Posted by Among the many stories of cursed objects, we find that of Thomas Busby’s cursed chair. It is said that Thomas, before his death sentence, cast a curse on his favorite chair: whoever sat on it would die.
The story
It was 1702, and Thomas was known not only as a forger but also as a drunkard. He loved drinking beer, especially at a pub on Carlton Road in North Yorkshire, England.
Not only was it his favorite pub, where he spent entire evenings drinking pints of beer, but it was also where he had his favorite chair. A simple oak chair, now known as the cursed chair.
But what led to it being given this name?
It all began on an evening like any other, when Thomas was in his favorite pub getting drunk, as usual. It was an evening like any other, except that on his way home, perhaps under the influence of alcohol or for other reasons unknown to us, he killed his father-in-law, Daniel Auty, by hitting him over the head with a hammer.
The curse
The crime was soon discovered, as was its perpetrator. He was tried quickly and just as quickly sentenced to death by hanging.
As was customary, before the hanging, the condemned man was asked if he had a last wish, and he said yes. To drink a beer in his favorite pub. The police were perplexed but agreed and accompanied him to the pub. The police officers remained on alert, thinking he might try to escape, but he remained seated in his chair. He drank a beer and when he had finished, he stood up and cast a curse on the chair. Anyone who sat on it would die. He was then hanged.
Despite the strange event, the pub owner decided to leave the chair in the same place, but from that day on, very strange things began to happen, and I will report some of them here.
Strange deaths
One evening, a chimney sweep from the city decided to drink beer in the pub on Carlton Road and chose to sit on the very chair where Thomas Busby had uttered his curse. He left the pub drunk and the next day was found hanged in the same place where Thomas had been hanged.
The second story we know of concerns some aviators. During World War II, there was an airfield near the pub, and it was not uncommon for pilots to stop there to drink or eat.
However, it is said that all the pilots who sat on the cursed chair never returned from their missions.
The last story we have concerns the last owner of the pub, Tony Earnshaw, a man who was not at all superstitious and did not believe in the rumors about the cursed chair, who bought the pub in 1968.
Many suspicious deaths occurred afterwards, and the owner was particularly struck by that of a young man who wanted to challenge the curse.
He sat in Thomas’ chair and shortly afterwards, at work, he fell from a scaffold. After this incident, Tony decided to move the chair to the basement, where no one could sit on it. Unfortunately, one day, a tired delivery man decided to sit down and rest.
On his way back, he was killed in a car accident. That day, Tony decided to donate the chair to the city museum, but on one condition: that it be nailed to a wall, high up, so that no one could sit on it, even by mistake.
The chair is still there, waiting for another brave soul to challenge its terrible curse.