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The
McDow Hole Page 5by
Bob Hopkins |
Page
4
In
the early 1880’s the Texas Central Railroad was established in Erath County and
the town of Alexander
was booming. The train would arrive in the little town, from Stephenville,
every evening and head back toward Ft.
Worth.
Late one night enroute to Alexander,
Engineer Sam Crow, and Fireman John Henson, suddenly stopped the train to the
shock of the crew and passengers. The engineer was obviously upset and shaking
like he had a chill, claiming he had just run over a woman holding a baby. The
entire crew searched under and around the train for the woman but found nothing.
The following evening, in the same place along the tracks, which happened
to be near the McDow, the woman was spotted by several on the train, to be once
again, on the tracks. From that night on, the apparition would appear on the tracks
time and time again.
One story recounts two boys who had gone fishing
at the McDow near the turn of the century. As the boys sat in the night on the
edge of the bank a misty form began to develop under the water in front of them.
The form began to take on the shape of the woman holding a baby rising out of
the water.
The boys ran like the devil to get as far away from the place
as possible. The next day one of the boys became sick while tending the fields.
He was complaining of severe headache and went home. In a couple of days, his
condition had worsened and the family sent for the Doctor. The local physician
diagnosed the boy with a “brain fever”. Sadly, the boy died several days afterward.
Mr. Brownlow, the man suspected of the murder of Jenny Papworth, died in
1885. It was custom in those days for someone to sit with the dying. Two men were
in the room while Brownlow lay on his deathbed ravaged with fever.
The
men reported Brownlow to go into horrific stares and begin screaming, “that woman!
that woman!, keep her away from me”. Then the two men witnessed the apparition
of Jenny Papworth holding her baby at the foot of Brownlow’s bed. Shortly before
he died, Brownlow admitted to killing Jenny and the baby because she had witnessed
him in a discussion with some known cattle rustlers. He said he strangled the
mother and child then threw the bodies down a seep well near the creek. He covered
the bodies with rocks so no one would find them.
During
the 1930’s some boys were seining minnows at the McDow when they found a bank
about ten feet high. One of the boys, Wes Miller, recounted the events in the
book “Ghost Stories of Texas”, by the late Ed Syers. ... next
page
©
Bob Hopkins | |
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