CASE #14 |THE DEMON OF CLIPTOWN: The Horror of Wizard’s Clip
The True Life Horror of the Exorcism of Wizard’s Clip
Transcript of episode:
If you ever find yourself wandering the old roads of Middleway—formerly Smithfield-- West Virginia, pay close attention to the buildings. Some of the oldest structures, dating back to the 1700s, bear wooden plaques graced with two strange symbols: a crescent moon and a pair of scissors. The marks are cryptic, odd. Some Say they felt menace the first time they saw them. And with good reason. These shapes are the enigmatic remnants of a past the town has never fully escaped--symbols that whisper of events so imposing that, for nearly fifty years, locals didn’t call their town by its proper name anymore.
The new name was a warning, a reminder, and a testament to a story so strange, so chilling, that it defies explanation—even today, some 300 years later. It is a tale not only of curses and hauntings, but of demons and angels. a story intertwined with death, damnation, and the supernatural. And at its core, it is a mystery that lingers just beneath the surface of American history, woven through with something even older and more profound—the clash between the seen and the unseen, the divine and the diabolical.
The tale begins in the late 1700s, when a man named John Smith—no relation to the famous colonist—established a small town in what was then Berkeley County, Virginia. By 1798, the town was officially incorporated as Smithfield.
But the name didn’t last.
It wasn’t long before residents—and those who had heard the terrifying whispers of the strange events unfolding there—began calling it something else.
They called it Wizard’s Clip.
Over time, the name shortened, spoken in increasingly hushed tones.
Cliptown.
It was a place where unnatural things happened, where clothes and linens were mysteriously sliced apart, where a phantom force prowled the night, and where a single act of defiance—a refusal in the face of death and faith—set into motion a haunting unlike any other in American history.
Adam Livingston.
A hardworking, no-nonsense farmer, Livingston had moved his family from Pennsylvania to Smithfield around 1790. He was a man of practical sensibilities, not one to entertain ghost stories or superstitions. Like most of his neighbors, Livingston was staunchly Lutheran, deeply skeptical of anything outside his faith. But in 1794, something happened that would shake his skepticism to the core.
It began on a cold autumn evening, when a stranger appeared at his door.
The man was of respectable appearance but clearly unwell. His hands shook as he gripped the doorframe, his face pale, his breath labored. He was dying, and he knew it.
Please, friend, the stranger said. Can you take me in?
Livingston was a Christian man. Like many in those days, he was hospitable to travelers. There were no inns in these earliest of American days, these remotest of places. He ushered the man inside, set a place for him at the evening table, and offered a bed for the night.
But as the night deepened, the stranger grew worse. Sweat slicked his forehead, and his voice trembled with desperation.
“I need a priest,” he whispered. “I need to confess my sins before I die.”
The words hung in the air like an ill omen.
Livingston’s face darkened. He was not just a non-Catholic himself—he was openly hostile to the faith. The era in which he lived was filled with anti-Catholic sentiment, suspicion. The idea of bringing a priest—a man he saw as superstitious and misguided—into his home? Unthinkable.
Livingston’s voice, hard now, spoke firmly in the darkness.
“No priest will ever cross my threshold,” Livingston said, his voice firm.
The dying man pleaded.
But Livingston refused.
Hours later, as the first light of morning appeared over the West Virgina hills, the stranger died alone, without the last rites of his faith, without absolution, without peace.
His final breath, his last unspoken words, vanished into the stillness of the room.
And with that, something shifted.
Something unseen awoke.
On the very night of the stranger’s death, the Livingston household changed forever.
Jacob Foster, a hired man, had been tasked with keeping vigil over the body before burial. He placed candles near the corpse to light the room.
But the flames would not stay lit.
Again and again, the candles were snuffed out, as if by an unseen hand. Even those that had burned steadily in another room—failed to stay alight in the presence of the corpse.
A chill ran through Foster. Something was not right.
He abandoned his post and fled into the night.
And that was only the beginning.
The days that followed brought terror.
