USA > Pennsylvania > Schuylkill County > Old Schuylkill tales, a history of interesting events, traditions and anecdotes of the early settlers of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania > Part 5
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several county offices. With the discovery of coal in the County, the coal industry eclipsed that of the commercial interests of the agricultural districts. On December 1, 1851, the County seat was removed to Pottsville. With the removal came a large influx of the citizens of Orwigsburg, the lawyers and others connected with the workings of the legal business of the County. This was in accordance with an act of the Legislature which gave a majority vote in favor-3,551 being for and 3,091 against the movement.
A movement for the removal was started as early as 1831. A meeting was held at the Exchange Hotel, Pottsville, on November 19, at which Benjamin Pott, Burd Patterson, Thomas Sillyman, Jacob Seitzinger and John C. Offerman were appointed a committee to solicit subscriptions to defray the expense of erecting public buildings in Pottsville. The people of Orwigsburg fought the movement. A meeting was held at the Court House, where these men were denounced as "idlers" and "lot holders," and so strenuous was the objection that it was not until 1842 that it took definite shape.
The first bill passed by the Legislature for the removal, was declared unconstitutional and after the election a second bill was passed and Pottsville was declared the County seat. The second Court House was erected on ground purchased from the George Farquhar estate and the building was erected through the contributions of the citizens, and the total cost was $30,000.
Two men were executed for murder during the establish- ment of the seat of Justice in Orwigsburg. The first white man hung in Schuylkill County expiated his crime for the murder
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of his grandparents. The other, a colored man named Rigg, was hung for murdering an Irishman. There were extenuating circumstances in the latter case. John Bannan, Esq., the lawyer for the defense, considered the provocation that led up to the killing very great, and frequently was heard to remark that if his client had been a white man he would not have been made to suffer the extreme penalty of the law. So great was Mr. Ben- nan's sympathy excited for the doomed man, that on the day of Rigg's execution the Bannan mansion, on the opposite corner from the Court House, was closed as if for a death within its precincts.
Henry Hammer, of Minersville, eighty years old, relates that at the time of one of these executions, he was clerking for his uncles, Eli and Elijah Hammer, who kept store in Potts- ville in the building now occupied by P. F. Brennan, as the Boston store. The whole county turned out and went to Or- wigsburg to witness the hanging, and the proprietors of the store with others drove to the scene. There was nothing doing that afternoon; Pottsville was empty and trade was suspended. There was a Camp Meeting in session at the Lessigs, half-way between Orwigsburg and Schuylkill Haven, and the young clerk and a friend of his had planned to spend the evening there with the young ladies whom they afterward married.
In the middle of the afternoon they took time by the fore- lock, closed up the store for the night, hitched up and drove to the Camp Meeting. Just before reaching Lessig's they en- countered the crowd returning from the execution; among them were the Hammers. What censure the young employees re- ceived from their elders for betraying the trust reposed in them,
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and how much of it they deserved, may be left to the imagina- tion of the reader.
Frederick Hesser, who served in the Revolutionary War as a drummer boy and suffered with the struggling patriots through the hardships of Valley Forge, was court crier. It was his cus- tom to call the court together with the beating of the drum. He is buried in Orwigsburg.
The people of the early days were very superstitious and after the hangings, believed firmly that Sculp's Hill was haunted. Francis B. Bannan, Esq., relates, that, "near the scene of the execution there was a large board fence. It was said if anyone approached that fence at midnight and touched the middle board with his lips the apparitions of the murderers would appear. Being of an investigating turn of mind he tried it, but saw nothing.
On the Lizard Creek road there was an old German who was desirous of buying a valuable farm. He tried to depreci- ate its value by gaining for it a reputation of its being haunted. He played ghost himself, and was detected in the act. He had hired a Long Swamp negro, who, with himself, was robed in white; they walked about the farm and woods with head pieces or masks of phosphorescent wood. The eyes were cut out some- thing like the lanterns the boys make nowadays. He did not get the farm.
"Know anything about the first jail ?" "Why, of course, I do," said Mr. Bannan (who has the reputation of being some- thing of a wag and an inveterate joker).
