Illinois: Cairo Public Library

1861

Cairo, Illinois known as the City Between Two Rivers lies at the junction where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet. This town first rose to prominence in the early 1800s as a bustling steamboat port. Later during the Civil War it was used as a site to train Union troops.

With the decline of the river traffic in the early 1900s both Cairo’s economy and population were drastically impacted. Today the town represents stark contrasts. On one side is the many elegant Victorian mansions that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places on the other side is a town that is struggling to survive.

One shining bright spot is the Cairo Public Library. The building that houses this library is the Safford Memorial Building. A widow, Mrs. Alfred Safford presented this building to the town in 1884 in fond remembrance of her late husband.

The Cairo Women’s Club and the Library Association contributed 1500 books in exchange for the use of a room for their meetings. Today the library has over 41,000 books in its collection.

This old red brick Queen Ann building still retains most of its original charm. It is adorned with original stain-glass windows and it displays a rare Tiffany clock on one stair landing. A chandelier that hangs in the library once hung in the Cairo Opera House. 

Many of the original ornate bookshelves remain. The adult reading room contains a large round table that once was a gaming table on a steamboat.

In 1962 and 1984 improvements were made to the library with an addition of a stack room and special collections room.

Another item that has always remained the same about this library is its resident ghost.

For years, the employees of the library have seen and heard very unusual things, which cannot be easily explained.

Louise Ogg, a librarian nicknamed this ghost, Toby. Ogg actually encountered Toby on the first day she worked in the library. She was on her lunch break when she heard the sound of a rocking chair in the reading room. When she went to investigate the sound stopped but as she returned to her desk she heard the rocking chair once more. Many others have heard similar noises in this room.

Just weeks later Ogg and a colleague again on lunch break spotted a strange white light that appeared from behind the front desk. These two ladies watched as this bright light ascended from the desk and slowly passed the office. It then disappeared among the stacks.

Several librarians over the years have taken ownership of this ghost to feel more at ease around it. They often state Toby was a former patron of the library who just can’t bear to leave the place--for they are sure he has fond memories of the pleasant hours he spent reading in the building.

One library director, Monica Smith also encountered the ghost. It seems Toby likes to play games for Smith often after turning the lights off would find that they were back on in various rooms. She also on several occasions heard footsteps upstairs when she knew she was the only one in the building.

Children's Reading Room

Back in the days when the library still used card catalogs the librarians would often find these cards mixed up directly after they had been checked.

One interior door at the back of one room often opens and closes when no one is around. This phenomenon has been reported many times over the years.

When Toby hasn’t made an appearance in awhile one running joke among the staff is that he just like many a book is “overdue.”

Haunted Object: The Cursed Egyptian Bone

After British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun tomb in 1922, Egypt became “the” place to visit by the world’s elite. 

Sir Alexander Hay Seton or “Sandy” as he was known, 10^th Baronet of Abercorn, and his wife Zeyla traveled from Edinburgh to Cairo in 1936. This trip started a series of events that made Sir Alexander believe that his family was forever accursed. *

In his memoirs Sir Alexander recounts that his and Zeyla’s trip to Egypt was uneventful until they took a tour of a newly opened tomb that lay in the shadow of the pyramids. He stated that a bad feeling overtook him at the time:

“I had a feeling in my bones that something was going to happen over this and it was only with the greatest of difficulty that Zeyla cajoled me into going with her. I wish earnestly to God that we had not gone!”

He recounts how they were led down 30 roughly hewn rock steps where their guide, Abdul led them to a stone slab were the remains of a female skeleton lay uncovered. Seton noted that her skull and leg bones were clearly visible, few ribs were left but her spine was intact. 

As the group moved to leave Seton offered a brief whispered prayer, his wife fascinated hung back to take one more look at the skeletal remains. 

Unbeknownst to Sir Alexander his wife removed a bone and placed it in her pocket. At dinner that evening with her husband she confessed what she had done. The two examined the smallish heart-shaped bone at which point Seton announced it looked like a grotesque digestive biscuit.

