The Chair Of Death (AKA The Chair Of Death)

The Chair of Death. It’s said that anyone who sits in this chair experiences haunting supernatural occurrences like itching, paranoia, hearing things, confusion, items being moved on their own, and warnings written on walls and mirrors no one else can see. The victims usually die violently in varying amounts of time. The Chair of Death has taken the lives of up to 63 people- if the sources are to be believed. Currently, the chair is located on a wall in a museum to prevent people from sitting in it.

there has yet to be a survivor…

This haunted object’s story starts in the late 17th century in the town of Kirkby Wiske, England. A counterfeiter named Thomas Busby went to his familiar pub where his favorite chair was located for a night of heavy drinking (drinking being his favorite thing to do). After some time, Busby’s father-in-law showed up telling him his daughter was leaving him. He would no longer tolerate his child being married to a drunken failure like Busby. Instead of defending himself against the accusations and imminent threat of losing his wife, the counterfeiter grimly told his father in law that he was sitting in his favorite chair. Threats and insults were passed between the two and the father-in-law would not leave Busby’s favorite chair, causing a murderous rage to grow within him.

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Later that night, Thomas Busby went three miles to his father-in-law’s home and bludgeoned him to death with a counterfeiting hammer. The body was found not too long afterward with much evidence pointing towards Busby. He was arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Busby’s last request was to stop at his favorite pub where his favorite chair was located. When he was done sitting in it for a bit and having a pint, he put a curse on the chair, declaring that anyone who sat in it would find themselves haunted, then soon die. He was hanged in 1702. Dipped in pitch and hung out on display from a gibbet for everyone in the town to see.

A gibbet

The chair remained at the pub for centuries after which eventually turned into an Inn. This cursed object has caused far too many deaths to be mere coincidence. A young builder’s apprentice was dared to sit in the chair post-WWII, then afterward fell through a roof to a grisly and painful death later that day. While the chair was being stored in the cellar, a delivery man casually sat in it, unaware of its cursed nature, later that night he crashed his car and died from the complications. During WWII, airmen who sat in the chair never returned from battle. One time a cleaning lady simply stumbled onto the chair by accident while she was mopping and died from a freak brain tumor out of nowhere. This is a small taste of the untimely deaths caused by sitting in Busby’s stoop chair. There has never been a single person to ever sit in it and survive for long.

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Frustrated from all the deaths over the years and not interested in profiting off the suffering of others (like former owners of the Inn), the Chair of Death was donated to a museum where it can be viewed today. Its killing days are done since the chair hangs five feet off the ground in a way no one can sit in it.

Wanna have a seat?

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