Strange Cases of Farmers Who Went Missing

Strange Cases of Farmers Who Went Missing

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Speaker 1: Hello friends. In this episode of Unsolved Disappearances, we're discussing

something a little different. While the majority of missing person

cases we cover involve our national parks or forests or

wilderness recreation areas, we offer these following cases as proof

that people can and do go missing anywhere at any time.

And this is nothing new. It's been happening for decades.

Join us as we discuss Missing Farmers. Charles Ashmore lived

in the town of Troy in New York State, United States,

with his wife, mother, and minor son, who was 16

years old, and his two adult daughters. Now, the family

was very wealthy and respectable members of their community. Depending

on who you ask, either in the year 1871 or 1872,

the Ashmores moved from Troy, New York, to Richmond, Indiana,

and two years later, Charles bought a farm in nearby Quincy,

which he and his family settled on. Right next to

their farmhouse, there was a creek, which brought the family

their fresh, cold spring water, no matter what the season.

Around nine o'clock on this particular evening, the night of

November 9th, 1878, while the family all sat by the

fire after supper, either conversing or possibly reading a book

as a family or some type of entertainment that happened

in the late 1800s, Charles Ashmore Jr. got up from

the fire, and informed the family he was going to

fetch himself a bit of water from the creek. He

grabbed a clean tin can from the kitchen and walked

out of the house. After waiting a very long time

for the younger Charles to return from the stream, the

elder Charles, his father, took the oldest daughter, Martha, with him,

lit a lantern, and went off in search of the

young man. It was early November, and a light snow

had fallen outside. and though it lent greatly to the

terrible cold both Martha and Charles Sr. felt right down

to their very bones, it didn't deter them. It seemed

the snow was a blessing in disguise, however, as in

its light dusting, all along the ground it formed a path,

a path which showed the footprints of 16-year-old Charles Ashmore Jr.

The father and daughter team dutifully followed the path the

entire time, calling out the young man's name. All to

no avail, as there was no returned response, and the

tracks led to nowhere. Literally, they led nowhere. The footprints

of the young Charles Ashmore Jr. stopped in the middle

of the way from the house to the stream. The

snow was undisturbed after they had walked about 75 feet,

halfway from their front door to the creek where they

got their water. Now, as this came to the father's attention,

he silenced his daughter and calmly held out his lantern

into the darkness of the night, They decided to walk

around the last few footprints in order, if nothing else,

to preserve them for further investigation. They could only imagine

the stars shining as bright as they can only late

at night on a farm out in the middle of

nowhere full of fresh air. The sky is dark as

an abyss. They made their way around these footprints and

then on to the creek. Now, as they approached the creek,

it's said that all the strength was immediately drained from

young Martha Ashmore. and the same can be said for

the air in her father's lungs when they chanced upon

what they saw next. The creek was frozen over, and

had been for some time. It was covered even by

the fresh snow that was falling from the frigid, cold

skies above. There was no sign that the younger Ashmore

male had been there. There was no evidence that anyone

had been there, in fact, at least not since the

creek had frozen and the snow had started to fall.

The next morning brought with it not only the warmth

of the sun, but also more heartbreak to an already

devastated mother and confused family. There had still been no

sign or word from the family's only son hours later.

It's like he was here one minute, he went to

get water, and then poof, gone. Four days passed, and

nothing had changed except the melting of the snow. Miss Ashmore,

Charles Jr. 's mother, had went to the creek to

fetch herself some water. No one was around at that

time to get it for as they had been previously.

She had been hesitant to leave the house and go

near where her son had gone missing. Today, though, it

was unavoidable if she wanted a drink. But the closer

she got to the creek, the faster her heart began

to beat. About halfway there, in fact, right around the

same area where the last footprints of her son were seen,

even though they had been washed away by the elements

of the melting snow, she began to hear Charles Jr.

's voice calling for help. Help me. As sure as

a mother could be, not just of what she was hearing,

but of what she was feeling as well. Her mother's intuition,

you might call it. She was sure of it. Her

son was right there near the creek, and though she

couldn't yet see him, she could hear him very well

calling out for help. Help me. It seemed, however, that

the closer she got to the creek, the stranger things became.

