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The strange beast of South Mountain

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Part I

Richard D. L. Fulton

January 1921 saw the commencement of the pursuit of an unidentified beast among the rolling foothills of Appalachia in Adams County, Pennsylvania, a quest that resulted in the local inhabitants doing more damage to themselves than the sought-after creature. It did not take long for the local newspapers to label the efforts to shoot or kill the strange creature as the “gorilla war.”

The story begins with the reported sighting of a “monstrous animal” near Mount Rock on January 20, 1921.

According to The Gettysburg Times, the creature was spotted whilst sitting upon a rock. “When the monstrous animal saw that it was discovered by some Mount Rock citizens, it arose, stretched itself and disappeared into a nearby wood.” The beast was described as a “large gorilla.” 

However, on January 21, The Gettysburg Times noted that, in fact, the creature had been reported as having been sighted “for days” leading up to the newspaper’s January 20 coverage of the bizarre episode.

The newspaper went on to report, “When told this story, one Gettysburg citizen said, ‘It is evident that some of my Mount Rock friends are seeing more peculiar visions now than they did before the advent of the Eighteenth Amendment.”

The Eighteenth Amendment, of course, was one of the federal government’s first significant attempts at social engineering through the alteration of the U.S. Constitution, in which the manufacture, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages were outlawed in 1920. This was the period of time during which this controversial, and ultimately repealed (via the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933), legislation became not-so-affectionately known as “Prohibition.”

In spite of Prohibition, the sightings continued—the next time by residents in several northern Adams County municipalities.

The day after the newspaper reported the initial story about the sighting of the unknown animal, it appeared, as the publication garnered more information regarding the incident, that there might be more than just alcohol involved. “Thursday afternoon and evening,” The Gettysburg Times reported, “a general chase with the gorilla as the objective was conducted by the residents of Idaville and vicinity.”

The Gettysburg Times reported that the animal had been described as possibly being a gorilla or a kangaroo, adding that the beast “was first seen at Snyder’s Hill between York Springs and Idaville where a number of men failed in a combined attempt to capture or shoot it.”

By 10:00 p.m. on the night of January 20, “50 men gathered on Pike hill near Idaville and again vainly tried to kill the elusive creature,” which The Gettysburg Times reported, “escaped across the snow to Daniels’ Hill near the Adams-Cumberland County line.”

Theories as to how this alleged “gorilla” managed to find its way into Adams County began to be seriously considered. The newspaper reported, “The theory advanced for the animal is that it escaped from a circus train that wrecked several months ago.” 

But no record of any circus train wreck in Pennsylvania could be found in any 1921 newspapers published before January 20.

The Gettysburg Times did note that, thus far, the only damage reportedly inflicted by the unknown was the “robbery of a smokehouse.”

The Gettysburg Times reported on January 25 the first casualty suffered as a direct result of the growing panic over the wandering, but as of yet unidentified creature, suggesting the concern had now spread into adjacent York County as well. “Stories of a wandering gorilla caused the shooting of a mule when Abraham Lau, of Franklintown, York County, mistook the animal for the much talked of wild beast.”  According to The Gettysburg Times, when Lau spotted what he thought was the much sought-after and alleged gorilla, “He became alarmed and went to the house for the gun [and] shot and badly injured his neighbor’s mule.” It would not be the first local animal to die in the quest.

The Harrisburg Telegraph began carrying coverage of the mystery “gorilla” in Adams County as of the mule-shooting incident, but noted in the newspaper’s January 26 article that the “mule was not seriously injured by the shot.” 

On January 27, The Gettysburg Times reported that the “gorilla” had now been sighted near Waynesboro, in Franklin County. Regarding the multicounty hairy desperado, the newspaper reported, “Harry Shindledecker, an employee of the trolley company in Waynesboro, was on his way to work Wednesday morning [January 26]” and spotted the unidentified beast “while passing the baseball grounds.”  Shindledecker subsequently arrived at the Waynesboro trolley barn “in an excited condition,” and described the animal as having appeared to have been “about the height of a man.” 

The effort to end the alleged gorilla’s reign of imagined terror, now spanning three counties, heated up on January 26 when one local community launched what was described as an “armed posse” in pursuit of the creature in an effort to put an end to the affair once and for all.