"Why, I was a prisoner in it myself once. It was when Sheriff Woolison had charge of it, and who with his wife lived
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in one side, in the residence part. I was only a little shaver then, and thin and small for my age. I was mischievous and Mr. Woolison loved to tease me. One day, after I had been troublesome around the jail, he took me and locked me up in one of the new cells, and looking at his watch, said,
'You must remain in there one hour, when I will come back and let you out, if you will promise to be a good boy.'
"I grew somewhat sober after he turned the key and time seemed long. The thought occurred that I might wriggle through the hole left to pass food through for the prisoners. It was somewhat larger than those in the jail of to-day, and the grating was up. I crawled up and came out feet first. The door was open ; I fled. After that the jail was not one of my stamp- ing grounds any longer."
A GHOST STORY
Superstition was rife in the region of the Blue Mountain ridge and West Brunswick township was not exempt from it. All sorts of stories circulated among the country people and many declared they had seen ghosts in the vicinity of the old White Church that stood on Sculp's hill above Orwigsburg, which was then the county town of Schuylkill.
A colored man named Rigg had been hung there for mur- der, one of the first two murderers executed in Schuylkill
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County. The scaffold had been erected in the jail yard and the settlers from far and wide flocked to the scene of the hanging. The culprit prayed and begged for mercy but the Sheriff and his assistants turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. He was buried at midnight outside of the sacred limits of the church yard and the country people were much exercised over it. Then as now there were those who were opposed to hanging and none would venture past the spot, especially after nightfall. It was de- clared that a clanking of chains could be heard and loud moans ; and some even asserted that they had seen the colored man, dressed all in white, approach and with clasped hands petition for "Mercy ! Mercy !"
Peter Peterpin had gone to O-to attend catechetical instructions in the church, for the Mother was "Reformed" and belonged to the old White Church and the Father was a staunch Lutheran and a member of the red brick church which stood below the jail near the Court House and in the heart of the town; and the children were all confirmed when they reached the proper age. Peter was twelve years old. It was on a Sat- urday afternoon, in the late Fall. The farmers were in the habit, some of them, of getting such small supplies as they needed at either of the three stores in the great open Court House square-which has never since been equalled in dimen- sions in any town in the county, Pottsville not even excepted.
Peter had a commission for his mother at the store. The "Parrah" was a circuit rider and had been rather late in coming to town. He lived at Hamburg and made the trip, once in two weeks, coming on horseback with his sermons or such books as he used in the ritual and services of the Sabbath, and his black
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but rather rusty gown, stowed away in the saddle bags that hung over the old gray nag. The boy was pleased that he had been able to answer all the questions that had been given him and if he could only have gone home with the other boys and girls from his part of the country, all would have been well. It was grow- ing dark when he got through and he looked hurriedly among the few yokels left in the storc to see if there was anyone from his locality, but there was none.
He kept up his courage, however, and resolved to not think of anything and get past the haunted spot where lay the lonely grave, and perhaps he might avoid that terrible colored ghost he felt sure was lurking about somewhere. He tried to think of other and more pleasing things, as he reached the place, and even longed to whistle to keep up his courage but dared not for fear of attracting the ghost. He had just congratulated him- self that he had cleared the spot when he heard a slight noise from the bushes on the road side and the patter of feet.
What was it ? And oh, how near was it ?
Already running, he increased his steps, but still he heard the dull tread, tread, behind him. He dared not look back but ran on at the top of his speed. Once he thought he had out- distanced his pursuer and slowed up to breathe a little, when glancing over his shoulder he saw a white form and two fiery eyeballs gleaming like red hot coals in the darkness and he spurred himself on to renewed effort.
It was a mile or a little more from the church to their own lane. Peter had often counted the steps, and he knew he had gone almost half of the distance and would soon reach their own "veldt," where he could turn in and reduce the distance; he
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would feel safe on their own land; and surely that dreadful ghost would not follow further. The ghost certainly must go back ; others would pass his grave and he would have to attend to them.
