Episode 28 - The Dead Man's Chair

You found yourself on a Friday evening with no plans. Which meant staying in and watching something, or going out for a couple of drinks.

You decided getting out and about would do you just fine. So you got cleaned up, and walked toward a nearby pub you had not tried before.

The place was called the Stoop Inn. Some people called it the Busby Stoop, or just the Busby. You weren’t sure why. What you knew about it was that the place was old. Been around far longer than you had.

You arrived at the old pub, found a small, quiet crowd. They were all engaged in conversation already, sat around a scattering of tables. There were some seats at the bar, and a single chair empty at a table alone.

You decided you would take the table, and were making your way toward the chair when the man behind the bar called out.

“You won’t want to be sitting there! Come on up to the bar.”

You stopped, shrugged, and made your way to the bar instead. The bartender continued once you were closer.

“Sorry about all that, it’s just, the chair is cursed, y’see. Can’t let people sit in it, everyone who does, well, it goes poorly for ‘em.”

While you didn’t buy into things like curses, you weren’t attached to the idea of the table, so you just smiled at the story and ordered your drink.

One of the most fearful elements of stories about curses is that they seem capable of latching onto the strangest of things. Stones, bodies, and paintings. And in the case of the Dead Man’s Chair - A heavy wooden chair, well-made and well-worn.

The chair carries a deadly curse that according to some accounts has claimed countless lives since it was constructed over 300 years ago.

It is not that odd to have a favorite chair. The spot where we prefer to sit and relax. To watch a show, listen to music, or chat with friends.

But I think I can say with some certainty that most of us would not kill to protect our favorite chair. Nor would we lay an eternal curse on it to claim the life of anyone who ever dared sit upon it.

However, Thomas Busby was not most people.

I am Andrew Eagle and I would like to invite you to join me in exploring the story of Thomas Busby’s Dead Man’s Chair.

Maybe an hour has passed since you arrived. The place had filled up a bit as the night wore on, but never overly crowded. Then, sometime around eleven or so, a group came in. They made their way to the table with the empty chair, and began to pull up more chairs. The bartender calls out his same warning. Telling them they didn’t want that table, and that they could find seats at a smaller table by the window.

The newcomers brushed off his warning. He shouted at them again, telling them the chair was cursed, that it was dangerous. That only seemed to encourage them. They laughed and one of them pulled the chair away from the table and sat down, leaning back leisurely.

Throughout the night, three of the five people in the group had sat in the chair, seeming to dare each other back and forth to sit in the thing. You mostly ignored them, sticking to your quiet drink.

The story of Thomas Busby’s cursed chair starts with the man. In 1702, Thomas Busby was seen as the town drunk. And although he was widely regarded as a scoundrel, and looked down upon, he was quite the charmer. And through his charm, he convinced the well-regarded and beautiful Elizabeth Auty to marry him.

Her father disapproved of the match. The Auty’s were well-off and well-liked, and he was concerned that the marriage to Busby would damage their repuatation.

One day, shortly after their wedding, Busby returned home and found his father-in-law sitting in his favorite chair. He told Busby he was there to get his daughter, bring her home, and that their marriage was done.

Busby was certainly not going to let that stand. So he bludgeoned his father-in-law to death with a hammer and he hid the body.

Later on, Auty’s body was found, and Busby was convicted of the murder. And in the proceeding trial, Busby revealed the real reason he had murdered Auty had nothing to do with him threatening the marriage, but instead, it was because Auty had sat in Busby’s favorite chair.

The story goes that as Busby was being led to his execution he shouted repeatedly that the chair was his, even in death. That anyone who dared to sit in it would die.

Shortly thereafter, the inn where Busby had lived with Elizabeth was renamed the Busby Stoop Inn, where the chair remained for nearly 300 years.

You had finished your drinks. You’d nursed them and enjoyed the night out. The pub, although you’d never been before, was cozy. A little odd, certainly, but nice enough. And you planned on coming back.

You closed out your tab and walked out the door, just behind the group that had been sitting in the so-called cursed chair. They were hanging out in the parking lot of the building across the street, several of them being loudly drunk. You started walking toward home. It was only a few blocks.

The next day, you were walking past the tavern, and the store across from it. The storefront was entirely blocked off, and a crew was cleaning the area.

You walked over to one of the workers to ask them what had happened.

Apparently the store’s large, lit sign had fallen and hit some people. They weren’t in good shape, had been rushed to a hospital.

You were going to ask who was hit, but you stopped yourself. You already knew. It must have been minutes after you walked by. It must have been the people who had ignored the warning about the chair.

The chair remained in the inn for a very long time. If you believe all the stories across that time, it claimed a number of lives over the years as people chose to ignore the warnings about the chair.

Then in 1968, a man named Tony Earnshaw purchased the inn and took over. He was very proudly, not a superstitious man. And so he paid no heed to the story of the curse. Then people started dying in what was now his inn. The first was a pair of RAF airmen. Tony heard them daring each other to sit in the chair, and eventually both did. Later that day, they both died in a car accident. Again, Tony ignored the curse. Claiming it was coincidence.

Later, a group of workers came into the bar for lunch. The group convinced a young laborer to sit in the chair. In spite of the story, he bravely did so.

Later that day he fell from a roof. The fall killed him.

Earnshaw decided enough was enough. He took the chair to the Thirsk Museum to donate it. However, he would only let them take it if they agreed to never let anyone sit in it.

Since then, the museum has upheld its word. Nobody has been allowed to sit in the chair, and the Busby Stoop Inn has been safer for it.

The Busby’s Chair curse is a very interesting tale. Yet another example of a seemingly benign object that is endowed with deadly supernatural force.

It is such an odd curse, born not from any trauma, but instead from a murderer’s jealousy and territorial tendencies.

And yet, Thomas Busby’s violence managed to survive his death, and according to the stories, lasts to this very day daring anyone to sit and risk his wrath.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Through the Veil. I hope you enjoyed. I encourage you to subscribe to receive new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our exploration of folklore, myth, and magic.

If you are enjoying the show, and have subjects you would like to hear covered, please email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter, you can find me @ThroughVeil.

As always, thank you, for listening.