Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania

by Thomas White

  William was approaching the rock on a raft and was forced to witness the horrible event from a distance. He rowed as fast as he could, but by the time he reached the rock, the raftsman was already headed downstream. The law did not help the Powderhorn family because they were Indians, and the killer was not brought to justice.

  Not long after the murder, nearby farmers testified that they could still hear Cicely singing near the creek. Of course, she wasn’t actually there. That particular stretch of the creek was treacherous and usually required the full concentration of the raftsmen to navigate. Soon, many of them began to hear the song of Cicely as they traveled past the rock on which she was killed. It mesmerized them, causing many to wreck their rafts on the rocks. The haunting song was heard for several years, until a half-crazed man visited a farmer who lived near the creek. The man asked repeatedly about the Powderhorn family and eventually admitted to killing Cicely. He wanted to know why the family had been tormenting him by singing every time he passed the rock. The farmer, who had been a friend of Cicely, acted as if he didn’t care. The man left, and the farmer told the next group of raftsmen who came through that he had identified the killer. After hearing the description, the other raftsmen set out for revenge. They managed to capsize the killer’s raft in the rapids not long after. The killer was crushed against the rocks and drowned. The raftsmen buried him in an unmarked grave. As they did, they heard the song of Cicely one final time.

  THE FIRST FERRIS WHEEL

  The very first Ferris wheel was designed by a bridge builder and engineer from Pittsburgh named George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. Ferris was running his own business, G.W.G. Ferris & Co., which inspected and tested structural steel for the state’s numerous bridges and railroads, when he came up with the idea to build the wheel. The first wheel was constructed for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and it instantly became a hit. It stood 250 feet tall and could hold 2,160 people. Passengers paid fifty cents each to ride the wheel through two revolutions. The idea was quickly copied and spread around the world.

  JOHANNES KELPIUS AND THE HERMITS OF WISSAHICKON

  Johannes Kelpius was a German Pietist immigrant who came to Pennsylvania because of its policies of religious toleration. He was born to German parents in Transylvania in 1673 and acquired a master’s degree in theology at a German university by the age of sixteen. Kelpius was also very interested in math, astronomy, botany, music and the occult. He became a mystic and intently studied the Bible, especially the Book of Revelation. In the 1690s, Kelpius and some like-minded followers came to Philadelphia so that they could continue to develop their ideas in peace. Kelpius became convinced that the world would end in 1694.

  The mystic and his followers lived lives of celibacy and prayer in the hillsides along Wissahickon Creek. Many lived in caves or simple houses, writing books and music and producing medicines with their botanical skills. Though the surrounding community called them monks, they referred to themselves as the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness, in reference to one of their biblical interpretations. The hermits were frequently sought out for their knowledge of medicine and their understanding of numerology and astrology. When the world did not end in 1694, the date was reinterpreted and pushed forward several times. When Kelpius died in 1708, the society disbanded. Some members joined the similar Ephrata Cloister, while others chose to marry. The cave of Kelpius and several others still exist today.

  THE EXPLOSION OF THE Island Queen

  On September 10, 1947, the excursion steamer Island Queen exploded at the dock along the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh. The boat was 285 feet long and 50 feet wide, making it one of the largest on inland waters. It had five decks and the capacity to hold four thousand. Sixty crew members were onboard at the time of the blast, but luckily there were no passengers. Twenty-one of the crew members were killed and eighteen were wounded. Some were thrown more than 30 feet away into the river. The blast also damaged cars and buildings along the river. Fireboats extinguished the fire and rescued the survivors. The blast was most likely triggered by an acetylene torch.

  THE PUMPKIN FLOOD

  In September and early October 1786, much of the state was inundated with heavy rains. The massive amounts of rainwater caused the Susquehanna River and its tributaries to swell. By October 6, the waters spilled over the riverbanks and washed away vital crops that were soon to be harvested. Those who witnessed the flood reported that hundreds of pumpkins could be seen floating down the river, washed away before they were picked. Because so much food was lost, many farm animals starved to death over the winter, causing financial hardship for many farmers.

