Aborigen

This story comes from Henry W. Shoemaker’s book, Tales of the Bald Eagle Mountains in Central Pennsylvania, 1912. I became aware of this story by way of a great fan of his, Lou Bernard, who enjoys paranormal stories as much as the preservation of regional folklore. In The Express, a newspaper local to Lock Haven, PA, Lou has written a number of articles in defense of Henry Shoemaker, who evidently took it upon himself to collect stories and legends and compile these in his books. As Shoemaker himself put it:

“The query has frequently been made by readers: Whether the stories were true or made up by the author. As so many of the tales are devoted to subjects of a more or less supernatural order they cannot very well be true; neither are they of the author’s invention. The stories were told to him, mostly after supper, by old settlers at lumber camps, farm houses, and backwoods taverns where he stopped.”

— Henry Shoemaker, Pennsylvania Mountain Stories

While some stories are apparently false, Lou is persuaded there may be some substantiation behind “The Giantess” in Tales of the Bald Eagle Mountains. He found an article in the Clinton Democrat, Sept. 15, 1870, that describes workmen developing property of the West Branch Camp Meeting Association. They unearthed a large stone sculpture representing a human figure … but we just don’t know where this property was, exactly. “West Branch” refers to the West Branch Susquehanna River, a winding, nearly two-hour drive from McElhattan Creek, just outside Lock Haven, where the statue was originally found, and that’s by today’s transportation capability. I’ve researched records of various people purchasing properties for the West Branch Camp Meeting Association, but none near McElhattan Creek. We’d have to find the original newspaper, yet from where I sit, I’m unable to find any collection—microfiche, digital, or otherwise—that has any Clinton Democrat newspapers from 1870.

In “The Giantess,” a large sculpture was exposed by “the great flood of St. Patrick’s Day, 1865.” The story is a retelling of the creation of this statue and how it came to be cursed.

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The Giantess

(Story of McElhattan Mountain)

When the great flood of St. Patrick’s Day, 1865, laid bare, in the bed of McElhattan Creek, the gigantic statue of a giantess carved out of black flint, the old settlers, and the few Indians who remained at Nichols’s Run, predicted a series of disasters to the neighborhood. Every time the swarthy monster, with its sullen, angry, but not unlovely countenance, her form enveloped in a loose mantle, was disclosed to view, wars, pestilences, famines, floods, general misery ensued. And all this in less than three hundred years as the figure was carved from the stone during the last years of the sixteenth century. When it was uncovered by the flood of 1865, the accounts which appeared in the Clinton County newspapers heralded it as a relic of remote antiquity, and it would have been generally accepted as such, had it not been for the “old timers” who knew the legend of its comparatively recent origin. For once in its career it was only a seven days wonder. The paragraphs in the papers attracted a few antiquarians to the scene and the native mountaineers marvelled and brought their families, but the closing events of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination soon overshadowed it.

A freshet in September broke the drift pile which had diverted the stream from its original course, and the “Giantess of McElhattan”, as she was called, was covered once more by the rushing current. For a few weeks those who passed over a prostrate beech tree which served as a footbridge nearby, could see the angry, revengeful features of the giantess peering up at them through the clear water, but sand, and pebbles and branches of trees drifted across it, and were giving it a brand new shroud. With the Spring of the next year, the face was entirely covered, and only the sable outlines of the breasts were reflected through the limpid depths. In another year these were covered, and with it went the last memory of the Giantess, to rest until Destiny sends her forth again. The old men when they first saw the figure shook their heads muttering “there’s never going to be an end to the war.” That was the direst prediction they could make. When the death of the saintly Lincoln was reported in the little mountain community, the old men raised their knotted forefingers and whispered, “see it’s coming true, there’s never going to be an end to the war now.” But hostilities did not break out afresh, and the last Confederate forces surrendered within the next couple of months. When the ruin of everything didn’t happen, the wiseacres laid it to the fact that the stream having resumed its old course had put the Giantess where she could do no mischief. And how time flies!

The floods of nearly half a century have swept over this strange figure since she was last seen ; the old men who knew her story are all dead, and but few of them passed it on to succeeding generations. The essence of a living thing is within, an inanimate object without. Death releases the spirit of a living thing ; with one of iron, or bronze, or stone, it lives from generation to generation, by word of mouth. And now will be told the story of the black-flint giantess, as nearly as it was related by the Indians to the old men, and by the old men to appreciative juniors.

Like most of the great works in Central Pennsylvania, that date back to Indian times, the Giantess was an emanation of Pipsisseway, the great king of the Susquehanahs. He was the bravest of warriors, the joiner together of kingdoms, the mighty peacemaker, the patron of legendary history, of arts, of agriculture; the one rounded-out personality in an otherwise unfinished and undeveloped period. Unfortunately this humble chronicler of the greatest of Pennsylvania Indians does not Know his real name. He called him Pipsisseway in several other stories because he liked the sound of it, because it had a distinctive flavor. The old settlers and the few Indians he knew, spoke of him as the “great king of the Susquehanah Indians,” but nowhere was the real name obtainable. But he was an actual man nevertheless, and his deeds are a better immortality than a highsounding name. We know Shakespeare’s name, but little of his life; we know of this Indian King’s life, but nothing of his name. But at any rate, the “great king” was the inception of the Giantess.

In his early youth, probably when he was eighteen years of age, he had made a hunting trip to the Ohio river, to chase the fleet herds of antelopes in company with several other Indian princes of about his own age. The chase took place in the realm of a western chieftain, whose son was Pipsisseway’s particular friend. The young heir to the kingdom of the Susquehanahs was too impressionable in those days to make a good hunter. He would start out boldly enough, but a beautiful view, or sunset, or waterfall would divert his attention from the fleeing objects.

It was during the frenzy of the hunt that he stopped to make the acquaintance of a beautiful young girl, of noble blood, a relative of some kind to the young prince whom he was visiting. She seemed to him the most exquisite object he had ever gazed upon, and it is a known fact that we never see anyone more lovely than those who charm us at eighteen. Our standard of perfection is formed then ; heaven help him who aims low, for he can never go higher in the future. This Indian beauty was famed all through the valleys that opened into the great basin of the Mississippi. None could equal her charms of person or mind, she was a star of the first magnitude. Pipsisseway was ardent in those days, and he wooed and thought he’d won this fair idol of the west.

He returned to the Susquehanah country to tell his father and brothers of his conquest. Just after he had obtained the old monarch’s consent he heard the news of her marriage to a young warrior in the west. The blow was a crushing one to the proud spirit of Pipsisseway. He could have stood it better if it had been something hidden away in his own heart, but he had informed his family of his romance, and they must watch him every day recovering from it. That is why persons suffer who are crossed in love, it is the half-pitying, curiously interested faces of those about who probe the wounds deeper. A wounded animal hides in a cave, a wounded love should be hidden in the caverns of our soul. A trip into some distant region, like the Great Lakes, or the New England coast might have enabled the humiliated prince to escape all this but he deemed it cowardly to run away, and affairs of state, in which he assisted his father, required his presence at home. Besides he had observed that when persons get on fire they invariably start running, but the flames burn no less fiercely. He might escape espionage at the Great Lakes, but find his sorrow burning into him just the same.

The royal lodge-houses were erected where the village of McElhattan now stands, the one occupied by the King of the Susquehanahs stood on the present site of the railroad station. The unmarried sons, surrounded by their retainers lived in their own encampments, that of Pipsisseway being where Youngdale now flourishes. It seems strange what attracts village-building to certain localities, and religiously passes others by. For centuries the Susquehanah kings lived where stand the group of houses at McElhattan station. When the Indians retired and the whites took up the ground, the site had to be favored above all others.

For years the eldest sons of the Kings lived on the site of Youngdale; it too became the choice of the whites for a village and shipping point. The captain of the warriors, or rather the second in command to the king, usually maintained his war-lodge at McElhattan Springs. Though there has been no permanent settlement there, it has proved a popular tenting place and resort for the whites. Man feels inherently lonesome, because of the mystery of life, he likes to live where others have been before ; it gives him a certain spiritual sense of security.

Half a mile further up the beautiful stream now called McElhattan Run, at the foot of the “High Banks” where there is an inexhaustible supply of fire-clay, were situated the royal pottery works. They were part of the kingly perquisite, and were superintended usually by the rulers’ brothers. No one could make, or even buy pottery from any other source ; it was for generations a most profitable monopoly. Some beautiful work was turned out, and had it been less perishable, would have been the most attractive souvenir of the vanished Susquehanahs. In Pipsisseway’s reign it had attained a state of perfection, and bowls, pots, kettles and ornamental pieces from this plant were bartered for as far west as the Missouri River. Susquehanah pottery had as respected a name as Wedgewood.

A short distance beyond the pottery works, in a cave dug in the side of the big McElhattan mountain, lived an Indian sculptor. He had been captured by Pipsisseway’s father in one of his expeditions to the South, and put to doing menial work around his lodgehouse. With only the crudest tools he had carved some figures of animals out of soapstone and these had given the young Pipsisseway his first inclination towards art and sculpture, of which he later became such a conspicuous patron. He had obtained the slave’s freedom, installed him in a roomy cave to carry on his work, liberally providing him with necessary implements and materials. He openly said he preferred sculpture to pottery making, which angered the potters who had given the best years of their lives to perfecting the plastic art. After executing numerous smaller pieces, the ex-slave was commissioned to carve a huge female figure out of black flint. It was to resemble as closely as Pipsisseway’s descriptions could convey, the beautous but false Indian maid on the banks of the Ohio, who had saddened his young life. When it was finished the young prince pronounced it a complete success, except that it looked more severe and ill-natured than the original. The sculptor worked for weeks trying to soften the expression, but of no avail, he only made it more sullen, more forbidding. Pipsisseway was disappointed, as he wanted the figure to wear the benign and smiling expression that had captivated him. The old sculptor explained that if he could have seen the living model all would have been different; under the circumstances he had done his best.

