The Spooky Side Of The Susquehanna - Grave Matters

   

My daughter often jokes that between her genealogist mother and geocaching father, she practically grew up in cemeteries.  It's no secret that I love cemeteries - both  the art of the stones and sculptures, and the stories hidden in the dashes between the dates.

More about Samuel McHenry

I could go on for hours, telling you of the "confederate bullet" grave in Allenwood, the marker in Lewisburg that lists the alias of a man who ran away with stolen money, started another life, marrying a second wife and was nearly elected mayor of San Francisco before being outed and RETURNING TO HIS WIFE AND FAMILY as if none of it had ever even happened...  Or the interesting marker in Columbia County with a patented device on top of the stone that I do not actually understand - but I do know the man was a brilliant inventor.  He was also a very famous stalker, making national headlines and being committed for his obsession with "The Belle Of America".

More about Talbot Green

There are markers along trails and roads - some which are cenotaphs, not true graves.  There are unique designs and carvings.  There are so, so many interesting things to see in our local cemeteries.

But, locally, we are most famous for two plots: The Escape Hatch In Williamsport, and  the "Hooded Graves" so often called Vampire Cages, in Catawissa.

Both are fascinating stories.

  

The "Vampire Cages" in Catawissa likely have nothing at all to do with vampires, although there is a loose connection to grave robbers, so I can't be completely convinced that the cages were merely ornamental in nature.  The family were iron masters, that alone could explain the structures.  Why do they exist?  Because they could.  The three women all died in 1852, at least two of them dying in childbirth.  

Grave robbing was occurring in Columbia County at this time. Drs were desperate for cadavers to practice on, and learn from.  With the prevalence of deaths in childbirth, it's logical that drs would want to learn more about what exactly was going wrong.  It appears that Dr McKelvy, a surgeon in Bloomsburg, for one, worked with illegally obtained cadavers.  Sarah Ann Thomas, one of those buried under the ornamental iron cages in Catawissa, had married Ransloe Boone, a cousin of James Boyd McKelvy. When the Lutheran and Reformed Cemetery in Bloomsburg was moved to Espy in 1925, more than 100 bodies were missing. 

Charles Rodenbough adds an anecdote from 1852, that adds additional credence to the idea of protection from grave robbers - " One specific event occurred in February 1852 shortly before the deaths. In Cleveland some 150 miles away, the body parts of a young woman recently buried, turned up in a cesspool near a medical college. A committee of the father’s friends were allowed to search the school and found a female hand which the father later identified as belonging to his daughter. The news quickly spread to a mob outside the school which rioted, destroying furniture, chemical equipment, museum collection, and anatomical models and then set fire to the building."

Unless a diary or journal is discovered, written by one of the family members from 1852, I think it is unlikely we will ever know for certain why the cages exist.  It's interesting to note that Henry Ford & his wife Clara are also buried under a mortsafe.  Having died in 1947, there is very little chance that his family was concerned about rave robbers.

The mortsafes in Catawissa were restored and rededicated in 1999, and remain a truly interesting sight to see.    Read more about them, and the women buried under them, here: https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-hooded-graves-in-columbia-county-pa.html

In Williamsport, we have as near the opposite of a mortsafe as I can envision.  Rather than a contraption to keep a body in, it's a contraption to let the body OUT, if it was buried alive.  Featured in Life Magazine, as well as in an episode of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, The "escape hatch" mausoleum was designed with air circulation, and the ability to be opened from the inside. 

Thomas Tinsman Pursell, a fireman in Williamsport, had a phobia of being buried alive.  He spent 18 months designing and building the structure he, and his family, would be entombed in at death. 

Life magazine came to Williamsport to photograph his burial, and newspapers around the nation reported on the unique grave.

"Beside the body is a hammer and two boards, which Pursel will use to gain freedom if he revives in the next two months. Air circulates through the vault by a series of ventilators. If he does not arise within the next 60 days however, the tomb will be sealed permanently."

Read more about Pursell's Escape Hatch Grave, Here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-escape-hatch-tomb-at-wildwood.html

There are two gravesites that become especially "popular" each Halloween, for all the wrong reasons.  Both sites are surrounded by made up tales that have nothing at all to do with the real people buried there.  Both stories should give us pause when examining the past - remembering that anyone can write whatever they choose about the dead, maligning them for their own pleasure, and profit.  I doubt that I am without guilt, as much as I have written about the dead over the years, but know that if I have done so, it was a mistake, and in no way deliberate.

Katy's Church is one of the most infuriating of the "legends".  The made up story for a "Spooky" Halloween book has caused much damage, vandalism, and problems for the historic cemetery, where some of my own ancestors are buried. [The church has added a lot of security, trespassers will be prosecuted]

According to legend, If, on the night of the Harvest Moon,  you stand on the grave of Katy Vandine, and knock on the tree beside it, her ghost, dressed in shimmering white, will walk down the hill towards you.