  A CRIME SPREE AND SHOOTOUT

  Twenty-six-year-old Albert Feelo, twenty-seven-year-old Virgil Evarts and thirty-three-year-old Kenneth Palmer had all served time together in Rockview Penitentiary during the 1930s. All three were troublemakers, and when they started working together, things got out of hand. After they were released, they originally planned to find legitimate employment. Their plans did not last long. In early September 1941, the three men met up at a bar in Uniontown. For the next two weeks, they committed a series of crimes in western Pennsylvania.

  First, the three men went to Farrell, forced their way into the Francke & Co. Insurance offices and held up the business. Several secretaries and the manager were tied up and left on the floor while the safe was broken into. The robbers took $400. Their next stop was a gun store in New Castle. This time they took guns, ammunition and $100 in cash. By September 19, the men had traveled to Butler to rob the Harrisville Bank. Pointing their guns in the employees’ faces, they threatened to kill anyone who did not comply. The thieves made off with all of the money that was left in the bank, about $2,300.

  A man who was working in the hardware store next to the bank witnessed the robbery. As the three men were getting back into their stolen car, he called the police and gave them a description. The men had taken off in the direction of Ellwood City. Chief Ernest Hartman received the call at the Ellwood City station and took down the details. The chief then grabbed a Thompson submachine gun and headed out alone in his car to intercept them. Hartman pulled his car next to the Fifth Street Bridge and kept a watch on the road.

  He only waited a few minutes before the stolen getaway car approached. Hartman stepped out to stop the car and told the men to put their hands in the air. Instead, the robbers drew their pistols and fired. They missed Hartman and were not prepared for the barrage of bullets from his Tommy gun. All three were hit. They managed to climb back in the car and sped off again. Hartman did not know it at the time, but he had hit Feelo in both lungs and his spine.

  As the wounded men fled from Hartman, an off-duty police officer, Edward Shaffer, joined in the pursuit in the car of drugstore clerk James Pasta. The two were closing in when Evarts lost control of the getaway car on Belton Road and went over a ten-foot embankment. Only Palmer and Evarts climbed up to the road, where they stopped a car driven by Angelo DeCarlo. His passenger was Mrs. Laura Kash, whose car had just broken down up the road. Evarts ordered the pair to get Feelo from the car and carry him to DeCarlo’s car. Before they had a chance to climb down the hill, Shaffer and Pasta arrived on the scene, ahead of Hartman. Shaffer was unarmed, so the thieves now had four hostages. They made Shaffer and Pasta carry Feelo to the car. Evarts then ordered Shaffer into the front seat, and he set his rifle on Palmer’s lap while he walked over to the driver’s side. He didn’t count on Pasta’s quick hands. Pasta snatched the rifle and pointed it at Evarts. While Palmer and Shaffer wrestled for another pistol, Pasta shot Evarts in the face. Incredibly, Evarts still did not go down. He staggered down the embankment to retrieve another gun from the wrecked car. Pasta caught up with him and smashed his head with the butt of the rifle.

  In the meantime, Palmer grabbed a wrench from DeCarlo’s car and struck Shaffer in the face. He did not realize that Mrs. Kash had snuck up behind him with another wrench. She slammed it down on his head, and the dazed Palmer made
one last effort to retrieve one of the pistols he had dropped in DeCarlo’s car. Before he could reach it, Chief Hartman burst on the scene and subdued him.

  More police arrived, and in the wrecked getaway car they found plans for more robberies and more firearms. Evarts was dead. The severely wounded Feelo died the next morning in the hospital. Only Palmer survived. He was put on trial and convicted of armed robbery. He was sent back to Rockview to serve a seven-year sentence, but he was released in four.

