Spontaneous Combustion of the Thursby Homestead

Williamsburg was once home to a place called the Thursby Homestead. Williamsburg was a city located beside Brooklyn, New York. Rodney Thursby was once a successful politician and a Kings County Clerk. His house was on South Fourth Street in Williamsburg. Thursby died in 1886 after months of suffering from a throat ailment.

Then, something happened.

Neighbors were stunned. Friends were shocked. They woke up to find the Thursby home utterly empty. The shutters had been bolted tightly closed. The windows were bolted. The doors were locked. There was no sign of life anywhere. Overnight, the family had fled for reasons never established. Their whereabouts remained a mystery for several decades to most people.

The home sat vacant and abandoned. Neighbors and friends, not to mention countless spectators, could still see the home’s interior through the slats on the shutters. Kitchenware remained. Photographs still hung on the walls. Carpets were left. A kettle sat on the stove as if it was ready for water. A book was left open on the table in the library. The carpets and rugs were all left on the floor. Ten years passed and no one visited. By this point, the only sign of life at the home was an elderly, silent man. He visited the home once every three months. Neighbors watched his regular appearance with wonder. He stayed in the home for exactly 30 minutes and then he left. He never carried anything from the home.

Witnesses reported screams from the cellar at night. Strange lights drifted through the rooms in the home. It was impervious to other people. The area was patrolled regularly and no one could move the locked doors and windows to get inside.

One morning, a policeman was patrolling the street. He smelled fire, it smelled like wood and rags were ablaze. He noticed smoke was drifting from the most unlikely source, the Thursby house.

He tried to gain entrance to the home, but even after twenty years of desertion, he couldn’t without breaking something. He broke the door down and ran into the cellar. The fire was coming from the old laundry room.

The first suspicion was arson, but no one could get inside the house to set it on fire. The fire department arrived and was able to douse the blaze before it damaged the upper floors. They checked the doors and windows repeatedly once the flames were quenched. The house remained locked up.

No one ever discovered what prompted the flames or why the home burned. The Thursby House has long since been demolished, but its history remains just as fascinating today as it was when it stood.