BACK REFLECTION
HALLOWEEN/ALL SOULS’ DAY EDITION BY PHILIP PILGRIM INTRODUCTION
On the heels of Halloween and All Souls’ Day, it is fitting to write an article for SubTel Forum’s November issue in the spirit (pun) of these celebrations. Here are two submarine cable related ghost stories that I had come across in my research. They occurred in the later days of the Atlantic Cable System connecting London with New York City (Figure 1). One usually thinks of the Atlantic Cable System as purely an undersea link but there were many terrestrial sections needed to close the path. These terrestrial networks crossed New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ireland and England. The following ghost stories occurred on the remote and desolate
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telegraph line that ran across southern Newfoundland (Figure 2). This line
carried all transatlantic traffic until 1867 then carried mostly local traffic.
Figure 1: The Atlantic Cable System