  A FIERY-EYED PHANTOM

  An unusual ghost story appeared in a Pottsville newspaper in November 1875. The paper stated that the story was originally reported in the Mechanicsburg Journal a few days earlier. It told of a strange apparition that visited a Mrs. Nesbit, who lived in Warrington Township, York County. The trouble started one day after a woman with a burned arm appeared at Mrs. Nesbit’s door. The strange woman said that she was tired and asked if she could spend the night at Mrs. Nesbit’s house. Mrs. Nesbit thought that the request was odd and refused. Before leaving, the woman asked Mrs. Nesbit how she would feel if she were not allowed to rest.

  Mrs. Nesbit thought nothing of the incident at first, but she soon began to see something that was quite frightening. A ghostly, humanlike face with fiery eyes began floating from room to room inside her house. After seeing the apparition for several days, she was stricken with rheumatism so severe that she could not rest or sleep. Eventually, her condition improved, but she continued to see the fiery eyes.

  Next, the full body of the ghost began materializing in her bedroom late at night. The phantom tore the sheets and blankets off of her bed and hurled her into the corner of the room, where she went into convulsions and passed out. The menacing, fiery-eyed ghost continued to appear every night, disturbing Mrs. Nesbit’s sleep. Desperate for relief, she asked some of her neighbors to stand watch while she slept. The ghost did not seem to mind the audience, and it continued its nightly harassment. The neighbors all saw the fiery eyes clearly and confirmed Mrs. Nesbit’s story.

  Mrs. Nesbit’s friends advised her to seek the help of a local powwower named Dr. Gusler. He was widely known for removing hexes and spells. He instructed Mrs. Nesbit to pass a red-hot sickle up and down over her arm, as close as possible without burning it. Then he instructed her that if someone showed up at her door and asked for something, she should not give the stranger anything and send her away. Sure enough, the next day the woman with the burned arm returned and asked for some lard to grease her wound. Mrs. Nesbit sent her away, and the fiery-eyed phantom was not seen again.

  TEETH RUINED BY WATER

  A dentist who had recently set up shop in Pittsburgh in 1883 took the time to alert the Pittsburgh Commercial about the terrible effect that the water of the Allegheny River was having on people’s teeth. He claimed that he had never seen a higher incidence of white decay and crumbling teeth in any other city where he had practiced. He blamed the high acidity levels of the river for the problem and advised everyone to drink limewater to prevent damage to their teeth.

  THE RINGING ROCKS

  In the middle of the forest in Upper Black Eddy, Bucks County, lies an enormous seven-acre field of rocks and boulders. What makes the rocks different from others is the fact that many of them produce a tone or make a ringing sound when they are hit with a solid object, such as a hammer. The geological anomaly was formed about twelve thousand years ago when the glaciers receded. The field is at least ten feet deep and probably deeper. Somewhere between 10 and 30 percent of the rocks make a clear ringing sound. It is not known why the others, which have the same geological characteristics, do not.

  Another strange characteristic of the field is that birds are almost never seen flying overhead, though this may be due to the lack of food in the area. Various theories have been put forward over the last century to explain the ringing, from internal stresses in the rock to the suggestion that they are some type of meteor fragments. None has sufficiently explained the musical rocks.

  THE HEX MURDER

  The story of the hex murder begins early in the twentieth century with a young powwower named John Blymire. Blymire was continuing a tradition that dated back three generations in his family and perhaps longer. Though he had been considered slow in school, he became known for his cures and healing remedies and established a good reputation in York County at a young age. However, things started to change after he apparently cured what was believed to be a rabid dog. Blymire became convinced that someone had placed a hex upon him. He could no longer eat, sleep or continue his practice as a powwower. All attempts to remove the hex failed. Then, one sleepless night, he figured out the identity of his tormentor. At the stroke of midnight, an owl hooted seven times. Blymire knew that the hex had been placed on him by the spirit of his great-grandfather Jacob, who had been the seventh son of a seventh son. To escape the curse, he moved away from the family home and cemetery where his great-grandfather was buried.