Livingston buried the stranger’s body in a corner of his field, refusing to defile the town’s consecrated cemetery with one of a foreign faith.
That first night, hoofbeats thundered around the house in perfect circles, yet no horses were ever found. Heavy footsteps moved through the halls, but no one was there.
Then came the destruction.
Dishes shattered on their own. Hot embers flew from the hearth, as if hurled by unseen hands.
Money vanished from locked drawers.
Chickens died mysteriously—some with their heads simply fallen off, as though they had been snapped away by an invisible force.
Then, the clipping began.
The Phantom Shears
One night, as Livingston lay awake, he heard it.
A faint, rhythmic sound.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
He’d heard the sound many times before, but he couldn’t quite place it.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
As he lay in the dark, struggling to remember, the truth came flooding into his mind. He saw his wife at the kitchen table before the hearth. Laid out before her was a swath of new cotton, dyed a cheerful yellow hue. She was making a dress for their youngest child. He saw the child’s shining face smiling as she watched her mother cut the cloth.
Snip
Snip.
Snip.
The unmistakable metallic sound of shears slicing through fabric.
But at the very moment he made the connection, the incessant snipping ceased.
Livingston, thinking he must have been dreaming, fell back at last into sleep.
The next morning, the family made a bewildering discovery. All through the house, blankets, sheets, and clothing had been marked with cuts—and each cut was exactly the same, and each cut as precise as if the fabric had been woven that way. Each cut in the shape of a perfect crescent moon.
And it didn’t stop there.
The snipping continued, happening in real time, in plain sight.
Mrs. Livingston watched helplessly as newly washed bed linens and tablecloths were sliced apart before her eyes. Her husband pulled on a pair of leather Sunday shoes only to hear the clipping at his feet, and to see the moon-shaped bits of leather fall away to the floor.
And then the word got around. One afternoon a neighbor was visiting. He’d lifted a cup of tea from the table, but his hand stopped in midair as he first heard the snipping—then saw the moon-shaped cuts appear in the skirt of an apron Mrs. Livingston was wearing. He ran out of the house, never to return.
The curious began to come, wanting to see the clipping—and its carnage--for themselves.
People came from miles away to see the paranormal spectacle. Some came to debunk it. Some came to challenge whatever force lurked there. A visiting skeptic from a nearby town arrived for tea, tucking her new silk cap safely into her pocket, hoping to protect it . . . just in case. When she pulled it out again at her departure, it was ruined—sliced cleanly into crescent shapes.
Three young men from a neighboring village, eager to prove the whole affair a hoax, arrived with swaggering confidence. They offered to spend the night in the Livingston house, certain that they’d unmask the fraud.
They did not expect what happened next.
As they sat by the fire, the room fell deathly silent. The shadows in the corners of the house seemed to stretch, creeping into the edges of their vision.
And then—
A massive stone—cool, smooth, impossibly heavy—shot out of the fireplace, moving as if thrown by an unseen force.
It didn’t just drop to the ground.
It spun.
For a full fifteen minutes, the stone whirled and twisted across the floor, as if held aloft by invisible hands, as if mocking them.
When it finally came to rest, the three men bolted out the door, not even bothering to gather their belongings.
For three long months, the eerie phantom clipping continued, a relentless attack on the household. It was not a trick of the mind, nor some fleeting illusion—it happened in plain sight, again and again.
Mrs. Livingston, exhausted from weeks of sleepless nights and creeping fear, watched helplessly as her newly washed linens, still damp from the line, tore themselves apart. The sheets, the tablecloths, the very clothes they wore—all sliced into strange, deliberate shapes, the same crescent-moon pattern, as if marked by some otherworldly signature.
And then, there were the boots.
A strong pair of leather riding boots, polished and intact, sat neatly by the hearth. They appeared perfectly ordinary, untouched by the forces that tormented the house.
But then, someone lifted them.
Before their eyes, the boots unraveled, the leather unfurling in one long, spiraling strip, as if peeled by unseen fingers. Whole one moment, destroyed the next.
