Susquehanna legends : collected in central Pennsylvania

Front matter

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Introduction

LTHOUGH four volumes of Pennsylvania mountain legends collected by the undersigned have previously appeared, the compiler feels that unless he publishes all which seem to him to possess some intrinsic merit, his work is not ended. While as literary efforts they leave much to be desired, as pictures of the times old and new, and a glimpse of the folk-lore of the region they have some right of existence. The folk-lore of many foreign lands is a part of their literature and ideals, the history of the

Xlll countries cannot be reckoned without it. In some countries it is collected under governmental patronage. England and Ireland are devoting much time to it of late, Scotland has always made it a part of her national story, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and India would lose much of the picturesqueness of their literature did it not exist.

To a certain extent the old legends of New England, of the South, and those springing up around the conquest of the West, have given a firm beginning to the folk-lore of the United States. In Pensylvania a magnificent effort was made by the late Judge D. C. Henning, of Pottsville, but death claimed him before he had half completed the task for which, through deep human sympathy and literary skill, he was preeminently fitted.

In a comparatively small district, the Blue Mountain country in the Eastern part of the Commonwealth he acquired many beautiful and valuable legends. Some of these were identified by masters of folk-lore as survivals of myths old in the world’s history. They showed the unchangeableness of human aspirations and belief.

xiv

In the Central part of Pennsylvania, where the present writer has confined his efforts, he has found a wide range of legendary lore. In fact so many stories have been told him that he has been at a loss to know which to try to preserve, which to discard.

By collecting in book form most of the ones which seemed best to him, he has hoped to carry out the responsibility in satisfactory manner.

It may be noted that there is a slight similarity between some of the tales. This shows their common origin. Out of a dozen which were brought to the Pennsylvania wilderness by the first settlers have grown a hundred versions, each distinctive to the locality where it is handed down. Even the legends which belong to the present generation have some subconscious tie with the past. The actors in them felt the welling of ancient emotions in their breasts and suited their lives and sorrows to the pathways of their ancestors.

Viewing the legends deeper, and selecting those which have no association with earlier traditions, they may point to some link with the infinite, with the unseen, towards which all thoughtful persons are struggling. To some primitive souls a peep behind the curtains of xv eternity may have been revealed, when denied to abler seekers.

It is in the forest that voices were first heard, linking us to the beyond. There is always a thrill in the mysterious, the inexplicable.

There are some of us who wish that every ghost story was true. These stories have the advantage of having been told to the writer as truth ; they are not inventions, which while being read one can say “It is all made up.” Their verification or the mental states which produced them can only be obtained by putting oneself into the place — and times — of the participants in these sombre episodes. Their gloom is their worst defect — as legends — if they could end happily like Post Wheeler’s fascinating “Russian Wonder Tales,” a much pleasanter impression would linger.

But the compiler has had no choice, he has had to set them forth exactly as he heard them, else they would cease to be legends and become mere hybrids between the facts and his imagination. He has, in every case, transcribed the stories as he heard them, except that, as stated in the introduction to his preceding volume, “Tales of the Bald Eagle Mountains,” they have lost in native charm and weirdness in passing through his hands, xvi

Some of the stories in this volume relate to the passions of every day life, and differ widely from those relating to ghosts or Indians. It is for that reason they are inserted, to vary the trend of the book, to prevent if possible its reading like a monograph.

A word regarding Central Pennsylvania itself. There is no lovelier land that tradition or folk-lore could associate itself. The most beautiful streams and rivers rise in its midst; impressive peaked and castellated mountains, the grandest forests cover much of its area; its farms are fertile, its climate extraordinarily good, its people sprightly, clever, good-hearted, the best product of a mixed stock. Charming novels have already been woven about it from the facile pens of Prof. E. S. Pattee, Nelson Lloyd, and J. P. Mowbray. The region has produced one poet of the first magnitude in James H. Campbell, an able philosopher in the late Jacob K. Huff.

