Murderer's Ghost Urged Priest To Get Busy

St. Patrick's Catholic church in Cumberland is the scene of a classic Allegany County ghost story. Here's the earliest version I can find, published in 1900:

During the Civil War Father Brennan had a number of painful experiences, the most painful of which was the execution of a young soldier with whom he became acquainted in his capacity of spiritual director. In July, 1864, Francis Gillespie, of the Fifteenth New York Regiment, was hanged near Rose Hill Cemetery, after trial by court-martial. The circumstances in the case were such as to excite sympathy for the soldier, but not sufficient to excuse or extenuate the horrible deed of which he had been guilty. Gillespie had been charged with violating some army regulation, and his lieutenant, William Shearer, had given orders to “ hang him up by the thumbs.” The soldier was left hanging in excruciating torture until he was almost dead. He swore vengeance on the lieutenant; and when the regiment was travelling from Parkersburg to Cumberland, Gillespie deliberately shot Shearer dead. Father Brennan was summoned to prepare the young man for death. It is said that Gillespie ascended the scaffold without the twitching of a muscle, whilst Father Brennan was in a state of total collapse. The condemned soldier had intrusted to Father Brennan tokens of affection to be delivered to near relatives; and “there is a tradition among the Cumberland people that the night after the execution Father Brennan heard the military tread of a soldier in the hall, and opening the door, he was confronted by his dead penitent, who rebuked him for being too slow in carrying out his promise.” (Stanton 30-31)

St. Patrick's. (Our Lady of the Mountains website)

Alas, Stanton does not tell the reader whom he is quoting in that dramatic, crucial last sentence, which turns a sadly routine wartime misery into a ghost story. Presumably, he's quoting someone who had been telling the tale for many years -- or who wanted Stanton to believe that, anyway, even if it had been made up on the spot.

Whoever first told the story, it has legs. On their enjoyable 21st-century ghost tours of downtown Cumberland, Keith and Annie Potts still tell the story, with a few elaborations. According to the notes I jotted in the darkness one Saturday night, they say:

  • Gillespie was held prisoner in the old jail, where the new wing of the Washington County library now sits.
  • Gillespie's body was buried along the railroad tracks on Fayette Street, and the house later built on the site has trouble keeping tenants, because Gillespie's ghost is so active.
  • The St. Patrick's rectory, where Gillespie's ghost first appeared to Father Brennan, is still haunted -- by Father Brennan. Keith Potts then adds, with relish, that Brennan in life was "nearly 7 feet tall," a gratuitous but welcome detail.
The non-supernatural elements of this old story, moreover, are easily verified. In fact, aside from minor confusion regarding dates and the spelling of the murdered officer's name, this is one of the most historically grounded legends in the area.

A native of Kilkenny, Ireland, the Very Reverend Edward Brennan (1827-1884) was pastor at St. Patrick's for 26 years, from 1858 until his death in 1884, and he's buried in the church cemetery. The tall Irishman was 37 years old in July 1864. His story is told most fully in Stanton's History of the Church in Western Maryland, which I quote above.

The execution of Gillespie was reported briefly in The New York Times of 13 July 1864, as part of a dispatch from "Headquarters D'p't. of Western Virginia, Cumberland, Md., July 11, 1864":

FRANK GILLESPIE, of the Fifteenth New-York Cavalry, was hung here yesterday [July 10], for shooting Lieut. SHAVER, an officer of his company.

The execution is also recorded in an online list of New York Civil War executions, with Gillespie's unit specified as Company B of the 15th New York Cavalry, and the date of the hanging for murder given as 11 July 1864:


 

The execution is described in detail in a classic 19th-century text, Lowdermilk's History of Cumberland, which gives the date of the murder as July 7, 1864, a Thursday:

Francis Gillespie, of Co. B, Fifteenth Regiment New York Cavalry, while on the cars, en route from Parkersburg to Cumberland, deliberately murdered Lieutenant William Shearer. Gillespie was brought here under arrest. On the Saturday following [July 9] he was tried before a Court Martial, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged on Monday [July 11], on which day he was taken to the gallows, near Rose Hill Cemetery, at 5 o'clock p.m., and executed. He ascended the scaffold with a firm step, and at the last moment said: "I forgive everybody from the bottom of my heart, and I pray God to forgive me. May the stars and stripes never be trampled on." Gillespie was but 24 years of age, and left a young wife, in Syracuse, New York. (Lowdermilk 415)

Note that Lowdermilk's book was published in 1878, only 14 years after the execution described -- the same span of time that separates us from, say, the introduction of the iPhone. It was not, in other words, ancient history. Lowdermilk mentions no ghost, and fails to link the execution with Father Brennan in any way. (In fact, Lowdermilk's book devotes more space to the hanged murderer than to Brennan, whom he barely mentions a couple of times in church contexts.)