Unfortunately, the only end that resulted from the effort was the life of one of the hunting dogs accompanying the impromptu posse.

The Gettysburg Times reported on January 28 that the “gorilla war” began on the night of January 26 when the beast was reportedly seen in an alley in Rouzerville, in Franklin County. “The word was quickly spread and the members of the Rouzervlle deer camp and every one [sic] else that had a rifle soon turned out,” the newspaper reported. “After the mobilization of marksmen was completed, the attackers in battle formation started up the mountain.”

The advance of the “skirmish line” had barely gotten underway when the creature, or at least what was believed to have been the creature, described now by The Gettysburg Times as a “chimpanzee,” was flushed out.   The newspaper reported, “Although a number of shots were fired, the chimpanzee kept on bounding toward the thicker brush of the slope.” 

The posse, as such, appears to have decided at this point in the attack to send for backup, which was hastily sent forward to bolster the assailants in the effort to capture or kill (most likely kill) the still essentially unidentified animal. The effects of the added firepower were audible in the nearby communities.

“The firing in the mountain was heard in the village and the town was soon in an uproar,” The Gettysburg Times wrote.  Some tactical genius among the combatants then decided “to form a great circle around the foothill where the animal was last seen,” the newspaper reported, adding, “Deployed in this fashion the grizzled hunters and young marksmen moved into the woodland.”   

In the process of searching the mountainside “halfway to Pen Mar” without any success at spotting the renegade creature, the hunt did result in yet another casualty. “A black dog running through the underbrush paid the death penalty when an excited hunter mistook it for an ape.”

To add insult to injury, not only had the mighty mountain warriors returned empty-handed, but when they gave up the pursuit and returned to Rouzerville, the creature had already beaten them there. “When the hunters returned from the mountains, the reports say the town was in a turmoil,” the newspaper reported, adding that, “… the animal had been seen there while the hunt was on.” 

The Gettysburg Times reported that the younger women in town who were out and about when the beast appeared were so terrified that escorts were provided to see that they got off the streets and to their respective homes safely until the “panic” had subsided. 

On January 27 or 28, the creature was again reported to have been seen near Monterey by two young men. “As they neared the Monterey golf links, they saw what they thought was a man approaching on all fours,” The Gettysburg Times reported, until the animal “rose on its hind legs and came toward them making gurgling sounds.”

Looking Back – 1930

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by James Rada, Jr.

The Daughters of Charity went to China in the early 20th century to care for the sick and needy and to spread the word of God.

China experienced wars and unrest during the first half of the 20th century, with the rise of Communism; the Nationalist Party; and Chiang Kai-shek, China’s leader for nearly half a century.

The Daughters of Charity opened a hospital in Kan Chow in 1923 and one in Taiwo in 1928. From that point on, they did their best to care for all those they could. Their operation was funded by contributions from other Daughters of Charity houses. The sisters did not interfere in politics and were allowed to operate their hospitals. That changed in 1930.

The Central Plains War broke out in China between the Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist government, which had come to power in 1928, and several regional military commanders who challenged the government’s legitimacy. The war eventually involved a million Chinese soldiers, of which three hundred thousand were casualties. This does not even consider the number of civilian casualties.

Father Leon Cahill in Ganzhou warned the sisters of a coming attack by bandits on March 15, 1930. They made an escape plan, prayed they wouldn’t need it, and continued their work. Then, on March 20, word came that the bandits were nearing. The hospital staff dropped what they were doing, which included leaving their lunch, which had been prepared already, uneaten.

“Donning the garb of Chinese coolies and guided by a faithful servant, they were escorted to the distant home of a Christian,” the Gettysburg Times reported. Their habits were hidden in rice bins. The group was made up of six sisters, three Catholic priests, two servants, and a French bishop.

They were only able to stay at the house for a short time, though, because too many people knew where the sisters had gone. Under cover of darkness, they were taken to the house of a pagan, who allowed them to stay in a hidden room.

The Communists, who by then must have been frustrated by the Catholic group’s escape, offered a $200 reward for each sister or priest brought to them. Out of a fear that they might be betrayed, the friends of the sisters led the group to a third location, where they were able to rest for a few days.

Then began a long journey across China to try and reach safety, while still helping those the sisters had been sent to serve.