Sir Alexander forgot about the bone until he and his wife returned to Edinburgh. Zeyla brought the bone out and the two decided to display it within a former glass clock case in their drawing room. 

The events that followed this challenged his families’ innocence and ultimately tore them apart. Within moments of the bone being set upon the table in the Seton’s drawing room, panels from the ceiling crashed down almost hitting them. 

During the next weeks the families sleep was disturbed by sounds of bumps, bangs and thuds.

During this time a young cousin who visited the Seton household saw a “ghostly woman dressed in strange clothes” float by. Other guests in the following weeks also spotted this strange apparition in the home's halls. 

Chairs began to be thrown about and the glass case that the bone rested in mysteriously broke. The legs of the table that the bone sat upon shattered and broke several times. By this time the household was in a major uproar. Sir Alexander locked the drawing room door and determined to keep watch.

Nothing happened so he went to bed. But several hours later his wife woke him up stating that someone must have broken into the house. He grabbed his revolver and headed downstairs, he met his daughter’s nanny on the stairs—she was in hysterics. 

She stated that something was moving around in the drawing room. He went back upstairs to retrieve his keys and when he and Zeyla unlocked the drawing room door a chaotic scene greeted them. 

Chairs were upset, books were flung about but the bone was undisturbed upon the table. Sir Alexander was surprised to find the windows in the room where all locked and secure.

Believing they must have a poltergeist Sir Alexander told his wife he intended to destroy the bone. She forbade him to do this, which caused a prolonged fight between the two. 

A reporter from the Express getting wind of what was occurring in the Seton residence started to hound Sir Alexander for answers—he refused to comment. But later when this same reporter requested to borrow the bone he allowed it. The Express reporter returned the bone without incident but was later involved in a serious car accident.

The activity calmed down for a while but one night as the Seton’s returned from their various engagements the nanny approached them once more in a panic. She had been hearing loud noises in the drawing room all night and then glass shattering. 

She admitted she was too afraid to enter the room. When the Seton’s did they found that everything was undisturbed except for the bone and table it sat upon. The table rested on its side the bone lay in several pieces on the floor.

A reporter from the Scottish Daily Mail was called in to take pictures of it. He like the first reporter borrowed the bone but the next day he returned it because he had become seriously ill. 

The family prayed and peace returned to house briefly then on Boxing Day they invited over one hundred guests for dinner. Zeyla’s friend had pieced and glued the bone back together and placed it back in the drawing room. 

As the guests were served cocktails in an adjourning room the conversation inevitably turned to the bone. At this point the table the bone sat upon hurled itself violently across the room hitting the opposite wall. 

A maid and Zeyla’s cousin Gert both fainted. Even though no one had been in the room where the table had moved people panicked and and the party broke up quickly.

The American papers picked up on the story after this incident. Again, Sir Alexander was hounded. Meetings were held with hundreds of attendees to determine what might be going on. 

The family received thousands of letters from concerned citizens. Howard Carter who had made the initial Tutankhamun find penned one of these letters. He stated,

“…that inexplicable things could happen and would continue to happen.”

Sir Alexander determined, now requested his uncle a Roman Catholic monk ** to come out and “exorcise” the bone—he did this while Zeyla was not at home. 

Once the bone was blessed Seton destroyed the bone by burning it. Years later, he stated this returned peace to his house but Zeyla never forgave him and their marriage disintegrated soon afterwards. ***

* At the time many stories where being published about the supposed “Curse of the Pharaohs”. This curse refers to a wide held belief that if anyone disturbed the remains of an ancient Egyptian, especially a pharaoh that person would then be cursed.

** Sir Alexander Hay Seton was not a catholic but his uncle was. His daughter, Egidia was six at the time. She recalled seventy years later the day her Uncle Charles arrived at the house, causing a scandal, from the Benedictine Abbey at Fort Augustus.

“He was in charge of the wine and spirits up at the Abbey and I rather think he was their best customer. He came down and waved his hands over the bone a bit and incanted something.”

*** Even though the activity in the house settled down, Sir Alexander stated that the curse continued to make his and his families lives difficult. At the end he stated he believed in the curse.