While the compiler of these old legends feels that he might have done better with the rich vein uncovered, yet he is content in the knowledge that others will finish the work more artistically, more analytically, more patiently. He expects much from Warren S. Taylor, a young man

xvii who is working along original lines, in the same broad field. He can only express his heartfelt thanks to the newspapers, and to the public, who have been so kind to him in the past. He has found encouragement and praise, has kept at the work because of it. He feels certain that this beloved region will have a permanent place in “song and story, ’ 1 from all that has been written about it by so many capable hands, and hopes that his part will be to help incline other writers to delve deeply into these fields Elysian. He wishes to extend grateful appreciation to Mr. John H. Chatham, of McElhattan, Pa., his genial companion and dear friend on many trips into the wilds in search of the ancient traditions, who has given his time and sympathy so cheerfully to the subject.

HENRY W. SHOEMAKER.

At Sea,

I. TEEDYUSCUNG’S FACE. (Story of Mahantango Mountain.)

HEN it was announced that Teedyuscung, the last great chief of the Lenni-Lenape, had been burned to death in his fishing-shanty at Nescopeck, by Mingoes, there was considerable difference of opinion concerning the motives prompting this cruel deed. Though Schela, a young squaw who was said to be deeply enamored of the aged chieftain, rushed through the flames and rescued the body, at the cost of frightful disfigurement to herself, there was not much left of what was once mortal of this high-minded redman. His exact sense of justice had shown him that no matter how altruistic had been the motives of William Penn, his disciples and descendants were decidedly harsh and grasping in their dealings with the Indian race. In public speeches he had pointed to the unfairness of many of the land purchases, especially the one known as the walking purchase.

In it there was stipulated that the proprietaries were to buy a strip of land bounded by as far as a man could walk between sunrise and sunset. Teedyuscung demonstrated that instead of this, fleet runners were engaged, one of them running so fast and so far that he dropped dead on the way. These speeches aroused the Indians, and also incited the jealousies of the Germans and Scotch-Irish who hated the Quakers for their oppressive real estate tactics.

The outspoken chieftain was considered a dangerous man by those high in the councils of the Proprietary party. He was first advised to move into the interior; he asked if his fishing camp at the foot of Mahantango Mountain, which looked out on that broad sweep of dead water which the colonists called the Irish Sea, would be satisfactory. He had actually arrived there pending an answer to his intimation, when orders came that he must move further on. The desire seemed to be to get him where his unanswerable allegations could not be heard or carried.

Or maybe there were more sinister motives. At any rate the old man gathered together his belongings and followed by a few faithful retainers, crossed the mountains to Nescopeck. The shallows there were a noted spawning-ground for shad, and salmon were abundant. He could fish the remainder of his days, even if he was denied the right to voice his people’s wrongs.

His wife was dead, his sons and daughters dead or scattered ; he would have been spiritually isolated but for the love of the beautiful Indian girl.

Her father Quiquingus had been one ;f the aged chief’s most faithful henchmen, but like so many others had been murdered through the treachery of supposed friends among the whites. “I am too old to take another wife,” the old chief remarked on numerous occasions, “but not too old to admire a fair young face.” In this happy philosophy he whiled away a few autumn days, repairing his nets for the spring fishing, trapping wild pigeons in their southerly flight, and being loved by Schela. But this blissful retirement was short-lived.

A band of Mingo hunters, who professed the friendliest sentiments, appeared at the camp. They echoed Teedyuscung 's plaint that the redmen were being forced further and further west, that they had been cheated out of their possessions. The Mingoes explained that they were on their way to the North Mountains to stalk a herd of elk; there were at least five hundred animals in it, they averred. There would be winter's meat for all, hides and the precious elks' teeth a-plenty. They extended a cordial invitation to Teedyuscung and his party to accompany them on the hunt. The old chief's eyes sparkled, ‘ ‘ Twenty years ago I should have gone gladly, but now I am too old, too old for everything except to express my indignation at the wrongs done my race." But seeing the disappointed expression in the faces of several of his tribesmen he pointed to them, saying “Let my brave bodyguard go with you, they will acquit themselves well in the chase."

