Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania (8 page)

A F
ACTORY
E
XPLOSION

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 S
TRANGE
C
REATURE IN
C
OATESVILLE

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.

A
N
A
PE
S
CARE IN
C
ORRY

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.

T
HE
M
YSTERY 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.

T
HE
L
EGEND OF THE
T
HUNDERBIRD

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.

G
EORGE
W
ASHINGTON
'
S
G
RISTMILL

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.

B
ELSNICKEL

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 also 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
W
ILKES
-B
ARRE

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.

T
HE
O
RIGIN OF THE
J
EEP

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.

P
ENNSYLVANIA
'
S
P
ETROGLYPHS

Petroglyphs are a form of writing or art carved into rock in ancient or pre-modern times. The Indians in Pennsylvania left many examples of petroglyphs carved into stones and boulders throughout the state. They are usually located around rivers and represent nature, humans, supernatural entities, animals, the moon, the sun and stars. The drawings in this state tend to have stylistic similarities to other Algonquin art that has survived. Some researchers have hypothesized that the petroglyphs may have represented boundary markers and/or sacred sites. They may have also served as teaching tools or to mark astronomical phenomena. Since they cannot be dated or directly translated, it cannot be known precisely what they signify.

There are almost forty petroglyph sites that have been officially recorded in the state. They are in two primary groupings. One batch of almost thirty sites exists along the tributaries of the Ohio River. They include Indian God Rock and the Parkers Landing Petroglyph along the Allegheny River. Indian God Rock has carvings that represent the supernatural and images that are half man, half animal. The second batch is located along the Susquehanna River and consists of ten sites with over one thousand individual carvings. Many of the carvings consist of symbolic designs, human hybrids, astronomical representations and animal tracks. Some of the petroglyphs at Safe Harbor were removed for preservation in the 1930s because the site was flooded for a dam.

A UFO
WITH A
S
TRANGE
F
LIGHT
P
ATTERN

At one o'clock in the morning on February 9, 1957, Roger Standeven looked at the night sky over Philadelphia and saw a strange object moving in an even stranger pattern. Standeven saw a white UFO with a red light “falling like a leaf.” The object then stopped, shot back up into the sky and quietly fell again. It repeated the pattern over and over, each time going higher in the sky. Eventually, Standeven could no longer see the object.

M
AN
S
HOT
P
ANTHER THAT
W
AS
N
OT
S
UPPOSED TO
E
XIST

The eastern panther has officially been extinct in Pennsylvania since 1874, though several were said to have been shot in 1891. After a bounty was put on the animal by the state in 1807, it took less than a century to wipe out the population. Killing one of the feared animals became a matter of pride for hunters. Over the years since their extinction, there have been many panther sightings, but none has been substantiated. There is one exception.

On October 28, 1967, John Gallant of Edinboro, Crawford County, shot a panther a mile and a half southeast of town. The panther was a young, half-grown female that weighed about forty-eight pounds. It was with another larger panther that was wounded but escaped. The wounded panther and a third panther were allegedly caught in a trap a day or two later, but they escaped again.

The dead panther attracted substantial attention from naturalists, who debated the possibility of the animal's survival after so much time. There was some speculation that the animals may have escaped from a circus performer's farm just over the border in Ohio, but no definite conclusions were reached. At least one wildlife biologist who examined the case in the 1980s thought that the panther showed some signs of domestication. Occasional panther sightings are still reported throughout Pennsylvania and neighboring states, though no new specimens have been captured.

War of the Worlds
CAUSED
P
ENNSYLVANIA
P
ANIC