Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania

by Thomas White

  MAY PAUL’S WEREWOLF ADMIRER

  During the 1850s, a young shepherdess named May Paul lived in Northumberland County. She passed many days on the hillsides and in the fields helping to watch over her family’s flock. There was a much older man who lived nearby and was in love with May. He never expressed his feelings to her, but many in the community were aware of how he felt. The man watched her in the fields almost every day.

  Many of May’s neighbors also raised sheep. One year, the flocks of the surrounding shepherds began to lose sheep to a predator that appeared to be a wolf. May’s flock remained unharmed. One shepherd finally managed to shoot and wound the wolf in the dark one night. The next morning, he followed the trail of blood that was left when the wolf ran off. The shepherd wanted to be sure that he had put an end to the predator. He was surprised when the trail led to the home of the old man who was in love with May.

  When the shepherd entered the house, he found the old man lying on the floor with a gunshot wound in the same place he had shot the wolf. The old man was already dead. He was buried nearby, in the area that became known as die Woolf-mann’s Grob, or “the Wolfman’s Grave.”

  GYPSIES VISIT WARREN

  On April 12, 1927, a band of gypsies passed through the town of Warren. They arrived about noon in a half dozen cars and trucks. Their stay was shorter than they had expected. They were promptly escorted through and out of town by the police department. Local papers commended the chief for keeping the “vagabonds” out of town.

  HARBINGER OF DEATH

  Governor William A. Stone briefly recalled a strange story in his autobiography, The Tale of a Plain Man. He heard the story as a child in Wellsboro in the 1850s from one of his neighbors, John Ainsley. There was a man named Duryea who lived nearby in a large white house on Dean Road. He had once been a sailor and supposedly a pirate. The entire community regarded him as a wicked and evil man. Duryea swore constantly and did not mingle with his neighbors. He even attempted to physically assault preachers who would try to visit him. Many believed him to be in league with the devil.

  There was one old woman who went to Duryea’s house frequently, but only to clean. One day, she came back and told Ainsley and Andrew Kriner that Duryea was very ill. The two men decided to go up to his house together to see if they could do anything. Though Duryea did not turn them away, he did not want help from a doctor. Later that evening, Ainsley and Kriner were sitting in the house with the porch door open when they saw a frightening animal walk into the house and straight into Duryea’s room. It was a large black beast with four short legs and “sharp” eyes. As they watched in disbelief, they heard Duryea scream, and then the beast came back out and left the house. When the men entered Duryea’s room, they found him dead. From that time on, the neighbors believed that the devil had come to take Duryea’s soul.

  BLACK LICK DESTROYED BY FIRE

  Much of the mining town of Black Lick was destroyed by a fire on September 29, 1909. An exploding lamp ignited the blaze that quickly spread from building to building. The entire town assembled to fight the fire, but it was difficult to contain. Eventually, dynamite was used to destroy some buildings in the path of the fire to stop it from spreading. The day after the fire, the loss was estimated at $35,000 by local newspapers, but it was most likely much higher.

  NITRATE FILM EXPLOSION IN PITTSBURGH

  Just before three o’clock in the afternoon on September 27, 1909, the offices of the Columbian Film Exchange exploded. They were located in the Ferguson Building between Smithfield and Wood Streets in downtown Pittsburgh. The explosion was triggered when a shipping clerk turned on the lights in a small film vault. A spark shot from the light switch and ignited the stacks of highly flammable nitrate film. The clerk slammed the door and ran away just in time. Part of the wall of the building facing Third Avenue was blown out, as were many windows. No one was killed, but the flying glass and debris injured almost seventy-five people inside the building and on the streets below. Police had to close the surrounding streets for hours to make sure that there was no chance of a second explosion.

  NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED

  Twenty-five-year-old Arnold Olds was not expecting to be a hero when he woke up on February 9, 1957. He wasn’t expecting to lose his wallet either. Olds was a senior at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. That afternoon near campus, he saw four boys start to fall through the melting ice in Panther Hollow Lake.

  Olds sprung into action. But first, he handed his watch and wallet to two other boys who were standing at the side of the lake. He took off his jacket and shoes and waded into the waist-deep freezing water. Olds managed to pull all four boys to safety. In the meantime, police arrived with blankets and prepared to take the boys and Olds back to the station. It was then that Olds realized that the two boys who had his wallet and watch had disappeared.

  THE BLACK CROSS OF BUTLER COUNTY

  The Spanish flu swept the world in 1918 and 1919, claiming many more victims than the First World War, which had immediately preceded it. Some areas were hit exceptionally hard by the killer virus. The small town of West Winfield, on the border of Butler and Armstrong Counties, suffered numerous deaths. In a short period of time, almost three hundred people died. The town did not have the resources to bury the dead individually, so a mass grave was excavated nearby. It was marked with a black cross.

  In the years that followed, rumors of supernatural activity surrounded the site. According to legend, visitors who went to the grave at midnight during a full moon would hear the sound of babies crying. Also, the nearby trees would seem to take on strange and menacing shapes. Sometime in the recent past, the black cross collapsed due to the impact of the weather and vandalism.