Ten stalwart braves were permitted to depart with the Mingoes. Two captains of unexcelled fidelity remained with their chief. They always slept with him in his lodge-house, a neatly constructed little building of red-birch logs. There were seven squaws, including the fair Schela, who of course remained. They occupied another, and similarly built lodge-house a few hundred yards from the royal structure. There was a partially completed stockade, eight feet high, which was to enclose the two houses, and continue down to the water’s edge. The other braves who had gone with the Mingoes usually slept in tents made from buffalo or elk hides, or under lean-to’s of boughs.

All went well until one windy night, less than a week after the departure of the elk hunters, when the giant pines shuddered and shook and moaned in the chilling blast. It was as if their misery almost assumed articulate form perhaps to warn the sleeping Indians of some presentiment of danger in their sylvan souls. In the distant forest depths came the boom of giant trees falling, as if in running with their ill tidings, they had been tripped by forces in league with unkind destiny.

Schela woke several times, rising ap in her couch, and muttering to herself that she did not like the way in which the pines were talking. “A thousand years ago,” she murmured, “the king of the Lenni-Lenape an ancestor of my dearest Teedyuscung, found a giant cave-bear chawing down Strobus, the great chief of the white pines; he killed the monster, and the great tree vowed gratitude, that his kind would forever warn the Lenni-Lenape of danger. ’ ’ She looked about her, in the gloom lay the six other squaws, sleeping soundly. It seemed a mistake to act on hasty impulse. She lay down again and tried to sleep. She reassured herself, too, because she did not hear the bark of Teedyuscung ’s Indian watchdogs. Three times she committed the foolish act of resisting the only true source of knowledge, intuition. Once she fell into a doze; she dreamed she saw a sunset which turned into a flame, and burned up all the world, her world. She rose up with a little cry — as she did so she thought she heard the crack of burning wood, it seemed as if she smelled smoke, it was fresher than the last vapors of the evening’s campfires. But it was not until she saw the smoke drifting through the chinks of the lodge-house that she clambered to her feet, and ran out into the clearing. To her horror she found Teedyuseung ’s lodge-house in flames ; the bark roof had already fallen in ; it was like a blazing caldron. She did not hesitate for an instant, but plunged boldly through the red-hot fire. Under the flaming debris from the roof lay three bodies, frightfully charred. Digging among it, she quickly recognized the regal profile of Teedyuseung; he had a nose like the Grand Monarch, and oblivious of the fact that the fringe of her fawnskin garment was already ablaze, she dragged the corpse towards the doorway. Just as she was emerging the whole structure fell and she was stunned by dropping timbers. Luckily she fell outside, pushing the corpse ahead of her, as she went down. She was unconscious for a minute, during which time all her hair was burned off; one side of her face, which lay in the hot coals, was frightfully disfigured. She afterwards lost the sight of one eye.

The other squaws slept soundly all through the entire horrible catastrophe. They did not wake until Schela boxed their ears, and rolled them about to rouse them.

Dazed and grief-stricken they did all they could to minister to her in her sufferings. The heroic girl thought nothing of herself, but kept crying out for Teedyuscung to come back to life. “The lodge-house was set on fire by those Mingoes” she shouted in her delirium. Bear grease was smeared over her liberally, and she managed to get about. She laid the charred body of her aged lover, all wrapped in the best deer skins, in a cool place, under laurels and hemlocks, kissing the blackened forehead with an inhuman frenzy. Outside the stockade she found the watchdogs with their throats cut ; her suspicions were confirmed. She searched the ruins of the royal lodge-house but could find little else beside the teeth of the incinerated henchmen. These she gathered together and placed in a small box made of canoe-birch bark. In her wounded condition she dare not travel to seek help, but it would have been a useless quest at best. All but a few Germans and Scotch-Irish would have rejoiced at the news of Teedyuscung ’& death; she could have gotten little sympathy or comfort.

