A ghost story (sort of) for Halloween

As you may know, the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana is now a museum, and the original 1901 “Courtroom 1” has been restored to its original appearance, including original furniture and decor. One day, in the early 1990s, the museum staff noticed that the night crew of janitors weren’t cleaning Courtroom 1. At first it seemed like an oversight, but it soon became an obvious pattern. Every night, the entire landmark building was cleaned – except the old courtroom.

When the janitors' supervisor was questioned, he was equally puzzled. But he said he’d get to the bottom of it.
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When he came back, he said that his crew wouldn’t enter the room because it was haunted. In fact, he said, the room was haunted by the ghost of a judge who had hanged himself there!
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The museum staff were baffled. The Old Courthouse is probably better documented than any other building in O.C. – and nobody had ever heard of a judge hanging himself there.

But the head janitor led the museum staff into the courtroom where he pointed to a small plaque under an old clock. It was this plaque, he said, that sent chills up the spines of his cleaning crew. Although I don’t have the exact date that appeared on the plaque, here is the gist of the inscription:

“JUDGE MORRISON CLOCK
HUNG IN COURTROOM
198_”

And so the Honorable M. Clock haunts the old courtroom to this day.