While this group was on the run, five French Daughters of Charity were captured in October and held prisoner until Christmas, before they were freed.

As the American sisters moved about the countryside, they were joined by two additional sisters, and they were sometimes able to wear their habits. When they did, they had to travel in sedan chairs with the curtains closed. “Eventually, they finally returned to their hospitals, despite the warnings, and against the wishes of friends, in the garb of their order,” the Gettysburg Times reported.

They intended to resume their work, but the hospitals were in ruins. “Everything in the two hospitals had been destroyed, except two pictures hanging on the wall of a small office in the hospital at Kan Chow,” according to the newspaper.

At this point, it was decided to bring the sisters back to the United States. The eight sisters left on December 26, 1930. The Daughters of Charity were Sister Vincent Louise DeLude, Sister Anselma Jarboe, Sister Helena Lucas, Sister Emily Kolb, Sister Eugenia Beggs, Sister Pauline Strable, Sister Catherine O’Neill, and Sister Clara Groell. They had spent nine months as fugitives because they had wanted to help the sick and poor.

The sisters in Emmitsburg spent days preparing a welcome for Sisters Helena and Clara, who were the only ones who returned to the motherhouse in Emmitsburg. The others returned to other Daughters of Charity houses.

Sister Anselma and Sister Clara returned to serve in China from 1936 to 1951. Sister Emily and Sister Vincent returned to China from 1936 to 1952. Sister Catherine returned to China from 1932 to 1952.

A pistol battalion of the Northwest Army during the Central Plains War in China.

Looking Back 1960

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Emmitsburg Family Drowns in the Bay

by James Rada, Jr.

It was meant to be a pleasant outing, fishing on the Chesapeake Bay, on Sunday, July 17, 1960. The Haley family went out on the waters, but the boat was overloaded and sitting low in the water. The water was rough, and the “14-foot outboard motor boat in which they had been fishing floundered north of Tilghman Island in Harris Creek at the entrance of Dun Cove, according to Maryland state police,” the Gettysburg Times reported. After the two 5 1/2 horsepower motors quit, the boat could do nothing but float. The waves from passing boats finally swamped the motorboat. It capsized and sank, throwing the passengers into the water.

They flailed around searching for something to hold onto. The motorboat surfaced, and they tried to hold onto the hull, but then it sank again only to finally bob back to the surface and stay there.

The water in Harris Creek, where the boat went down, was 14 feet deep, and the currents were strong.

It was about an hour before the Haleys saw a boat, but it was too far away to hear their calls for help. It was another hour before a boat came close enough to hear the Haleys shouts.

Only four people were rescued, clinging to the upended hull of the boat, but three Haleys were missing. Scovey Sells, age thirty, of Taneytown, was credited with saving all of the rescued passengers. He kept them afloat, along with himself, and helped them get into the boats that came to offer assistance. The three rescued women were Joseph Haley Sr.’s sisters, Rebecca, age sixteen, and Susan, age fourteen, and Joseph’s daughter Josephine, who was only six years old. The incident left her an orphan.

A search was quickly started for the missing Haleys. Edward Whipp, a pilot for the Tidewater Fisheries Commission, spotted the body of Joseph Haley Jr., age four, on Sunday evening around 9:00 p.m. The search was then called off for the night at 10:30 p.m.

When the search resumed on Monday morning, with boats and skin divers helping, Mary Haley, age twenty-seven, was found around 7:00 a.m. Joseph’s body was recovered on Thursday morning, about a mile from where the boat had sunk. Sells told police that he believed Joseph, Sr., had died when the boat went down because he never saw him after it sank.

Joseph was a contractor who worked for his father Joseph Merl Haley in Emmitsburg. He was also a member of the Vigilant Hose Company, and the family was members of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

The family was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery on Thursday, July 21, four days after the sinking. Rev. Martin Sleasman officiated.

Looking Back

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by James Rada, Jr.

1915 — David Firor’s Missing Days

On March 2, 1915, David Firor kissed his wife goodbye and told her that he would be back on the evening train from Baltimore. Then he headed into the city to buy Easter items for his store on East Main Street in Thurmont.

That evening, “The train came, but Dave did not come home, and it was taken for granted that he did not get to finish his shopping and remained until next day as he had done on future occasions,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

When he failed to come home the next day, Firor’s wife and mother began to worry. They began to make inquiries at the places where he typically went, but no one could help them with any information.

Rumors began to run rampant. He had met with foul play in the streets of Baltimore. He was running from creditors because his business was about to go bankrupt. Both of these rumors proved false.

Firor’s brother, J. W. Firor, was a professor at the University of Athens in Georgia. He took a leave of absence from his teaching to join his family in Thurmont. Then he set off for Baltimore to search for his brother in hospitals and other institutions.

Firor was thirty-one years old and had a medium build. He stood five feet, six inches tall and had black hair and dark eyes. He wasn’t particularly distinguishable from among hundreds of men in the city. J. W. made his inquiries, though, and walked through the hospital wards and looked at John Does in the morgue.

No sign of him could be found.

Ten days later, Grace Firor received a telegram from her husband. He was in Jacksonville, Florida.

“Losing all trace of his identity, knowing nothing whatever of his whereabouts until he was put ashore, penniless from a dredge boat at Jacksonville, Florida, and cared for by a family of Italians, David Firor, of Thurmont, last Tuesday for the first time in a week realized who he was,” The Gettysburg Times reported.

The cause of the problem was what Firor called “sleepy-headedness,” and the doctors called aphasia. In recent months, he had started sleeping a great deal of the time, and when he slept, he was nearly impossible to wake. His mother even said that he could fall asleep talking or standing up.

Even after being found in Jacksonsville, he had an attack where he slept for eighteen hours straight.

When asked about what had happened to him, Firor said that he couldn’t remember how he came to be on the boat. The last thing he remembered was speaking with Helen Rouzer, formerly of Thurmont, in a Baltimore department Store.

He also had taken sixty dollars with him to Baltimore when he left Thurmont. It was all missing when he reached Jacksonville. He didn’t remember what had happened to it, but since no orders were delivered to the store, he apparently didn’t spend the money on what he had intended.

Some people suggested that he may have been robbed. While this is a possibility, Firor still had his gold pocket watch on him when he was found. It seems unlikely that a robber wouldn’t have taken it as well.

Firor apparently never solved the mystery of what had happened to him during the missing days. He didn’t even know whether he had been conscious for most of them.

looking back— 1939

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by James Rada, Jr.

Emmitsburg Gets Three Burgesses in Four Months

Emmitsburg once went through three burgesses in the span of four months in 1939.

It began when Burgess Michael J. Thompson died unexpectedly on May 31. He had gone out walking through Emmitsburg, including stopping at the Hotel Slagle, before heading home. He had only been home a few minutes when the heart attack struck and he died about 12:20 p.m.

“Mr. Thompson had been in ill health for the last two years, and the attack this morning was third he has suffered within the last year,” The Frederick Post reported.

He was only sixty-one years old. He had been born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1877. He loved playing sports, but, in 1893, while playing football for Suffield Academy against Taft School, he broke his right leg. He healed, but then broke it again the following spring while sliding into second base during a baseball game.

His playing days were over.

When he attended Holy Cross, he organized the school’s first football team and coached it in 1896, while he was still only a freshman. The following year, he refereed his first game between Boston College and Brown.

He soon became a regular referee for college games.

“His most famous game was the Harvard-Carlisle Indians contest in 1903, when he allowed the ‘hidden-ball’ play. Jimmy Johnson, the Indian quarterback, in a close formation, slipped the ball under the jersey of Dillon, a husky tackle, who lumbered unmolested down the field and across the goal line,” The Frederick Post reported.

He came to Mount St. Mary’s College in 1911, and served as a coach and referee for twenty-three years before retiring.

He was also a former publisher of the Emmitsburg Chronicle.

Two days before Thompson was buried, John B. Elder became the burgess, since he was the head of the town council. Like Thompson, he was also a publisher of the Emmitsburg Chronicle.

With Elder’s move to burgess, Council Member Charles Harner became the head of the town council.

Harner and Elder were the only two members of the town’s governing body at this time. Usually, there was a burgess and three members of the town council. However, the third seat on the council had gone unfilled in the last election. Thompson had been planning on appointing a person to fill the seat, but he had died before it could be done.

