 166:39, 229:58-59, 288:18, 329:51), while 14-yearold Tina Resch was the apparent focus of the 1984 Columbus Poltergeist (FT83:16, 190:38-44, 198:76). One theory is that the physical disturbances are produced subconsciously by the victim’s energy. The “supernatural attacks” of the Guyra Ghost were believed to target 12-year-old Minnie Bowen. The activity seemed to follow her, while no stone-throwing occurred when she was out of the house. Journalists noted that Minnie seemed less perturbed about the occurrences than other members of the household.
A Special Reporter for the Sunday Times was dispatched to the home to acquire a firsthand account of the mysterious happenings. He considered Minnie to be an unusual little girl, and described her as follows: “Minnie is tall, thin and dark, with peculiar dark, introspective eyes that never seem to miss any movement in a room. When
she speaks to you she never smiles, and seems to look beyond or through you. She is not a clever child in the accepted sense, and is backward and in a low standard for her age at school. If quiet and unusual, she seems just a normal little girl in most respects, except she has a rather uncanny aptitude for anticipating questions, almost before they are asked, and answering them.”16
THE HOUSE OF MYSTERY
The cottage in Guyra became famous as the “House of Mystery” and attracted many visitors, including psychic investigators. On 13 April, Ben Davey, a Spiritualist from the nearby town of Uralla, visited the house. Upon hearing that there had been a recent death in the family, Davey became convinced that the cottage was haunted by the spirit of Minnie’s deceased stepsister, May Hodder. The 21-year-old was the daughter of Catherine Bowen and her former husband Job Hodder. She had died on 26 January that year, leaving behind her 18-month-old son, Clifford. The little boy’s father had never been identified, and there was speculation that it was William Bowen, who at 32 was much younger than his 47-year-old wife Catherine. Other rumours circulated that May had died during a botched abortion, or, unmarried and ashamed at her situation, she had ended her own life, although local newspapers reported she had died of congenital heart disease. Minnie was now largely responsible for the care of the infant. The Spiritualist theory was that the stress of school on Minnie, combined with taking care of the baby, had triggered the poltergeist activity.
When Davey suggested that the Bowen family could be in the presence of May’s ghost, there was a sudden knock on the wall. He encouraged Minnie to act as a medium. Minnie then communicated with her sister,
receiving a message uttered in a “whisper” that no one else could hear. Davey later relayed the incident to journalists.
“I said to the girl, ‘If the knock comes again, ask if that’s your sister May.’
“She replied, ‘I can’t speak to my sister – she’s dead.’
“I coaxed her, saying, ‘Speak, dear. Even if your sister can’t speak she might knock again.’
“I hardly spoke the words before the knock came again. I can tell you my hair stood up on end. But I continued to coax the girl, and about five minutes later a third knock came. Then the little girl crossed and blessed herself, put her hands up in supplication, and said, ‘If that’s you. May, speak to me.’ She was silent a moment and then began to cry.
“I asked her, ‘Did May speak?’
“She said, ‘Yes, May spoke.’
“I said, ‘What did she say?’
“She said, ‘I can’t tell you. The message is for mother.’
“She then went over and laid her head on her mother’s lap, crying. Her mother said, ‘Well, tell the gentlemen what she said.’
“The little girl looked up and said the message she received was this: ‘Tell mother I am perfectly happy where I am, and that your prayers when I was sick brought me where I am, and made me happy. Tell mother not to worry, I’ll watch and guard over you all.’”
17
The Guyra Ghost attracted the attention of Mr Harry Jay Moors, a South Sea island trader who happened to be in Sydney on business. He was a personal friend of Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Like the latter, he had a strong interest in the paranormal. On 18 April he announced his impending arrival in Guyra with a telegram: “Chief of Police, Guyra. Please reserve room, best hotel. Leaving tonight”. Moors was granted
18 access to the Bowen house for several nights to observe the phenomena. He and his five assistants removed portions of the roof to create lookout posts, set up elaborate traps to detect hoaxers, and kept the family under close surveillance. Undeterred,
19 the ‘spook’ continued its mayhem. Moors left after four days, convinced that “the strange occurrences were not the product of trickery”, but “the result of poltergeist activity”.
