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Note: The following story was published in the book Historic Haunted America by Michael Norman and Beth Scott. The introductory paragraph states that the story is "absolutely true."
Maude DeVault, Schoolmarm
Redington was once the liveliest outpost of civilization in Nebraska's western border country. Its reputation was acquired, in part, by tales of a ghost that frequented the scene of a gruesome murder.
On the night of September 30, 1883, Charles Adams was brutally killed. His head was chopped off. There were no clues to the identity of the assailant, but the motive was apparently robbery. A large sum of money was missing from Adams's cabin, along with a diamond shirt stud and other valuables. The search for the murderer was futile and, after the initial excitement had worn off, interest waned.
The community, located about ten miles southwest of Bridgeport on today's State Highway 88, was growing. By 1886 a post office was established and stores and sod houses were being built by the new settlers. The Adams murder took on a new twist, however, when locals said they saw a ghost visiting the little cabin where Adams had lived and died. On the anniversary of his murder, Adams was spied riding a white horse, carrying his head in his hands like the immortal Ichabod Crane. For years the headless horseman returned, frightening everyone who saw him.
The legend grew throughout the region until 1913, when the Redington School's new teacher, an adventuresome young beauty named Maude DeVault, said she'd surely like to meet this phantom horseman. Pranksters heard about Miss DeVault's wish and saw the opportunity for a practical joke. They decided that teacher and ghost should meet.
One young man consented to pose as the ghost, and draped himself and his horse with sheets. He was to conceal himself directly behind the dilapidated Adams Cabin, a mile south of Redington, and at the given signal he was to ride out into the road and gallop away.
At precisely nine o'clock on the night of September 30, 1913, the thirtieth anniversary of Adams's death, the village ghost hunters arrived in front of the cabin to wait and watch. Their patience was soon rewarded; the ghost galloped boldly toward them. The citizens panicked, nearly trampling one another as they tried to flee. That is, everyone but Miss DeVault. She stepped forward, seized the horse by the reins, and demanded and explanation of the rider's periodic visits, punctuating her request with a couple of shots from her trusty revolver.
The frightened horse bolted, crashed into a wire fence and lost its trappings. Spectators peered into the gloom and saw several white sheets float to the ground. The "ghost" had been killed! Women shrieked and fainted and men groaned.
The "ghost's" sister, a formidable figure of nearly 280 pounds, was so stricken with fear that she sprinted toward Redington to spread the news. An automobile sent in pursuit overtook her only with difficulty. Brought back to the scene, the sister discovered it was her brother and not a ghost who rode horseback that night. And her brother was alive and unhurt. She collapsed, and a physician had to be called.
When the episode was finally explained to everyone later that night, Miss DeVault said she had expected plotters to arrange a joke on the schoolmarm and had loaded her revolver with blank cartridges. She earned the respect of everyone.
The Redington post office was abandoned in 1962 and the "haunted Adams Cabin" itself burned in 1974. A church, a rural school, and a cluster of families are all that remain. Yet Redington's distinctions have probably never been matched. This little pioneer community had a legendary ghost, a real live spook, a ghost buster, and a 280-pound lady sprinter - all at the same time. It was probably enough to make the spirit of Charles Adams flee to Omaha.
Bayard Transcript - October 10, 1929
Mrs. C. E. Moberg entertained five girls at a delicious 6 o'clock dinner Friday evening in honor of her daughter, Marjorie Beth, the occasion being her seventh birthday. Games were played and Marjorie Beth received some lovely remembrances from her friends. The guests were June Deal, Erline Vanatta, Bernice Prince, Margaret Fricke and Jean Prideaux. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Letter from Maude DeVault to her brother, Lynn DeVault
March 28, 1955
Dear Lynn:
I've been told one should never start a letter with an apology, but when I find a letter from you dated August 30, which I'm quite sure I haven't answered and one dated Febr. 2, which I know I haven't, I feel that something like an apology is due. In one of them you mentioned that the years of youth are long, long years, but I'm finding that the years of middle age are short, short years. Time is slipping away from me so fast that soon I will have reached the age of senility and I don't like it at all. So many things I've wanted and intended to do in my life and looking back I find I've realized very few of them.
