“It was late in autumn, one morning, that Rugg, in his own chair, with a fine large bay horse, took his daughter and proceeded to Concord.  On his return a violent storm overtook him.  At dark he stopped in Menotomy (now West Cambridge), at the door of a Mr. Cutter, a friend of his, who urged him to tarry overnight.  On Rugg’s declining to stop, Mr. Cutter urged him vehemently.  ‘Why, Mr. Rugg,’ said Cutter, ’the storm is overwhelming you; the night is exceeding dark; your little daughter will perish; you are in an open chair, and the tempest is increasing.’ ‘Let the storm increase,’ said Rugg, with a fearful oath, ’I will see home to-night, in spite of the last tempest! or may I never see home.’  At these words he gave his whip to his high-spirited horse, and disappeared in a moment.  But Peter Rugg did not reach home that night, nor the next; nor, when he became a missing man, could he ever be traced beyond Mr. Cutter’s in Menotomy.  For a long time after, on every dark and stormy night, the wife of Peter Rugg would fancy she heard the crack of a whip, and the fleet tread of a horse, and the rattling of a carriage, passing her door.  The neighbours, too, heard the same noises, and some said they knew it was Rugg’s horse; the tread on the pavement was perfectly familiar to them.  This occurred so repeatedly that at length the neighbours watched with lanterns, and saw the real Peter Rugg, with his own horse and chair, and child sitting beside him, pass directly before his own door, his head turning toward his house, and himself making every effort to stop his horse, but in vain.  The next day the friends of Mrs. Rugg exerted themselves to find her husband and child.  They inquired at every public house and stable in town; but it did not appear that Rugg made any stay in Boston.  No one, after Rugg had passed his own door, could give any account of him; though it was asserted by some that the clatter of Rugg’s horse and carriage over the pavements shook the houses on both sides of the street.  And this is credible, if, indeed, Rugg’s horse and carriage did pass on that night.  For at this day, in many of the streets, a loaded truck or team in passing will shake the houses like an earthquake.  However, Rugg’s neighbours never afterward watched again; some of them treated it all as a delusion, and thought no more of it.  Others, of a different opinion, shook their heads and said nothing.  Thus Rugg and his child, horse and chair, were soon forgotten; and probably many in the neighbourhood never heard a word on the subject.

“There was indeed a rumour that Rugg afterward was seen in Connecticut, between Suffield and Hartford, passing through the country like a streak of chalk.  This gave occasion to Rugg’s friends to make further inquiry.  But the more they inquired, the more they were baffled.  If they heard of Rugg one day in Connecticut, the next day they heard of him winding around the hills in New Hampshire; and soon after, a man in a chair, with a small child, exactly answering the description of Peter Rugg, would be seen in Rhode Island, inquiring the way to Boston.