Luckily the weather was cool and the remains of the dead king were in no danger of purification. Every night when she retired she looked up at the lofty pines. “Oh, why did I disregard your warning” was her plaint to them. But in the long run her earlier appearance on the scene would have availed but little. If the murderous Indians had seen her, they would have strangled her instantly ; Teedyuscung would have been overcome by superior numbers and tomahawked instead of roasted to death in his lodge-house.

On the eighth night after the tragedy the elk hunters returned empty-handed. They had found no traces of elks in the particular part of the North Mountains visited. After hunting with the Mingoes for several days, the latter suggested that they separate and hunt in different directions. The Lenni-Lenape thought this a good idea, they could cover a wider territory thereby. They encountered no elks, became discouraged, returned to Nescopeck. And what a change met their eyes.

In the twilight they beheld the ruins of Teedyuscung’s lodge-house, while Schela, terribly disfigured, hobbled out of her hut to meet them. There was wailing and lamentation all that night, as sonorous and weird as the portent of the pines the evening of the butchery. There was vengeance vowed ‘‘long and deep/’ vengeance as impotent as that of an injurel soul against the infinite. The heart-broken braves all knelt beside the hideous remnant of their king, and kissed the still inviolate ridge of his regal nose. Only a woman who was beloved by a deceased monarch could kiss his brow or lips.

The braves suggested that the chieftain be buried before the ground became frozen. Schela was at first loathe to part with the beloved remains, but consented to an interment, to be made at his favorite fishing-ground at the foot of Mahantango Mountain. Decked out in freshly made war regalia, with masses of eagle feathers, elks’ teeth, fisher’s fur and deerskins, with his favorite musket tucked under his right arm, the dead king was laid in state in a pirogue. A flotilla manned by the braves and squaws surrounded the funeral barge as guard of honor, and started down the stream. The settlers along the banks came out and gazed in speechless curiosity. At Fort Augusta a party of frontier guards, who were off duty and hunting swans, fired at the sombre-looking fleet. One squaw was killed; the survivors considered themselves fortunate that they got into the reaches of the Irish Sea without more serious casualties. It was a country where Indians were thoroughly hated; they must be constantly reminded that they were not wanted.

It was a beautiful afternoon in Indian Summer when the canoe flotilla came to anchor at the foot of Mahantango Mountain. The place of debarkation wras on the precise spot where Liverpool station, on the Northern Central Railway, now stands. The craft, containing the body, was lifted out of the water, and reverently carried up on the bank. Then the braves proceeded to the spot where the great chief’s fishing-lodge had stood for so many years. It was a hundred yards east of the spring, which has been transformed into a well, with a pumpstock in it, and to-day furnishes sweet water to thirsty travellers. The fishing house had been torn away to the last vestige by the emissaries of the Quaker government when they had ordered Teedyuscung to “move on” only two months before.

Where the structure had stood a grave was now dug, and corpse, pirogue, finery, lowered into it. The trench was filled with heavy rocks, and a mound of rocks several feet high erected over it, to serve as a protection against the rapacity of wolves and mountain cats, and as a marker of the sacred spot. When the interment was completed, just at sundown, the Indians joined in a weird song; it was more like a requiem for their race rather than the lament for an individual. Then all withdrew to the bank where their canoes were beached, and lit the customary campfires.

The sun had set clear and cold, every indication pointed to a calm night. The Indians were so depressed and desolate that they said little and ate little. All wrapped themselves in their blankets, and tried to forget themselves in sleep, as soon as the scanty repast was finished. During the night a wind arose, and a cold, wet rain fell by spells. Gradually the wind grew into a tempest of unprecedented fierceness ; it was a storm such as raged the night that Oliver Cromwell died. The Indians were roused by the terrific gusts of wind and rain, by the lapping of huge waves against the shore; the Irish Sea, usually so benign, was like midocean in its fury. The roar of falling trees was bad enough, but presently huge rocks began to roll from the far, distant topmost heights of Mahantango Mountain.

