Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania (2 page)

A rather miraculous healing was reported in York County in September 1884. A former sheriff named James Peeling had taken ill with severe pain throughout his body. He could not get out of bed, so the family doctor was called. The doctor believed that he suffered from intercostal rheumatism and asked if a second doctor could be brought in to confirm his diagnosis. Peeling declined, and his condition continued to get worse. Later in the week, his brother convinced him to allow a man named Edmund Meyers to visit. Meyers was becoming known in the community for his unusual ability to heal by touch.

When Meyers arrived, he placed his hand on Peeling's forehead and ordered him to take a deep breath. Peeling said it was impossible, but when he tried, he found that it was not as painful as it had been. As he exhaled, his pain continued to decrease. By the time Meyers was ready to leave, Peeling was able to walk him to his front gate. After word got out, hundreds of people came to Meyers for relief, and many left with their own stories of healing. Meyers never claimed to have any supernatural power and did not know how his ability worked.

T
ROLLEY
C
ARS
C
OLLIDED
IN
F
OG

The morning of September 23, 1908, was an extremely foggy one in Philadelphia. Two trolley cars loaded with workmen were making their way through the city on their usual routes. What neither of the operators knew was that the signal box that controlled the trolley traffic had been deactivated by an angry striker. When the two cars spotted each other in the fog, it was too late to stop or even slow down. They slammed into each other at full speed, sending debris and bodies flying into the surrounding street. Seven of the men on the trolleys were killed immediately. Seventy-two others were strewn about with a variety of injuries, including crushed ribs, severed limbs, broken bones, cuts and severe bruises. Several passengers died later at the hospital. The identity of the man who tampered with the box was not ascertained.

T
HE
A
FTERNOON THAT THE
S
KY
W
ENT
B
LACK

A strange phenomenon occurred in the sky over most of Pennsylvania on Sunday, September 25, 1950. The midafternoon sky turned to shades of red, yellow and purple before turning almost as black as night. The occurrence lasted for almost half an hour, and in some areas much longer. The phenomenon caused confusion on the ground and resulted in one death.

In Tyrone, a sixty-five-year-old man was killed while crossing the street by a driver who could not see him in the sudden darkness. At Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati double-header had to be played under the lights. Two drivers in a race in New Kensington were injured after their cars crashed in the darkness. The black sky even confused animals on farms in many counties. Chickens returned to their coops to roost in the middle of the afternoon. Many other incidents were reported throughout the state.

Astronomers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were puzzled by the phenomenon, and none could recall ever witnessing such an occurrence before. It was believed that a heavy layer of smoke from forest fires in Canada was blown over the state because of a change in weather patterns. A few disagreed with the explanation, stating that there were no confirmed forest fires of substantial size in Canada at the time.

A
WARD
-W
INNING
S
HRUNKEN
H
EAD

A shrunken head owned by William Gibson won a blue ribbon for “rarest exhibit” at a 1937 sportsman's show in Washington County. Gibson had acquired the baseball-sized head in the late 1920s from the Jivaro Indians in Ecuador. He traded a small mirror for the head.

O
UT
-
OF
-P
LACE
T
IGERS

In July 1986, a series of big cat sightings was reported in Wyoming, Lackawanna and Susquehanna Counties. A man walking along Route 92 near Nicholson spotted a large feline that looked like a tiger only fifty feet ahead of him. When it noticed the man, it darted back into the woods. The man reported the animal to the state police, who later spotted it in the woods from a helicopter. They were unable to catch it on the ground, despite several attempts.

Two days later, another large cat was spotted in a backyard in Newton Township. It was described as having orange hair. The next day, a large beige cat was spotted by a photographer in Jackson. State police were inundated with many other reports of tigers and large cats. One person even claimed to have seen a white tiger. All attempts by police and wildlife officials to locate and trap the animals were unsuccessful.

T
HE
G
RAVE OF THE
G
YPSY
Q
UEEN

In the spring of 1921, a gypsy carnival came to the Shenango Valley. It ended up being a carnival that the town of Sharon would never forget. Everything at the carnival was proceeding as usual until the fortuneteller, Lena Miller, became severely ill. She had developed severe pneumonia and seemed to be getting worse by the day. Lena was married to Frank Miller, the head of the gypsy tribe that ran the carnival. She was also the daughter of the king of the gypsies in America, Louis Mitchell. By May 10, thirty-two-year-old Lena was dead.

Soon, thousands of gypsies converged on the area. Sample Funeral Home laid out the gypsy princess in one of the large tents at the fairgrounds. Her body was decorated with colorful silk robes and jewels. A feast was held on the site for her family and relatives. Her body remained in the tent until May 13. Over one thousand gypsies attended the funeral service. She was to be buried at Oakwood Cemetery, a short distance away. The funeral procession was so long that it took thirty minutes to pass. It was led by an Orthodox priest and the carnival band.

