The ghost at the shore

The woman is, by tradition, Janne Bos, born 1772 in Vierhouten. In 1798 at twenty-six she became engaged to Hendrik Wessels, shepherd. Hendrik had to go to Amsterdam for purchases; he promised to be on the south shore on a certain October evening. He did not come. She waited all night. The next day it appeared Hendrik had been killed in a tavern fight in Amsterdam.

Janne never left the shore. Never remarried. Died at thirty-six in 1808 of pneumonia from standing out at night. Since 1815 on the same south shore on October evenings a woman is seen, in black, looking over the water to the north. She does not move, except to nod when someone passes.

In 1923 a Vierhouten schoolmaster found in a family Bible an unopened letter of 1798. Address: «Janne Bos, Vierhouten.» Contents (from Hendrik): «Janne, I come in time. The Amsterdam ship is good. Wait at the shore; I shall be there before sunset.» The letter had never arrived through a postal error. Janne had no answer; that is why she waited.

The schoolmaster laid the letter on her grave in the Vierhouten churchyard in 1924. Since that year — the older folk say — the black woman at the shore is calmer. She still comes. She still waits. But she now knows he tried to come.