“If ghosts were as plentiful in fact as they are in newspaper columns white-robed shapes and people who can be seen through would be almost as numerous as stray cats.”—White Plains Eastern State Journal, April 23, 1887 In the waning months of 1899, the Ontario and Western Railroad had a problem at Ingall’s crossing on its Northern Division near Middletown, New York. Not a problem with tracks or switches or timetables—those could be fixed. This was a problem of a decidedly more spectral nature. They couldn’t keep a night watchman at the post, no matter how desperately they tried. Nine men quit. Then the section boss himself threw in the…