Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania (13 page)

By this time, everyone in town was discussing witchcraft. Every evening, more people would appear to watch what happened to the girl. They all prayed and invoked folk remedies and charms. Still, nothing worked. A man was brought in who claimed to have been a witch killer back in Germany. All of his attempts to drive away the curse failed too. He said that American witches were “too cunning.” Some of the visitors started seeing strange things happen around the young woman's house. Even those who were initially skeptics became convinced that witchcraft was real. When cattle and pigs became sick on local farms, they feared that the curse of the witch was spreading.

Eventually, the accused witch and her family filed lawsuits against those who were defaming her. The hysteria soon died away. Miraculously enough, when the young woman received treatment from an actual doctor, the strange fits ceased and the ringing in her ears stopped.

A R
AINY
D
AY

If you are in Waynesburg, Greene County, on July 29, you had better bring your umbrella. It does not matter if you are there this year, next year or ten years from now. You will need it any year on that date. It almost always rains on July 29 in Waynesburg. Locals started keeping track of the strange weather phenomenon in the 1870s, when a farmer walked in to Daly and Spraggs Drug Store and mentioned that it had been raining on his birthday, the twenty-ninth, for several years.

Byron Daly, the pharmacist, used that piece of information to start betting prominent people in town that it would rain on July 29. They often wagered for a new hat. Soon, Daly had built up quite a collection. He continued the tradition for years, only losing twice. When he died, his son John continued wagering for hats. Over the years, it became a custom to bet with a local or national celebrity. Numerous celebrities turned over well-made hats to Daly and, more recently, the Special Events Commission that runs Rain Day festivities in the town.

R
ATTLESNAKE
P
ETE

In the summer of 1880, a strange man was discovered living in the hills above Erwinna, near the Delaware River. Known as Rattlesnake Pete, the sixty-year-old man had been living in the woods with his dog and pet rattlesnakes for decades. He roamed the wilderness gathering the snakes, of which he had no fear. He claimed that as a child, he and his siblings had a lot of experience dealing with the reptiles, and he learned how to train them and kill them if necessary. The snakes roamed free in the small shack where he lived and never attacked him or his dog.

B
ATTLE AT THE
C
IRCUS

The Wallace Circus was in Mahony City, Schuylkill County, on May 28, 1891, for one of its usual performances. The circus employees did not anticipate that they would never finish their show that night. Around the time the performance started, a group of boys, whose ages ranged from fourteen to eighteen, tried to force their way into the circus tent. The doormen pushed them back, but the boys stuck around outside and shouted insults. Some of them screamed so loud that they disrupted the performance inside.

Slowly, more people gathered outside and joined in. By ten o'clock that evening, there was a large crowd. The crowd surged forward to get into the tent, and this time the doormen could not stop them. Soon, a full-scale riot had broken out. Some of the performers were dragged and assaulted. The other circus employees and canvasmen grabbed clubs and began to beat back the crowd. Even that was not enough to hold back the throngs of people, so some of the performers got hold of revolvers and rifles and fired over fifty shots into the crowd. This bought them enough time to flee back to the circus train and load what they could carry. The engineer quickly pulled the train away from the station, and the circus proceeded to the next town. It was unclear exactly how many circus personnel were injured, but seven men who were in the rioting mob were badly injured, two of them critically.

The town constable attempted to arrest the circus employees before they pulled away. When he and his men attempted to board the train, they found themselves face to face with the barrels of several rifles. They let the train go.

A B
AN ON
D
ANCING

When the Reverend John Marquis came to the Pigeon Creek Presbyterian Church in the early 1880s, he decided to crack down on one particularly evil vice that had crept into the community. Apparently, some members of the small congregation near Monongahela City were engaged in the sin of dancing. Several stern lectures to the congregation had failed to produce the intended results. The problem was widespread among the young people and even a few married couples. Reverend Marquis decided that it was time to refuse communion to the dancers, and during the service on December 31, 1882, he told anyone who had danced that year to stay in their seats. Seventy-four members of the congregation remained seated. Twelve later repented. The remaining sixty-two were suspended until they recognized the severity of their sin. They had until March 1883 to repent. If they did not, they faced possible expulsion from the congregation. Reverend Marquis' campaign against dancing even made it into California newspapers. It is not clear how many members returned after March.

D
ON
'
T
E
AT THE
Y
ELLOW
S
NOW

In March 1879, a blanket of yellow snow fell on South Bethlehem. (Note that the snow was yellow before it hit the ground.) Samples of the snow were examined by the surgeon general of the U.S. Army. He concluded that the snow was saturated with pollen that had blown north into Pennsylvania.

S
AM
S
COTT
—P
HILADELPHIA
'
S
F
AMOUS
J
UMPER

Samuel Scott of Philadelphia became famous for his amazing jumping and diving abilities. He performed a variety of daredevil feats in front of audiences in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Scott first began jumping in the navy, where he was known to dive from the masts of ships. He always jumped into water, often from bridges or cliffs. Onlookers would put money in his hat after his performances. Soon, he began traveling up and down the East Coast and even made a dangerous jump from Niagara Falls. As time went on, he added more tricks to his act, performing acrobatics with a noose around his neck. By 1840, he had raised enough money to take his show to England. Unfortunately, neither he nor his act lasted very long in Europe. In early January 1841, he was performing at the Waterloo Bridge when he accidentally hanged himself with the noose with which he was performing. All attempts to revive him failed.

