We're getting ready to do some more field research for our Hexeglaawe series of Pennsylvania folklore. Usually, paranormal researchers uncover very little actual evidence, but I'm feeling really proud of our irrefutable proof of the unexplained below.
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Then the corridor ended in a prodigious open space which made us gasp involuntarily—a perfect inverted hemisphere, obviously deep underground; fully an hundred feet in diameter and fifty feet high, with low archways opening around all parts of the circumference but one, and that one yawning cavernously with a black arched aperture which broke the symmetry of the vault to a height of nearly fifteen feet. It was the entrance to the great abyss.
- H.P. Lovecraft
Continuing our Hexeglaawe series investigating the folklore of Pennsylvania, Wren and I traveled to the jagged quartzite cliffs of Chickies Rock. She told me of the legend of a deadly curse there, and we set out to Lancaster County in hopes of finding some evidence... some photographic proof.
According to the legend, it was the late 1800's and there were plans to build a railway which would wind up the ridge along the Susquehanna River to the proposed site of an amusement park. The park would be built at the top of Chickies Rock, 200 feet above the river.
Unfortunately, there was a small house at the site, occupied by three sisters. There was a belief by many of the locals that these sisters practiced the Black Arts. Wishing to be left alone, with no interest in leaving their ancestral home, the sisters refused multiple offers to sell their land. The railway company eventually convinced local officials to give them the land by invoking eminent domain.
Rather than give up their home, the sisters cursed the land using a spell from the Sixth and Seventh Book of Moses. They then committed suicide.
Historical records reveal a series of mishaps for the park following the suicide pact. The most deadly occurred on the evening of August 9, 1896, when an overloaded trolley car slid off the rails and fell over a 30-foot embankment. The accident injured 68 people and resulted in six deaths, including the mayor of Columbia.
Supposedly, the curse still infects the land, so as we hiked into the rocky terrain, we couldn't help but wonder if our plans to document the paranormal would be misinterpreted as ill intent. We certainly had respect and compassion for those poor sisters forced from their home over a hundred years ago.
As I joked that I felt like Linus hoping The Great Pumpkin could sense his pure intentions, we spotted a crumbling stone structure. Something Dark moved inside the archways. We snapped the photos below and present them to you now as evidence.
