High strangeness enjoyers have had to endure a bit of a wait since our previous true tale of the paranormal. Today the wait is over, and fans of the weird and the miraculous alike will agree it was worth it.
This account has its beginnings in the same era and region as the United States of America. Which, given the religious demographics of that time and place, makes this essentially Catholic story all the more remarkable.
The ghost story varies from one account to another, mostly in how it begins. A few date Livingston’s troubles back to his earlier years farming in Pennsylvania. Others tell it this way:
In 1794, a traveler stopped and asked for shelter at Adam Livingston’s farm. This wasn’t unusual as, at the time, inns were few and far between. The Livingston family welcomed the stranger, but he sickened. The visitor, a Roman Catholic, felt the hand of death upon him. He begged Livingston to fetch a priest. Livingston, a Lutheran, rudely refused. The man died without a priest’s attention and was buried on the farm in unconsecrated ground. After that, things were never the same for the Livingstons or Middleway.
Livingston’s home became beset day and night by all manner of strange goings-on, as the story goes. The sound of galloping, invisible horses racing around the house awakened the family at night. Money disappeared. The heads and legs of his chickens and geese dropped off suddenly. Burning chunks of logs flew about.
And then there was the clipping. The sound of snipping scissors accompanied by the sudden appearance of small quarter-moon holes in bed linen, clothes and even shoes. All manner of fabric and leather became inexplicably defaced with the crescent cut-outs. Clip, clip, clip.
Soon, the village became known as “Wizard Clip” and its residents as “Clippers.” Folks came from all around to see the strange happenings. One lady announced at a tea party in nearby Martinsburg that she was going to go to the Livingston’s house to satisfy her curiosity. Arriving there, she took off her new black silk cap, carefully wrapped it in a silk handkerchief, and tucked it in her pocket. She hoped to spare it any damage. When she left, she reached in her pocket only to find her new cap and hankie cut into ribbons.
Adam Livingston sought help. The Lutheran pastor did not believe he could be of assistance. Stones from an invisible hand showered a Methodist minister brought in to Middleway. Three other would-be helpers watched stunned as a large rock shot out of the chimney and spun on the floor for over 15 minutes. Livingston sought help from a “conjurer” or German faith healer in nearby South Mountain. The clipping, noises, and troubles continued.
Writers looking back on these events say that his inability to find someone able to help his family plunged the farmer into despair. His faith was shaken, and he concluded that no true ministers of Christ’s church remained on Earth.
And Livingston may have gone to his grave under that pall of doubt if not for a midnight visitation of a different kind …
One night, Livingston dreamed of a robed man and heard, “This is the man who can relieve you.” Based on this, he persuaded frontier priest Father Dennis Cahill to come to Wizard’s Clip. Once at Livingston’s home, Father Cahill blessed it. Before he left, a missing bag of money re-appeared. The troubles disappeared temporarily, but the infestation was nothing if not persistent. Disturbances came back. A second intervention by Father Cahill, possibly also including Father Dimitri A. Gallitzin, restored the Livingston home to normalcy.
Father Demetrius A. Gallitzin, the son of a Russian prince and Prussian countess, had finetuned his intellect in the royal courts and salons of Europe. In 1795, he became the first ordained priest to have completed all his instruction in the United States. At the time of Adam Livingston’s troubles, Father Gallitzin worked out of the Conewago Chapel in Pennsylvania. His duties carried him to Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. In the fall of 1797, the young Russian was assigned the task of investigating and reporting on the happenings in Middleway. The diligent priest spent three months doing so, speaking with those involved and living with them. Father Gallitzin later wrote that he had initially found the claims hard to believe but “was soon converted to a full belief of them.” Other educated leaders shared the story, adding to its grip on the town.
By the way, Reverend Prince Gallitzin – his actual title – led an astounding life of which the Wizard Clip incident may not even be the most impressive event. Not only is the cause for his canonization underway, this noble Servant of God even had his own comic book.
Freed of the mysterious troubles, Adam Livingston converted to Catholicism and donated over 30 acres of his land to support a priest. Some writers – and there are many writers of this story – believe the deed for the 30 acres was clouded. They hint at dark doings to the original owner. Others claim Livingston’s wife objected to the donation and was an unenthusiastic convert to Catholicism.
The plot became known as the Priest’s Field. Father Cahill may have lived there briefly, but over time the land lay fallow. The artist James R. Taylor sketched the ruins of the “Livingston place or Wizard Clip” in 1879. He remarked the land to be used by Catholics as a burial site “consecrated by a miracle.”
Reports that Livingston’s wife, a Presbyterian notorious for her stubbornness, made a half-hearted conversion, seem reliable. But her hardness or heart plays into the high strangeness that happened next.
Because the family’s encounters with the preternatural weren’t over. Not by a long shot.
The legend continues to narrate how, after the cessation of the “Wizard Clip,” supernatural phenomena did not stop on the Livingston property. Soon after Father Gallitzin’s visit, the family began to hear a “consoling Voice,” a mysterious presence that is said to have remained with them for seventeen years. This Voice first manifested itself as a bright light that awoke Mr. Livingston from sleep. A clear, sweet voice then told him to arise, call his family together, and to pray. He did so, and the mysterious Voice prayed with them, guiding and leading their prayers. The same Voice then continued to instruct them in the Catholic faith, “in the most simple yet eloquent manner.” This supernatural visitation, considered by the Livingston family to be the voice of a soul in purgatory, led to their conversion to the Catholic faith
According to Catholic Answers Lead Apologist Jimmy Akin, the voice not only gave the Livingstons consolation and instruction, it made a number of prophetic utterances. The most readily provable was that the field Mr. Livingston bought would one day be a place of “great fasting and prayer and praise.” The Priest Field Pastoral Center, which has hosted many spiritual retreats, stands there today.
Two of the voice’s less rosy prophecies concerned Mrs. Livingston herself. One concerned a visit she paid to some Quaker friends. Their gravely ill daughter had asked for spiritual help whose name she didn’t know. The voice instructed Mrs. Livingston to urge the girl’s parents that they have her baptized. Out of distrust for the voice, Mrs. Livingston kept silent, and the girl died without baptism. The voice warned that this omission would be presented against Mrs. Livingston at her judgment.
On that note, the voice also predicted that Mrs. Livingston would die in her home. The old woman took great pains to frustrate this prophecy, keeping away from home as much as possible during her final illness. But at last, she was forced to relent and ask to be taken home, where she died as the voice had said.
Jimmy has a whole video on the Wizard Clip case. It will blow your mind.
Watch it now:
Servant of God Reverend Prince Demetrius Gallitzin, pray for Mrs. Livingston and us!
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