The Marching Men of Kensington

The files of the Philadelphia Ghost Hunters Alliance (PGHA) are bulging with mysterious tales told to its researchers by city residents of all social, economic, ethnic, and intellectual levels.

Brushes with the supernatural indeed straddle all peoples, in any time and in any place.

The following story is from a woman who lived in the neighborhood of the city in the 1970s, and whose recollections of an incident there and then remain vivid.

She traded her story for anonymity, fearing her present position in life may be imperiled if certain unenlightened associates discover that, as a child, she cam in contact with drumming, marching, and quite ghostly men.

"When I was four," the woman began in her written statement, "my mother and I live with my grandfather. My mother brother and sister lived there as well. Mom and I shared a bedroom.

"From my bed in the middle room I could easily look out into the hall and see the steps. This is where I would see the ghosts.

"Every night like clockwork, or so it seemed, they would. Their music could be heard first, then came all four men, marching up the stairs. I remember it so clearly. It was very frightening to me.

"Mom was always the first one to fall asleep, leaving me to lie awake in fear, waiting for our nightly visitors. The music-it was really drumming-always came first. It would start off very low and then gradually got louder as the men got closer to the top of the stairs.

"It wasn’t until the drumming reached its peak that the men would be seen, marching up the stairs in single file."

In her mid-30s at the time of publication, the woman still retained a vivid memory of her "marching men."

"All of the men wore a uniform of some sort. As I recall, their jackets were a dark blue. They wore white pants that ended right below the knee, and they wore high socks.

"They seemed to be lit up by some sort of light. They actually had a glow to them.

"They would do the same thing every night, just march and drum. They never looked to their left or right, just straight ahead with emotionless faces, beating on the single drum they each carried."
They midnight muster proved quite frightening for the little girl.

"I would just lay there, stiff as a board from fear, with the blankets pulled up to just below my eyes," she continued.

"As these men reached the top of the steps-the landing-the music would stop. Even though I watched them march up the steps, I never did see them in the hall. They would just disappear!"

And what of the girl’s mother, who shared the bed?

"The very first time this happened," our correspondent said, "I tried to wake my mother up. I remember shaking her and at the same time wondering why no one else in the house had heard the drums or seen the men.

"Obviously, they never did."

Now very involved in the quest for more paranormal activity, the woman continues to be perplexed by the marching men of her childhood.

"I have tried to come up with an explanation for this all my life," she said, "and never have one.

"I never did sleep in that house until mom and I got a place of our own. Even then it took me a long time to sleep at night.

"I would wake up every night expecting to see the marching men I was all too familiar with. They never came."

For that, she added, she was grateful. And although she is long gone from that old house in Kensington, the place still remains.

"My grandfather hasn’t lived in that house for many, many years, either," she continued.

"I sometimes wonder if another little girl lives there now, and if she, too, can see and hear the ghosts that I once did so long ago."