Peter could clear the fence at one bound. He had often done it before. But, alas! when he attempted it, hampered by the articles he was carrying which he knew he must bring home with him, his foot caught on the top rail and he fell on his face on the other side and the horrid creature was over, too, and on top of him, pawing him and licking his hands. He did not protest but feebly lay there awaiting his end. Hearing a low playful growl he took courage to peep out of the corner of his eye and there stood "Wasser," the old white farm dog, who had probably gone to meet him, or else was out on one of his noc- turnal trips for the carcasses he persisted in dragging to his kennel. The dog stood by wagging his tail and Peter in the ex- cess of his emotion placed his arms around his neck and kissed him; and who can wonder if he cried big tears of gladness and relief.
Peter's ghost story was one long related and enjoyed by the Peterpin family.
DIRT OR SOURCROUT
Sourcrout and panhause, or scrapple, are noted dishes among the people of Pennsylvania. Yankees, East and West, may sneer at the mixture of the latter or the lusciousness of
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sourcrout, but the famed New England boiled dinner of beef, carrots, cabbage, potatoes, etc., is not to be compared on a cold winter day to the culinary triumph of a well-cooked dish of sourcrout. The piece-de-resistance of side-pork cooked as tender as a chicken and flanked with a side-dish of flaky mashed pota- toes and followed with a cup of coffee and a piece of home-made mince pie.
It was just on such a cold wintry day that the usual number of loungers congregated about the huge cannon stove in the bar- room of Shoener's hotel at Orwigsburg. It was snowing and blowing hard outside and the tobacco chewers and smokers sat about the huge iron circle around the stove and bespattered the sawdust ring in their aim for the large spittoon within, with more than their usual zest and enjoyment. Their wives and the women folks at home might do the chores, it was too stormy for them to venture out.
A lone traveling man sat at a window apart, looking morosely out at the increasing storm. He had finished his round among the country stores, and was awaiting the arrival of the stage for its second trip to Landingville, three miles away, and from where it had not yet returned. Word had been passed around that the road was blocked, and it was uncertain if the up train on the Philadelphia and Reading Railway, then the only outlet in the region, had gone north to Pottsville, and the "drummer" desired to go south.
Perturbed and anxious, he sat there, when the unmistak- able odor of sourcrout permeated the atmosphere. The traveler belonged to the effete civilization of the East and despised the toothsome Pennsylvania dish. Irritated beyond measure by his
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disappointment, the, to him, hideous smell was the crowning insult to his misfortunes, when the following occurred :
"Sourcrout ! Ugh, Sourcrout! How anyone can eat sour- crout, I cawn't see, I'd just as lief eat dirt as eat sourcrout," said the disgusted traveling man.
The venerable founder and landlord of the hotel was en- joying his pipe in silence in a remote corner of the room and awoke up from his half somnolent state to overhear this pettish remark of the storm-stayed salesman, when he replied in the rich Pennsylvania German, than which there is no better med- ium for a joke; the joke must always suffer by comparison through the translation :
"Well, that is just as you were brought up. If you were brought up to eat sourcrout, you eat sourcrout. If you were brought up to eat dirt, you eat dirt."
("Sis usht wie mier uff-ga-broucht iss. Wann mier uff-ga- broucht iss fier Saur Kraut zu esseh, est mier evah Saur Kraut. Wann mier uff-ga-broucht iss treck zu esseh, est mier treck.")
The loungers arose and cast longing eyes at the bar, but the salesman was absorbed in his own reflections and adamant, and they dispersed. But not before every man had confided it to his neighbor that he believed that they were to have sour- crout for dinner at home and the smell just made him that hun- gry.
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THE BLACK MOOLEY COW
The Mooley Cow had been teased by the farm hands and petted in turn by the children of the Peterpin family until like some little people, who receive such unwise training by their elders, she had a very fitful and irritable disposition.
Peter had but two pets. One a little white chicken, he called Annie, that perched on his shoulder while he fed the flock, for he had his chores to attend to like the rest; and the black Mooley cow and the chicken he called his own and he loved both.
The Mooley cow knew him and would hang out her great 'red tongue and look at him sideways out of her big, blinking eyes for the salt he let her lick out of his hand and which he petitioned for from the kitchen.