These weren’t mere parlor tricks. They weren’t the work of some mischievous neighbor. Something was here.
Something unseen.
And it wasn’t leaving.
The town now trembled, the skeptics all silent. And now someone gave a name to the force—to the phantom shears tormenting the Livingstons
The Wizard’s Clip, he called it. And the name seemed to make the very sun darken, as well as the faces of those around him.
As for Adam Livingston, this once devoutly practical man was losing his grip.
He had tried everything. Things he had warned against before.
Folk healers. Conjurers. Spells. Charms.
Nothing worked.
His home was cursed, his family tormented, his livelihood crumbling.
And then—one night—he had a dream.
In the darkness of sleep, Livingston found himself struggling up a steep, jagged mountain. His breath came in ragged gasps, his limbs burned with exhaustion. The climb was endless, unyielding.
But then—at the summit—he saw him.
A figure, draped in flowing black robes, stood motionless, his expression calm yet commanding.
And then came the voice—deep, resonant, filled with certainty.
"This is the man who can help you."
Then the dream ended abruptly, and Livingston awoke, shaken to his core.
Who was the man in the dream?
It was no one he recognized.
And yet… he felt certain the answer lay somewhere in town, with someone familiar.
Livingston questioned his neighbors, asking if anyone knew of a minister who wore robes like the one he had seen, for he was certain this must be a holy man of God.
An Episcopal priest in Winchester was recommended, but upon meeting him, Livingston felt nothing. This was not the man.
He searched further, asking anyone who would listen.
And then, someone mentioned the McSherry family.
They were Catholics—Irish farmers Livingston kept his distance from. But the man was desperate for help. When they opened their door, he was there, with his hat and heart and his hands.
Adam Livingston sat at his neighbors’ table and poured out his story. It was a story they’d heard from hushed voices in town, taking little note of it, thinking it some kind of prank. But now, as this broken man shared it, their hearts softened and they believed. When Livingston described his dream and the man he was searching for, the Mc Sherrys looked at one another and smiled. They did know a man, they said. A circuit rider who comes to Shepherdstown on his rounds to say Mass. As luck would have it, he would do so the following Sunday.
Early that Sunday morning, Livingston left his house as the sun rose, saying nothing to his wife about where he was going. He arrived in Shepherdstown, at the home of a Catholic family hosting the visiting priest. A dozen horses were tethered outside, and some wagons that had brought families to worship and receive the Sacrament.
Livingston’s hatred for the Catholic faith reared in his heart, but he made his way up the stone path to the door, his heart pounding.
Inside, he took a chair among the others, waiting for the Mass to begin. A few minutes later, the kitchen door opened, and the priest stepped forward, his deep black robes catching the soft glow of the candles.
Livingston felt the air leave his lungs.
It was him.
The man from his dream.
After Mass, and after the faithful had departed, Livingston approached the priest.. His name, he found, was Father Dennis Cahill, a Jesuit, draped in the famous black robes of his order.
Livingston poured out his story, his voice shaking, his eyes brimming with desperation.
The priest, at first, was skeptical. He suspected trickery, imagination, hysteria.
But then Livingston, sensing defeat, broke. He fell to his knees and he began to cry.
Something in Father Cahill shifted. He agreed to visit the home.
When Father Cahill entered the Livingston home, he was immediately struck by the unnatural energy that clung to the air. He moved through the house, sprinkling holy water, invoking the house blessings and prayers of the Church. Moments later, something astonishing happened.
The money that had vanished—the coins and bills that had been stolen by unseen hands—reappeared on the doorstep.
But the hauntings were not over. Just minutes after Father Cahill had departed, Adam fetched a sack of potatoes from the cellar. On the way up the stairs to the kitchen he heard the unmistakable, damnable sound again.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
The sack in his hands had been cut to shreds, the rows of moons seeming to laugh at him.
It was weeks before Father Cahill returned to Shepherdstown. When he did, Livingston was there. He told the priest of the terrors the family had suffered since his first visit. Hours later, the priest arrived at the Livingston farm again, this time with Mr. McSherry to assist.