  Blymire returned to normal and continued his practice, working mundane jobs to support himself. A few years later, he got married. He had two children, but they both died in infancy. The second lived for only three days. Blymire came to believe that he had been hexed again. He sought out other powwowers to help him remove the curse, but none of their remedies was successful. One of them was Andrew Lenhart. Lenhart convinced Blymire that someone he knew well had placed the hex on him. Blymire’s wife began to fear for her safety because shortly before, in 1923, one of Lenhart’s other clients had murdered his spouse, who had allegedly hexed him. Her family consulted a lawyer, and they received a judge’s order to have Blymire mentally evaluated. After the evaluation, the judge had Blymire committed to a mental institution because of his obsession with hexes and magic. His wife divorced him. Blymire was only in the facility for forty-eight days before he simply walked out due to lax security.

  Blymire, still obsessed with finding the identity of the person who had hexed him, sought out help from one more powwower. Mrs. Knoll (aka Mrs. Knopt) was retired but agreed to work with Blymire in a series of sessions. Blymire soon learned that an old man he had known since childhood had placed the hex on him. Finally, Mrs. Knoll revealed the man’s name—Nelson Rehmeyer—another powwower who had removed a hex from Blymire as a child. To remove the hex, Blymire would either have to steal Rehmeyer’s copy of the powwow book The Long-Lost Friend or cut a lock of his hair and bury it six feet underground.

  During the sessions with Mrs. Knoll, Blymire also learned that the Hess family and a man named John Curry had been hexed by the sixty-year-old Rehmeyer. Blymire met with the others and convinced them to take action. On November 27, 1928, Blymire led Wilbert Hess and John Curry into Rehmeyer’s Hollow and to the powwower’s house. The three men broke in and demanded that Rehmeyer turn over his copy of The Long-Lost Friend. When he did not turn over the book quickly, they tackled him and held him on the ground. He promised to retrieve the book if they released him, and they did. At their trial, the men claimed that Rehmeyer then attacked them, and all three men began to beat him. Soon, they realized that he was dead. They never found his copy of the book. The men put Rehmeyer’s body in a mattress and set it on fire.

  The fire did not destroy all of the evidence, and the men went to trial. Blymire and Curry received life sentences, and Hess received a ten- to twenty-year sentence. All three men were eventually paroled and ended up living fairly normal lives. Curry went on to serve during World War II. The sensationalism of the trial drove the traditional practice of powwowing underground and added to negative stereotypes of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Powwowers became associated with black magic in the public eye, and its practitioners were portrayed as backward.

  OMENS OF DEATH

  The Pennsylvania Germans had many superstitions about death. Those superstitions varied depending on what county they were in and what part of Germany they came from. A visitor to Pennsylvania Dutch country in the 1700s and 1800s would have encountered myriad sayings in regards to omens and portents of death. Here
are just a few:

  If you get sick on Sunday, your illness will be fatal.

  If a picture falls off the wall, it means someone will die.

  If a crow crosses your path on the street, you will soon be attending a funeral.

  If a clock suddenly stops, there will be a death.

  If a fruit tree suddenly blossoms in the fall, someone will die.

  If you miss a row while planting onions or while sowing grain, you will die before the year is over.

  If there are funerals between Christmas and New Year, there will be many funerals throughout that year.

  If birds fly into a house, it could be a sign that someone will die.

  If a hen crows, there will be a death.

  If the singing at a funeral is bad, there will be another funeral.

  If an owl hoots next to a house, someone will die.

  Omens like these may make you not want to get up in the morning. But if you stay in bed and are not feeling well, don’t pull on your sheets and blankets, because if a sick person does so, he will die.

  HE WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI

  By all appearances, Matt Cvetic was a normal middle-class man living in Pittsburgh. Born in 1909 to Slavic immigrants in the neighborhood of Lawrenceville, Cvetic was one of eleven children. Though he had some education, he never seemed to hold a job for very long. Cvetic had a troubled marriage that ended in divorce, partly because of his drinking problem and philandering. In 1939, he tried to join the army to work in intelligence. He was rejected.