She called out to her son again and again, and

then silenced herself to listen from which direction his cries

were coming from. It suddenly seemed like they were coming

from everywhere all at once, but somehow also from nowhere,

and she still couldn't see him. Not a single sign

of him. Finally, the woman ran home as fast as

her legs could carry her, waiting for her husband to

get home, so she could tell him what she'd heard. Now,

she was obviously very confused and nervous. After all, she

had just heard the voice of her son calling to

her for help, yet couldn't figure out where the voice

was coming from. Actually, was he calling for help? Was

he there at all? One question later on about what

she had heard and experienced, all of which was chalked

up to a delirious woman, unfortunately a common diagnosis at

the time. This was a mother who was so heartbroken

over the loss of her only son and youngest child

that she had gone momentarily mad. hallucinating that she had

heard him calling to her. Now this opinion was further

backed up, at least by some, as when she was

asked what she heard, she exclaimed that she wasn't sure

of what her son was actually saying, other than that

he was actually calling for her. She had stated that

his words were entirely clear, she heard them as though

he were standing right next to her, yet she also

remembered not understanding what those words were, strangely. Was something

supernatural going on here? Now, in the next few months,

with no discernible pattern, other members of the family would,

at random times, hear the voice of young Charles Ashmore Jr.

calling out for help. Though the voice always seemed to

be coming near the creek where he had seemingly disappeared,

the closer they got to the voice, the farther away

it seemed to move until, by all appearances, it blinked

right out of existence. Again, this fell in line with

what the mother claimed to have experienced. One thing each

person in the family who heard the voice knew for

absolute certain, however, is that the voice they were hearing

was definitely that of the younger Ashmore. And again, no

one was ever able to repeat what he had said,

for though they claimed his voice was so clear, it

was as if he were standing right there, at the

same time, it had still been too far away for

them to understand the words. Even if he had been

giving directions to his family, his family wasn't able to

comprehend them. No, this sounds strange. The sounds of help

calling from the creek went on intermittently through the rest

of the winter and spring and would seemingly pick a

family member at random to experience this and hear these words.

Come summer, though, the calling voice seemed to come at

further and further intervals until finally, at the point of

around about a year later, It stopped altogether. Charles Ashmore Jr.

was never seen or heard from again, and no one

was ever able to say exactly what had happened to him.

No one even had a reasonable idea as to who

or what the culprit could have been. So, there was

no choice but for the family to move on, with

a devastating loss not only to their family unit, but

to their very hearts and souls. Now, in the magazine Fate,

in June of 1953, a very similar disappearance story was published.

Depending on who you ask, you'll hear people swear to

the truth of the legend, and still others will attest

the story has been thoroughly debunked. Whatever you choose to

believe about what happened to David Lang and his family,

whether it be a well-written story which originated in the

late 1800s, or a true account of something that really

happened to a man in the same time period, I

hope we can all certainly agree we are hearing more

and more true stories just like this in modern times.