By now, any anti-Catholic sentiment the Livingstons had harbored had melted away. The priest and the neighbor were welcomed with open arms.
As the family stood silent in the corners of the room, the rosy afternoon sun curled into the scene through the small windows. Mrs. Livingston had laid out her finest linen tablecloth, trying as best she could to hide the moon-shaped cuts that had been made along one edge. Mr. Mc Sherry served as sacristan, setting on the cloth a silver cup and plate Father Cahill took from a leather satchel. A pure white linen napkin was set next to these, and then, from a suede case, the priest withdrew a shining Crucifix and laid it on the table.
And then, the Mass began.
After Father Cahill’s visit, for the first time in years, there was peace on the Livingston farm.
Deeply changed by the experience, Adam Livingston and his family converted to Catholicism. The man became known for his devotion, and, in a final act of faith, he donated a portion of his land to the Church. That land—where the stranger had been buried—became known as Priest’s Field, and today, it remains a Catholic retreat center, a sanctified space where the echoes of the past still linger.
But if you were to think that’s where the story ends—you’d be mistaken.
Because though the destruction ceased, something else took its place.
A voice.
Something that whispered to them in the quiet hours of the night.
But this time—it wasn’t a force of destruction.
It was something else entirely.
And what it said would forever change their understanding of the unseen world.
It started not long after the family’s conversion. The entire Livingston family was gathered in a room when they suddenly became aware that they were not alone. There, standing among them, was a man no one had seen enter. He was dressed in rags, barefoot despite the bitter chill outside, and yet he seemed perfectly at ease. He was, to all appearances, a beggar—though there was something not quite right about him.
Mr. Livingston, ever the practical man, offered the stranger shoes and a coat. But the man said something that sent a shiver through the room:
"They are not needed where I come from."
He remained with the family for a while, speaking with them, teaching them things that no ordinary man could have known. He spoke of salvation and damnation, of the soul’s journey after death, and of sins that ripple through generations. And then, he made a chilling proclamation:
"Luther and Calvin are in hell," he said plainly, "and each soul that is lost through their fault adds to their torment."
Then, just as strangely as he had appeared, the man left the house, stepped through the front door—and vanished.
The family rushed outside. But there was no trace of him. No footprints in the dirt. No sign that anyone had ever walked that way. Just an empty road, stretching into the darkness.
This strange presence, this unseen entity, was not content with a single visit. But after that first introduction, the Livingstons saw no one. There was only the Voice.
It spoke to them constantly—urging them, pleading with them. And it had but one admonition. They must pray for the dead. The Voice warned that souls in purgatory suffered greatly and needed the prayers of the living to be released into heaven.
On his first visit the strange visitor had told them about this place called Purgatory. A place Catholics believed in. It was a place where good sinners go after death, he told them. Those not destined for Hell, but not purified for Heaven. There they waited, he told them, until the prayers and Masses of the living burned their impurities away and freed them to Paradise.
Though they’d converted, some of their old beliefs held on. The God they’d always known takes the good dead straight to Heaven, they believed. Though they tried to have faith in the Catholic dogma, they struggled to do so.
Then, one day, while working in the fields, Adam Livingston heard something so chilling, so unnatural, that his body collapsed under the weight of it. His sons found him hunched over, unable to move, his face ashen.
"A scream," he gasped. "I heard a soul scream from purgatory."
They had to carry him home. He later said he could never forget that sound—the agonized cry of a soul, trapped between worlds, pleading for help. The family began to pray for the souls of the dead, and the Voice continued to teach them.
And others heard it too.
Years later, a witness would share a strange tale of the night he was staying in the Livingston home. In the dead of night, the house was startled awake by the voice speaking aloud. The words were not for him alone—they were meant for everyone.
"Wake up!" it commanded. "Pray for poor sinners!"
Startled, the household gathered, and they followed the Voice’s command.