One August 21, The Gettysburg Times reported that “Emmitsburg now has its third burgess since the May election as municipal affairs underwent a second unexpected change, occasioned by the sudden resignation last Friday of Guy S. Nunenbaker, retired engineer.”

Elder had unexpectedly resigned from his position as burgess at the beginning of the month. Luckily, Thornton Rogers had been appointed to town council before Elder’s resignation, so Harney wasn’t left as the sole member of town government.

Richard Zacharias became the new burgess and served out Thompson’s unexpired term.

This wasn’t the first or last time that Emmitsburg would have trouble finding people to serve in Emmitsburg’s government. Many of its elections lacked contested races and, once, no one even filed to run for the office of burgess.

“A light vote is anticipated inasmuch as apathy of local citizens to run for office was prevalent during the past week when no one filed his intentions to run for the office of Burgess,” the Emmitsburg Chronicle reported in 1955 just before the election.

The newspaper speculated that most people probably thought that incumbent mayor Thornton Rodgers would run again, but he, too, chose not to seek re-election. When no one had filed for burgess in the election, Rodgers allowed himself to become a write-in candidate.

He was re-elected with 91 votes (out of 438 registered voters) of residents who wrote in his name.

James Edward Houck was elected burgess in 1961, but even then, people referred to the position as mayor. He won the election by only four votes over the incumbent Mayor Clarence Frailey.

Houck wrote in an article for the Greater Emmitsburg Area Historical Society about his time in office, “Being elected Burgess of Emmitsburg in the early 1960s was quite an eye-opening experience for me. The regular duties that you expect to do and the things you want to accomplish are only a small portion of the job.”

Additional charter changers in 1974 made official the change from a burgess to a mayor.

In 2006, the number of commissioners on the board was increased from four members to five. Changes were also made to keep the mayor from voting on issues since he also has veto power.

looking back

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by James Rada, Jr.

Emmitsburg Waits Seventy-three Years for a New Post Office

The effort for Emmitsburg to get its current post office took nearly thirty years. At that point, the people who had started the push had passed on.

Many long-time residents of Emmitsburg will remember the post office when it was located on the southwest corner of the square. The building served as the post office from 1893 to 1966, according to The Gettysburg Times.

In the beginning, the building remained a private home and the U. S. Post Office Department paid rent for the front room of the home. As the town grew, so did the business in the post office.

A group of people in town decided in late 1937 that the volume of business handled by the post office warranted a government-owned building like many other communities were getting.

When U.S. Senator Millard Tydings was approached about the possibility of getting a new post office for the town, he said that he couldn’t back anything unless there was a petition and request sent to the Post Office Department.

A group of citizens, with the backing of the Emmitsburg Burgess and Town Council, circulated a petition and quickly collected 170 signatures.

“It is understood that merchants and other business men of Emmitsburg are sending in separate letters to the Post Office Department urging the claims of the town to this building,” the Catoctin Clarion noted.

The petition noted that Emmitsburg was the third-largest municipality in the county (behind Frederick and Brunswick), and that the current post office served an estimated 3,400 people. This included town residents, people living out of town who used the post office, and students at St. Joseph College and St. Mary’s College.

The petition also pointed out that from 1934 to 1936, stamp sales had exceed $10,000 (a first-class stamp cost three cents at the time). Stamps sales for 1937 were also expected to exceed $10,000.

“For the investment of a modest sum the government could own its own property in Emmitsburg and provide its patrons with far more satisfactory accommodations in the way of a modern and up-to-date post office,” the petition noted.

The petition was submitted at the end of 1937, and hearings were held in Washington, D.C. the following June. A number of town officials and businessmen traveled to the city to testify for a post office.

Nothing happened. The project wasn’t approved.

The Emmitsburg Post Office continued to operate out of the building on the square, although it did take over more space.

It wasn’t until 1964 that a new post office was approved for the town. Even that project experienced some delays, but construction on the $50,000 building began in November 1965, and the new building opened in June 1966, at its current location on South Seton Avenue.

The Frederick News noted that the new building had 2,806 square feet of interior space, compared to 1,113 square feet in the building on the square.

Even though the federal money built the building, it had to remain in private hands because of various regulations. The Postal Service could only buy capital equipment for the building, not the building itself. The Postal Service still had to pay rent for its new space to a private owner.

However, Emmitsburg finally had its new post office.