There have been many stories of Headless Horsemen not the least of which being the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. My Grandma Belle used to
talk about a 'Headless Rider' who happened upon her uncle Harlan Casto and his wife Jane at there home in Jackson County West Virginia
in the summer of 1912.
It was about dusk on a Sunday evening in late August and Harlan and Jane Casto were working in there garden in the front of their home,
Harlan mending a the fence on the north end and Jane pulling weeds in the south end. They lived at the mouth of a hollow not unlike any
other in West Virginia. it ran back for many miles and had no outlet on the back end, thus there were not a lot of travelers or a lot
of traffic that came down that road, especially after dark with only moonlight to guide your way.
This night just as Harlan had finished mending the fence and was now out putting away his tools in the shed that stood just to the
side of the house when he noticed a horse slowly moving around the bend and into the hollow.
Harlan figured he had better ask if the person was lost or needed any help be fore he and Jane went inside for the evening. Harlan
grabbed a lantern that was hanging just inside the tool shed and headed across the yard to the front gate. As Harlan got closer to the
gate he called out to the figure on the horse but got no response. Harlan reached the front gate just as the rider was passing by
and again called out to him while raising the lantern to get a better look at the stranger, but to his horror the body had no head...
After staring in disbelief for a few seconds while he tried to come to grips with what he had seen, the horse ever so slowly continued
on down the road when Harlan suddenly realized that Jane was still at the other end of the yard weeding the garden. Jane was in the
early months of pregnancy with her first child and Harlan had always heard that a traumatic sight or event could 'mark' an unborn
infant.
Not wanting Jane to see what he had, he began to move quickly toward her as the horse was now only 30 yards or so from where Jane knelt
in the yard, not wanting to startle her Harlan did not call out but continued to rapidly move toward Jane, reaching her just as the
horse and rider came upon where she was kneeling. As Harlan grasped Jane by the arm to lead her away, something in the road startled
the horse and it to rare up slightly causing Jane to look up suddenly just as the headless rider was passing directly in front of her,
the sight of which caused her to scream and then black out from fright. As Harlan held his wife in his arms the horse continued slowly
on it's way down the old dirt road until through distance and darkness the rider faded from view.
The next day after seeing that Jane was going to be all right he got his neighbors to stay with her and he went to town to tell the
county sheriff what he had seen, only to discover that two other couples had also witness what he and Jane had. The sheriff told
Harlan that what they had seen was not a ghost but was an old widower named Mathew Johnson who lived alone at the end of the hollow
some seven miles in from Harlan and Janes home.
The following morning the sheriff had found the horse with the headless body of old man Johnson still on his back standing patiently
in front of the barn doors. The horse had made it all the way home by itself, and after searching the entire area from town to the
mouth of the hollow where the horse was first cited, the authorities were never able to locate has head, nor were they able to explain
what happened, only that something or someone had somehow separated old man Johnson from his head while he rode without even knocking
him off his mount, nor scaring the animal into a frightened gallop as it had carried its headless master at least seven miles back
home.
