The Haunted Man and His Coffins

When the United States was very new, a man of Dutch descent, named Jacob Humbarger, settled into the Lancaster, OH, area, coming from Lancaster, PA. He brought with him the skills of a master cabinet maker and furnished many of the homes in the area. One of his other talents was being an excellent coffin maker. Many citizens would visit him during the morning and noon hours, bringing measurements for a custom coffin for their deceased family members.

Jacob was known as the finest coffin maker in the state and provided a good living for his family. His business thrived for a good many decades, but when he became elderly, something very strange began to happen.

Early one morning, around 3am, Jacob’s wife heard him get out of bed and make his way to his workshop in the back of the house. She could hear him working away until the early morning hours. When the sun came up, she called him in for his breakfast and asked why he was up so early.

“A man came to the door around 3am and gave me some measurements for a coffin,” he replied.

She assured him that no man had come to the door during the night, she only heard him get up and go to his workshop.

“A man came, I tell you!” Jacob demanded. “He handed me these measurements and told me to make the coffin.”

Jacob smoked his pipe and waited for the man to return. When he arrived at around 10am, Jacob asked why he had come to pick up the coffin so late. The man looked at him curiously and replied that he had not been there before, he had only just come to town to inquire about a coffin.

“Don’t be playing games with me, sir,” Jacob said. “It was you who came and woke me up in the middle of the night. I recognize your face.”

The man again insisted that he had never been there in the night and handed the measurements to Jacob. Ironically, they were the exact measurements the man had handed him. The money was exchanged and the coffin loaded into the man’s wagon, leaving Jacob to scratch his head at the strange event.

When he told his wife what had happened, she replied, “Jacob, you are haunted. I told you no one came in the middle of the night.”

For a good month, things seemed to be normal again at the home and business of Jacob Humbarger, until one night, he was awakened again by a distraught man who had just lost his son in an accident. The man instructed Jacob to build a coffin, giving him the measurements and telling him he would be there to pick it up in the afternoon.

Jacob went to work building a fine coffin for the man’s son and waited until the late afternoon for him to arrive. When the man arrived, Jacob told him he had the coffin ready and would help him load it. “But, sir, I haven’t ordered my coffin yet. I’ve only just arrived.”

“But, it’s for your son,” Jacob replied. “He died yesterday and you came to me last night for the coffin.”

The distraught man looked at Jacob and told him that his son had been killed in an accident that morning and he had not been to his home during the night.

Jacob showed the man the measurements he had drawn in chalk on his worktable, the very measurements he claimed the man gave him in the middle of the night. They were the exact measurements the man had brought in that afternoon.

These odd occurrences began to happen more frequently to Jacob and news began to spread around the small town of superstitious people. His business began to feel the effects of it as well. People were now going into other towns to have their coffins and shelves made.

“Hello, Mr. Jacob,” the children would say, waving to him on the streets downtown.

“Come away from that man!” Their mothers would say, grabbing them by the arm and jerking them along. “Don’t you know he’s in a league with the devil? He is haunted and so are his coffins!”

One morning, one of Jacob’s remaining good friends, made his way into the woodworking shop. Jacob was waiting beside a marvelous cherry wood coffin he had just finished. It was lined with the finest silk and satin. His friend remarked at how breath taking the coffin was. It was a fine work of art and craftsmanship.

“Yes, sir,” Jacob replied. “It will be a very special and important man who will be buried in this coffin. He must be a senator or congressman. It is the finest coffin I have ever made. I have worked on it all night. I’m just afraid I will not recognize the man who ordered it. When he came in the middle of the night and gave me the orders and details on it, he had his face covered and I couldn’t tell who he was. He was a very mysterious man indeed.”

Jacob ran his hands over the coffin, feeling its smoothness and admiring his work. “Yes, sir,” he said. “This is a fine coffin. I wouldn’t mind being buried in this myself.”

With those words, a blank look came over Jacob’s face, just as if he were looking at someone in the distance. He stretched out his hands over the coffin and fell across it – dead!

Jacob was buried days later in the fine coffin he had built with his own hands. Could the man who had come that night been a messenger of death? A reaper, preparing him for his final rest?

What do you think dear reader?