Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania

by Thomas White

  GOLDFISH PUT OUT PHILADELPHIA FIRE

  In November 1901, a store on Germantown Avenue owned by Thomas E. Henry had a small fire. It could have been much larger if not for a conveniently placed fish tank. The fire started on furniture that happened to be in front of an aquarium large enough to hold three hundred goldfish. The heat from the fire cracked the glass, and the water spilled out and extinguished most of the fire. The rest was put out by flopping goldfish, most of which survived the ordeal.

  THE EVIL WOLVES OF ELK CREEK GAP

  In the late 1800s, Centre County was home to several logging companies. Because of the demand, lumber was being transported through Elk Creek Gap almost twenty-four hours a day. A story eventually circulated about why the practice was stopped. After a while, strange wolves descended from Hundsrick Mountain and began jumping onto the loaded sleds. The wolves would not attack, but the sleds could not be moved while the wolves were on them. Sometimes only one paw was required to stop the sleds. No matter how hard the drivers pushed the horses, they would not move. Eventually, the wolves would leave, after they had exhausted both the horses and the driver. Some of the drivers painted hex signs on their sleds, hoping to drive away the wolves. Nothing seemed to work. Many believed that they were actually werewolves or that they had been sent by a witch. Eventually, the drivers stopped hauling logs after sundown.

  A MIRACLE IN AMBRIDGE?

  On Good Friday 1989, several parishioners attending services at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Ambridge, Beaver County, believed that they witnessed a miracle. A large wooden and plaster crucifix appeared to close its eyes. Several days later, the eyes reopened. Photographs were taken to document the occurrence, and at first glance the images appeared to verify the miracle. The Diocese of Pittsburgh launched an investigation, interviewing over 150 witnesses and examining the photographic evidence. After a thorough investigation, it was determined that the event was most likely an optical illusion caused by the angle and lighting. Many parishioners continued to believe that the miracle was authentic.

  STRANGE RAINS

  Charles Fort, the first modern investigator of the unexplained, documented a few strange rains in Pennsylvania. On July 23, 1866, a strong storm struck Hobdy’s Mills. The storm did not dump just rain on the region, however, but also thousands of red, inch-long lizards. Many of the lizards were alive and crawled away. In 1869, snails rained down in “a storm within a storm” in Chester County. For a while, the snails were displayed at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. On March 2, 1892, the residents of Lancaster looked out over the fresh layer of snow to see a rain of tiny worms. Mud fell from the sky in various areas in the northern part of the state in April 1902. The sources of these rains were never determined.

  EGYPTIAN MUMMIES INVADED PENNSYLVANIA

  In 1833, six ancient Egyptian mummies were displayed in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. There was a surge of public interest in the field of Egyptology after the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s. Exhibits of Egyptian artifacts attracted considerable attention. Advertisements described the mummies as being over three thousand years old. They had “perfect expression,” and their hair was described “as if now living.” The traveling exhibit attracted thousands of curious onlookers in both cities.

  WEB-SPINNING UFOS OVER DANVILLE

  A man named William Hummer was pulling up to his house about two o’clock in the afternoon on May 4, 1981. As he parked his motorcycle, he noticed what he described as “cobwebs” on his roof, on his neighbors’ homes and on telephone poles and trees. While observing the material, he realized that there were things moving around in the sky. It was difficult to make out details at first because of the bright sun, but he could tell that they were disc-shaped.

  A few moments later a deliveryman arrived and attempted to pick up some of the white “webbing.” It disintegrated in his hand. The material kept falling as the men watched. Hummer retrieved a pair of binoculars and managed to get a better look at the discs when they got farther away from the sun. He described them as circular with a peaked dome. They traveled in groups of two or three and changed directions rapidly. When Hummer’s sister arrived half an hour later, the webs were still falling from the sky and being blown around in the air. None of the webs lasted long enough to be preserved.

