Lou’s View – May 21, 2015
The Bald Eagle Silver Mine
by Lou Bernard
“Okay, so listen up, Paul. It’s bedtime, and you’ll be going to sleep soon. But since you’re still up, and Mama is asleep and can’t stop me, I’m going to tell you a bedtime story that I like tonight.”
Sitting downstairs, holding my ten-month-old son. He squirms tiredly in my arms, as we sit by the front window in an old chair that used to belong to my grandfather.
“This is a Henry Shoemaker story, Paul. You remember Henry Shoemaker, he wrote all that cool stuff about ghosts and curses and things. We took you out to his house when you were about a month old; you remember. Daddy has some of his books upstairs. This one is from the book ‘Pennsylvania Mountain Stories,’ and it’s about the Bald Eagle Silver Mine.”
The street is dark outside the window. Paul drowsily focuses in on my face the way he always does when I talk.
“So this is supposed to be in the Pine Creek area, like a million years ago….Probably during the mid-eighteen-hundreds, that’s when most of Shoemaker’s stuff really seemed to take place. Now, you know some people don’t believe Henry Shoemaker wrote real folklore. Some people say he made up stuff, but you know Daddy has investigated it, and Daddy believes these are real legends. And Daddy knows best. As far as you know.
“So the silver mine. I’m getting to it. The Indians used to come—Native Americans, that’s the modern term for them—The Native Americans used to come to the area and go out into the woods. They’d spend a few days out there, around Pine Creek out near Jersey Shore area, and they’d come back with silver to spend. Hey, don’t touch that—That’s the remote control for the DVD player. That doesn’t go in your mouth.
“Anyway, sometimes the white men tried to follow them out to find the silver. They never could, though. The Ind—The Native Americans were kind of tricky, and they knew the forest, so they’d disappear, and nobody could ever find the silver cave.
“There was one guy, a geologist from Lock Haven—That’s where we live, little man—Who thought that there could possibly be a silver cave out there. The funny part is, he was probably right. Daddy has articles from the old archives that say that silver has been found in Clinton County. There’s one article from 1875, and one from 1936….So this guy found an old squaw, the last remaining member of the tribe. A squaw is like….Um, kind of like a tribe Mama. You know Mama. The squaw couldn’t get to the mine, but she told the man that there was a cave out there that had walls of silver….Lots and lots of silver, Paul, all over the place. Hey, wait….Don’t fall asleep yet. We’re just getting to the good part.
“So he went out to find this silver mine, you know, like Daddy does. Daddy has been looking for silver mines ever since he was a kid way back in the nineteen hundreds. This guy thought he was going to find it in, like, a day, but he couldn’t. He looked for the landmarks on the map—A yellow tree, a pyramid-shaped pile of stones. He found those, but he couldn’t find the silver mine.
“He looked and looked. He hired a surveyor from Williamsport—That’s that place you went for your doctor appointment a while ago, we stopped and had lunch, you remember—And the surveyor couldn’t find it. And he probably billed double anyway. So the guy finally found the grandson of the squaw, who had died by this time by the way, and asked him to help. And the grandson looked for three weeks, or roughly the amount of time it takes Mama to get ready to go out. But he couldn’t find it, either.
“So listen up, little man, because here’s the important part. It’s still out there. Somewhere in the mountains is a cave of silver, just waiting for someone good to come and discover it. And—Okay, I mean, I know you’re not even walking yet, but you’re getting there. So we’ll have to wait until you’re old enough, but—One day, Paul, one day you and me are gonna go out there and find that thing.
“Goodnight, baby boy. Love you lots. Sleep well.”