20
The Sydney Morning Herald reported: “Mr Moors, in discussing the matter yesterday, said the people of Guyra resented very strongly some of the reports which had gone out from the township concerning the affair, because of their ceaseless vigils and very exhaustive efforts to get to the bottom of the disturbances. Mr Moors speaks from his own experience of these ceaseless efforts on the part of the people of the district, and the police and others, and says that any criticism levelled against them is quite unfair. He had spoken to the girl, who had impressed him as being normal,
although, according to one party, her mother had described her as being highly imaginative.”
21
The story also drew the interest of actor, comedian, and stuntman John Cosgrove. This inspired The Guyra Ghost Mystery, a silent film produced just weeks after the events. The Bowen family appear in the movie as themselves, re-enacting the events on location at the cottage in Guyra. Cosgrove directed the film and also starred as the character of Sherlock Doyle, a spoof of Mr Moors. In one scene, William Bowen took out his gun, loaded it, and demonstrated how he had “shot the ghost”.22 The film was advertised as “five reels of laughter,” indicating that it was a comedy. It performed poorly at the box
23 office. No copy of the film exists and it is now considered lost.
CONSTABLE HARDY INVESTIGATES
With no end in sight, the New South Wales government dispatched a team of detectives from Sydney. They arrived in Guyra on 21 April. Constable Hardy, who had at one time lived in Guyra, led the team. They sought a more mundane cause for the activity. Hardy began a careful investigation of the situation but quickly “arrived at the conclusion that the manifestation was worked by five or six persons, with the object of getting possession of the house.” The theory that
24 the culprit was trying to get the Bowen family to leave the cottage hinged on the fact that rental accommodation was scarce in the district at the time. At this point, the police were anxious to close the case. The household had been under constant surveillance for weeks, and many hours of police time had been devoted to solving the mystery. This had taken its toll; one Guyra police officer suffered a nervous collapse and was sent away “for a rest”. The Northern Star reported: “Though the police are convinced of the human agency of the affair they have no clue to the perpetrators, and say they hope the thing was fizzled out and that they are done with it.”
25
But Constable Hardy was not entirely “done with it”. Some saw Minnie as the target of the attacks, while others, including Hardy, suspected she was instead the perpetrator. It did not escape his attention that the events had begun on April Fool’s Day. On 23 April he claimed a major breakthrough. During a stakeout of the cottage, Hardy and Sergeant Ridge took up a position on the southern side of the house. Mr Starr, a reputable local farmer, watched from the northern side, where he witnessed Minnie throw several stones at the cottage. She at first denied any knowledge of stone-throwing. But when confronted by Mr Starr she confessed “that she caused some rappings on Saturday night and threw small stones on the roof of the house to frighten her sister-in-law.” She revealed that she
26 had created the knocking sounds by striking the walls with a stick at night when people were keeping watch outside. She remarked: “I was always careful that I was not watched or seen by anybody.” But she denied responsibility for anything else that went on in the house. However, the police were content that the mystery was now solved. So were the newspapers. The Northern Star announced, “Ghost theory collapsed”, claiming the whole affair was just a childish prank.
27
MINNIE TAKES A TRIP
Despite the determination that it was all just a hoax, the thumping and stone throwing in the cottage continued into
May. In their desperation, Minnie’s parents sent her to stay with her grandmother, Mrs Shelton, and her Uncle Alfred Shelton, at their home on Church Street in nearby Glen Innes. Baby Clifford, Minnie’s charge, also accompanied her. In Minnie’s absence, life in Guyra returned to normal, although the activity followed her. During dinner the night of 11 May the phenomena resumed with a “shower of gravel on the roof.” Violent
28 banging on the walls followed. However, a neighbour who was having dinner with the family when the noises occurred insisted he had seen Minnie hit the walls with her elbows, a claim that she firmly denied. Later that night, ornaments flew off the shelves and windowpanes were smashed by rocks the size of walnuts.