You may also hear her crying from inside the church, or even hear her call your name.

As the legend goes, young Katie had an affair with a married man.  To save himself recrimination, he accused Katie of witchcraft.  Unmarried, pregnant, and accused of being a witch, Katy Vandine hung herself from a tree by the church.

An alternate tale says that Katy was engaged to be married, but her fiancé, a soldier, died in battle.  Distraught, Katy hung herself in her wedding dress.

None of this appears to have any historical accuracy, but a 2002 book by L.A. Flick perpetuates the legend.  In truth, Catherine Vandine attended services in that church right up until she died of natural causes, at age 87.

Yet another complete work of fiction is "Allison's Grave" in Duboistown.  

According to the legend of Allison's Grave,  told in Weird Pennsylvania by Matt Lake, a World War II nurse from Duboistown was decapitated when her plane was shot down.  Her remains were sent home to be buried at a cemetery along Mosquito Valley Road.

A newspaper article  about the apparition (which is likely the basis for Lake's "legend"),  is from an 1899 Bloomsburg newspaper - written 40 years before World War II began.  If  the headless apparition was Allison, she began her haunting before she was born.

"Superstitious people believe the ghost is that of an unknown woman whose skeleton was found on the mountains back of Duboistown.  many are afraid to venture out after nightfall." reads the 1899 article. It appears to have been not uncommon in this area for people to dress up and "spook" for fun, and that is most likely what happened in 1899.

  Edna [Bogart] Allison, in truth, died in a plane crash in 1964, long after the end of the War.  And she had not been decapitated.   Her grave has been vandalized, and replaced, due to the ridiculous "legend" surrounding her.

Although the "Allison's Grave" Story is nonsense, there IS an interesting story in the Williamsport Sun Gazette, March 1962, about Edna's brother in law, David Allison,  being bitten by a she-wolf in Rome.   Allison, "an American tourist" foolishly stuck his hand into a wolfs cage to pet her.  He was treated and there's no report of him turning into a werewolf, although give someone time, I'm sure it a new version will end up in a "spooky anthology".

Read more about Allison's Grave here - https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-real-ghost-they-say-phantom-frightens.html

Yet another legend, of larger scale, and with perhaps a bit more fact behind it,  is that of Mad Anthony Wayne.

"One tale, dear to every yarn-spinner in these historical parts, tells of "The Rider of the Night," a shadow man on a shadow horse. Believers say the phantom is Mad Anthony Wayne, - brilliant Revolutionary War fighter, whose statue graces Valley Forge Park." It is said that the ghost rider gallops across Pennsylvania, between his two graves, looking for his lost bones.

The truth of Mad Anthony's two graves may be even spookier than the fiction. 

According to Erie History, "At 2 a.m. on December 15, 1796, at the age of 51, General Wayne died in the arms of Dr. Balfour. Dr. Wallace had not yet arrived. The General had requested that his burial take place two days after his death and that he be buried, wearing his uniform, in a plain wooden coffin at the foot of the flagstaff of the post's blockhouse. The top of the coffin was marked with his initials, his age, and the year of his death in brass tacks."

Isaac Wayne, Anthony's son, years later,  made the journey to Erie to retrieve his fathers body. According to the story, he arrived in a  "two-wheeled cart more suitable for carrying light loads in urban areas than for carrying a heavy casket all the way back to Radnor. " - having expected his fathers body to have..  deteriorated, by the time he arrived. (this was long before embalming practices were common) But when Anthony was dug up, he was in a "near state of preservation."

So, Isaac  asked Dr. Wallace, who had cared for his father during his final illness, to dismember the body. 

"Next, the body parts were boiled in a large iron pot. Wallace and four assistants then carefully scraped the flesh from the bones, which were reverently placed in a wooden box and presented to the old soldier’s son. The flesh was returned to the original oak casket and reburied in the original grave."

 His flesh  reburied in Erie, his bones began the more than 300 mile  journey east,  across the state, along deeply rutted roads, to his birthplace of Radnor Pa. Along the way, the box was accidentally dropped, and the bones spilled out.  

And according to the legend, not all of the bones made it back into the box.    Today, Mad Anthony rides on horseback across the state, seeking his lost bones.

Is the story completely true?  Again, impossible for me to know.  But it serves as an example of how to write a legend well - and as far as I know, Mad Anthony's story has inspired only a macabre museum, inspiring no acts of vandalism.

This year, one of the many horrific stories dominating our local news is about the baby, or perhaps babies, buried in a backyard in Milton.  As we all lament how times have changed and yearn for the good old days...  let me point out that On April 25, 1900, the remains of a "very young child" were found in an "unused closet" (another account says "outhouse") at the Freight Station at Milton.  Officer Rhodes was sent to investigate. If the remains were ever identified, I can find no report of it.

