Thursday, March 12, 2015

Cornwall Iron Furnace

As the legend goes, the night was cold, most of the men in the hunting party would have rather been back inside continuing to drink near a warm fireplace. Unfortunately for them, their host had other ideas. Peter Grubb Jr. was a boastful man, he was a man who loved to hunt, and drink. The night’s claim was that he had the greatest hunting hounds in the area. After drinking well beyond a reasonable level, he took his guest out into the chilly night to show the impressiveness of his hunting hounds.

After a long round of hunting, the dogs did not bring home the game. It was the first time they had ever failed to not prove to their master their worthiness in his eyes. In a fit of his infamous short temper, Grubb ordered the entire pack thrown into the furnace fires. The hunting party, servants, and the dog’s handler all pleaded with him not to do it. After threatening the men with physical violence or, their jobs, the dogs were thrown into the fire; including Flora, the pack leader, and the one dog that seemed to have a bond with their her master (the rumors say one night, she saved his life when he collapsed drunk in the snow).

In the days following the terrible deed, not surprisingly, Grubb’s social circle shrank quickly. He lost the few people whom he could consider “friends”. They say he went mad, muttering to himself and, being chased by a ghostly pack by Flora. Ironically, he died out in the snow after being chased by the invisible hounds, just as he would have a night years before if Flora would not have saved his life.

Years of this account range in the 1790s to 1800. The stories of the ghostly pack began immediately after the event and, it is said that the ghostly pack can be heard chasing after their prey on their last, deadly hunt. Howling into the wind, traveling through the area around the furnace. Every October, the reenactment occurs again and, again and, again.

The furnace was in use eleven months out of the year, with the final month being used to prepare the furnace for the coming season. Inside a working furnace: charcoal, limestone and iron ore were layered in the 30 foot tall furnace. The iron would break apart and drip to the bottom. At the top of the furnace there is a hole, where the stones and ores are cast down into the fire. I would hardly say the hole is big enough to fit a struggling dog.

While a noted drunk, which became quite severe after his wife, Mary’s, death, there is no proof that Peter Grubb Jr. was as much of a villain as the tale suggest. As for the part in the story that says he died in the snow, Grubb did die in the winter. In January of 1786, by committing suicide at the age of forty-six. He is buried at Hopewell Forge.

There is some confusion as to whether the hounds inhabit Cornwall or Colebrook furnace. Both were owned by the Grubb family, which was common with iron furnaces in Pennsylvania; one family would own and, operate several furnaces. While Cornwall furnace does still exist, preserved in pristine beauty; Colebrook furnace, which was built in 1791 along the Conewago Creek in Lancaster County, does not. It was dismantled in 1858. Ghosts do reside at Cornwall; residual footprints from workers years past calling out work orders and responses. There is no angry ironmaster and, as far as the people who live near the furnace say, there are no hounds.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Outer Banks Witch

Summers in my childhood were often spent in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In my mid-teenage years, my family moved there permanently, viewing the small, local towns as being more conducive to raising a healthy, well-minded youth than the larger towns or cities. It was not until I moved there as a teenager, and established budding friendships, that I learned of the Cora tree. There is quite a legend tied to this lone tree in the Brigand’s Bay area of Frisco, North Carolina.

As a child, our summer house was within a five minute walk of the tree, yet I never knew the tale of it. When we moved to Frisco for good, it was in a different area of the Bay community, farther from the tree; which, according to local legend, was to be the execution site of a “witch” named Cora. Reportedly, the “witch” lived in the area with a baby, some legends state that it was her child, others are not specific on the details. Both were considered strange by the local population, for they were not of resident bloodlines. Quite a few members of the population of the Outer Banks island chain ended up there after shipwrecks, so new people were not unusual; but there were certain living expectations by the people who lived there. Of those expectations, which were fitting for the time, young, unmarried women did not live alone, separated from the village.

As was typical of certain time periods in history, in this case the early 1700s, when odd things began to happen in the villages, for example someone getting sick, blame fell on the outcast. At the time of the odd occurrences in Frisco, a ship captain was stranded on the island because his ship had floundered. Oddly enough, or perhaps not so strange when considering the story here, the ship’s captain was from Salem, Massachusetts. Though there was no evidence that Cora had anything to do with the strange happenings on the island, the locals and the captain suspected her. Matters came to a climax when the body of a young man was found washed on the beach and small, assumed female footprints were found leading away from the body into the woods. Subsequently, the captain went to Cora’s hunt and had her and the baby brought out and tied to the tree. An argument that ensued between the Salem captain and another captain who believed that the case should be handled inland, at a proper court; and during the disagreement, lightning stuck the tree. When the smoke cleared, both Cora and the baby were gone. In place of the two, was Cora’s name engraved in the tree. To look at it to this day, it does not look like a knife had carved the letters; they look grown into the tree, as if the letters were part of the tree.

There are a few problematic pieces with the story, namely that witches were not burned at the stake or at trees in the colonies. Secondly, in written documentation of the legend, the captain’s name was Eli Blood. There is a Blood family line in the Salem area, but there is no record of an Eli. The other captain’s name was Tom Smith, and with no known origin, a search of the name did not return any results. One could say that with such a common last name that there may be a Captain Tom Smith somewhere in history; just in this case, he eludes us. Except for the name in the tree, there is no evidence that this story is anything more than a legend. Or so I thought until I did a paranormal investigation at the tree in 2013. I asked the standard questions of: how, what, why, did this really happen? After review, there was only one voice on the digital recorder, a female whispering the name “Thomas.” Just a legend or not, it is quite peculiar to be given the first name of one of the captains of the story. In this case, I would say to each one of you, do you believe it or not?