In Fate magazine, the article was called How My Father

Disappeared and was allegedly taken straight from an interview with

the daughter of the man who was said to have

vanished into thin air. She was a witness to the

strange happenings that day and the days to come. Her

name was Sarah Lang and the story of her father

disappearing mid-step right in front of her very eyes is

one of legend, whether true or not. This is what

she allegedly told the journalist interviewing her. On September 23, 1880,

a farmer named David Lang was walking through a field

not far from his house. His two young children, George

and the aforementioned Sarah, laid in the courtyard between where

their mother, his wife, stood on the porch and where he,

their father, was walking in the field. Right at this

moment in time, two men, a lawyer named Judge August

Peck and his brother-in-law, whose name has since been lost

in the mists of time and retelling, were approaching the

house in a horse-drawn vehicle. All at once, David Lang's

wife dropped what she had in her hands and screamed,

while the two men in the buggy stopped, opened mouth,

and astonished at what they'd just seen. Children also froze

in shock and terror. Right before no fewer than five

sets of eyes, which were almost exclusively on him, David

Lang disappeared into thin air in mid-step right off the

face of the earth. Despite there being a very intense search,

no trace of him was ever found. There were no holes,

no wells, no place that a man could have disappeared. However,

it's said for years after this unexplained and terrifying incident,

the family, the children in particular, would hear the voice

of their father calling out for help. Though his words

seemed to be clear, they were indiscernible, and the children

nor anyone else who heard these intermittent cries could ever

make out exactly what David was trying to say. A

few years later, a circle with a diameter of about

15 feet appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, on the exact

same spot where David has said to have taken his

last steps, here on Earth as we know it. He

was never seen again, and just as quickly as the

voices started manifesting, they abruptly stopped, and he was never

heard from again either. Some people believe that the inability

to corroborate any details in the lying story is the

reason so many still consider it to be just a

retelling of an old fiction story written by popular author

Ambrose Bierce back in the day. While the story itself

is unreliable, with no record even of a David Lang

or a Judge Peck anywhere in the county of Sumner,

the similarities in the above cases is undeniable, however, and

the Ashmoors did exist and young Christian did go missing.

It's a matter of historical record. As far as the details, though,

who knows? So could each of these men have crossed

perhaps into an alternate dimension? Is this why their voices

were seemingly heard right in front of multiple witnesses? As

clear as day at first, until they finally couldn't be

heard anymore or understood? It's hard to disassemble facts and

evidence in cases which took place so long ago. Any

witnesses have long since perished, and records had a way

of being destroyed throughout history, purposely or not. Example? In

Ventress County, where my father is from, the courthouse was

burned during the Civil War with lots of marriage and

death records and tax records and deeds perishing with the fire.

So in those cases, there's nothing left for posterity before

the Civil War. As bizarre as it is for someone

to seemingly vanish without a trace, it's even more strange

and even somewhat terrifying especially to those of us in

the paranormal community who are somewhat aware and think we

may have some answers or at least theories as to

what's happening in some of these cases, for this to

happen to someone in clear and full view of other people.

Not only does it seem, in most of these cases,

that the person couldn't have possibly gotten far, but it's

absolutely impossible for them to have gone anywhere without someone

else seeing where they went. As we on this channel

know and have come to understand, This seems to happen

a lot. Many cases have been sprouting up in recent

years as well, leading us to try and come up

with our own conclusions, hypotheses, and even just our own

opinions as to what in the world is happening. Not

only here, but other places in the world, if it

is in fact in this world and not some sort

of alternate reality, where are these people going to? I'd

like to close now with one of the earliest and

most well-known accounts of what I like to call unconscious extinction.

In the late 1760s, in a small English town named

Shepton Mallet, there lived a man in his late 70s

who by all accounts was crippled with an unknown disease.

He was a retired farmer and his name was Owen Parfit.

Owen was completely unable to get around without help and

usually this help was given to him by his elderly

sister who was also his primary caregiver. Now, this unnamed

sister apparently was a very good caregiver and seemed to

all who knew her to love her brother very much

and who took much joy in caring for him. So,

because of his disability and inability to do anything on

his own, Owen spent most of his days bedridden. But

some were actually spent with him enjoying one of his

favorite pastimes. He simply loved to sit outside of the

doorway of his home, which he shared with his sister.

One very chilly and possibly rainy day, Owen was sitting

with a light jacket draped over him in his usual

spot by the door outside of his house while his

sister-slash-caregiver was keeping a sporadic eye on him while also

trying to get some chores around the house accomplished. Owen's

sister went outside to bring him inside for lunch but

what she found was an empty chair with a jacket

draped over it. At first, Owen's sister thought perhaps a

neighbor had happened by and saw Owen who maybe asked

to be brought in and Maybe Shanton heard him calling her.

You see, Owen was entirely unable to move around on

his own, so it would never have occurred to her

that that's what he did. She searched the entire house,

all the surrounding property, and then asked the neighbors, but

to no avail. Owen was nowhere to be found, and

no one had seen him. The neighbors did confirm that

they had seen Owen sitting in his usual spot by

the door in front of the house all day long.

Just as his sister had said, they had seen the

light jacket draped over him as well. Although an investigation

was conducted by the authorities at the time, to this day,

no trace of Evan Parfit has ever been found. Now,

where did this man go? He wasn't able to move

on his own. People observed him sitting on his porch

with a jacket on, and then in the twinkling of

an eye, the jacket's there, Evan's gone, never to be

seen again. Very strange indeed. Well, there you have it.

What do you make of these strange historical cases of

people going missing from farms some almost 200 years ago?

I'd love to hear your comments and opinions, but I

do remind you to please be respectful to the opinions

of others. Until we meet again, I'm Steve Stockton, and

I'll talk to you next time.