As the weeks, months and years rolled on, over and over, the voice instructed the family and its guest in the depths of Catholic teaching, insisting on the power of the sacraments, the necessity of repentance, and the eternal fate of the soul, always urging prayers for the dead.
More than once, it predicted deaths before they happened—always instructing the family to have Masses said for the departed, so they would not be lost.
One morning, Livingston arrived at the McSherry home, looking grim.
"Your sister, Mary Spalding, died last night," he told Mrs. McSherry.
She was stunned—no word had reached them of such news.
"The voice told me," he explained. "It said she was in purgatory… because of her overindulgence of her children."
Not long after, a letter arrived, confirming the truth. Mary Spalding had died that very night.
And so, Mrs. McSherry arranged for eighty Masses to be said for her soul.
Then there was the case of a certain priest—a man of great holiness, long dead. Curious about his fate, Mrs. McSherry asked Livingston to inquire of the voice.
"Surely he is in heaven," she said.
But the voice gave an answer she did not expect.
"No. He is still in purgatory. He was careless in handling the property of orphans, trusting others to manage it without ensuring it was done properly."
Seventeen years, and still not free.
The souls in Purgatory spoken of by the voice were not only something to be taken on faith.
They left physical evidence behind.
One night, the family awoke to a bloodcurdling scream—not human, not earthly.
Then, a desperate cry filled the house, a cry for help.
The Livingstons, their guests—everyone heard it.
"What help do you need?" they called.
"Prayers!" the voice wailed.
To prove it was there, the voice demanded an object be held up.
A nightgown was lifted into the air. And before their very eyes, a burning handprint appeared on the fabric—the fingers leaving scorched marks, the spaces between them untouched.
The smell of charred fabric filled the room.
On another occasion, a similar cry for help was heard, and this time, a shirt belonging to Mr. Livingston was offered up.
A cross, with the letters IHS, burned itself into the cloth—an unmistakable sign of suffering.
This time the spirit spoke:
"My name is Catharine Goodman," it said. "I was your kin… but I am not yet free."
Several of these burnt garments were preserved for years, eventually taken to the Church at a nearby seminary. Witnesses who saw them reported the same thing: the handprints, the scorched crosses, the undeniable evidence of something beyond human understanding.
The Voice also gave insight into strange events of the past. Years before, Mrs. McSherry had seen her infant son’s cradle begin to rock violently on its own—as though something unseen, something malevolent, was about to hurl the child against the wall.
Those many years later, he Voice would recall the incident: "The Devil tried to destroy this child… because he knew one day, the child would be his enemy." And in fact, that baby would grow up to be Father William McSherry, a Jesuit priest.
The Voice also made predictions about the future.
"War, pestilence, famine," the voice prophesied. "You will not live to see it… but your children will."
And true to its word—war came. The Civil War would ravage the land. But among the McSherry descendants who fought, seven out of eight survived. The voice had promised that those who remained faithful would be spared.
Today, all that remains of Wizard’s Clip are the plaques on the buildings. The strange markings of the moon and scissors. Icons of the inexplicable and impossible. The Livingston farmhouse is gone, and the home of the Mc Sherrys, where the devil once rocked the family cradle of a future priest.
Despite all that had happened, most of the Livingston children would lose their faith—the faith that had come through such harrowing and extraordinary events.
In Priest field, a small monument stands to Adam Livingston, in thanksgiving for his donation of the land to the Church. And inside the All Souls chapel of the retreat center, the altar displays an image of Demetrius Gallitzin, the exorcist who ended the reign of terror on the Livingston farm—and whose visit opened the door to the faith—and the Voice. Behind him, if you look closely, you’ll see an unfurled piece of fabric depicted. If you look closer still, you’ll see there are cuts in the fabric . . . in the shape of crescent moons.
Thanks for reading. If you’d like some commentary on this story from a Catholic perspective, check out my blog and Uncanny Catholic video link, where we recap and discuss this case. God bless you, and remember to #prayforghosts. -Ursula Bielski
For more on the story of the Wizard Clip, check out the books below:
