Heilbron Mansion

The Heilbron Mansion from Delaware County Paranormal

"If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all" should be the motto of this house. The home, built by the Murchison family on the corner of Painter's and Rose Tree Roads in Middletown Township in Delaware County, burned to the ground a few years after its' construction.

Seven Murchisons died in the blaze, and their crypt was built on a hill under an oak tree. Another home was built by the Edwards family, the new owners, in 1837, called Chroledale, and the graves were within view of their digs. In fact, it was built on the blackened foundations of the Murchison house. It was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.

In 1864, 14 year old Margaret Edwards was supposedly raped and murdered under a large maple tree in the yard. She was lured out of the house by Elisha Culbert, a farmhand on the estate. He was lynched by the other workers when the body of Margaret was discovered in the creek.

Her distraught and increasingly unhinged mother began spending her time in the library, Margaret's favorite room. She eventually hung herself from a beam above the third floor window (some say it was at the nearby creek.) All three spirits are said to haunt the mansion and its grounds.

Culbert and the mom could be heard, but not seen. Culbert's footsteps were heard approaching the front door from the coachhouse, while the mother's footsteps retrace her final act sometimes, and just wanders the halls looking for daughter at others. They were heard going from the library and up the stairs to the third floor where they end.

It's said that the library was her private domain. If anyone entered it, a book would fly off the shelf and hit the floor with a retort like a gunshot to show her displeasure with the unwanted visitor. Margaret was reported seen upstairs.

The basis for this tale is from a book released in 1977 entitled "Night Stalks The Mansion," written by Constance Westbie and Harold Cameron. It's purported to be non-fictional and based on their experiences from living there for two years in the 1960s.

Unfortunately for wraith fans, the Philadelphia Inquirer squelched a great ghost tale. The primary evidence against the tale is that Margaret showed up in the 1870 census, six years after her alleged death. She seems to have survived her murder quite well. And with no crime, no spooks.

There's also the little matter of the Murchison's, since the grounds were in the hands of the Edwards clan since the 1660's when they bought 82 acres from George Smedley, and stayed in the family until 1877. The story is news to the Edwards descendants and the area historical society.

Other locals, though, remember an old legend of a murder-suicide there, which may be the basis for the book. There was talk of building a B&B there decades ago, but the home was torched in 1987 by arsonists and a high-end housing development popped up on the old estate instead. But it's said the bad vibes remain.

The things real estate agents forget to tell you.

Moonshine Church & Cemetery

Raber's tombstone from Charles Kindt
Indiantown Gap, in Lebanon County, is the home to the Moonshine Church and Cemetery. There are so many spooks haunting the boneyard that you need a scorecard to keep up with them all.

The most commonly associated phenomena involving Moonshine is that car engines will die as you drive past and unexplained eerie noises heard throughout the grounds. But there's lots more.

There's the legend of a girl who went into the church and said the Lord's Prayer backwards - and was struck dead by lightning. Another tale, unsupported by any local media reports, was that a mother had a nervous breakdown and killed her four kids there before committing suicide in the 1980s.

The small church itself is fairly new, being built in 1961 after the original structure was destroyed by a fire. Hey, who knows - the blaze may have been caused by the same bolt that got the impious young lady. That would be some sweet spooky irony.

It's said that the area is haunted by a headless horseman who, according to regional lore, has been spotted riding up and down the Lebanon Valley. Then there's the ghost most feared by the locals, an Indian spook known as the Red Devil. Several spirits of Native Americans have been reported roaming the cemetery.

The most famous spook may be that of Joseph Raber, the victim drowned by the "blue eyed six" murder gang for insurance money and buried at Moonshine.

When Kelly Weaver of the Paraseekers contacted his spirit while investigating the cemetery, the former laborer expressed amazement that he was being paid so much attention in death when he had so little of it in life.

BTW, none of the perps are haunting the cemetery or are in fact anywhere near it. Five were hung in the Lebanon County jail, and one, George Zechman, was acquitted, dying at home. The six involved were all buried separately by their families elsewhere in the county.

Israel Brandt and Charles Drews are buried side by side in the veteran's section of Mt. Lebanon Cemetery in Lebanon. Josiah Hummel and Zechman are buried at Sattazahn Lutheran Church Cemetery in Union Township. Henry Wise is buried at Evangelical United Brethren Church Cemetery in the village of Green Point. Frank Stichler is buried in the family plot on McLean Road, now within the bounds of Ft. Indiantown Gap, although some say at least one of the killers and maybe others were later reburied at the cemetery.

If there are a pair of blue eyes floating around or peering from the steeple, as often reported, they must belong to another spook or maybe to Raber himself.

Weaver's group also found several spirits roaming the grounds, confirming the tales, at least to the paranormal community.

And if you were wondering, the church grounds weren't named for white lightning but for a local family, the Moonshines, many of whom are buried in the cemetery. The land for the Moonshine Cemetery was donated by Henry Moonshine, who was born in 1760 and died in 1836.

There are "no trespassing" signs posted, so don't plan on any midnight visits unless you're willing to risk your trip concluding in an Indiantown Gap jail cell.

Duffy's Cut Update

H&H has had a couple of folk ask us about the status of the Duffy's Cut project, since it seems to have stalled out last August. We went straight to the horse's mouth, Immaculata U's expert Dr. William Watson, one of the authors of The Ghosts of Duffy's Cut, to find out what's going on with the dig, and he was kind enough to respond by e-mail:

Hello Ron — thanks very much for the note, and for posting the information on your web site.

Up to now, we have been able to procure the necessary science (GPR, magnetometry, etc) only by specialists donating an afternoon or a day or two. Last summer, we had a geoscientist from UPenn named Dr. Tim Bechtel out at the site for a week, and we were close to locating the mass grave, but when he left due to work constraints, we were unable to proceed.

We have continued to find personal items from the men at the site, like utensils, buttons, and clay pipe fragments.

We have not been able to secure any funding to pay for the continual assistance of the scientific specialists until now. This summer, we received 2 grants from Immaculata University to pay for further GPR and other scientific testing at the site, and we hope that this fall will be productive.

We are eagerly awaiting the word from Dr. Bechtel on his return.

Thanks!

Dr. William Watson

He dropped us another line Tuesday:

Ron -

By coincidence, as I was driving home yesterday, Tim Bechtel’s office called to confirm that he will be out on Friday to help us out. We’ll keep our fingers crossed. He seems confident.

Cordially,

Bill

So it looks like the Duffy's Cut Project is back on track. Maybe we can finally point those restless Irish spirits towards the light.

Polly Williams and White Rock

Near Fairchance, in Fayette County, there's a precipice called White Rock. It's a lover's leap where New Salem's 18 year old Polly Williams met her doom in 1810, according to centuries-old local lore.

The story goes that a neighborhood rich dude, Phillip Rodgers, had promised to take her as his wife, but kept putting her off. Wanting to become an honest woman, Polly pressed the issue. He finally told her to see him at the top of White Rock late one night.

It was their favorite meeting spot, but when their last conversation there was overheard, in bits and pieces through the evening breeze, it wasn't lovers cooing, but an argument about their wedding.

Some versions say that the debate ended when he pushed her to her death; others claim she jumped in frustration at Rodger's betrothal betrayal. Deep scratches in the stone from her fingers supposedly remain along the edge of the sandstone cliff.

The next day, her father found her body on the rocks of White Rock Hollow below, shattered after plunging 60 feet through the air. Rodgers took off and joined the army.

But he returned to the scene of the crime after the war, according to one version, and filled with remorse over William's fate, took the leap himself as told in Charles Skinner's Myths and Legends of Our Own Land.

In Ceane O'Hanlon-Lincoln's yarn, written up in County Chronicles, the cad Rodgers was tried in court and found innocent, since no one could prove whether he actually did the dirty deed or she leaped to her own demise.

Her grave is located in Little White Rock's Methodist Cemetery on Hopwood-Fairchance Road, and its epitaph reads:

"Polly Williams 1792 - 1810

Behold with pity you that pass by
Here do the bones of Polly Williams lie
Who was cut off in tender bloom
By a vile wretch, her pretended groom."

Not much doubt about which story the locals bought into, hey? But the tale wasn't quite over. It's said Polly still haunts the cliff, searching for her lover, through its fog and mist. Even in the afterlife, she won't rest until she's wearing that diamond ring.

A reader posted that "White Rocks is now owned by the Pennsylvania DCNR. It is State land open to the public. There is an access gate across from the Little Whiterock Church. No parking though, so park across at the cemetery, and you can also see Polly's gravesite."

White Rock has always ben a fairly popular site for rock hounds & hikers, so feel free to take a climb and see if Polly is still looking for love.

Byers-Lyons Mansion

Byers-Lyons Mansion from Waymarking

Alexander Byers made his fortune in iron piping and had a huge home designed with two separate wings. Like any proper robber baron of the era, he had his mansion built along Ridge Avenue's "Millionaires Row" in 1898 in Allegheny City (now part of Pittsburgh's Allegheny West neighborhood).

He, his wife and their children occupied one side, while his daughter Maude and her husband, John Lyon, and their children lived on the other. Maude was a social activist of the times, and often left her kids in the care of a nanny while out doing good, which irked her dad no end. A woman's place and all that...

In 1902, Byer's 4-year old granddaughter died when she crawled atop a skylight and fell to her death when the glass broke, as her German nanny napped. The next day, the nanny hung herself from the stairwell.

It's said in one version of the tale that the ghost of the little girl watched her as she swung above the steps, witnessed when the body was discovered.

Before she tied the noose, she wrote “Please don't blame me” in the dust on the stairwell (apparently the cleaning lady was no more conscientious than the nanny.)

Byers never spoke to his daughter after that, of course blaming Maude for leaving the child in the care of a nanny instead of watching her herself. There had been many sightings of the girl since and the sounds of her crying (though none of Byers, who is probably still humbugging Maude in the netherworld).

The nanny has also been spotted, running up the stairs or walking hand-in-hand with the little girl. Sometimes the "thud" of her falling body can be heard. And every time the house is cleaned, the nanny's message is seen again, scrawled in the dust.

The 90-room manse is now Byers Hall, serving as Community College of Allegheny County's student union building and administrative offices. When CCAC removed the skylight in 1990, sightings of the granddaughter ceased. But the nanny is still around, serving an eternal penance for one brief moment of inattention.