In the northernmost region of Lebanon County in an area known as Stony Valley live some folklore tales and ghost stories from days of ole.
These ghost stories are tragic tales of those whose spirits haunt the woods in search of rest following an unfortunate and untimely end to their lives.
Just like the lyrics of the song titled “Legend of Wooley Swamp” by the Charlie Daniels Band, there’s advice for intrepid readers looking to explore these areas that you “better not go at night” ’cause “there’s things out there in the middle of them woods that make a strong man die from fright.”
Not wishing to tempt fate nor the apparitions that apparently only come out at night, LebTown decided it was best to visit Stony Valley during daylight hours while conducting research for these blood-curdling tales of yore.
To understand the legends surrounding the ghost towns of Rausch Gap and Gold Mine in Stony Valley, one must know the backstory when these villages existed during the 1800s.
LebTown turned to local historian and YouTube content creator Cliff Zeller, aka The Wandering Woodsman, for his insights into the history of these towns and the lore surrounding those spirits of the night.
Zeller said Gold Mine was a town that rose following the discovery of “gold,” which in this case was actually coal in an area north of Swatara State Park between state Route 443 and Tower City.
“I guess in the 1820s they discovered coal out here and then it was in the 1850s when all these towns – Gold Mine, Rausch Gap, Yellow Springs, and then, Rattling Run was the other one – sprung up,” said Zeller. “But they didn’t last that long ’cause the coal wasn’t that great. They found better coal elsewhere. But they lingered on just because they became more like a – I don’t know what you call them – shantytowns or something. After the coal, I think they stopped mining but people still lived up here just ’cause it was a place to live, I guess you could say.”
Zeller believes some of the tragic stories that involved untimely deaths had ties to the coal mines and the rail lines that were developed in these rural mountain towns. That’s especially true concerning the tale of The Headless Miner.
“Rausch Gap has the cemetery and while there’s only three headstones left, the one guy died up here at this coal mine (at Gold Mine) and he’s buried down there. It says on his tombstone that he died up here at Gold Mine,” said Zeller.
He noted a bit of irony in the death of Andrew Allen at such a young age (30) on June 9, 1857.
“He was from Britain or somewhere, and it’s kind of interesting that he was someone who came over from Britain in search of a better life,” said Zeller. “And now he’s buried out in the middle of nowhere.”
Zeller related the story and versions of the sad story and the possibility that this is the ghost of Allen.
“There’s a story about a headless miner that lost his head in a coal mining accident,” said Zeller. “With those ghost stories it’s about the location. Some say it happened down there, some say up by Boxcar Rocks of another railroad.”
Wherever he met his fate, what matters is that his spirit roams the old rail bed at Gold Mine as he looks for his head, or, in some accounts, he’s in possession of his head but still restless on a nightly basis.
“The story goes that he appears at night with it and he’s pushing a wheelbarrow. He doesn’t have a head, but in the wheelbarrow is his head,” said Zeller. “You walk up to him, you can see the head in the wheelbarrow.”
LebTown asked Zeller, with a bit of trepidation, whether this ghost speaks of his untimely demise to the hearty souls who are brave enough to try and prove his existence.
“No, he just walks along the old rail line with his wheelbarrow. And then people, I guess they say they try to talk to him,” said Zeller. “But then his head is in, he’s looking for his head but it’s in the wheelbarrow. Well, some versions say it’s in the wheelbarrow, some say he’s still looking for it. He lost it in a mining accident.”
Two other tales of caution involve the trains that carried coal, goods and people along the four-mile trek from the area around Gold Mine and its coal mines to Rausch Gap.
One tale involves the death of a deaf boy while the other describes the final destination for a train of passengers who were victims of a train derailment.
Zeller highlighted those stories for Lebtown’s readers, especially those who have dared to venture this far….
“I know the train one, there’s different versions of that one too, but all of them involve train wrecks,” said Zeller. “One says there’s a deaf boy walking along the tracks. And that they were blowing the whistle at him, but since he couldn’t hear, then the train hit him. He was searching for berries with his brother when he died.”
The train derailment, which is believed to have happened in an area below Gold Mine, which sits high on the mountain, “wrecked” the lives of its passengers who died from the injuries sustained in the crash.
“The train used a switch for the tracks and some lady didn’t switch a track in time, the train crashed, and tons of people died,” said Zeller. “There was a mass grave down there, but then she killed herself later because of grief. Then there’s this story about mystery lights down there, too, and they think that’s from either one of the train wrecks. That it’s either the lady who killed herself, the little boy or the mass victims from the train crash itself.”
Before LebTown asked Zeller how one area in Lebanon County could be so cursed, he noted that the deceased of that train crash are supposedly buried in a mass grave.
“Yeah, I think it’s because it is (an) abandoned (area) and that creates (an aura) around something that was there,” said Zeller.
The website Stonyvalley.com provides some insights into Rausch Gap and Stony Valley. Today, the old rail bed is a nearly 20-mile-long rail-trail that runs through Lebanon, Dauphin and Schuylkill counties and close to the ghost town of Rausch Gap.
A person identified as Dr. Kugler opened a coal mine in the northern slope of Sharp Mountain in present day Cold Spring Township, Lebanon County, in 1823. Five years later, the Dauphin & Susquehanna Coal Co. constructed the shantytown called Rausch Run in a very stony valley near the present-day rail-trail.
The rail line was constructed between 1850-51 and ran from Dauphin, Dauphin County, to Rausch Run, which was renamed Rausch Gap between 1839 and 1851. There were two dozen board and stone houses along with other scattered structures in the town. It is believed the town also received the majority of burials from that area.
This is where the miner is potentially buried and possibly the accidental death that led to the legend of the ghost story of The Headless Miner, according to Zeller.
The website notes the town began to decline in 1872 when the railroad headquarters moved to Pine Grove that year, due to a lack of good quality coal. By 1900, the town became a virtual ghost town.
Besides being handed down over generations, the veracity of ghost stories is fun to contemplate as you play the game What If? But more importantly than that, these stories can arise like a vampire in the night thanks to an historic connection.
The perfect example of a historical and fictional mash-up through the ages is the story of Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. Bram Stoker used elements of Vlad’s life for the fictional character of Count Dracula in his 1897 novel “Dracula.”
Zeller believes in the spiritual world and appreciates as a history fan the intersection of folklore and fact.
“I do believe the spiritual world exists but most of the stories I don’t think are true,” he said. “But what I like is that there’s a historical perspective behind those stories, like these stories from here may not be true but the places here are true. There’s a history behind these stories. Even if it’s not haunted, it’s based off of all this, and I think that’s cool.”
Despite the stories that these woods, which are now known as State Game Land #211, are haunted doesn’t deter Zeller, who lives in Berks County, from visiting them often.
“This is one of my favorite areas,” said Zeller, who has documented many areas of Pennsylvania as part of his video series on YouTube. “I think anyone who lives, especially if you live in Lebanon County, this is a hidden gem up here. There’s all this history up here. It’s just like, for me, it was inspirational almost for the (YouTube) channel.”
If you decide to visit the area it is, as Zeller said, a real gem.
Just beware of traveling through “them woods” at night….
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
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