I scarcely know where to start for if I try to find an answer to all the things you've asked about in these letters, I'll be writing till midnight. First I'll try and tell you a bit about Ada Montgomery Pearson. I'm very sure if you had met her on the street you would have recognized her for I think she's just about the same as the day you all laughed at her in class. She married a Ralph Pearson, whose sister married one of the Einsel boys. And of course you remember Orval Einsel, the sissy one, and I believe he turned out to be a bad one, more or less a criminal. Well any way Ada has two sons, one I think lives in Washington D.C. and one in Chicago. If you remember Ada went to Lincoln to school and belonged to one of the very good sororities (hard to believe, but true). They lived here while her children were small and then moved to Lincoln, and I believe her boys are both university graduates. Her husband died some years ago and she came back to Bayard to live with her mother, the father having died some years before. Mrs. Montgomery died several years ago and Ada is still here, very well to do I think for the Montgomerys never spent any of their money. However Ada works, runs the linotype at the Transcript office, baby sits and various other sorts of small jobs. She combs her hair straight back and coiled in a big knot at the back, and some how I feel that she must dive down in some of her mother's old trunks occasionally and come up with what she calls a new dress. Of course it goes without saying that she's a thoroughly good person, but one that would drive me mad if I had to be around her. She belongs to the church we do and once in a while I get on some committee with her. She uses very good English, but the very flowery type. She's the sort of person who, instead of saying "I don't know," would say "One doesn't know, does one?" But to make a long story short I would say that Ada had changed very little in forty years.
Yes, Bobby Burns was definitely a horseman. He was a bachelor and as I remember it, he and George Young sort of teamed up together. I haven't any idea what became of him, but George Young married, had a couple of children and the daughter recently married Rufus Knapp who is Dick Knapp's oldest son. I always have remembered hearing Mrs. Dick Knapp tell someone many years ago at a Fourth of July celebration that Dick gave the kids fifteen cents apiece to spend and how mad she was at Dick for so doing.
Strange to say just a few weeks before I got your last letter as I was opening a can of Crisco, I suddenly remembered Cottolene and wondered what became of such products. I would never have thought of the verse again, but it came back very vividly as I read it. And do you remember X-Cel-O, the breakfast food that I think was pretty much like the corn flakes of today. Once upon a time there was a silver coffee service to be given to the one who first found all the letters X-CEL-O in the boxes of breakfast food, there being one letter in each box. We had everything but the E for months and of course there was only one E to be had. Well, low and behold, we got the package with the E in it. Dad kept the service for awhile in one of the drawers of that monstrosity called a bookcase or something and every few days he'd take it out and polish it for hours. He finally sold it to the Soders for five dollars. If you remember the Soders ran a saloon and also had a very smart high stepping horse and red wheeled buggy which was almost as grand as Dolly Morrison's sway back. The Soders started to build a sidewalk from their house out to the street by filling empty whiskey bottles with sand and then burying them bottom up level with the ground, but the Soders left before it was fininshed and the Gilberts bought the place. The first thing they did was dig up the walk. But at any rate the beautiful coffee service left with the Soders and I guess we lost our appetite for X-Cel-O when we didn't get to keep the silver, and so it and Cottolene fade into the past. I best remember that during the time when Joe Hughes used to eat at our house once in a while, and something he said once about Cottolene gravy which very much embarrassed mother for the gravy was made with Cottolene. We didn't get around to talking about Joe. You know he lived someplace close to North Platte for a long time, a ranch I think. He was here about fifteen years ago. I didn't see him then, but Dorothy did. At one time Mrs. Ellis Judd, she and Ellis having separated, kept house for Joe. Have never heard any more about him since he was here.
