Harper's Young People, March 29, 1881 / An Illustrated Weekly

In the good old days of the city of Wilmington, some seventy or eighty years ago, there lived a couple in that quaint little Quaker town by the name of Vertz, better known as Dutch Dolly and her husband.
Dutch Dolly had a truck patch wherein she raised vegetables—peas, radishes, potatoes, and beans—supplying the better part of the town with such produce. Her husband was a tailor, and is described in the chronicles of the town as sitting cross-legged on his bench opposite the window that looked out on the stony street.
There were two boy friends especially, Ned Springer and Billy Shallcross by name, who were fond of loitering at odd times in the dusty, musty little shop. They looked upon the tailor as one of the wisest of men, and would listen by the hour to his stories of wonderful adventures, of perils he had escaped, of magic books he had read, and of the wonders of his black-art, believing everything with the utmost sincerity; for boys were much more credulous then than they are nowadays. The little tailor delighted especially to talk of his mysterious art, and often bewailed himself that he had never been able to find a branch of witch-willow, which had such properties that he could with it tell wherever secret treasure lay buried. He generally spoke of this witch-willow in connection with old Jan Judson's house.
Jan Judson was an old Swede of a generation preceding that of which we are speaking. So far as trustworthy narratives tell of him, he appears to have been only an eccentric, miserly old bachelor. A very heavy thunderstorm which passed over the region in which Jan lived struck his house with lightning, and it was burned to the ground, all that was left being a tall stone chimney and a pile of stones. Whether it was the effect of the electricity, or merely the shock of losing his property that affected the owner, certain it is that the old Swede, though rescued from the flames, died a day or two after the accident. Of course the occurrence gave rise to many weird stories connected with old Jan Judson. It was said that One had appeared to him in fire and flame to carry him off bodily, and all agreed that he had left great wealth behind. Treasure-hunters had dug in the cellar, and had turned over the stones, but had found nothing; or, if they had, had said nothing about it.