  THE COLDEST MONTH

  Pennsylvania has experienced many cold winter months over the centuries, but the coldest on record occurred in 1977. In January, the average mean temperature for the state was thirteen degrees, more than eleven degrees below normal. In some parts of the state, it was much colder. In Bradford, the temperature reached as low as twenty-five degrees below zero on January 29, with the high temperature reaching only six below. Many counties suffered through numerous days of negative temperatures.

  STRANGE LITTLE MEN

  On December 17, 1956, a housewife in Conashaugh went outside with a flashlight to investigate a noise. To her surprise, the beam of her flashlight fell upon two little humanlike men in what looked like silver flight suits with helmets. They were about three or three and a half feet tall and remained motionless for several minutes while the light was on them. The woman went inside to get her husband, but when they returned, the men were gone.

  BALL LIGHTNING IN PHILADELPHIA

  Ball lightning is a little-understood phenomenon. It is not even accepted as a real occurrence by all scientists because of its rarity. But there was a woman who lived in south Philadelphia in 1960 who was sure that it was real. Louise Mathews had a frightening experience with ball lightning that summer. As she was resting on her couch in her living room one day, a red ball of light passed right through her front window and blinds, causing no damage to either. As it passed her, she felt tingling on the back of her neck and head. The ball sizzled and buzzed as it quickly passed into her dining room and out another window. Mrs. Matthews called her husband, who quickly came home from work. By the time he arrived, the hair had fallen out of the back of her head where she had felt the tingling. Her hand was also burned where she had felt her head.

  ARROW OF FLAME

  In 1909, the people who lived near Stockton reported seeing what was described as an “arrow of flame” hovering above a certain spot on the mountain. It could be seen every night from about 9:00 p.m. to midnight. In that same area, the mutilated body of a woman had been discovered in a barrel two years before. The crime had never been solved, and her killer was still at large. Locals believed that the arrow of flame would continue to appear until her killer was brought to justice. There seems to be no record as to when the flame was last seen.

  CREEPY CLOWNS IN PITTSBURGH

  In 1981, Pittsburgh experienced an invasion of “evil” clowns. Reports were made of men dressed as clowns and other cartoonlike animals harassing and attempting to lure young children. The first incidents happened in June, and at the height of the sightings, the police were receiving as many as fifteen reports a day. In the first week of June, a group of children playing in the Hill District was harassed by two men dressed as clowns who had pulled up in a van. In Arlington Heights, a man in a gorilla suit and a man dressed as a clown attempted to lure a boy into a van. Some children in Garfield were stalked by a man in a pink and white rabbit suit who drove a blue van. A week later, the rascally rabbit was spotted in Allegheny Cemetery. People in several other city neighborhoods called the police to report clown sightings. No one was ever apprehended. After a few weeks, the reports ceased and the evil clown panic was over.

  CURED OF FOOTBALL MANIA

  At the 1908 meeting of the American Neurological Association in Philadelphia, guests heard the story of a strange case that Dr. Charles Mills and Dr. Charles Frazier encountered. Both doctors were from the University of Pennsylvania. One of their patients was a woman who suddenly became obsessed with football. She would rush from game to game and would travel as far away as New York and Boston. She started becoming rowdy and “irresponsible” at the sporting events. She also frequently suffered from dizz
iness, nausea and disorientation. (I realize that this sounds like a normal weekend in football season, but we are talking about 1908.) The doctors decided to operate and discovered that the woman had a three-inch-long cyst on her brain. It was successfully removed. After the operation, she recovered quickly and was cured. It should be noted that football mania is not recognized as a disorder in Pittsburgh.

  A FACTORY EXPLOSION

  On May 1, 1942, an explosion tore through the Central Railway’s Signal Plant in Versailles, Allegheny County. The factory was manufacturing signal flares and torpedoes for the railways, and its work was not directly war related. Most of the workers were women who had taken positions left vacant when the men entered the military. The blast happened at 2:40 p.m., while twenty women were mixing potash and sulfur for the torpedoes. Pieces of the eighty-foot-long roof were blown hundreds of feet in the air. The explosion was felt for a mile. The fire was quickly extinguished, but eight of the women were killed and eleven others were wounded. Sabotage was initially suspected, but the FBI investigated and found no evidence.

