He had wanted to escape the throng of busy New England, and it's hard to blame him.

In fact, when he moved west in 1874, he wasn't alone.

Countless others made the same decision to leave it all behind and build a new life as

far from the east coast as they could.

Many of these settlers found themselves in the Pacific Northwest.

Joshua arrived when Seattle was just a sawmill town, still an infant compared to the great

cities of the east.

Despite that, it was still a bit too crowded for his taste, so instead of settling down

with all the others, he states claimed to a plot of land to the west of town, out where

there were more trees than people.

But the stories tell us that Joshua wasn't the most fortunate of settlers.

On more than one occasion, he would pay a visit to his closest neighbors, arriving just

after sundown with a panicked expression on his face, asking for shelter for the night.

After a few of these visits, the neighbors eventually convinced Joshua to explain what his

troubles were.

His answer was simple.

Ghosts.

Every night he claimed he was being visited by invisible spirits.

Ones in the rafters of his cabin were footsteps outside his front door.

He told them he could hear voices in his house, and it had all become too much to deal with

alone.

The legend goes on to tell us that those neighbors eventually noticed that Joshua had stopped

...