One day his father sent Peter to the barn for a half bushel measure which he placed over his head like a hat. The Mooley cow stood on a knoll outside the barn door and seeing this queer object coming toward her, did not recognize Peter and made up her mind that it was only another attempt to tease her on the part of the "knechts" and she bore down upon the boy and tossed him down the hill.
It was at a steep point and being only a little boy with the upper part of his body encased in the bushel measure, the force sent him rolling down the hill, spinning round and round like a top. He screamed, of course, and his mother came to his rescue. The Mooley, however, stood quietly on the brow of the slope, lashing her tail and giving vent to an occasional loud
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"Moo-moo" of victory over the defeat of her small adversary, and seemingly greatly enjoying his discomfiture.
"WASSER," THE FARM DOG
Another of the animals on the farm was a real Pennsyl- vania German dog named "Wasser," a large white bull dog, that lived in a big kennel at the entrance to the farmyard, an excellent watch dog that feared neither man nor ghost, but his especial aversion was the black Mooley cow. To the city Peter- pins, who came to visit in the Summer, the antics of "Wasser" were a never failing source of delight. When Peter heard him his German "a, b, c," the dog would bark after each letter, but when the final "z" came he would grunt knowingly, and wag his tail and lie down, refusing to utter another sound. The town visitors would bring with them a hamper of bread and butter and other edibles for the satisfaction of making him scamper over the fields to the call of "Wasser ! Wasser ! Brod geveh, Brod geveh," which was his call from the German farm kitchen-maid, the only one he knew for his food.
Wasser was fond of Peter and saw his undoing by the Mooley cow. He ran to avenge his little friend, but in his zeal ventured too near the Mooley, who threw him high in the air and over an adjoining fence. The dog was so chagrined at his defeat that he disappeared from the farm, and had long been
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given up as lost or dead, when one day he re-appeared, thin, sad-eyed and dejected, the worse for wear and altogether a wiser dog. In the meantime his adversary had been consigned by the home butcher to the meat barrel to stock the Winter's supply of salt beef.
THE LONG SWAMPERS
Long Swamp, in West Brunswick township, was an under- ground railway station, and was first used by a few runaway slaves, who succeeded in crossing Mason and Dixon's line in ante-bellum times, as a place of concealment and refuge. As the name indicates, the swamp provided, in its environments, a marshy fastness that few whites cared to penetrate. Its low strata of soil emanated, at certain seasons, gases of a phosphor- escent nature. The ignis fatuus (will-o'-the-wisp) was not uncommon. Lights were scen floating about at night in the inky blackness of its depths. The farmers in the vicinity knew little of science, and would have discredited any such an expla- nation of the Long Swamp Jack-o'-lanterns, and harrowing stories were told about the head of a trunkless man, who had been murdered on the edge of the swamp, was buried in its depths and who could not rest, but floated or wandered about to prevail on some one to listen to his tale, remove his remains and bury them in consecrated ground. Several venturesome young men, the 'Squire's sons and their companions, had at-
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tempted to follow it to the scene of the burial. The white light flickered and moved always over the blackest marshes, which they followed in a batteau, but they conjured the spirit in vain to speak or else forever after hold its peace. It always eluded them and disappeared before they reached it or else dissolved, and they passed through it.
The runaway slaves felt secure in the fastnesses of the swamp, and knew they could elude their pursuers quite as well in its depths as anywhere this side of Canada, whither they were bound, and they remained. They were soon joined by several Indian half-breed criminals, and some semi-respectable whites, and a mixed colony of a mongrel type was established. They built a series of log cabins from the trees which they felled. They hunted and fished and in Summer lent their ser- vices to the farmers roundabout, who, often short of help, were glad to impress theni into their employment. They could work when they wanted to, and after the haying and harvest there were always corners left in the fields for the Long Swampers to glean to feed their few lean and sorry-looking cattle and horses with the aftermath. The 'Squire was especially liberal with them. His motto was "Leben und los leben."