One more before I close - and this one is fascinating to me not only because I am descended from a Hessian soldier, but also because, the skull used to be shown to children on field trips.

"A story handed down to Mrs. Cleo Barclay, the present owner, has it that once a skeleton clothed in British uniform was found in this walled-in enclosure which was discovered when repairs were made to the house by the Sandersons.  Buttons of the uniform were sent to England, and were verified as being authentic of the period.  Mrs. Barclay still has the skull and sword to prove the tale." 

Truth, or just another story?  We may never really know.

Find More here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-spooky-side-of-susquehanna-valley.html

The Escape Hatch Grave	Stories From The Cemeteries	The Hooded Graves In Catawissa
The Hessian Soldier at Lochbar	The Bones Of Mad Anthony Wayne	Samuel McHenry - The real life inventor turned stalker
The Allison's Grave Nonsense	The Katy's Church Nonsense	Geddes Or Green - When Truth is far stranger than fiction.

1904 Danville PA - and the Street Repaving

 

Danville, 1904

What began, for me, as a simple quest to determine the origin of a series of "defendants exhibit " photos, from Danville in 1904, lead me on so many rabbit trails that I could not condense it easily into one facebook post. After spending two days reading about street paving that year, I have such a tangled mess of notes  - but also, a much better "view" of Danville at the time.

1904 was a busy year for Danville.  As the Intelligencer reported, in July:

"The year 1904 is on the wane.  Sewerage is completed, the street railway is under construction, street paving is about to be commenced, and the old graveyard, it is claimed, will be turned over to the city and will be used for a public park.  1905 will find us under vastly different surroundings and circumstances.  We will be a justly proud  people.  Added to this, we can expect our city to own and control it's own light."

The majority of my notes below are concerned with the street paving project.  But in those notes are information on the businesses, trolley lines, milk man deliveries, public fountain, removal of the canal bridge across mill street, the curb side market and street awnings...  

If you had asked me last week what was happening in Danville in 1904, I would have replied with "Ice Flood".  To me, that was the headline. In the Danville newspapers (there were at least 3 that year), the flood,  and the long lasting icebergs were passing news - but the paving of Mill street stayed in the news, all year long.  It was the paving, not the flood, that brought most of the changes that year.

 In 1904 the street paving project was pushed through, because of the electric railway line coming to Danville.  

I'll start with an overview of where to find the shorter posts, about each item - then below this you will find many more notes and photos from the 1904 paving of main street.

In 1904 Danville:

The Public Fountain	The Mill Street Canal Bridge/Stone Culvert
The Curbside Market	The Cemetery Made Into A Park
The Trolley In Danville	Photographer Will G. Brown

The Danville River Bridge - 1904	The Danville River Bridge - 1905
The 1904 Ice Flood	The Ferry In 1904
Mill Street Danville,  Block By Block Through the Decades	Danville, PA An Index of My Danville Posts

In January of 1904, a petition was being presented to Borough Council for the paving of Mill Street.  The Montour American, on January 14th, reported that " considerably more signers than are required" had signed the petition.

 

The Danville and Bloomsburg electric railway company had "let the contract for constructing the line.  Realizing then that there was no time to lose if street paving was to take place coincident with the laying of the trolley track in the borough, the committee again took up the petition and made an effort to secure additional signers."

According to the January 14th article, "Yesterday it was announced that the project was secure."  Mill street was to be paved with vitrified brick from the river bridge to Center street.  "Mill street is about 39 feet wide with the exception of the spot in the vicinity of the weigh scales, where the street is much wider."

The trolley company was to pave 9 feet.  The balance of the paving costs were to be split equally between the borough and the property owners.  Although the math does not quite work out, the same article reported that the Owners, Borough, and Trolley Co would each take on 1/3rd of the cost.  

A month later, in February of 1904, the project was still going forward, but numerous details were being dealt with.  Things like access to sewer lines, the exact materials to be used, etc.  The trolley company suggested that Warren Paving, rather than vitrified brick, would be more economical, and would utilize a concrete base.

In March, an issue arose with the telegraph poles.  The borough wanted to reroute them, as part of the paving project.   A representative from New York came to Danville, and a special meeting was called, in an attempt to come to some sort of agreement on the removal, and replacement, of the poles - work that had been stopped a week prior.  It was found that the borough had entered into an agreement with the American Telegraph and Telephone Company back in 1891.  The council in 1904 was unaware  that this company even had poles erected in the borough - and discovered that the company, maintaining 58 poles in Danville, had never paid any tax - even though an 1897 ordinance required a tax, and repealed all former ordinances. The telegraph company maintained that they were unaware of any taxes, but were willing to pay, retroactively.  They did not believe that the 1891 agreement was subject to appeal.