Twenty-two years after Lowdermilk's book, Stanton's book published the ghost story as we know it today. Assuming the supernatural visitation happened as Stanton described it, the only way anyone other than Father Brennan could have known about it would have been via Father Brennan himself. And while Father Brennan was very much alive when Lowdermilk's book was published, he was years dead by the time of Stanton's book, and no longer able to contradict the tale in person. (Though it is fun to imagine his ghost appearing in Stanton's doorway to rebuke the author for inaccuracy.)

None of these accounts tell us what the "tokens of affection" were, whom they were meant for, what Gillespie's urgency was, or what reasons Father Brennan may have had for delay. Maybe one day these details will be cleared up, supernaturally or not.

The story was complicated in the 21st century when Mountain Discoveries Magazine published an article in 2003 titled "The Parish Ghost of Cumberland." It is a nearly verbatim retyping of Stanton's 1900 account, complete with the unattributed quotation and with Lowdermilk's 1878 execution details inserted, verbatim. Neither source is credited. Confusing as it is, this has been the most likely online account to pop up, should anyone search for Father Brennan's ghost story in recent years.

Most interestingly, the 2003 mash-up includes an editor's note:

This story was brought to our attention by Msgr. Thomas R. Beven, Pastor of St. Patrick Parish, Cumberland, Maryland. Msgr. Beven noted, “This story has been part of the tradition of the history of the church of St. Patrick for over one hundred years.”

Though his name is misspelled, this certainly refers to longtime St Patrick pastor Thomas Bevan, a monsignor who would be permanently removed from ministry nine years later for what the Baltimore archdiocese called "credible allegations of child sexual abuse."

The association of this ghost story with Bevan may explain why it's not mentioned on the current website of Our Lady of the Mountains Parish, which includes St. Patrick's. But Father Brennan's ghost story long predates Father Bevan, and it should be told long after him, too.

P.S.: As for a bizarre online claim from Halloween 2005, that St. Patrick's rectory is haunted by an executed Civil War soldier named Ozias B. Jordan who grants interviews to descendants, we will see whether that story sticks around. For now, that lone blog post is the only reference I find online to anyone named Ozias B. Jordan.

P.P.S.: Neither the murder of Shaver/Shearer nor the execution of Gillespie was an anomaly. After the war, the official Union mortality tallies counted 267 deaths by military execution and 520 murder victims. One also wonders about the 14,155 Union deaths listed as "Unclassified." (Davis 220)

Sources:

Archdiocese of Baltimore. "Monsignor Bevan is permanently removed from ministry." The Catholic Review, 19 Jan. 2012. https://www.archbalt.org/monsignor-bevan-is-permanently-removed-from-ministry/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2021.

Davis, Burke. Our Incredible Civil War. Illus. Raymond Houhlihan. New York: Holt, 1960.

"Ghosts: A Neglected Genealogical Resource." The Genealogue. 27 Oct. 2005. http://www.genealogue.com/2005/10/ghosts-neglected-genealogical-resource.html. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.

"The Invasion. The Rebels in Front of the Washington Defences." The New York Times, 13 July 1864. Accessed via nytimes.com on 22 Sept. 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/1864/07/13/archives/the-invasion-the-rebels-in-front-of-the-washington-defences.html

Lowdermilk, Will H. History of Cumberland (Maryland). Washington, D.C.: James Anglim, 1878. Accessed via Archive.org on 21 Sept. 2021.

"New York Civil War Executions." Genealogy Quest. http://genealogy-quest.com/record-collections/military-records/civil-war/executions/1865-new-york-civil-war-executions/. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.

"The Parish Ghost of Cumberland." Mountain Discoveries Magazine, Fall/Winter 2003, Page 39. http://www.mountaindiscoveries.com/stories/fw2003/parishghost.html. Accessed 21 Sept. 2021.

Stanton, Thomas J. A Century of Growth; or, The History of the Church in Western Maryland. Baltimore: John Murphy, 1900. Accessed via Archive.org on 21 Sept. 2021. 

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