The Thing That Walked Through Epworth Rectory

Nine loud knocks sounded beside Reverend Samuel Wesley’s bed.

For weeks, his wife, children and servants had been complaining about strange noises throughout the house. Samuel hadn’t heard any of them himself, and he suspected somebody was playing tricks.

Now he was hearing the knocking too. He got out of bed and searched the room, but there was nobody there.

Someone Was Groaning Outside the Door

It was December 1716, and the Wesley family lived at Epworth Rectory in Lincolnshire, England. Samuel was the local minister. He and his wife, Susanna, had a large family, including John and Charles Wesley, who would later become famous for their role in founding Methodism.

The trouble began when a maid heard someone groaning outside the dining room. The sounds were so terrible that she thought somebody might be seriously ill. She opened the door expecting to find someone in trouble, but the hallway was empty.

A few nights later, the family began hearing knocking in different parts of the house. Sometimes it came from upstairs, while other times it sounded beneath the floors or behind closed doors.

Susanna thought the servants might be frightening themselves over ordinary noises. But soon she was hearing them too, and the children were becoming afraid to go to bed.

It Sounded Like Every Bottle Had Smashed

One evening, Samuel’s daughter Emily was getting ready for bed when she heard a tremendous crash beneath the stairs. The family stored glass bottles there, and the noise sounded exactly like someone had smashed the whole collection.

Emily hurried downstairs to see what had happened. Every bottle was intact.

Other sounds were just as strange. The family heard heavy footsteps crossing empty rooms, furniture apparently being dragged across floors and something rattling in the attic.

One night, Hetty Wesley was sitting near the attic stairs when she heard someone coming down behind her. The footsteps sounded like a man walking in a long nightshirt that dragged along the floor. Hetty ran to find her sisters, convinced somebody had been following her.

The family also described a strange rattling noise that sometimes came just before the knocking. They compared it to the sound of someone winding up a piece of machinery.

Susanna Tried Scaring Away the Rats

Susanna wondered whether rats might be responsible for some of the trouble. Someone suggested blowing a horn around the house to frighten them away.

She decided it was worth trying, so a horn was sounded throughout the rooms. According to Emily, the noises became even louder afterward.

The knocking now seemed to follow people as they moved. Hetty noticed that whenever she changed position, the sounds sometimes started beneath her feet.

Her sisters tried moving around with her and heard the same thing. By now, the children had given their mysterious visitor a name: Old Jeffrey. Nobody knew where the name came from, but before long everyone in the family was using it.

Samuel still wanted to catch whoever was responsible. But when the knocking started responding to the family’s actions, even he became interested in what might be happening.

The Knocking Started Answering Them

Susanna discovered that when she stamped her foot, something sometimes knocked back with the same number of beats. Her daughter Kezzy tried it too. She stamped on the floor and waited, and the family heard matching knocks in response.

Samuel decided to try an experiment of his own. He went into the nursery while the noises were happening and struck the wooden beams with his walking stick.

Something seemed to answer him. He repeated the experiment several times, changing the number of knocks. Sometimes the sounds followed his pattern, while other times they didn’t.

Samuel even tried using the familiar knock he made when arriving at the front door. That particular pattern didn’t seem to get a matching response.

He began speaking aloud, asking whatever was making the noise to identify itself. But the only answers he received were more knocks.

The family wasn’t alone in hearing them, either. A visiting minister named Mr. Hoole spent time at the rectory and reported hearing the strange sounds himself.

Old Jeffrey Didn’t Like Prayers for the King

The Wesleys began noticing that Old Jeffrey seemed to become unusually noisy during family prayers. Samuel regularly prayed for King George I and the royal family. Whenever he reached that part of the prayers, loud knocking sometimes interrupted him.

The timing happened often enough that the family began wondering whether it was deliberate. Some jokingly suggested that Old Jeffrey must be a Jacobite, one of the people who opposed King George’s claim to the throne.

Samuel decided to find out whether the connection was real. On some mornings, he left out the prayers for the king, and the knocking was quiet. When he included the prayers again, the noises sometimes returned.

During one experiment, Samuel heard two loud knocks while praying. Ten other people in the room later told him they’d heard them too.

Whatever was happening, Samuel wasn’t about to change his religious duties to please an unseen visitor. He continued his prayers.

Strange Animals Appeared Inside the House

Most of the trouble involved noises, but a few family members also claimed to have seen something moving around. Susanna once noticed a small animal-like figure beneath a bed. She thought it looked something like a badger, although she couldn’t clearly make out its head.

Another incident involved a servant named Robert Brown, who was working near the back kitchen fireplace. Robert said a small creature suddenly emerged from a dark opening nearby. It looked like a rabbit, but it moved so quickly that he couldn’t get a proper look at it.

The creature raced around the kitchen several times. Robert grabbed a pair of fireplace tongs and chased after it, trying to corner whatever had appeared.

But before he could catch it, the creature disappeared. He searched the kitchen and couldn’t find any sign of where it had gone.

By late January 1717, Old Jeffrey was becoming less active. The family was finally getting some sleep, and the loud nighttime disturbances were happening less often.

For a while, it seemed the trouble might be over.

A Dinner Plate Began Moving by Itself

In March, Samuel’s daughter Susannah wrote to her brother about something that had happened during Sunday dinner. The family was sitting around the table when one of the wooden dinner plates suddenly began moving.

According to her letter, nobody was touching the plate or shaking the table. Yet it continued sliding around while everyone watched.

One of the people sitting nearby finally reached over and picked it up.

The plate didn’t move again.