Ashford Family

The next family that moved into the old Hudson home was the Ashford family. They moved into the house in 1982. The house had been vacant for twelve years. During those twelve years, many people had been spreading the news of what happened to the Harper family, so it was unlikely that anyone would move into the home. Down the hill from the house, there was the lake and a small river that flowed into it. There was a bridge over that river that many people would drive over. Many people stated that when they drove over the bridge at night, they saw a woman searching for something in the water. I met with Lindsay Ashford, who now lives in the next town over, to hear about her experience in the house.

The Ashford family included the parents Samuel and Lindsay, and their two kids Christopher, age four, and Amanda, less than a year old. The real estate agent warned them that there had been talk about the house being haunted, but the house seemed fine to them. Perhaps the problem was that the only time that they spent in the home before moving in was during the day.

I asked Amanda about her first impression, and when the house started to feel different to her.

"Sam and I both fell in love with the house when we first moved in. We thought it was the perfect place to raise our little family, and it was for a few months at least. We never experienced anything paranormal until the third month when Amanda was born. The night that I brought her home from the hospital was the first time I saw the ghost. Sam had gone to pick up Christopher from his parents' house, so it was just Amanda and I. As I was driving over the bridge that is part of our land, I saw a woman covered in mud looking distressed and searching for something in the water. I rolled down my window and asked if she was alright or needed anything. She looked directly at me with a menacing glare and then just continued searching. I went home feeling a bit uneasy after that, and told Sam about it all. We decided we would call the cops if she was still there in the morning. "

Then I asked how frequent the experiences were after that one, and how bad they started to get.

"It was a couple weeks after the first one occurred before we noticed anything else. Christopher had been complaining of having bad dreams about a scary woman trying to take him. He started sleeping in our bed every night. Then, Amanda started to cry all night every night. At first we thought it was normal because after all she was a newborn baby. She would cry persistently if she was alone. After we got her calmed down and completely back to sleep she would wake up immediately as soon as we left the room. I started sleeping in the room and that's when the scariest thing happened. Amanda had finally gone to sleep one night, and I started to drift off in the rocking chair. There was a small nightlight in the room that was always plugged in. I felt movement around me and when I opened my eyes I saw the same woman that I saw weeks ago at the bridge. She was holding Amanda. She had dirt all over her again, and this time I noticed the blood all over her hands and more was running down from a wound on her head. I yelled for Sam to come to me, and she began screaming, "My baby! I finally found my baby and you can't have her back!" Sam tried to get Amanda back, but when he reached for her it was as if he went right through her. He fell to the ground, and cried, "She's a ghost!" She was floating across the room with Amanda, who was crying profusely, and I felt helpless not being able to protect my baby. Sam and I quickly decided the only way to get Amanda back was to each run towards and through the ghost to grab her. The fact that our hands went through her was actually an advantage. Miraculously, Sam was able to get Amanda by diving to grab her. He fell to the floor with her, but Amanda was unharmed. The woman then yelled, "You killed her! Look what you've done. You'll never get away with this!" Then she fled the house, out the window and down the hill. That was the last time we saw her. Oddly enough, Amanda was fast asleep once I had her back in my arms.

Lastly, I asked what they did after the almost kidnapping and if they found out why the woman wanted their baby.

"After that event, we wanted to leave immediately. The next morning we were already looking for a new home in the area. Chris called his parents, and we stayed there until we found a new place to live. I was so troubled by what happened for a long time. I went to the local library months later and I found some articles about the Hudson family and their tragic lives. I can give them to you. I have no use for them now. They explain a little bit of maybe why she wanted my baby."

I read the newspaper articles and found some old hospital files and made a new discovery about Mrs. Hudson. When she was younger, she had a baby that died when it was less than a year old. The records show that the baby died from asphyxiation. The death was somehow declared as an accident, so no one was convicted of the crime. I think this is why she wanted the Ashfords' baby. Did she kill her own baby? Or could her husband, Buck, have something to do with it?

Author's Note: In the original story, there is a ship that is about to crash into the coast. There is a woman with a baby on board. The woman is trying to keep them both alive, but when some sailors try to help them the baby falls into the water and is not able to be found after that. The woman faints, and when she awakens she is deeply saddened and troubled by the fact that she lost her baby. She dies soon after, and it is said that she continues to search for baby along the coast as a ghost. In my story, I changed a lot of things from this story to better fit into my storybook project. I kept the idea of a ghost woman looking for her dead baby to give the story more meaning and to give a reason for the woman to be haunting a place. She lost her baby, so that's why in my story they see a woman searching for a baby in the water. The ghost confuses the Ashford baby with her own, so that is why she tries to take it.The story leaves many unanswered questions while also revealing new details about what originally happened in the house. The questions will be answered in the upcoming stories.

Story Source: Popular Romances of the West of England, 2nd series, p. 143 by Robert Hunt.

Link: The Lady with the Lantern, Sacred Texts