Hans Holzer's "The Spirits of '76"

It wouldn't be Halloween and Spooktober without at least one Hans Holzer book. See the bottom of today's post for a directory of Papergreat's past Holzer posts...

• Title: The Spirits of '76
• Subtitle: "A Psychic Inquiry into the American Revolution"
• Author: Hans Holzer (1920-2009)
• Publisher: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
• Publication date: 1976, to tie in with the bicentennial
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 177
• Dust jacket designer: Ingrid Beckman
• Dust jacket price: $7.95 (via other sources, as mine is price-clipped)
• 
  Chapter titles: The Peace Conference That Failed; Charlottesville and the Revolution; Michie Tavern, Jefferson, and the Boys; A Visit with the Spirited Jefferson; A Revolutionary Corollary: Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, et al.; The Philipsburg Manor Ghost; Major André and the Question of Loyalty; Benedict Arnold's Friend; The Haverstraw Ferry Case; A Visit to Oley Forge; and The Lady from Long Island.
• First sentence: In this age of peace conferences that go on for years and years without yielding tangible results — or, if any, only piecemeal ones, reached after long deliberation — it is a refreshing thought to remember that a peace conference held on Staten Island between Lord Howe, the British commander in America, and a congressional committee consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge lasted but a single day — September 11, 1776.
• Excerpt from the middle #1: Perhaps General Edward Hand is not as well known as a hero of the American Revolution as others are, but to the people of the Pennsylvania Dutch country he is an important figure, even though he was of Irish origin rather than German.¹
• Excerpt from the middle #2: Even though Ethel would normally be quite tired after a trance session, I decided to have a look at the second story and the attic. Ethel saw a number of people in the upper part of the house, both presences and psychometric impressions from the past.
• Excerpt from the middle #3: All of a sudden he saw a heavy iron saw fly up into the air on its own volition.
• Contemporary mention #1: In a July 5, 1976, Time magazine article headlined "The Voices of ’76: A Readers’ Guide to the Revolution," Timothy Foote mentions in passing: "This month a parapsychologist and ghostwriter named Hans Holzer (Haunted Hollywood, The Phantoms of Dixie) is bringing forth a new ectoplasmic epic full of patriots and poltergeists called — what else? — The Spirits of 76."
• Contemporary mention #2: A short review of Holzer's book by Paul Dellinger in the October 3, 1976, edition of The Roanoke Times is scathingly headlined "Best Thing Is Title." It goes on to state: "The best thing about this book is its rather clever title. If the ghosts interviewed by the various mediums used by author Holzer in this series of seances are any indication, spooks must be a rather dull and confused lot."
• Contemporary mention #3: In a July 4, 1976, review for the Jackson (Tennessee) Sun, Phyllis Shelton writes: "A 'psychic inquiry into the American Revolution' is an interesting idea for a book. This is what Hans Holzer has attempted in The Spirits of '76. The book is somewhat like Tennyson's account of the jousts between knights in 'La Morte d'Arthur.'² The same thing happens over and over again, almost word for word. The only differences are the names of the antagonists. The accounts of hauntings are almost identical with only the locations of the inquiries and the mediums accompanying Holzer differing. The book may have a mild and passing vogue for ardent ghost story fanciers. Others may intend to take it even more lightly since 'methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.'" 
• Contemporary mention #4: Finally, let's just take the word of Phyllis C. Irshay who, in her short review for the June 19, 1976, edition of the Redlands (California) Daily Facts, concludes: "Read it for entertainment."

Special unrelated birthday wishes

Today, Orange (our indoor, formerly feral mama cat) and her sister, Mamacita (still an outdoor feral cat) turn 4 years old, by our reckoning. We first met them in December 2021, when they were just kittens of long-gone Mama and now-indoors Big Boi. I'd like to bring Mamacita inside some day to live alongside her sister, because the desert summers have put a lot of wear on her. But she'll still bonded to her dorky son Creamsicle, who I don't think would be happy without her.

Above: Orange (left) and Mamacita this morning

Above: Creamsicle (left) and his mother Mamacita with an afternoon snack 

of tuna and cheese, for Mamacita's birthday

  Previous posts about Hans Holzer books

• The Witchcraft Report
• The Psychic World of Plants
• Window to the Past: Exploring History Through ESP
• Charismatics
• The Psychic World of Bishop Pike
• The Vegetarian Way of Life
• Ghosts of the Golden West
• How to Cope with Problems

Footnotes

1. Hand was also an enslaver, as detailed responsibly by Historic Rock Ford.

2. This is a little confusing, because Le Morte d'Arthur is by Thomas Malory, not Alfred Tennyson.

Halloween newspaper snippets from 100 years ago

Here are some Halloween clippings from the October 31, 1925, edition of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal. This is the "Women's Page," filled with recipes, party ideas, etc. A headline states of Halloween: "The Mad Hour When Witches Ride and Black Cats Stalk on Fence Tops May Be Celebrated With an Eerie Party." It includes a recipe for "drop doughnuts," which is included in an image below. And there's an advertisement for Merita bread, which claims that it's great for Hallowe'en sandwiches.

Kid lit horror: "The Night the Scarecrow Walked"

Kids' media didn't pull any punches when it came to scares in the 1970s. The boogeyman didn't care how old you were. Edges weren't softened, and not everything was infused with winking humor to remind you it was all make-believe. Many books, movies, TV shows, public service commercials (especially in Britain), and amusement rides had real fangs. As just one example among many, talk to someone whose parents plopped them down in front of the movie version of Watership Down at age 8. Look, bunnies! 

Which brings us to today's book: The Night the Scarecrow Walked, written by Natalie Savage Carlson (1906-1997) and eerily illustrated by Charles Robinson (1931-2014). On what was known as Twitter back in the day, author R.J. Crowther Jr. called the "intricate scribble drawing mixed with traditional line work" by Robinson "really beautiful."

The 32-page children's book was published in 1979 by Charles Scribner's Sons and presented by Weekly Reader Books. Infused with folk horror dread and coming across like a children's version of the 1976 horror movie The Town That Dreaded Sundown, it tells the tale of two children who keep revisiting a lonely, creepy scarecrow in a field. 

The illustrations below give the bare outline of the tale. Imagine reading this under your blanket as a kid and then trying to get to sleep. Was that a branch tapping the window, or...?

The book has a 4.7 rating (out of 5) on Amazon but oddly only a 3.97 rating (out of 5) on Goodreads.

Here are some of the reader memories from those two websites:

• "I bought this book because I used to read it with my grandfather, and I have very fond memories of reading it with him. It's very spooky! The illustrations are creepy."
• "I have been reading this story to my second grade students for almost 20 years."
• "I loved this book as a child. When I was very young, my grandmother used to babysit me after school for a few hours each day and often would read me stories. The Night the Scarecrow Walked was my absolute favorite. I would asked her to read it to me just about every day from late August through Halloween! The story even inspired me to make my own scarecrow one year. The book still sits on my bookshelf today."
• "Another phenomenal Halloween book for children! The illustrations capture Halloween perfectly, and the story is a rare one in which the possibility of a scarecrow coming to life might just be true!!!"