At a dinner for law alumni of New York University in 1907, Walter Lloyd Smith of the New York Supreme Court read “the most remarkable document that ever came into his possession” — the will of an inmate of the Cook County Insane Asylum at Dunning, Ill.:

I, Charles Lounsbury, being of sound mind and disposing memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order as justly as may be to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men.

That part of my interest which is known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of no account, I make no disposal of in this my will.

My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but these things excepted all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

Item: I give to good fathers and mothers, in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, and all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly and generously, as the needs of their children may require.

Item: I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks, and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein, and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave the children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night and the moon and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject nevertheless to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

Item: I devise to boys jointly all the useful idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snowclad hills where one may coast, and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim Winter comes, one may skate; to have and to hold the same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof, the woods and their appurtenances, the squirrels and the birds, and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance and without any incumbrance of care.

Item: To lovers I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need; as the stars of the sky; the red roses by the wall; the bloom of the hawthorn; the sweet strains of music, and aught else by which they may desire to figure to each others the lastingness and beauty of their love.

Item: To young men jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength, though they are rude; I give them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively I give all merry songs and brave choruses, to sing with lusty voices.

Item: And to those who are no longer children or youths or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poets, if there be others, to the end that they may live over the old days again, freely and fully, without tithe or diminution.

Item: To our loved ones with snowy crowns I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children until they fall asleep.

The original, it turns out, was written by Williston Fish in 1897 and published in Harper’s Weekly the following year. He had intended it as a poetic trifle, but newspapers around the country had picked it up and run it as fact, often embellishing the language, until, Fish wrote in 1908, “this one of my pieces has been translated into all the idiot tongues of English.” Charles Lounsbury was the name of an old relative of his — “a big, strong all-around good kind of man,” but not, evidently, insane.

In September 1749, Arthur Davis, a sergeant in the British army, went missing while shooting in the Highlands of Scotland. A search found no trace of him, but at length his landlord’s son, Alexander Macpherson, announced that Davis’ ghost had roused him from bed, told him the location of the body, asked him to bury it, and named his murderers.

At trial, this astounding testimony was corroborated by a servant who had seen the ghost enter Macpherson’s house and approach his bed:

She saw something naked come in at the door; which frighted her so much that she drew the clothes over her head: that when it appeared, it came in a bowing posture; that she cannot tell what it was; that next morning she asked Macpherson what it was that had troubled them the night before? and that he answered, she might be easy, for it would not trouble her any more.

This ghostly evidence seemed to be swaying the jury until the defense attorney asked a fateful question: “What language did the ghost speak in?” When the youth answered, “As good Gaelic as I ever heard in Lochaber,” the jury found the accused murderers not guilty. A ghost’s testimony might be reasonable — but Arthur Davis had never learned Gaelic.

J.G. Christopher, of Minneapolis, Minn., is the possessor of a canary bird, the voice of which has been developed in a peculiarly painstaken manner, so that now this ‘educated’ songster can successfully render the well-known air, ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave.’ The bird will commence to warble like any other of these pets, and after uttering a few notes will immediately strike into the tune, and when its voice has attained full height the above tune will be sung entire, and in a manner that sounds singularly melodious and attractive, literally setting to note its natural vocal powers. This was only achieved after the most diligent and patient attention. As soon as the bird was old enough to pick up a living it was put in a room apart from all others, and a music-box also placed in the apartment and kept perpetually going, so that this singular pupil had nothing to learn from but that. After four months of such apprentice-ship, the owner was rewarded by hearing his little favorite render ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’ as naturally and perfectly as if that was the song of its ancestors.

— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879

Readers in the Bodleian Library at Oxford must take an oath that they will not kindle fires in the library.

A village in southeastern Michigan (population 45) has, for years, been enjoying a tourist boom. People would come from all over just to be able to mail a card postmarked Hell or to purchase bumper stickers for their cars stating ‘WE’VE BEEN THROUGH HELL!’ In addition to this attraction, the village has lately acquired a reputation as a marriage mill. Seventy two couples were wed there in 1965 and 61 the following year, a large percentage of them having been divorced at least once. One couple is alleged to have told the local justice of the peace that since they’d already been through Hell twice, they might just as well start there.

— Robert M. Rennick, “Obscene Names and Naming in Folk Tradition,” in Names and Their Varieties, 1986

In 1911, Kansas farmer Charlie Faust approached New York Giants manager John McGraw and said that a fortune teller had predicted that he would pitch for the Giants and that they would win the pennant. Perhaps superstitious, McGraw let Faust suit up for the games and warm up on the sidelines. He pitched only two innings (and gave up one run), but the Giants did indeed win the pennant that year.

Faust remained with the club in 1912, and the team won the pennant again. They won again in 1913, but when the pitcher’s mental problems led him to be institutionalized in 1914, the Giants finished 10 games behind the Braves. When Faust died in 1915, at age 34, they finished last.

On Nov. 20, 1980, Leonce Viator Jr. went fishing with his nephew on Louisiana’s Lake Peigneur. He might have noted two worrisome things: Below the lake was a salt mine, and above it was a drilling rig.

The drill punctured the mine’s roof, and the resulting whirlpool devoured two oil rigs, 11 barges, a tugboat, a loading dock, “assorted greenhouses,” a house trailer, several tractors, countless trees, and most of the Live Oak Botanic Gardens. Amazingly, the water drained so quickly that Viator’s 14-foot aluminum boat was stuck in the mud at the lake’s bottom, and the pair were able to walk away.

No one was killed, but Lake Peigneur is now saltwater.

UPDATE: Viator’s boat wasn’t stuck in the mud — he tied it to a tree, ran to safety, and watched the hole eat both the boat and the tree. There’s good footage here, including the waterfall formed when the normally outflowing Delcambre Canal reversed itself to feed the whirlpool:

(Thanks, Kevin.)