  A STRANGE CREATURE IN COATESVILLE

  In 1939, several farmers reported seeing a strange creature in the fields and woods near Coatesville. It was described as about two or two and a half feet tall and had a long neck and small head. The mystery creature could also jump like a deer, but it had paws instead of hooves. It was light brown with white on its sides. The animal’s strangest characteristic was its scream, which was described as eerie and similar to two cats screaming at once.

  AN APE SCARE IN CORRY

  A four-foot-tall apelike creature was spotted in the woods just south of Corry, Erie County, on September 18, 1938. Three children in the Clabbatz family came running to their father from the woods when the ape they saw started chasing them. Their father gathered a hunting party of almost fifty men and went after the creature. They did not find it, but the next day it was spotted by two farmers on nearby land. The hunting party went out again but failed to find the ape. After a few days with no further sightings, they decided that they had scared the creature away.

  THE MYSTERY OF THE Walam Olum

  The Walam Olum, which translates as “Red Record” or “Red Score,” is allegedly a historical account of the Lenape Indians, also known as the Delaware. Translated by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque and his contacts, it was first published in the 1830s. Rafinesque claimed that the original history was written in the form of pictographs on birch bark tablets that he acquired in the 1820s in exchange for medicine. In historical times, the Lenape homeland included much of Pennsylvania, but the story in the Walam Olum revealed the Lenapes’ origin. It contained a creation and flood story and several accounts of migration and battle. It also contained a list of chiefs that dated back over two hundred years.

  The published version contained just under three thousand words, set opposite the Lenape pictographs. Though it was initially accepted by some scholars and some members of the tribe, doubt about the work’s authenticity began to appear. The Lenapes did use birch bark scrolls, but the pictographs that appear in the book do not match those that have been discovered by other archaeologists and historians. Some investigators wondered if the book was a partial hoax but based on real legends. New efforts were made to examine the original translation and the sources used by Rafinesque. It was discovered that parts of his translation were in reverse, and he was trying to find Lenape words to best match English ones. Also, many of the pictographs bore resemblances to similar writings from other ancient peoples that were available at the time of translation. By the end of the twentieth century, most scholars, as well as one branch of the tribe that had previously accepted the book, concluded that the Walam Olum was a hoax and did not represent an authentic tradition.

  THE LEGEND OF THE THUNDERBIRD

  The legend of the thunderbird was part of American Indian mythology long before the arrival of European settlers. Variations of the legend existed in many tribes. The Indians often assigned animal traits to nature in their myths. Most modern anthropologists and folklorists believe that the idea of a giant bird that created a roaring or rumbling noise by flapping its immense wings was just a way to explain or symbolize thunder.

  But there are those who claim to have actually seen this giant bird, and many of the sightings have come from Pennsylvania. Two hotbeds of thunderbird sightings have been the Black Forest region and, more recently, western Pennsylvania. The birds have been described as black or very dark brown in color. They are usually said to resemble a vulture or eagle, except much bigger and with very large beaks. In the Black Forest, some sightings occurred as early as the 1880s. In 1922, at Hammersley Fork, Hiram Crammer witnessed the flight of a thunderbird that allegedly had the unbelievable wingspan of thirty-five feet. Near the same area in 1964, several construction workers insisted that they saw one of these large birds carry off a fawn.

  Pennsylvania writer Robert Lyman saw one of the birds in the early 1940s near Coudersport. He estimated its wingspan to be about twenty feet and described it as vulture-like. It was brown in color with a short neck and “narrow wings.” In 1969, the wife of the sheriff of Clinton County saw an enormous gray bird land in the middle of Little Pine Creek. The bird’s wingspan was as wide as the creek bed, which would have made it almost seventy-five feet. After a few moments, it lifted off and flew away.

