The Ghost of Melrose Hall
Its October 31st after all. A Flatbush Legend Substantiated by Ancient Chronicles.
TRAGIC FATE OF THE FAIR ALVA.
Immured in a Secret Chamber She Died Of Starvation and for Many Years Her Restless Spirit Haunted the Old Mansion, Which Still Stands on Bedford Avenue, Between Clarkson and Winthrop Streets.
No one would suspect that the peace of that venerable, orderly, conservative old town of Flatbush has ever been disturbed by a ghost, and if it were not for the haunted house, part of which stands to this day, and the testimony of well authenticated chronicles, nobody would believe it. But there are those in Flatbush at the present time, intelligent, educated, and quite sane, who would make a long detour rather than pass a certain spot there between 12 and 1 o’clock at night. That spot is the old site of Melrose hall on Bedford avenue, between Clarkson and Winthrop streets.
Melrose hall stood, until five years ago, at the end of that magnificent double row, of pines In Melrose park, which is fit to show the way to the palace of a king. And a regal residence it was a hundred and fifty years ago, when it was occupied by Colonel William Axtell, a loyalist and member of the king’s council. It was the scene of sumptuous dinners, splendid balls, costly private theatricals and receptions that were attended by men famous in civil and. military life and women renowned for their beauty and accomplishments.
The house was situated in park-like grounds that covered twenty acres. It was a large, spacious old fashioned structure with no pretensions to architectural beauty. When it is said that it was of frame, with great heavy, hewn timbers, the main building two and a half stories high, with wings on either side, the description is accurate and complete. But inside a was a pretentious and costly mansion. The great doubly oaken door led into an immense ball, taking up the entire length and depth of the main house. It was wainscotted in dark oak, the polished floor covered with rich Persian rugs, bear, tiger and lion skins, and the walls were hung with paintings by old masters, interspersed with instruments of war and of the chase. The whole of the lower floor in the right wing was taken up by the library, and that of the left wing by an oak-paneled ball room. The living, drawing and guests’ rooms were in the upper stories of the main building and over the library. There was only one apartment over the ball room and that is the one upon which is based the ghostly history of Melrose hull. It had no visible communication with the rest of the house and the only light it received was from two small diamond shaped, stained glass windows, glazed in lead. They were always tightly closed. The room contained the family skeleton.
Colonel Axtell, according to tradition, was the second son of an English nobbleman, and he married the daughter of a wealthy British merchant. His fiance was accomplished and preposessing, but unfortunately she bad a sister named Alva, whom the colonel fell in love. His engagement had been announced; the wedding day was only a week off, but he was determined to marry his intended wife’s sister. However, when he found out that if he had his way he would be disowned by his family and that from his fixture father-in-law: not a penny was to be expected, he changed his mind, not so much because he feared poverty for himself, as that he could offer no future to the woman he loved better than his life. Shortly after the wedding he received an important appointment in the
American colonies, and had immediately set sail for New York. The next ship which sailed for that port front England bore the colonel’s beautiful sister-in-law, who, as the story goes, bad disguised herself by putting on men’s clothes.
Arrived in this country she dressed herself again in women’s clothes and secured a position as maid. She saw her sister and Colonel Axtell driving in a magnificent carriage attended by a retinue of mounted servants and she decided to reveal herself to him and did so. They resolved never again to be separated. It was then that Colonel Axtell built Melrose hail.
The apartment over the bail room he fitted up with all the luxury and comfort that money could buy and for three years it was the living tomb of Alva. The door of this room, covered by the life size painting of one of the colonel’s ancestors, communicated with his study, which no one. except an old negro woman, was ever permitted to enter. She was one of the hundred slaves kept by the colonel and was devoted to him and no one beside her and the colonel knew what the secret chamber contained.
Three years passed when there was a serious Indian outbreak, necessitating Colonel Axtell’s absence front home for a mouth or six weeks. Upon his return he found that the old negress had died a week after his departure and he rushed to the secret chamber only to find Alva, dead. Of her beautiful form there was nothing left but the skeleton. She had gone through the horrible torture of starvation without uttering a sound, for fear of exposing the man for whose sake she had sacrificed home and honor.
The sight gave Colonel Axtell his death blow. He returned to the apartment at midnight, the usual hour of his visits there, carried Alva’s remains out of the house and buried them at the foot of a great oak tree, Three days later he died. leaving a full confession. It was during the night following the day of Colonel Axtell’s burial that strange noises were first heard hi Melrose hall.
The last stroke of 12 from the town clock bad hardly died out when the inmates of the house were startled from their sleep by a piercing scream, followed by distressing moans, that seemed to come from far off and were yet so plain that the voice could be distinguished as that of a woman. Servants were sent out to ascertain the cause and they returned with livid faces and trembling limbs. The widow was told that the voice came from the secret chamber. At 1 o’clock, with one last terrible wail the voice became silent. The next night it was heard again at the same hour. In the ball roam foot steps could be heard. No one had the courage to make an investigation, but soon it was generally known that Melrose hall was haunted by the spirit of the beautiful Alva, whose story somehow had leaked out and was gossipped about town. The place was thencefoth shunned as much as it had been sought after before and Mrs. Axtell, a few months after her husband’s death, sold the property and went back to England with her children.
For a long time it stood empty, save for the ghost, and the residents of Flatbush would gladly have seen it go up in smoke. Finally the new owner found a tenant, but ho didn’t stay long. Neither did his successors, until a minister of the gospel, the Rev. Dr. Robinson, bought the place. He lived there from 1845 to 1879 and always asserted that the ghost never disturbed him, because he went to bed early and was a sound sleeper. After his death the property was bought by Dr. Homer L. Bartlett, who cut off both wings of the house, which was still in an excellent state of preservation, and had the main building moved back several hundred feet. The remainder of Melrose ball, which to-day fronts on Bedford avenue, between Clarkson and Winthrop streets, is now the home of the Rev. Stafford J. Drowne.
13 Oct 1895, page 8, Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Explore posts in the same categories: Brooklyn