Over five thousand gypsies gathered at the cemetery in Hermitage. When the gypsy princess's casket was lowered into the ground, visitors passed by and tossed coins onto the lid. The grave was marked with a simple sandstone obelisk, engraved with only her name and birth and death dates. The gypsy king paid the $360 funeral bill with gold coins. For many years after, gypsies would pass by to visit Lena's gravesite. The unusual funeral was not soon forgotten in the Shenango Valley, and the story was passed down to younger generations by those who witnessed it.

T
HE
G
IANT
S
NAKES
OF THE
B
ROAD
T
OP
M
OUNTAINS

Since 1927, there have been reports of giant snakes in the Broad Top Mountains in Bedford and Huntingdon Counties. Most witnesses have described the snakes as about twenty feet long, but some have claimed to have seen snakes as long as forty feet. They are usually described as gray in color, with white or yellow markings on their heads. Very large tan-colored snakes have also been sighted. The snakes have usually been spotted crossing roads, clearings and other open spaces where they would be easily noticed. At least one hunter claimed to have watched a giant snake feeding on a deer. The region is heavily forested and riddled with abandoned mines. It has been suggested that the mines may be the serpents' homes. The most recent sighting occurred in July 2000, when three men in a truck spotted a snake that was at least seventeen feet long crossing Enid Mountain Road.

T
HE
W
OMAN IN
B
LACK

For several weeks at the end of 1886 and the beginning of 1887, residents of the Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys were terrorized by a strange specter known only as the woman in black. Towns throughout the coal-producing region reported sightings of the mysterious dark figure. The first encounter happened in the Pine Brook section of Scranton, where the woman supposedly attacked some girls who were walking home from a ball. In the nights that followed, the woman was seen again in a variety of locations around town and could apparently vanish at will. One evening, the specter was spotted near Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company's mill, and some of the braver citizens decided to pursue her. The woman in black went into an abandoned mine and did not emerge.

The strange occurrences received a brief mention in the
New York Times
, and soon many surrounding communities began to report encounters with the same specter. She was seen in Carbondale and on the Depot Bridge in Pittston. The man who saw her on the bridge described her eyes as brighter than electric lights. She was seen in other suburban areas and small towns, and eventually even in Wilkes-Barre. The specter was talked about everywhere, and rumors of her appearance caused both terror and excitement. One reporter, obviously making light of the situation, claimed to have interviewed the woman in black. It did not take long before a few criminals masqueraded as the woman to commit assaults and robberies. A woman returning from a funeral was mistaken for the woman in black by two young ladies. They ran in terror until the woman caught up with them and convinced them that she was not the specter. After several weeks and a second article in the
Times
about the panic, the scare finally subsided.

A L
EPRECHAUN IN
P
ITTSBURGH

During the 1920s, a young girl living in the Uptown section of the city of Pittsburgh supposedly had an encounter with a strange little man. Her large Irish-American family lived in a small house on Watson Street. She had four sisters and a brother, and she shared a bedroom with three of those sisters in their crowded house. One afternoon, while cleaning her bedroom, the girl pushed her bed to a different spot to sweep beneath it. She claimed that when she went to push it back, a little man in a green suit appeared on the other side of the bed. He pushed the bed in the opposite direction, away from its original location. The girl tried to return the bed to its proper place several times, but the leprechaun always moved it away. Eventually, the girl gave up and left the bed in its new position. The little man disappeared.

When the girl's father came in later to check on her, he asked why the bed was in a different spot. She told him the story. He dismissed it as an imaginative excuse for moving the bed and allowed her to leave it where it was. Later that night, when all of the girls were sleeping, part of the ceiling collapsed. Luckily no one was hurt because the debris fell in the spot where the young girl's bed had originally been, before it was moved by the leprechaun.

A T
RAIN
R
OBBERY

On the morning of October 11, 1924, a Cambria and Indiana Railroad train slowed down outside of Belsano, Cambria County, to pick up a passenger. As the engineer applied the brakes, a car with four men pulled up near the train and pointed guns at him. Two other men, who were already onboard the train, made their way back to a rear compartment. The robbers' target was a safe belonging to the Ebensburg Coal Company. It contained the $33,054 payroll of the Colver mine's employees. The thieves shot and killed one of the guards and took the safe. They escaped with the help of their friends in the car. Only two of the men involved, Michelo Bassi and Anthony Pezzi, were ever caught. They were found in Indiana, each with $3,000 in cash. They were later convicted and executed. The safe, the rest of the money and the other men were never found.

G
IANTS
V
ISITED
P
HILADELPHIA

On the afternoon of January 27, 1887, three giants took a walk down Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, attracting a considerable amount of attention. The three were brothers from Iowa who were stopping in the city for a day with their cousin before going on to an exhibition in Rhode Island. Samuel, William and Charles Robinson, ages twenty-five, twenty-two and nineteen, respectively, were all over seven feet tall. Samuel and Charles were both seven feet, eleven inches. By the time the brothers reached the corner of Ninth Street and Chestnut, they had attracted a crowd of almost three thousand curious spectators. The trio was followed by crowds even when the brothers ducked into stores and buildings. They were finally left alone when they boarded a train headed out of town.