I am really mad a myself for not clipping a picture of the former Ester Scott which appeared in the Omaha World Herald a few weeks ago. It was taken with her husband and several other people at the Stockmen's Convention. I don't see her very often any more, though we used to be very good friends. After teaching a few years she took nurse's training and used to be at our house quite often during the years when we were first married. But anyway the picture showed Ester to be about as broad as she is long, or a Chris says one of those people that it's just as easy to go over them as it is to go around them. But they have a lot of money for the Coulters never spent much of theirs either. Whether you ever knew it or not, Esther had you marked for her own and was not at all happy when you escaped. This she told me so I didn't just imagine it.
And now we come to Melissa Boyer. Melissa as you probably know married Tom McCann. For quite some years she was just Melissa, fat and coarse like her mother. When people here began to be beauty parlor conscious she decided she'd like to be a beauty operator. Tom said he wouldn't have much money to leave her, but he'd give her a good education so he sent her to Denver to a beauty school. You should have seen Melissa when she came back, dieted down to a perfect figure and while of course being Melissa she could never be beautiful, she had changed and all for the better. Then after Tom had given her all that good education she ups and has an affair with another man and finally leaves Tom and married the other fellow, and as far as I know she lives in California, a Mrs. Markland.
We very much enjoyed the clippings you sent and I have a feeling that there are times when you regret having parted with the Bearcat. I shouldn't be too surprised sometime to hear that it had changed hands again and was back in your garage. And if you remember will you tell me again just where you found the clipping about the Leaches. And by the way do you want these clippings back?
Thanks for your offer of the books, but I imagine we have most of the same books you have. We have all of Francis Parkinson Keys books and as we do not have extra storage space we can't take care of extra copies. This library already has a number of books that once belonged to you. Most of those you left at home. I tore the page out with your name and gave them to the library just a short time before I went to work there. Don't you have a veteran's hospital near you? So many times they are glad to get books. We have both "The Big Sky" and "The Way West" and I have read them both and thought them very fine. If you have not located "Old Jules" yet I should like to mail you our copy. It is old and battered but still read quite frequently, but I wouldn't mind it's being out for several weeks. I am so sure that you would enjoy it and you could return it when you were through with it. It is definitely not the same as "Cheyenne Autumn." That and "The Buffalo Hunters" are her two latest books, Old Jules was her first and much of the material for it she gathered from Old Jules himself before he died in the Alliance hospital. So if you are still wanting it, I would be very happy to loan it to you for a period. And while we are talking about books Chris wonders why you are wasting your time with ours when you should be writing books. He doesn't think A. B. Guthrie or Mari Sandoz has anything to offer that you haven't. I have delved into the past so many times in preparing papers and programs for different things that I belong to that people have told me I should do something about preserving those early day happenings for posterity. But the generation that I got most of my information from is a past generation and most of those people are up on the hill now, and so my source of information is buried with them.
We read such a nice letter that Dorothy had from Sue after the holidays and after Hunter had come and gone again. You will soon have your family together again for the summer. We managed to get through the holiday season and now we are able to say "Just one more Xmas for them over there."
Best wishes to Leris and Sue Sincerely Maude
OBITUARY
Bayard Transcript - January 30, 1975
Maude Moberg Graveside Rites Tuesday Morning
Graveside funeral services for Maude C. Moberg were held at the Bayard Cemetery at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28. Mrs. Moberg passed away Saturday, Jan 25 at a nursing home in Gering. She was 79 years of age. The daughter of William and Elizabeth (Campbell) Davault, she was born July 21, 1895 at Bayard and made this her life-long home. She was married to Carl E. Moberg on June 20, 1921 at Denver. Mr. Moberg preceded her in death several years ago. Mrs. Moberg served as librarian in the Bayard City Library for 25 years until her retirement in the late 1960's. Left to mourn her death are a daughter, Mrs. Marforie Campbell of Colorado Springs, Colo., and a sister, Dorothy DeVault of Scottsbluff. The Rev. Frank Hodson officiated at the graveside service Tuesday. Interment was made at the Bayard Cemetery. Plummer-Towne Funeral Home was in charge of the arrangements.
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