The Indians hopped to their feet, only to huddle in the lea of the canoes, as the huge boulders tumbled by on every side, toppling into the river with heavy splashes. To-day many of these stones, rearing their black heads, like sealions, are apparent at low water. The number and size of the falling rocks increased; it was as if the entire mountain was crumbling down. There was a hideous, ripping sound, as landslides carrying with them rocks, and trees as well as earth, scarred the whole face of the gigantic mountain in their irresistible course.

It seemed providential that the little body of Indians, huddled at the water’s edge, were not wiped out of existence. But they were to be spared to witness a morning, with a transformation the nature of which they would never forget. As long as it was dark the tornado and the avalanche continued. With the first faint glow of dawn, the miracle was revealed. High up on the mountain, silhouetted against the sky, in the pink eastern light, they saw the aquiline face of Teedyuscung, the murdered chief of the Lenni- Lenape. During the hurricane, the inscrutable forces of nature had carved it, distinct and photographically correct to the smallest haughty detail, in the black, flint-like rock. Some over-hanging branches above created the appearance of the war-bonnet. Forgotten would be the knaves who slew him, or the mercenary wretches who instigated the crime, but the features of this noble redman were to be preserved forever and forever. Whether the face had appeared to inspire the remnant of the Lenni-Lenape to put into effect their threats of vengeance, or merely to preserve to future ages the kingly profile of this mighty chief, can never be told. The funeral band, when they saw it became rigid with terror, or perhaps reverence; they could not stir for hours, until the sun was high in the heavens, and was sparkling like diamonds on the Irish Sea. Then they suddenly relaxed, and burst into pitiful weeping.

The loving Sckela led the way back to the canoes, and the mourners clambered aboard, and were soon paddling up-stream. At the mouth of Penn’s Creek they changed their plans, and started out this picturesque little river. It is said that they were the progenitors of the small but hardy band of Indians who defied the whites so long in Little Sugar Valley, until they were finally wiped out through treachery, at their stronghold in Colby’s Gap.

II

THE MAN WHO LOVED A FAIRY. (Story of Mt. Pipsisseway.)

HE tradition of a hot boiling spring, and more particularly of a crystal cavern, somewhere on Mt. Pipsisseway near Quinn’s Run, had always possessed a strange fascination for the young antiquarian.

The grave old man who told him about the wonders was too feeble to accompany him, the younger men too skeptical or unsympathetic to make desirable companions. Unaccompanied the young man had made several unsuccessful trips all over the summits and the irregular face of the giant mountain, “the mountain that the sun sets back of,” but he was far from discouraged. The old man would draw rude diagrams with pencil on the backs of envelopes and enter into lengthy 34 explanations, but the secret was well hidden. To many persons with whom he discussed the subject came the unfavorable suggestion that if the lumbermen “who had been all over the mountain” had failed to observe any cavern, there was small chance it existed.

But believing in the old pioneer, he continued his search manfully. But at length it seemed he had been all over the mountain ; he was wasting time which might be spent to better advantage elsewhere. There were scores of ghost stories to be unravelled in the Seven Mountains. He was making himself ridiculous crawling as would a fly over the surface of some huge cake.

Late one afternoon on one of his searches, when he returned to the tree where he had tied his riding horse, he found that the animal had been prancing about until he had broken through a sink hole. Had he not been a sagacious animal, as entire horses usually are, he would have broken his legs in his inextricable position. The young man got the horse out of the hole, but in doing so noticed that there was a deep opening which resembled the mouth of a fissure or cave. He peered into the mouth of the chasm, there seemed to be plenty of room inside. Securely tieing his horse aft^r watering him, he returned with his lantern and entered the aperture.