  In western Pennsylvania, there have been quite a few sightings since the 1990s. In May 1998, a man saw a very large black bird with a twenty- to twenty-five-foot wingspan flying over the Ohio River in Allegheny County. During the 1990s, there were also reports of a thunderbird seeking shelter in the Wabash Tunnel. In the following years, more sightings were reported in the town of Greenville and in Westmoreland County.

  GEORGE WASHINGTON’S GRISTMILL

  George Washington made several dangerous trips to western Pennsylvania in his youth as an officer in the Virginia militia. He participated in all of the major campaigns of the French and Indian War that took place in the area. In fact, he fired the first shots of the war in Fayette County. Because he had previously been a land surveyor, he recognized the potential value of the western lands as he passed through. In 1769, he sent his friend Captain William Crawford to survey and purchase land in present-day Fayette and Washington Counties. In total, he bought more than sixteen hundred acres.

  Part of the land he purchased was near the modern town of Perryopolis, Fayette County. It was situated near a stream, now known as Washington’s Run, and was the perfect place for a gristmill. Since Washington lived in Virginia, he hired a man named Gilbert Simpson to oversee the property and handle the construction of the mill. It was one of the first located west of the Appalachians. Work began in 1774 and was completed in 1776. The mill began operating immediately, but it was soon shut down for a few years because of the Revolution.

  When Washington visited the mill in 1784, he found it in bad condition. He ordered some repairs to make the mill functional again. Thinking that Simpson was mismanaging his property, Washington decided to lease the land and mill. No one was interested. In 1789, the mill and surrounding land were finally leased, and then sold, to Colonel Israel Shreve. Washington had trouble getting timely payments from Shreve. Ultimately, he made almost no money from the mill or property.

  The mill passed through several owners until 1936, when it was destroyed in a windstorm. The ruins and foundation were the subjects of a historical and architectural survey in 1968, but nothing came of it. In 1989, the Perryopolis Area Heritage Society took over the property, raised funds and reconstructed the gristmill, which opened to the public in 1999.

  BELSNICKEL

  Belsnickel is a German Santa Claus–like character whose tradition was brought to Pennsylvania by immigrants. Translated, the term means “Nicholas in furs.” Belsnickel became part of the Pennsylvania German Christmas celebration, but he was scarier than the modern image of Santa Claus. When he visited on St. Nicholas Day (December 6), he carried a bag of candy and nuts but a
lso coal, a stick or branches and sometimes a small whip. The treats were for the good boys and girls, while the bad children could expect coal and a lashing from the sticks or whip as a reminder to behave.

  There are many variations of the tradition in German communities throughout the state. It also became a tradition for young people to dress in a mask or Belsnickel costume to go door to door singing in exchange for candy or coins. The tradition declined in the 1920s as the more commercialized version of Santa Claus became dominant.

  UFO OVER WILKES-BARRE

  Joseph Greiner, an experienced radio operator, air traffic controller and weather observer, witnessed an unusual object in the sky above Wilkes-Barre on July 8, 1952. He spotted the object about 10:00 p.m. and described it as green with a reddish dome on the top. It streaked across the sky above his head at a speed he estimated to be one thousand miles per hour. The object only remained in view for about ten seconds.

  THE ORIGIN OF THE JEEP

  The original Jeep was designed and constructed by the American Bantam Car Company in Butler County. Bantam designed the vehicle when the federal government put out a call for a forty-horsepower vehicle that could haul a quarter ton but weighed less than thirteen hundred pounds. World War II loomed on the horizon, and the U.S. military wanted to be prepared. The small Bantam Company took less than two months to deliver a prototype to the government. It was tested by the army in Maryland in September 1940. The Jeep passed every grueling test it was put through, and the government ordered fifteen hundred more.

  During the testing stage, two of Bantam’s competitors, Ford and Willys, got a look at both the blueprints and design. Willys submitted a similar vehicle and was ultimately awarded the contract because it had a much higher production capacity. In total, only two thousand Jeeps were made by Bantam, but it is still credited with the innovative design.