View from Riverside, showing the remains of the bridge after the ice flood

(Note that the ice flood occurred in March of 1904, washing away bridges and causing a variety of severe damages)

In May of 1904 a contract was awarded to T.L. Evans and sons, to replace the canal bridge with a stone culvert.  (Note to self - see photos of Mill Street Block by block through the decades, I believe that answers my question of what was happening in that one photo..)  At the end of May, the paving ordinance had been approved by the Chief Burgess, and was to be advertised as required by law.  "The next step will be the drawing up of detailed plans and specifications which will be the work of the committee on streets and bridges in connection with the borough surveyor" Work was expected to begin about July 1st.

Canal Bridge Removal

In June of 1904, the Montour American reported that the "days of the curbstone market on Mill Street would seem to be numbered". The market would need to move, due to the paving project on Mill street, and the construction of the new culvert where the old canal bridge had been. "... other quarters will have to be selected for the market at least while the system of improvements contemplated are underway. Whether when all is finished Mill street will be found available for market is a fact which will develop later."

 

The stone culvert that replaced the canal bridge

Other interesting notes about the market in 1904 - a complaint before council was made about stores on Mill street purchasing items from the farmers set up for market, and then reselling those items in their stores.  This was a violation of the ordinances at the time.  Second note - Ferry Street was being considered as the alternate location for the market, but was not idea due to the "lack of cover" - the farmers having become accustomed to the shelter from the awnings on Mill street.  In October of 1904, newspaper articles were calling for the "antiquated" wooden coverings [awnings] to be removed.  "Wake up Danville business men, and throw off the somber covering that seem likely to produce Rip Van Winkle sleep!  Every wooden awning should disappear before the paving work is finished so that Mill street may become a sprightly, beautiful business thoroughfare." [The market returned to Mill street on Thursday December 1st, 1904] 

By the end of June, with the advertisements for proposals for paving Mill street having been made, " agents interested int eh paving proposition turn up with the arrival of every train, bringing with them a varied collection of paving brick.  Brick have been arriving by express for nearly a week past, and Council Chamber now presents more the appearance of a brick kiln than a hall..."

In July, council met and decided on the Reese Hammond block, made in Bolivar Pa.  Those bricks were covered by only two of the bids on hand. The contract for paving was awarded to D.J. Rogers [of Danville], as the lowest bigger.

Work was expected to begin the first week of August, with a crew of 50-60 men being employed in the work.  It was expected to take 3 months to complete the job, and the trolley company "will have to lay it's tracks before the work of paving is begun".  The roadway needed to be dug out to a depth of 12 inches.  It was expected that the work would be done in sections, with 600 feet of street  blocked off at a time.  "While this work will close the street in such a manner as to prevent driving through it, yet those places on either side of the blocked portion will be accessible; and though some inconvenience will result this plan will not close the highway all together."

A later article stated: "No one experiences more inconvenience in being kept off Mill street while paving is in progress than the milkmen.  These are obliged to tie their horses at as convenient a spot as possible, mostly on East or on west Mahoning street, and to carry their milk for a square up and down Mill street."

Panoramic view of the new bridge construction  - after the 1904 Ice Flood.

On August 19th at 2pm, an injunction was served on the Danville and Bloomsburg Electric Railway Company, by the Sunbury Electric Railroad Company, "praying that the former company be restrained from laying tracks up on ground the latter claimed it alone had the legal corporate rights."  The injunction was in force for a mere 15 minutes, before Judge Thompson, who had granted it, dissolved it. 

The W.C.T.U. Fountain, at it's new location, 1904

On September 7th, the public fountain, located near the weigh scales, was removed from it's foundation and moved to the west side of the culvert on Mill street, where a brick foundation was being prepared for it.  The water would not be turned on until the paving was completed along that section of Mill street. [This was the W.C.T.U. fountain]

First brick being laid by Miss Magill

The first paving block was laid on Monday September 12th.  It was placed in position by Miss Helen Magill, daughter of R.D. Magill and " a representative of once of the oldest families in town."  (according to the Montour American, Will G. Brown took a photo of the first brick being laid.)  "Miss Magill was the great great granddaughter of General William Montgomery, the founder of Danville, and the great granddaughter of Daniel Montgomery for whom the town was named."

In October it was announced that the weigh scaled, with were "formerly located at the corner of Mill and Bloom streets and which it was found necessary to remove due to street paving" were to be reinstalled at the junction of Bloom and Walnut Streets.  

By mid October, the Danville and Bloomsburg Trolley Company was in court over "the grade crossing injunction matter".  It is very probable that the photos from this ebay listing, "defendants exhibit", were from this hearing.

Mill Street was completed and opened in November of 1904.  The Market returned to Mill street on December 1st. 

=================

READ MORE

==================