Valley Girl Views: The Ride To Collect His Bones

Mad Anthony Wayne's Ghostly Ride To Find His Missing Bones

"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 than the fiction.

"Mad" Anthony Wayne was a brilliant General in the Revolutionary War. As for how he got his nickname, there are a variety of stories.

One states that after suffering multiple defeats at the hands of the British as well as the harsh conditions of winter at Valley Forge, “General ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne led successful campaigns at Fort Ticonderoga, Monmouth, N.J., and Stony Point, N.Y. It was these campaigns and Wayne’s bold military tactics which some sources claim added the “Mad” to his name.

“He endures fatigue and hardship with a fortitude uncommon for a man of his years,” wrote fellow officer, William Eaton, of his then-commander. “I have seen him in the most severe night of the winter of 1794, [asleep] on the ground, like his fellow-soldiers, and walk around the camp at four in the morning, with the vigilance of a sentinel.”

General Wayne, as painted in 1795, not long before his death.

By the time of his death, Wayne had accrued not only, honor, heroism, and military titles but also a plethora of epithets to accompany his name: "the blacksnake," "the chief who never sleeps," "Big Wind," "Dandy," and the "Hotspur of the Revolution.". And most enduringly, "Mad" Anthony Wayne.

Some believe that the "Mad" moniker came from Jemmy the Rover, a spy for the Americans Jemmy who, after exceeding the brink of Wayne's patience, received an " uncommon lashing" from his beloved General, after which he exploded into a fit, shouting "Mad Anthony Wayne!". The name stuck.

"On November 19, 1796, General Wayne arrived, by boat, at Presque Isle, now Erie, from Detroit. He was suffering from what has been described as a severe fit of the gout. He was taken to the quarters of the commander of the military post, Captain Russell Bissell, for medical treatment. General Wayne asked that Dr. J.C. Wallace, stationed at Pittsburgh 100 miles away, be summoned. The General was attended by Dr. George Balfour who on December 10th despaired of his recovery. The gout reached his stomach and caused Wayne to suffer agony for several weeks.

Mannequin Depicting Wayne, inside the block house.

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." - Erie History

Wayne was buried at Erie Pa, near the old fort where he died. But later, he was dug up, and found in a state of "near perfect preservation". This would make the planned method of transporting his body to the new grave, near his birthplace, difficult, so a doctor was called in to "boil the flesh from the bones".

"Isaac Wayne made the long journey to Erie in a one-horse sulky—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. When his father’s body was exhumed, it was remarkably well preserved, but there was no way it could bear bouncing along rutted dirt roads for 300 miles. It was a dilemma for the son. He couldn’t return empty-handed—he had to find another solution. So he asked Dr. Wallace, who had cared for his father during his final illness, to dismember the body. "

Purported to be the kettle in which General Wayne's flesh was boiled from the bones

"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.

"The Legislature of Pennsylvania having appropriated the sum of $1.000 for a monument over the grave of Mad Anthony Wayne, there now arises before them the much more difficult task of locating the remains of the illustrious warrior.

Almost any fact in history is liable to contradiction in these days of general skepticism, but it has so far remained undisputed that Gen. Wayne ended his earthly career on the 15th of Dec, 1796, at Erie, Pa., and that he was buried near the old fort in which he died.

Here he slept undisturbed fur many years, until his son, Isaac Wayne, went from Chester county in a gig to convey the remains to the old family home. It is asserted, on what appears to be good authority, that he found the body still in such an excellent state of preservation that he was at a loss how to transport it such a distance in so light a vehicle.
He finally overcame the difficulty , however, by securing the services of a physician, who separated the flesh from the bones, burying the former again in the original coffin and grave, the skeleton was then closely packed for easy carriage and was conveyed to the General's old homestead, and buried in Radnor cemetery, near his birth place.

At this spot it has been proposed to erect the monument, although it is strongly urged by parties at Erie and elsewhere that at least half of Gen. Wayne still lies buried near the old fortifications there beyond all hope now of resurrection at the hands of man.
If the Erie people insist upon their rights in this matter the issue would probably be thrown upon the country as to which grave holds the old warrior, and if both, which half is entitled to the monument. It is a question before which science stands appalled." - The Cincinnati Star, reprinted in the Lewisburg Chronicle, April 1879