A
IRCRAFT
E
NGINEER
S
AW
UFO
OVER
E
RIE

As a research engineer specializing in aircraft instrumentation and magnetism, Victor Didelot was familiar with the way traditional aircraft moved. What he saw above the city of Erie in the summer of 1958, however, was beyond his ability to explain. Didelot saw a silvery white, oval-shaped object perform an incredible maneuver. He said that the object moved horizontally, parallel to the ground, in a 120-degree arc that followed the shoreline of Lake Erie. When it was over the city, it abruptly shot directly up into the sky at what he estimated was three times the speed than that at which it had been traveling previously. Didelot also noted that the object made no sound.

A S
TRANGE
V
ISION

In 1878, an engineer named Bill Sandusky worked for the Philadelphia and Erie Railway. He was known as one of its most skilled and reliable employees. Bill's friend and fireman on the train Jimmy Green had been killed that year after falling underneath the train while saving the life of a young child. Sandusky was assigned a new fireman—a strange young man named George Watkins.

None of the other engineers knew where Watkins was from. He had only been working for the railroad for a few months. Watkins was about twenty-two years old but looked much older. Sandusky described him as tall and lean, with a dark complexion and dark, sunken eyes. Most of the railroad men felt uneasy under Watkins's gaze and did not look him in the eyes.

After about a month, Watkins was making Sandusky so uneasy that the engineer asked the superintendent for a new fireman. His request was refused because Watkins had been doing his job well, and there was no reason to transfer him. Then something strange happened one day while the train was passing through a wooded area of McKean County. Sandusky happened to look back at Watkins, who seemed to be staring at him intently. As the young man turned toward the outside scenery, so did Sandusky. Suddenly, the trees were gone, and there was a vision of a small town on a large flat area. He saw an old man riding toward the town on a horse. A young man stepped out from behind a tree and shot the man on the horse. The old man fell to the ground, clutching his chest. The murderer shot him two more times while he was down. Then the vision ended and the trees reappeared.

Sandusky turned back toward Watkins in shock. Watkins had apparently not seen the vision, so Sandusky described it in detail. As he did, Watkins grew pale and blurted out, “My God! There is no escape!” He jumped from the train and disappeared into the woods. Sandusky stopped the train to find him but had no success. Watkins never returned to work.

A few months later, Sandusky was on vacation in Cincinnati when he picked up the morning paper. He read about a man named Walters who was going to be executed across the Ohio River in Kentucky for shooting and robbing his uncle six years earlier. For some reason, the story made Sandusky think about the vision he had on the train, so he went over to Kentucky to see if he could get a look at the killer. He was allowed to look into the murderer's cell. It was the man he had known as George Watkins. Sandusky had seen a vision of him committing the crime. After Watkins/Walters jumped off the train, he had returned to Kentucky to confess. He was executed three days after Sandusky's visit.

T
HE
H
EADLESS
F
RENCHMAN

Twin Sisters Hollow in Potters County is allegedly haunted by the ghost of a headless Frenchman. According to the legend, the unfortunate man was part of the expedition led by Etienne Brule that explored parts of North America in the early 1600s. The Frenchman was ambushed by hostile Indians (possibly while looking for silver), and his head was cut off. His ghost can be seen walking under the full moon in October, with his severed head held under his arm.

T
HE
W
ORLD
W
ILL
E
ND ON
A
PRIL
1, 1940

That is what a press release from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia said on March 31, 1940. The release claimed that the astronomers at the institute guaranteed that it was no April Fools' joke and the world would come to an end at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time the very next day. The message went on to say that confirmation of the announcement could be obtained from the director of the Fels Planetarium. The press release might have gone relatively unnoticed, but it was broadcast over the air by radio stations. The station and the Franklin Institute were bombarded with panicked inquiries. The institute announced that it had made no such prediction and sent out no official press release. It was soon discovered that William Castellini, who was involved with public relations at the institute, sent out the fake press release to publicize an upcoming lecture that was going to discuss ways in which the world might end. The institute did not find his prank amusing and fired him.

T
HE
F
IRST
C
REMATORY IN THE
U
NITED
S
TATES

Dr. Francis J. LeMoyne was a prominent physician in the city of Washington, Washington County, throughout the mid-1800s. LeMoyne became convinced that local burial practices were causing some of the illnesses that he was treating. He believed that the decomposing bodies and the illnesses that they contained were leeching into the soil and contaminating local water supplies. He offered the local cemetery money to construct a crematory on its property, but the offer was rejected outright because of the unpopularity of cremation. Not to be deterred, he constructed his own crematory in 1876 on Gallow's Hill for a cost of $1,500. He designed the “oven” himself so that the bodies would not be exposed directly to the flames. LeMoyne was not just the owner—he was also a client. His body was the third to be cremated in the building in 1879. The building still exists and is maintained by the Washington County Historical Society.

A D
YNAMITE
E
XPLOSION

In March 1883, four workers attempted to thaw frozen dynamite in Dead Man's Hollow along the Youghiogheny River in Allegheny County. The men were working at a stone quarry run by George Fleming. The four men were to continue the blasting that had been carried out by the previous shift. The foreman was David Henninger, and he was helped by his brother George, Noble Gilkey and an unidentified black man. As they were preparing to work, they discovered that the dynamite cartridges had frozen, so they built a small fire and placed the explosives a few feet away to thaw. This was not the best idea. The men also took the opportunity to warm their hands near the fire.

After a few minutes, the dynamite exploded. The Henningers, who were standing closest to the dynamite, were torn to pieces, and David died instantly. George lingered for a short time before dying. The unidentified black man sustained severe wounds and burns and was not expected to recover. Gilkey was severely burned on parts of his body, but it was thought that he stood the best chance of recovery. Luckily, Gilkey's house was within sight of the accident, so help was summoned immediately.

A G
ANG
A
TTACKS
A
C
HURCH