Forgotten Tales of Pennsylvania by Thomas White Read Free Book Online Page A

years later, on January 9, 1793. The balloon flew fifteen miles from Philadelphia to New Jersey, taking about forty minutes to complete the trip. The balloon, which was piloted by Jean-Pierre Blanchard, received permission to fly from President George Washington himself.
    D EATH BY C OMIC B OOK
    â€œComics Blamed in Death” read a headline in the New York Times . In the Pittsburgh Post Gazette , the sensational title “Coroner’s Jury Raps Lurid Killer Comics” appeared. It was September 14, 1947, and a coroner’s jury in Allegheny County had just implicated comic books in the death of a twelve-year-old Sewickley boy. On August 29 of that year, the boy was found hanging from a clothesline in the family’s basement. His mother told the jury that her son was “an incessant reader of comic books and probably hanged himself re-enacting one scene.” Though the jury ruled the death accidental, it cited comic books as a contributing factor. Comic books had claimed another young victim, or at least that is what many educators, parents, civic organizations and law enforcement officials believed. It was Pennsylvania’s turn to lead the crusade against comic books in the postwar years.
    The Allegheny County coroner, William McClelland, called on state law enforcement officials and politicians to ban comics with unacceptable themes (which was most of them). The Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association supported him and passed a resolution attributing the rise of crime and juvenile delinquency, in part, to comic books. Other law enforcement agencies followed suit. Similar sentiment had been expressed around the country since the end of World War II because of the increasingly graphic content and serious subject matter of the comics. It had become a moral panic. The scare faded in the mid-1950s, when many of the publishers were forced out of business or complied with the new Comics Code. (And by that time, they could blame juvenile delinquency on rock ’n’ roll.)
    M OLL D ERRY —T HE W ITCH OF F AYETTE C OUNTY
    Moll Derry had a fearsome reputation in Fayette County and throughout much of southwestern Pennsylvania. Described as an old hag, she was credited with an impressive array of magical abilities. She lived near Haydentown, several miles south of Uniontown. Most of the stories that have been told about her take place between the 1780s and the 1820s.
    Many locals believed that Derry could cast spells, place curses, predict the future and even transform into animals and birds. There were even those who claimed that the old woman could fly. People came to her for help in finding lost money and possessions, tracking down thieves, finding missing persons and foretelling the future. Derry also sold whiskey to supplement her income. The witch was known to take vengeance on those who were foolish enough to cross her. She made cattle ill, prevented bread from rising and even caused deaths, if you believe the stories.
    One of the most popular accounts tells of how Derry cursed three men who had mocked her and her abilities. She told all three men that they would hang. It was not long before the curse seemed to take effect. One of the men, John McFall, killed a man in a drunken brawl in 1795. He was quickly convicted and hanged for the murder. The second man, Ned Cassidy, proceeded to kill two men, and he was hanged five years after McFall. When the third man, whose name is not known, learned the fate of the other two, he hanged himself in Greene County.
    It is not clear exactly how and when Moll Derry died. She seems to have simply disappeared. Or perhaps she turned into a bird and flew away.
    L IBRARIAN S POTTED UFO
    On the sunny and clear afternoon of June 4, 1961, a librarian spotted strange objects in the sky over Blue Ridge Summit. Mrs. Annis saw a large oval-shaped object floating low in the sky just to the north. To the east, she noticed several smaller objects just above the treetops.