  FUGITIVE CHICKEN THIEF CAPTURED

  In late November 1908, detectives and police in Adams County finally captured the elusive chicken thief, Ambrose Dittenhafer. He was on the run for stealing chickens from the farm of Martin Harman near Hunterstown. The thief was known to be extremely fast and had eluded capture several times before. Detective Charles Wilson, Constable Morrison and a large posse of deputies tracked the witty thief to his hiding place—his own home. Dittenhafer was a crafty criminal, though, and his wife and sons managed to get in the way of the authorities long enough for him to escape again.

  Wilson and his men chased him for three miles through the fog, occasionally firing shots. None hit its mark. Dittenhafer had started to circle back toward his home when Wilson and his men finally caught up. The thief dashed into “Dr. Goldsboro’s Thicket” and prepared for hand-to-hand combat with his large stick and razor. By that point, the chase had lasted almost six hours. The police fired several warning shots into the thicket. Finally, Dittenhafer emerged. Wilson’s pistol was pointed straight at his head. He surrendered and was taken to the county jail. The saga of the chicken thief was covered with great interest in the local papers.

  MAN KILLS TWENTY-EIGHT COPPERHEADS

  Mr. Jacob Figley had an encounter with a nest of venomous copperhead snakes near his home in Hopewell Township, Beaver County. Figley’s granddaughter spotted the first of the snakes in his backyard while visiting one summer day in 1912. When Figley realized what kind of snake it was, he killed it quickly and then sought out its nest. When he found it, he discovered eight adult snakes and over twenty that were half grown. He killed as many as he could, twenty-eight total, and only a few escaped.

  LARGE VEGETABLES

  There must have been something special in the soil in the early 1900s in Adams County. A newspaper article from 1909 featured George Hoover’s giant tomatoes. He grew them on his Bendersville farm. He had apparently been growing his “beefsteak” tomatoes for several years. That year, he had produced the largest ones yet. He had many tomatoes measuring fifteen and sixteen inches in circumference.

  Two years later, M.F. Williams was growing giant turnips on his farm. Some were as large as fourteen pounds.

  THE PERPET
UAL MOTION MACHINE

  In January 1813, a man named Charles Redheffer invited the city leaders in Philadelphia to come to his home to see his amazing invention. What he claimed to have developed seemed impossible—a perpetual motion machine. Eight of the city commissioners attended Redheffer’s presentation. Initially, they were amazed. The machine seemed to run without ever needing more power. It seemed like Redheffer had really created the long-sought-after machine. However, one of the commissioners became suspicious when the inventor would not let them get close enough to touch the machine. The curious commissioner managed to get a closer look anyway and realized that there was a hidden set of pulleys keeping the machine moving. He said nothing, and when the commissioners left, Redheffer was sure that he had fooled them.

  Not long after, Redheffer was in city hall. To his astonishment, the city commissioners had constructed their own perpetual motion machine and put it on display. Realizing that his ruse had failed, Redheffer packed up his scam and took it to New York.

  MAN FOUND FROZEN

  William Shank was returning to his home in Big Pool, Adams County, when he stumbled across a man lying in the road. It was about midnight on December 4, 1908. The man was cold, and Shank believed him to be dead or dying. Shank rounded up three men who lived nearby to assist him, and when they moved the man, they realized that he was still alive and that he was Harry Starner’s father. Apparently, he had been on his way home and collapsed in the road. The men carried the nearly frozen body of old Mr. Starner to Harry Starner’s house. They knocked on doors, yelled and tried many times to wake the family. When no one answered the door, the men decided to leave the old man sitting on the porch.

  The family discovered him in the morning, and it took several hours to revive him. The stubborn old man was still holding on to life. He was in serious condition for some time but recovered from his night out in the cold.

  MAN COLLAPSED ONTO SAWMILL BELT

  Twenty-year-old Luther Spangler was an employee at his father’s sawmill near Aspers, Adams County. One day in early December 1908, Luther collapsed and fell onto the belt near the large circular saw. The belt carried him all the way to the top. It was only eight inches wide, but it was moving at a high rate of speed, and none of the other employees could move his body in time. Though he missed the saw, his head got caught between the belt and a pulley. All those watching thought that his neck had been broken. They shut down the machinery and freed him as quickly as possible. Miraculously, Luther was relatively unharmed. He suffered from several cuts and burns to the right side of his face but was otherwise no worse for wear.

  THE MASSACRE AT CROW ROCK

  On a pleasant Sunday morning in early May 1791, four sisters went for a walk along Dunkard Creek in Greene County. Elizabeth, Catherine, Susan and Christina were members of the Crow family. The family had lived on the frontier for many years and were accustomed to the dangers that existed there. In recent months, conflicts with the local Indians seemed to have subsided, and they did not expect trouble on their walk.

