SPENCER — The best Halloween stories include relatable characters, an eerie setting and a mystery that keeps readers guessing about what’s really happening and why.
The story may leave room for ambiguity, and a haunted house as part of the narrative often sets the tone.
The following story has all of the elements of a ghost story and it hit newspapers across the Midwest in 1892 and continued to be retold for decades after.
F.J. Thrun was a Clark County merchant born in Germany in 1859.
“His parents moved to Quebec in 1868, then to Fredonia, Ozaukee Co., where he stayed till 1877, learning the machinist’s trade, also the cooper’s. They then bought a piece of land on Sec. 24, town of Hull, and built a sawmill run (sic) it till 1880, when he sold to Gregory Unhafer, and then came to Colby. Here he opened a store with Schmitt Thrun, but closed out and went to Woodbury, came back and now carries on a general merchandise store,” the 1881 history of Northern WI reads.
In 1882, he married Mary Julia Holverson in Colby.
But tragedy struck the first time when the store burned down and Thrun lost everything.
“However, shortly after the fire, he bought a sawmill, for which he paid $4,000 in cash. Scarcely had the insurance got nicely into working order on this property when another fire broke out,” a Wausau Daily Record-Herald article stated.
“When the excitement created by suspicious creditors died down, Thrun bought another sawmill. When that burned down, netting him a nice sum of insurance money.
“By this time, things were getting hot for Thrun in the fire insurance line. But again, he bought a mill. Wonders of wonders, he did not have it insured. He had a better idea.
“The Wisconsin Central railroad had its right of way close to the mill (at Romeo, a couple of miles north of Spencer.) Would it not be a good plan to have the mill burn down through a fire started by sparks from the company engines? One could then sue for damages and clean up a lot of money.
“In due time, the mill caught fire, supposedly from sparks of the Wisconsin Central locomotives. Thrun started suit.”
Thrun sued for $20,000; however, a Pinkerton detective —the country’s first detective agency established by Scottish emigrant Allan Pinkerton — was hired and Thrun ended up settling for “a song and $75 worth of mileage tickets.”
But days before Halloween in 1892, things would take a more dramatic direction for Thrun and his family.
To be continued
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