In 1803, A Rural English Village Was Plagued By Reports Of A Tall Ghost That Roamed The Church Graveyard And Terrorized Residents Passing By

On the outskirts of London, England, there sat a small, rural village called Hammersmith. In December 1803, reports of ghost attacks surfaced. The villagers claimed that a tall figure covered in a white shroud was terrorizing them. But where did this ghost come from?
Apparently, the ghost regularly appeared at one in the morning in the church graveyard, which was surrounded by fields and dirt roads. The villagers believed that the ghost was of a man who had taken his own life by slitting his throat the year before.
One encounter with the ghost involved a wagon pulled by eight horses that was passing through the area with 16 passengers. The driver was so frightened that he ran away, leaving the horses and passengers behind.
Another report was of a pregnant woman who was walking near the graveyard at 10 p.m. She described a tall, white figure appearing out of nowhere and lunging for her as she tried to flee.
She ended up fainting and was discovered by neighbors hours later. A few days after the incident, she died from shock.
Eventually, the villagers began to think that someone was dressing up as a ghost and was scaring people intentionally. Groups of men armed with pistols patrolled the streets, hoping to catch the culprit. However, it was impossible to cover every entrance and exit of the village.
One of the men claimed that he had given chase to a figure draped in a white sheet or tablecloth but failed to catch the ghost. During this time, anyone wearing white or light-colored clothing was considered a target. As a result, an innocent man ended up being murdered after he was mistaken for a ghost.
Thomas Milwood was a bricklayer. He often dressed in the clothes of his trade, which consisted of a white apron, white linen trousers, a white coat, and white shoes. His family had advised him to wear a large coat over his outfit since he had already been mistaken as the ghost on two previous occasions.
In January 1804, Milwood had been walking down Black Lion Lane when he was mistaken for the ghost for the third and final time. A customs officer named Francis Smith was lying in wait for the ghost when he spotted Milwood. He called out to the figure twice but didn’t receive a response, so he opened fire.

David – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
Milwood died from a bullet that went straight through his mouth and came out through the back of his neck. When Smith discovered that he had shot a person, he immediately ran for help. He was arrested, found guilty of manslaughter, and sentenced to death.
However, the public was especially sympathetic toward his case and influenced the Crown to have mercy on him. Smith ended up receiving a pardon from the Crown under the condition that he serve one year in prison.
After Milwood’s murder, a local shoemaker, John Graham, stepped up and admitted to being the Hammersmith ghost. Apparently, he had been seeking revenge on his apprentices for telling his children scary stories.
So, the whole ghost case finally came to an end, but some believe that Milwood’s spirit still haunts Hammersmith.
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