An Unearthly Stowaway

For October: a new piece added to The Supernatural Writings of Stuart Palmer, and some Boris Karloff spookiness! Illustration for “An UNEARTHLY Stowaway,” Ghost Stories, October 1929. An UNEARTHLY Stowaway is another eerie “non-fiction” tale from Stuart Palmer, written under the name Theodore Orchards. The first mate of a barque enroute from Liverpool to Canada sees a strange man in the chart room. The man leaves a written message to “Steer to the Northwest,” then disappears. No stowaway is found on board. The captain decides to obey the message, resulting in the rescue of everyone aboard an icebound wreck. Although not credited, this tale appears to be based on an account by the social reformer, abolitionist, US Congressman, and Spiritualist, Robert Dale Owen (1801-1877). Owen heard the story secondhand from a friend of the barque’s first mate, many years after the event supposedly happened. He wrote the tale up as “The Rescue,” and included it in his 1860 book, Footfalls on the…