The Ghost in the Tower: An Episode in Jacobia

In Short

This curious, atmospheric narrative blends local color with supernatural satire. Set in the quiet, desolate landscape of the Michigan shore, the story follows an inquisitive visitor who discovers a ghost residing in a friend’s water tower. The spirit, a 15th-century duke, recounts his long afterlife spent in the company of pirates, buccaneers, and eventually, the shades of modern-day financiers. Through these interactions, the book offers a wry, skeptical commentary on the persistence of human avarice, framed by the author’s warm appreciation for the eerie beauty of the natural world.

The Story

The narrator, a lover of nature’s "sterner moods," visits his friend Henry Jacobs’s farm near the bleak, ice-swept bluffs of Lake Michigan. Seeking a bit of solitude, he wanders into a nearby water tower on Christmas Eve. Inside, he discovers a shifting, luminous vapor that eventually takes the form of a kindly, distant-looking old man. The spirit introduces himself as Emric Szapolyai, a Hungarian duke who died in 1489. As the two converse through the night, Szapolyai explains that spirits possess the uncanny ability to speak the language of whoever they encounter.

Szapolyai recounts a long, restless afterlife. Initially haunting his own tower, he grew bored and drifted to the sea, where he spent years in the company of Mediterranean corsairs and Caribbean buccaneers. He claims to have known infamous figures like Captain Henry Morgan and Blackbeard, observing their lives and deaths with a detached, sardonic eye. Eventually, the group of ghosts migrated to New York City. There, they haunted the belfry of Trinity Church and the sub-treasury, observing the modern "Kings of the Street."

The ghost reveals that he and his cohorts were deeply unsettled by the methods of modern finance. After a spirit named Waters regaled them with tales of twentieth-century "grand larceny," the pirates realized their own violent, bloody exploits were mere "babbling goslings" compared to the sophisticated, bloodless avarice of modern capitalism. Disillusioned by this realization and the sheer scale of modern greed, the pirate specters essentially gave up, eventually drifting away in a storm. Szapolyai, weary of the corruption he witnessed in the city, retreated to the Michigan countryside, finding solace in the isolation of the tower.

As morning approaches, the light of dawn causes the apparition to fade. The narrator, once a skeptic, feels compelled to document the experience. Upon researching history, he confirms the existence of the historical Duke Szapolyai. He sends the manuscript to Jacobs, who replies with a mixture of amusement and mild correction. Jacobs acknowledges that his property is indeed haunted—though by a different local ghost—and gently pushes back against the spirit’s cynical view of modern progress, arguing that the financial systems the ghost reviles have, in fact, laid the foundations for the nation’s prosperity and charitable endeavors.

How It Unfolds

The arrival at the tower. Seeking shelter from the cold and the desolation of the Michigan shore, the narrator enters the drafty water tower and discovers a strange, glowing vapor that manifests as a human figure.

The ghost’s introduction. Emric Szapolyai explains his origins as a Hungarian duke and his ability to adopt any language needed for communication, dismissing the idea that spirits are bound by time or fixed speech.

The life of a specter. The ghost details his wanderings across the Mediterranean and Caribbean, describing his long association with famous pirates and the way he observed their violent, treasure-seeking lives.

The transition to modernity. The narrative shifts to the group’s arrival in New York City, where they find themselves dwarfed by the moral scale of modern business men and the "wizards of finance" they encounter near Wall Street.

The final disillusionment. Feeling like amateurs in the face of modern corporate rapacity, the pirates lose their sense of identity and vanish, leaving Szapolyai to seek refuge in the quiet of the Michigan hills.

The morning departure. As the sun rises, the ghost fades away, leaving the narrator to commit the encounter to paper and share his findings with the tower’s owner.

The People

The narrator acts as the grounded, curious observer. He prides himself on his rationality and lack of superstition, yet he is easily drawn into the "supernatural web" cast by the ghost. He is an empathetic listener, willing to indulge the spirit’s long-winded historical accounts, and he ends the experience with his worldview challenged by the proximity of the uncanny.

Emric Szapolyai is the story’s heart—a weary, sophisticated spirit. He is neither benevolent nor malevolent, but rather a detached observer of human nature. Having seen both the bloody sword-fighting of the 15th century and the ruthless boardroom dealings of the 20th, he occupies a position of permanent irony. He is a relic who finds the modern world far more intimidating than the battlefields of his youth.

Henry Jacobs is the pragmatic owner of the tower. He is a foil to both the ghost and the narrator. While he accepts the narrator’s story as truth, he provides a necessary counter-argument, asserting that the world’s progress is not merely a manifestation of greed, but a complex, ultimately constructive process that the ghost is too removed to understand.

In Its Own Voice

"A ghost never makes the mistake of appearing before more than one person at a time."

The narrator reflects on the necessary conditions for a ghost to remain a mystery.

"In our days a pirate was a gentleman adventurer, and everybody he hadn’t robbed thought well of him until he was captured and in chains, or killed."

Szapolyai compares the honest, open violence of historic piracy to the veiled tactics of modern business.

What It's Really About

The central argument of the book is a playful yet pointed critique of how human avarice has evolved. By setting the "honest" brutality of historical pirates against the cold, calculated maneuvers of modern financial moguls, the book asks whether humanity has truly progressed or simply refined its methods of exploitation. It explores the tension between romanticizing the past and the necessity of modern progress. Beneath the ghostly artifice, the book questions if we can ever truly outrun our own history, or if the "insane strife" of accumulating wealth remains a constant, whether performed with a Jolly Roger or a corporate ledger.

Why Read It Today

This book is a gem for readers who appreciate the dry, observational wit of the early twentieth century. It feels like a fireside story told by an eccentric uncle who has read too much history and spent too much time wandering the woods. You will love it if you enjoy supernatural tales that prioritize character and atmosphere over cheap scares. However, readers should be prepared for the book's pacing, which mimics the slow, drifting nature of a ghost’s memory rather than a modern thriller’s tempo. The prose is elegant and precise, capturing the bleak beauty of the Great Lakes winter with remarkable clarity. While some of the spirit’s commentary on "modern" financial centers is firmly rooted in the 1920s, the underlying skepticism toward unchecked greed remains strikingly relevant. It is a slim, contemplative volume that rewards a quiet reading, leaving you with a lingering sense of mystery about the places we inhabit and the histories that might be hiding in their corners.