The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines folklore as: traditional customs, tales, sayings, dances, or art forms preserved among a people. Pennsylvania certainly has both a unique and diverse cultural heritage. Ghost stories, real or mythical creatures from the lumber regions in northern Pennsylvania, the proud cultures from the coal regions, and the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage from southeastern Pennsylvania all have provided entertaining examples handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, folk songs, or in art form. The story shared below was published in the Keystone Folklore quarterly magazine, which was in existence for some 35 years. This tale takes place in the area of the Penns Creek Massacre in the north central part of the Susquehanna Valley.
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Stories and illustrations of Pennsylvania provide a person's insight into the wonders of the Keystone State. An 1883 book by J. David Williams, "America Illustrated," includes several sketches from different regions of Pennsylvania. One of those is the Juniata Valley, a neighbor to the west of the Susquehanna.
Whipping posts, stocks, and pillories were used in the sentences imposed by the early courts of Pennsylvania around the time of the American Revolution. In the Susquehanna Valley, the first courts in Northumberland County were located in Sunbury. Northumberland County covered a large area in Pennsylvania when it was formed from five others in 1772. Accused criminals from throughout the Susquehanna Valley were tried in Sunbury, and if found guilty, punishment was meted out. Custom and also custom law permitted each passerby to throw one stone at the culprit's head. In the stocks, the offender sat upon a platform with his hands and feet protruding through the framework. But for career criminal Joe Disberry, an even crueler punishment never stopped his life of crime.
James Aiken spent nearly sixty years of his life in the Susquehanna Valley, mostly in Union County. The teacher, poet, and orator was born in 1799 in Otsego County, New York . Aiken was an advocate of the temperance movement and was a frequent public speaker on behalf of the cause. At the time of the 1850 census, he was living in a temperance hotel in Lewisburg.
John D. Nerhood, who was born in Centre County, was among a unique group of men who rafted the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers. He rafted for ten years and later owned a lumbering operation in the wilds of Centre, Huntingdon, and Fulton Counties until about 1912, when he retired.
The one-room school in Mooresburg, Montour County, is a survivor. The Montour County Historical Society celebrates its 150th anniversary on Saturday, May 17th. Visitors can step back in time to experience the early days of education in one-room schools. One of the teachers in those one-room schools who witnessed the transformation of the education system was Miss Margaret Madden, a fixture in front of the classroom for sixty-three years. Beginning her career as a teacher in the 1850s, she was younger than some of the students she taught. She was never marked tardy or absent during those six decades.
Overlooking the town of Ashland in Schuylkill County is the one-of-a-kind statue of Whistler's mother, based on the 1871 oil painting by James McNeil Whistler. The story of why it was erected there more than 85 years ago highlights the importance of mothers and returning home. Carved into Whistler’s Mother's pedestal, a line from poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "A Mother is the Holiest Thing Alive."
In 1805, settlers in what became Bradford County, conducted a systematic slaughter of wildlife that had been foraging on the few sheep, swine, and cattle the pioneers possessed. Although hundreds of animals annually fell victim to the traps, snares, and guns of the pioneers, their depredations still remained a serious obstacle to the welfare of the settlers.
Harry L. Kramer and his father, F.L. Kramer, ran a mercantile business in Danville for a number of years. His family moved west and settled in Indiana. In 1890, the 29-year-old entrepreneur attracted investors and started up a health resort built around a mineral spring. He made a fortune in a chocolate-coated laxative packaged under the name Cascaret’s. The key ingredient to the cleanout remedy was buckthorn bark from a tree known as the cascara. This businessman was also a great promoter, who provided a Danville baseball team with uniforms and equipment, with Cascaret's prominently advertised on the jerseys.
As I research stories for my Susquehanna Footprints website, I often find short anecdotal stories that include topics that include strange, as well as comical topics. Here are a few that could make you scratch your head, smile, or both. Between 1831 and 1844, on the basis of his study of Bible, William Miller, a rural New York farmer and Baptist lay preacher, predicted and preached the return of Jesus Christ to the earth. Stories appeared in newspapers and books.
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