Constable Stewart and several members of the local Glen Innes constabulary were summoned to investigate. Police and neighbours circled the house, but no one saw a stone hit the window of Alf Shelton’s bedroom, breaking a pane of glass and becoming entangled in the curtain. It was an ordinary stone, similar to others on the footpath outside. Stewart and his crew kept a close watch on the house that night. They heard knocking and banging sounds, but influenced by Hardy’s dismissal of the case, they came to the conclusion that the girl was responsible, and left. In their statements to the police the next day, residents and neighbours reported that the stone-throwing and thumping sounds continued until midnight. A Mr Marsden reported: “The noises were like the sounds caused by an axe being struck heavily against the wall.” The
29 phenomena continued on and off for several months. By August, the townsfolk of Glen Innes were fed up, and Minnie’s grandmother was told that the girl must leave town. Minnie was duly sent home to Guyra. Upon her return, the activity decreased gradually, until it eventually ceased altogether.
The events in Guyra that year led to copycat phenomena. In the months that followed, the “Guyra Ghost” was spotted all along the east coast of Australia. In one case, stones rained down upon houses on Trafalgar Street, in the Brisbane suburb of Wooloongabba. On 25 November, 22-yearold Frederick Joseph Cook was caught redhanded as he threw a stone towards a local house. He was arrested and confessed
30 that he had been infatuated with the Guyra Ghost saga. Ironically, he had been the person who reported the “poltergeist” to the police, and had assisted them in their nightly vigils to catch the culprit. Cook was fined £10 for breaking two windows, and released with a warning.
THE AFTERMATH
Over the past century, the events that took place in Guyra during 1921 have been the subject of much conjecture. Sceptics accept Minnie’s confession, and extrapolate that all of the phenomena must have been faked. After all, the activity did begin on April Fool’s Day. One theory is that her prank was an example of “pious fraud”; that is, Minnie fabricated some phenomena to increase belief in her otherwise true story. Some believe it was a hoax and that certain members of her family were also involved, or that the Bowens themselves were victims of a hoax. Others believe that the police, who were eager to close the case, coerced the girl into confessing. It is often argued that Minnie’s confession doesn’t account for the extent of the phenomena, or for the fact that she was under close observation when much of the activity took place, thereby proving her innocence – not to mention that the events were witnessed by numerous neighbours, townsfolk, visitors, and police. And what of that strange man who chased her through the paddock and pelted her with rocks that first day? No matter which
“The noises were like the sounds caused by an axe being struck against the wall”
explanation we choose to believe, we are left with many unanswered questions. Modern accounts often conclude that the events remain “unexplained”, “unsolved” or “inexplicable”, and that the Guyra Ghost is still a mystery.
Minnie Bowen grew up, married farmer Frank Ernest Ince in 1928 and left Guyra to live in the nearby town of Armidale. The couple had two sons, one of whom died in infancy. Frank fought in World War II, during which time Minnie served in the Women’s Agricultural Security Production Service (WASPS), a labour force that tended and harvested wartime crops.
31 Throughout her life, Minnie never spoke about the Guyra Ghost again, although
Many believed that Minnie had life-long psychic abilities
many believed that she had life-long psychic abilities. In particular, she was said to have the power of telekinesis. Her niece Diana Brady (Clifford’s daughter) once said: “She could make a piano play, or a chair lift on the other side of the room.” Minnie’s sister Mary Ellen reported that Minnie could “move furniture and lift objects without touching them.” Sadly, her story ended
32 in tragedy. In 1970, 62-year-old Minnie was crossing the road when she was struck and killed by a passing car on the Grafton Road in Armidale.
33
Today, Guyra is a sleepy country town again. There are a few reminders of the “spook”, such as the Guyra Ghosts, the local rugby team (motto: “Frightfully Good Rugby”). The lonely cottage still stands, although it has since been remodelled, while the current occupants have not seen any sign of ghosts. The Shelton house in Glen Innes was demolished several years ago. As the 100-year-anniversary of the Guyra Ghost approaches, it is a story that many townspeople would rather forget, even though the participants have long since died. The last remaining witness to the events was Minnie’s sister Mary Ellen Jones, who passed away in 2015, just two days after celebrating her 104th birthday. The Guyra Argus reported the death of its oldest citizen as the close of a chapter in the town’s history, noting that her “family achieved notoriety in 1921 with a series of unexplained occurrences at their home, which became known as the Guyra Ghost Mystery.”
34
And for many people, the legend of the Guyra Ghost remains just that: a mystery.
DR KAREN STOLLZNOW is a researcher, host of the Monster Talk podcast, and the author of God Bless America, Haunting America , and Would You Believe It? She has a PhD in linguistics from the University of New England, Australia.