Lou’s View – Oct. 30, 2014
by Lou Bernard
A Haunted House
Well, it just wouldn’t be Halloween if I didn’t tell a Henry Shoemaker story.
If you’re any kind of reader of my column, you’ve heard the name of Henry Wharton Shoemaker. A writer from McElhattan, he told of old legends—Ghosts, curses, Indian battles. Shoemaker never met a freaky story he didn’t love.
I’m a big fan of his work; I re-tell his stories a lot. If you read my column with any sort of regularity, chances are you’ve read one. And since it’s Halloween, and it’s been almost sixteen minutes since I told a Shoemaker story, I’m about to tell one again.
This one comes from the 1922 book “Allegheny Episodes.” It’s called “A Haunted House.”
The interesting thing about this one is how many actual historic figures and events are tied in with it. This story, probably an old legend, incorporates some real history, which fascinates me. It’s like a Shoemaker version of “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”
It begins with a man Shoemaker calls “Billy Cloyd,” who built a house along the Sinnemahoning River in Keating Township. (Shoemaker was known for changing the names to protect people who were still alive; I believe “Billy Cloyd” to have actually been lumberman William King.) Cloyd had a young man working for him named Wayne Stewardson.
Stewardson noticed Marie Asterie Cloyd, Billy Cloyd’s daughter, and fell in love with her. She had “an unusual nose,” which is not generally considered the world’s greatest pick-up line, but Stewardson enjoyed talking to Asterie. He was madly in love with the beautiful girl, so obviously she left him to get engaged to Oscar Garis, a burly local lumberman. Hey, we’ve all been there.
Fortunately, the Civil War was breaking out at about this time. To get away from thoughts of Asterie Cloyd, soon to be Asterie Garis, Stewardston joined the First Rifle Regiment and went off to fight.
(I’m actually kind of paraphrasing some of this. Shoemaker told some good stories, but he had a habit of never using one word when twenty would do. If I wrote it the way he did, it would take all day, so I kind of give the abridged version.)
One night during the war, his Stewardson’s commander, Colonel Kane, was sitting around the campfire talking about a man he’d recently met. A man named Garis, who had recently lost his wife—The rumor was that he’d worked her to death, constantly making her do heavy chores and labor. Other rumors suggested that she’d been murdered, or died of a lung condition.
Upon hearing this, Stewardson went pale. He wandered off among the pines, unable to get his mind off of poor Asterie.
In 1864, Stewardson was wounded in battle. He was honorably discharged and sent home. He went to ask about the house, which had been abandoned since the death of Asterie three years earlier. It was said to be haunted.
Shoemaker wrote,”Towards nightfall people were afraid to go past the deserted house for the awful screaming and yelling, like a woman in torment, that came from the upper rooms. Travellers never went on that side of the creek, unless in parties of four or five together.”
Stewardson joined up with some of the local hunters, Jake Hammersley, Wallis Gakle, and Seth Nelson. (These were real men, which lends some historical accuracy to the story.) The men had a gun that belonged to the notorious criminal, David “Robber” Lewis, and was said to have been in his possession when he was killed. (Also a real guy.) They decided to go and investigate the haunted house. The story does not specify, but I cannot believe whiskey didn’t have something to do with this decision.
They went to the house, where they did indeed hear screaming and noise. Going in, they walked up to the bedroom, where Asterie’s bed had been. Sitting on the bed was a panther, roaring and screaming—This was the source of the noise.
Nelson shot it as it sprang at them. According to another Shoemaker story, Nelson then moved into the house himself, using it as the central point in the new town he founded, Nelsonville. It was thought to be haunted, and always known as “The Panther House.”
Stewardson had hoped to at least see the ghost of his beloved Asterie, but was disappointed. He walked up into the mountains, to find her grave. Sitting by the grave, he grieved for her.
The story concludes,”His heart would always be….A Haunted House.”
