It was the winter of 1716 in Epworth, England. “Old Jeffrey is coming,” a servant announced. That was the name the family of the Reverend Samuel Wesley had given to whatever was making strange noises in their home.
Samuel was the father of John Wesley, who was just thirteen then and away at school. John would grow up to lead the Methodist movement, but at the time, he knew of the disturbances through letters his father wrote to his older brother. A few years later, John came home and questioned the witnesses himself.
One was a servant named Robert Brown. On December 2, 1716, Brown heard knocking and a groan at the door. It sounded like his neighbor, Mr. Turpin, who suffered from kidney stones. But when Brown opened the door, nobody was there. Later, heading upstairs to bed, he saw a grain mill turning by itself. Brown wished there had been grain in it. At least then he could have gotten some work done.
John’s oldest sister, Emily, was sure someone was playing tricks. That changed one night when she followed a drumming sound into the kitchen. Whenever she went around a partition to find its source, the sound jumped to the other side. Then came a knocking at the back door. She opened it and found nobody there, but when she tried to close the door, something pushed back. Emily forced it shut with her knee and shoulder, turned the key, and went to bed.
Their mother, Susanna, blamed rats or weasels until the noises convinced her otherwise. Samuel initially thought the children were scaring each other and told his wife, “Let me hear of it no more.” Soon, however, the knocking began interrupting Samuel’s own prayers, ending with one loud bang right at the “Amen.” Another night, he and Susanna heard what sounded like coins spilling and bottles smashing as they walked downstairs.
Finally, Samuel sent for Mr. Hoole, a fellow minister from nearby Haxey, to hear the disturbances for himself.
As Hoole later recalled, loud knocking sounded overhead. Samuel grabbed a candle, and the two ministers went upstairs. Three of Samuel’s daughters lay asleep in bed, trembling as knocking pounded from the wooden headboard. Seeing them trembling, Samuel became angry and pulled out a pistol.
Hoole caught his arm to stop him from firing.
Samuel demanded that the unseen visitor face him in his study. The knocking answered in a familiar pattern, the same one Samuel used when he wanted someone to let him in at the gate. The next evening, as Samuel opened his study door, it shoved back so hard he nearly fell. He pushed his way inside. Knocking sounded around the study, then in the adjoining room, where his daughter Nancy was. Samuel went to her and commanded the unseen visitor to speak. No voice answered. He assured Nancy that, as Christians, they were more than a match for the devil.
Friends urged Samuel to move out, but he refused. “Let the devil flee from me,” he said. Eventually, his daughters grew so used to the nightly tapping at their headboard that it became their signal to sleep. According to John’s account, the disturbances stopped by the end of January. By spring, Susanna was tired of talking about their “unwelcome guest.”
So what was happening in that house? Three hundred years later, we’re still asking the same questions. Could someone have been playing a trick? I don’t know. I’ve never seen a ghost, but I do believe we live in a world of spiritual beings. And I’ve heard a few stories that have stayed with me.
Years ago, I went to lock up a church around ten on a Friday night. Some women were finishing a card game in the basement. When I came downstairs, one said, “You scared me. I thought you were the old man.” They told me they had seen an older man walk down those same stairs, look at them, and walk straight through a brick wall. Apparently, that wasn’t enough reason to miss a turn in the game. After telling me this, they gathered their things and said, “See you Sunday.” I still had to lock up the building by myself.
Maybe you have a story you rarely tell because you’re afraid people will laugh. If so, I’m willing to listen. We may never have an explanation for these events that satisfies everyone. But Colossians 1:16 reminds us that all things, “visible and invisible,” were created through Christ and for him. God’s world is bigger than what we can see, and all of it belongs to him. We can trust him even when we can’t explain what happened.
I hope to see you on Sunday. And if you’ve got an odd story of your own, I’d love to hear it.
Blessings,
Pastor Rick
