The Haunted South: Where Ghosts Still Roam

THE DEMON OF WIZARD CLIP

%e 'Demon ofWizard C{ip All around them people could hear the clip-clip of the demoniacal shears The devil ensnares the sons of men in strange and devious ways. And down to this very day the memory of the evil wrought by one of his minions still hangs like a dank fog over an ancient village in West Virginia. The village bears three names, Smithfield, Middle35 way and oddest of all-Wizard Clip. Through it ran the principal wagon route from Baltimore to Southwest Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. But the wagoneers have long been dead. With them died the fortunes of Wizard Clip and the man who helped it get its name. Our story starts near the beginning of the nineteenth century with a Pennsylvanian named Livingstone . Leaving his native state he and his family purchased a lakeside farm on the outskirts of the town we have mentioned. In front of his farm and beside the Opequon River ran the wagon road. A man of mild temperament, the Pennsylvanian was fond of contrasting with a certain modest air his former failures and thesuccess he was enjoying in his new home.. Although Livingstone himself was liked well enough by his neighbors, the same could not be said of his wife. She was a woman of mean and dominating disposition who kept much to herself. The Livingstones had lived only a few years in their new home when the event which was to cause their undoing befell them. Appropriately enough it happened on a most miserably cold and rainy night. Gusts of wind screeched plaintively outside the Livingstone's windows and tore with icy fingers at the shutters. They had readied themselves for bed and were about to ensconce themselves under their feather comforters when Mrs. Livingstone heard a faint sound on the porch, quickly followed by a loud knock. Her husband went to the door, cautiously cracking it open a few inches, only to have the force of the wind wrest it from his hand. In front ofhim stood the 36 taU figure of a man, cloak swirling madly about him in the gale. "I pray you will give me a night's lodging, sir," begged Livingstone's visitor. "My wagon has suffered an accident to a wheel and cannot be repaired before morning." "We are about to retire but will be glad to have you pass the night with us," replied Livingstone although he could see the dour look on the face of his wife. The strangercarne inand without much graceMrs. Livingstone showed him to his room. The house had not been settled and quiet for long when inaddition to the eeriewail ofthe wind another sound could be heard. It was a succession of fearsome groans interspersed with the sharp outcries of a man in pain. Stopping only to jerk on his slippers, Livingstone hurried to the door of the stranger's room and asked him if all was well with him. In a tortured voice his guest replied that he was deathly ill and did not expect to live to see daylight . He begged his host to summon a Catholic priest that he might be given the last rites, admitting the he had neglected his religion in health, but now, in extremis, felt in dire need of its consolation. Livingstone replied that he knew of no priest nearby and couldn't hope to find one closer than Maryland. He remarked, however, that his neighbors -the McSherrys and the Minghinis-were Catholic and perhaps could tell him of one. His wife was by now listening to the conversation and at this she became extremely angry. "Ifyou think you are going to start out on any such wild goose chase in the middle of the night, I shall take good care to thwart you," said she. "And even if you should succeed in finding one, I warn you, no Rornish priest shall ever set foot in my house!" 37 38 The turnpike in front of the Livingstone house looked much like this road near Wizard Clip "The best thing you can do is return to your bed. I'll wager this guest of ours will be as well as you or Iby morning. And ifI have my way he shall be on his way with the sun's first rays." Livingstone reluctantly gave in to his...