A date for the erection of the statue was set. Pipsisseway had been utilizing a number of hostages in building a pathway from the Seven Springs to the summit of the upper or “big” mountain, and this was now completed two thirds of the distance. The young prince was seized with the idea of having the statue set up at that point which would make it a place of resort for his subjects, being such a great artistic wonder, and at a place where the view was expansive and ennobling. Before the figure could be moved from the studio, the sculptor was waylaid one evening and foully beaten to death by artisans from the pottery works. He had escorted the prince who had been visiting him, to his lodge house and was returning to his cave when set upon by these fellows. They were jealous of the attentions he received from the prince and from the fact that Pipsisseway and his suite no longer visited the clay works. The guilty parties were soon apprehended, flayed alive and roasted to death by slow fires.

The gigantic statue, drawn on a truck by five hundred slaves and prisoners of war, was placed in position at the head of the mountain path. It was regarded as strange that all the trees near the statue died of blight in a few days, leaving it in the centre of a patch of desert. To this day vegetation will not grow there, it is a conspicuous sight for miles, known locally as the “little bare place.” The following Spring all seeds planted in the valley refused to sprout, and a terrible famine was promised.

Ironwood, the old king, consulted his soothsayers and they said that this trouble was caused by a curse put on the statue by the dying potters, and advised hauling it off the mountain, at once and burying it, out of mischief, in the bed of the creek. Pipsisseway felt badly, but was an obedient son, and himself superintended the lowering of his favorite effigy. Even as his minions were diverting the course of the creek to prepare a proper burial place, there descended a plague of wild pigeons. These birds, by countless billions, flew so swift and in some places so low, that they beheaded such men, women and children who were not quick enough to find shelter. The tops of most of the trees for a space ten miles in width were cut off as neatly as if done by axes. For three days the earth was inky black under this canopy of the winged multitudes. As soon as the plague subsided, the work in the stream was quickly completed, and the statue smothered beneath rock and gravel.

After that the affairs of the kingdom moved smoothly; good crops, good weather, good cheer were the watchwords. In course of time King Ironwood passed away, and his eldest son, Pipsisseway was crowned as his successor. Then began in earnest the golden age of Indian art and sculpture. Many colossal statues were constructed, but none seemed to have the innate perfection and dignity of the disgraced and buried Giantess. Despite her forbidding countenance and unlucky associations, she was an artistic gem; it was a shame to let her lie submerged to gratify a superstitious idea. Pipsisseway ordered her dug out of the bed of the creek and set up on the site of the home of the nameless sculptor who modelled her. The night after she was in place came a cloudburst and a terrifying flood. The Indian towns were washed away, there was a heavy loss of life; courtiers and soldiery escaped drowning by climbing the trees. When it stopped raining after the fourth day, the Susquehanna River reached from mountain to mountain. Pipsisseway and his queen, Meadow Sweet, with their infant son, were away at the time, or they might have fared badly. When the waters subsided, a wet, marasmus slime lay all over the fertile plain. Fever broke out among the natives, more dying from it than had perished in the flood. Most of the courtiers and royal serving maidens were stricken, and Death seemed to have taken his permanent abode in the kingly circle. Pipsisseway had sent his queen and the son and heir to his mountain retreat on the high pinnacle which overlooks Quinn’s Run, the mountain that the sun sets behind in such regal splendor. They remained in good health, and the king himself seemed to be able to ward off the dreadful malady. He boasted of his vigor, in fact. Unfortunately for him he stuck too closely to the flood country, superintending the drainage work and the rebuilding of his towns. When everything was pronounced safe, he sent for his family and celebrated their homecoming by a grand review of his warriors on the plain in front of the new “castle.” That night he complained of feeling badly. The medicine men were summoned, and pronounced his disease the dreaded “swamp-fever.” Pipsisseway being less than thirty-five years of age, of powerful physique, should have had no trouble in recovering. He had, however, worked hard during the twelve years of his reign, and perhaps was what modern physicians call “run down.” In any event he lost strength steadily, despite all that medical skill could accomplish.

Wise men and fortune-tellers were finally called into consultation. They decided unanimously that the rehabilitation of the black flint Giantess, was not only the cause of the late flood but of the King’s illness as well. They recommended that unless the figure was immediately submerged again, the royal sufferer would succumb. Accordingly the mammoth piece of sculpture was buried a second time, but with more dispatch than ceremony. Pipsisseway’s condition seemed to improve slightly after this ; but only temporarily, his vitality was gone, and he died two months afterwards. The wise men who predicted their monarch’s recovery if the statue was reburied, were frightfully tortured, but that could not bring back the departed spirit. But from princes to slaves, all were agreed to leave the black Giantess lie at the bottom of McElhattan Run.

Over two hundred and fifty years passed away, a flood opened the sepulchre, and white faces peered down on the revengeful countenance of the flint colossus! Then as if back to dreamland from a half-awakening, she returned, and when she wakes again what will be the change that greets her vision!