There were some very industrious people, too, among the colony, in spite of their miscegenation. Dan Britton, a well- known colored man of Pottsville, came from the Swamp, and who ever knew Dan idle ? He traveled the county with horse and wagon as a huckster, and persisted in peddling almost to the day of his death. Dan was a dark man but had a half- brother, a white man, also from the Swamp, who became a pros- perous farmer in the southern part of the county. The Kinzel-
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baehs, of Minersville, umbrella fakirs, peddlers and what-not, were of this brood. Lydia, wife of big Jaek Martin, a white woman, who married a full blown negro, was raised in Long Swamp. She was an industrious and hard working woman all her life and honest, as Pottsville people who employed her, will testify. The first wife of Wm. Lewis, a vellow man, for many years outside porter at a leading Pottsville hotel, was born in the Long Swamp, her family removing to Deep Creek where they worked among the farmers. She was a beautiful woman of the quadroon type. Tall and ereet and of a large, spare frame; pale yellow in color, large, luminous black eyes, brilliant teeth, white and even ; she was greatly admired and was honest, industrious and a woman of refined instinets. Her heavy, wavy, purple-black hair reached to her knees when unbound. This feature led to the opinion that her father had been an Indian, or that she had Indian blood in her veins. Two of her daughters were perfeetly white. She died, as most of the colored people in the North do, of tuberculosis.
One of the noted characters of the Swamp was "Red Nanee." In the early history of the County, from 1824 or thereabouts, to 1850, the Long Swampers held their sway until justiee, under its eoat of velvet, held them in its hand with a grip of steel, and they disbanded and scattered. Some of these women made good servants and ehar-women for the housewives of Reading, Orwigsburg and Pottsville. Red Nance hired out among the farmers and lived near the Swamp. She had a daughter, Rebeeea, whose worthless husband decamped, leaving her with a small daughter, Amanda.
Rebecca was a housemaid at the John Bannan residenee,
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in Orwigsburg, where she remained for a number of years. When the Bannan family removed to "Cloud Home," their Pottsville residence, they brought with them as a servant, Amanda, then grown to young womanhood, and who had been cared for during the interim of her mother's service by her grandmother, "Red Nance."
Amanda looked askance at the white marble figure of Henry Clay on the monumental pile in front of Cloud Home, and one day asked her mistress what it was for. Mrs. Bannan gave as lucid an explanation as she was able to, to the questioner, of the life and character of the great protectionist and the principles inculcated through the doctrine and wound up with : "Don't you admire the monument, Amanda ?" when the girl with all the superstition of her race answered: "No! I don't like dead men standing up straight in front of people's houses. He ought to be in his grave."
THE 'SQUIRE AND KATRINA
The 'Squire had quite a history. He was born in Germany and was the last to come over and join the family, who had all preceded him to the land of the free, and settled at Orwigsburg. The old father and mother, two daughters and three sons. One of the daughters married a German Evangelical minister, the other a farmer, and settled in Illinois. One of the sons was a
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well-known Orwigsburg doctor, the other a leading Pottsville practitioner. The family seemed to lean toward the practice of medicine and among the descendants of the next generation, four followed in the footsteps of their sires and were doctors. Of the present generation, at least two have flung out their shingles with more yet to be heard from.
Military conscription into the German army was the cause of their immigration to America. The sons had no inclination for military life and they fled the country. The 'Squire, how- ever, was 28 years old when he came. He liked his native country and would not have migrated to America, but for the importunities of his family.
He was educated in Hanover, Prussia, where he went to the common schools, where school opened at seven o'clock in the morning and continued until seven at night, the children taking their luncheons with them. He often related having seen Princess Victoria, niece of William IV, and afterward Queen of Great Britain, going to and fro, from the same school building. Victoria was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George the Third, and was born in the Ken- sington palace. Her education was superintended by the Duch- es of Kent. The Guelphs were of the Hanoverian order of Knighthood, founded in 1815, by George IV, and the orphan princess was very strictly raised. She came in a plain carriage daily to the school house, attended by a servant in plain livery. After entering the building by a private entrance, she remained until her recitations were made and then retired. The 'Squire was wont to say that, the royal scholar was very ordinary look- ing and very modest and unpretentious in her manner. She
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wore her thick dark hair in the "Gretchen" plaits common to the school girls of her age, and there was nothing to distinguish her from any other German school girl, except her method of coming to the school.
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