Once inside he was overjoyed, he had re-discovered the cave so often described to him by the old mountaineer. There was a sheer descent of nearly a hundred feet, down a wall of soft clay, at the bottom of which began a series of large chambers and labyrinths. He traveled about a quarter of a mile, sometimes crawling on his hands and knees through mud, smiling to himself as he recollected the saying ‘ ‘ a person who is afraid to get dirty will only see half the world,” other times standing erect, to marvel at chambers jewelled with stalactites, with vaulted roofs twenty feet high. While gazing in rapt admiration at some particularly exquisite formations, he felt as if somebody was near him. He looked around, noticing nothing ; he looked down and saw a tiny little golden-haired girl. She had the proportions of a grown person, yet she wasn ’t taller than the average child of two years. He noticed that her features, which inclined a trifle to the aquiline, were very good, her eyes were large and blue, her complexion pink and white and free from blemishes of any kind. She wore what seemed to be a deep bine pansy as a cap, and her costume, with rather short skirt, was also of blue, of a queer woolen-like material. A white knitted collar alone relieved the color scheme. He was not conscious that his lips were moving, but he seemed to be speaking to her. He noticed that her lips moved, and while he understood clearly what she was saying, he could not hear her. “Can it be,” it flashed through his mind, “that there is a roar of some subterranean torrent in this cavern, maybe the hot, boiling spring, that drowns the sound of the human voice ! ’ 1

Then he was conscious that the little girl by his side was telling him that while he was human, he had some of the stuff of the gods or the immortals in him, and that she was only partly human, a fairy.

A fairy she let it be understood, is the descendant of a union between a beautiful ghost and a living man, oh, so long, long ago. Fairies then are ghosts with corporeal forms, mortals who live for an indefinite period. “As long as God lets us” they phrase it.

It was rather awkward for the young antiquarian, although he was by no means a tall man, to keep looking down on the little girl, or fairy. He seated himself on a broad stalagmite, and she curled up her little legs and sat down beside him. He noticed what tiny little bits of feet she had, that instead of shoes, they were tucked into dun-colored curled flowers, some kind of underground orchids. Then he noticed that she snuggled up close beside him as a tired baby often does, and placed one of her little hands in his. He started to squeeze it, but it was like holding an Easter lily too tightly. At this hand pressure the little fairy looked up in his face, with her appealing deep blue eyes. “She must be an Irish fairy’ ’ to have such eyes, he thought. But the little fairy could read his thoughts, and he understood that while the beginning of all fairies is Celtic, her race lived so long in South Germany, that even transplanted to the Susquehanna country, they were of Teutonic predictions. Then as the little creature snuggled closer, she gave him to understand she could change him, temporarily, into a person of her own size, though she could not make herself the size of a human being. He let himself be changed gladly; it was incongruous for him, a big, healthy youth, to try to embrace a little girl no bigger than a two-year old baby, when the mere holding her hand was like crushing an Easter lily. When he found himself the same size, she looked to him the most beautiful being he had ever seen. Was it so, or merely because of point of view, or their isolated propinquity?

“Hermionie, Cleise, Sylvania, what are they compared to this fair girl now so closely held in his arms?” Never had embrace seemed more vibrant, or kisses more enchanting. The first kiss initiated him into a new world of rapture; there was nothing in the old days on the earth above that could equal this. They seemed to have much in common.

The young man while unable to show any fairy origin, could boast of an ancestor who was a Gipsy. “A Gipsy loved a beautiful ghost, he had loved her in her lifetime, but he lost her, only to regain her at a waterfall, long afterwards, a frail and shrinking spirit.” That explained why the antiquarian could enter into kinship with his pretty comrade of fairyland.

As he had never felt such love in the actual, living world, and oft times for weary months at a stretch had never known any love at all, he resolved to make the most out of this rapturous opportunity.

In love, time and space are as nothing — the rest of the world stands still when two persons love. If he ever thought of the gallant black horse tethered far above, he knew he was oblivious; literally turned to stone for the time being. The touch of the little creature, once he had become her size, was the most entrancing he had ever felt; he knew now what meant all this prating about Paradise. Surely someone who has been there has returned — else how would those who have experienced its sensations in this life, know what it was like at all.