  When the girls approached a large rock, they were ambushed by two Indians and a white man known as “Spicer,” who may have been raised as a captive of the Indians. The men took hold of the girls and led them to the top of the rock. After demanding information about local settlements from the girls, they began killing them with their tomahawks. Christina managed to escape after suffering a wound to her neck, and she alerted the rest of her family. A search party was quickly assembled, but it was unable to catch up with the killers. Elizabeth was discovered barely alive, having crawled to the creek after being scalped. She died three days later from her wounds. A small historical marker stands today on the site of the tragedy.

  SCHOOLCHILDREN PANICKED

  It started out as a normal Wednesday morning at Leisenring No.1 School in Fayette County. It was November 1915, and students were assembling in their classrooms to start the day. One of the children in room five, located on the second floor, was already bored. He started to unscrew the air valve on the radiator, not realizing how much pressure was behind it. Before it was loosened the entire way, the pressure launched the valve across the room, and a cloud of vapor came hissing out of the radiator.

  As the vapor filled the room, some of the children began to have trouble breathing and panicked. Miss Minnie Miller, their teacher, stood in front of the door and tried to calm the students. It was too late. The screaming students pushed her out into the hall and to the stairwell. As the frightened children ran down through the school, they caused panic in other classrooms. Then the fire alarm sounded, and the rest of the students rushed for the exit. Several of them were knocked to the ground, as were a few of the teachers. When the panic finally subsided, three girls and a teacher were injured, though not severely. No one was bored anymore either.

  A RAILROAD TRESTLE COLLAPSED

  A railroad trestle near Wellsboro was the site of a deadly accident on January 6, 1890. A train full of workers was passing over the trestle that evening when the structure gave way. The engine had made it across, but the rest of the cars were torn free and plunged down into the creek and debris below. Three of the men onboard were killed, and sixteen others were injured. It was believed that part of the same train had struck the bridge earlier that morning when it was travelling in the opposite direction. Unrecognized structural damage might have been inflicted at that point. When the train passed over again, the strain was too much for the trestle to handle.

  FRIED EGGS IN A BASKET

  A farmer’s wife in Alburtis was on her way to a store in Millerstown one day in May 1876. She carried a basket loaded with butter and eggs wrapped in several cloths. At one point, the woman walked alongside the tracks of the Eastern Pennsylvania Railroad. Unbeknownst to her, a live coal from a passing train landed in her basket. The woman continued walking for a while until she heard a crackling noise and realized that there was smoke coming out of her basket. She looked inside to discover that the coal had melted some of the butter and cracked some eggs. The eggs were frying on the bottom of the basket.

  A FATAL INGROWN TOENAIL

  Twenty-nine-year-old Harry Meckley died in a York hospital in early March 1912. His cause of death: an ingrown toenail. Three weeks prior to his hospital visit, he began to pick at his ingrown nail, and within days he developed blood poisoning from an infection at the site. He did not immediately go to the doctor, and the infection spread throughout his right leg. By the time he checked into the hospital on March 8, it was too late. He was dead by five thirty that afternoon.

  THE NOTORIOUS COOLEY GANG

  In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the Cooley gang terrorized residents of Fayette County. Led by brothers Frank and Andrew Jackson “Jack” Cooley and their friend Jack Ramsey, the gang committed numerous robberies and beat and intimidated anyone in their way. The gang had friends and family who would protect them and frequently hid in the mountains to avoid the law. Victims and witnesses were afraid to testify against them for fear of retaliation.

  In one instance, the gang broke into the house of an old man named Samuel Humbert and demanded his money. When he did not produce any, gang members bound him and burned his feet to get him to reveal where he had hidden his cash. When that was unsuccessful, they threatened to burn his house and left him bound and gagged on the floor.

  The gang used a similar technique a few months later in December 1888. Gang members broke into the house of Mollie Ross near Smithfield and demanded her money. When she refused, they bound and beat her and then burned her feet with candles. She finally told them where she had hidden her money. It was only five dollars.

  Not long after, Frank Cooley was arrested for the crime. He was convicted and was awaiting sentencing in December 1889 when he and several other inmates escaped from the penitentiary. They had managed to use makeshift saws to weaken the bars of their cells. Cooley fled back into the mountains to meet up with his gang. No one chased him. The gang continued its crime spree.

  Jack C
ooley met his end in July 1892. Jack had been stealing food from the springhouse of Thomas Collier in Georges Township for several weeks. One of Collier’s neighbors suggested setting a trap for the thieves. He rigged a shotgun to the door in such a way that it would fire if the door was opened. His intentions were to scare away the thief. Collier’s trap worked better than expected and inflicted a fatal wound to Jack.

  In September of the same year, the gang invaded the home of Jacob Prinkey near Gibbon’s Glade. Prinkey had heard that the gang was in the area, and since he was known for being thrifty and well off, he assumed that he would be a target. He gathered some friends and family to stay at the house, arming them all with pistols and rifles. When the gang burst into the house one Saturday, Prinkey managed to get off the first shot. He wounded two men, one of whom was Frank Cooley. The gang members soon disarmed the family and, after tending to their wounded friends, proceeded to ransack the house and take items of value. They only found twenty dollars in cash because Prinkey was smart enough to deposit the rest of his money in a bank before they arrived.