Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

Recently, I was up at Hyner Run State Park. I was taking part in their annual History Day, and I was asked to come up with some interactive way to promote our local history. So I did my thing, and I made a booth that promoted some of the coolest mysteries throughout Clinton County’s past. I invited people to try to solve them—And, as I don’t know for sure what the solutions are, there are no wrong answers. (Except for the little kid who said,”I came here to swim, not solve mysteries.” That was the wrong answer, kid.) And, as a little bit of incentive, I said I was going to write up my favorite answers to the mysteries in a column in the Record.

I got some amazing guesses. So many that I wish I could print them all. As it is, I’m going to feature as many as I can, and I’ll probably do this again in the future—it was that popular.

MYSTERY #1: The Disappearance of John Rohn. In 1899, Keating farmer John Rohn was last seen climbing over a fence on the edge of his property. After that, he disappeared without a trace, and was never seen again.

My personal favorite solution here comes from Andrea Cayton, who suggested,”Vampires.” I think it’s unlikely, but I’m not gonna be the guy to rule it out. Ron Shaffer suggested that perhaps Rohn disappeared to elope with a fourth wife, and as he’d been married three times previously, that’s not at all a bad theory.

MYSTERY #2: The Twin Box Case. This one has always blown my mind. In November of 1939, a man was working when he discovered two pristine cardboard containers of human ashes in Chapman Township. He turned them over to the police, who identified them as being from two Philadelphia sisters. When one’s husband was contacted, he explained that his wife and her sister had died, so he’d had someone take them to Clinton County six months prior, and leave the boxes under a tree until he could find a place to put them. (I’m cutting out a lot of details for space here; the whole thing is even weirder and makes much less sense.)

My personal favorite here comes from Sophia Yohn, who suggested that the husband may have been having an affair, killed his wife when she found out, and burned her or paid someone else to do it. Sophia looked to be about thirteen or so, and I love this theory, though I am a bit perturbed at the dark turn her mind immediately took.

MYSTERY #3: The Castle That Never Was. An 1881 lithograph of Lock Haven shows a medieval castle in one corner, standing on what today would be college property. No castle ever stood there, and no record show that anything ever did before the college built dorms on that hill.

Leo Ingram suggests that it was perhaps planned, but then they scrapped the idea of building it after the lithograph was created. Which is not bad thinking. Sophia suggested that perhaps the lithograph isn’t of Lock Haven after all, and I’m a little relieved she didn’t suggest hiring someone to burn down the castle.

MYSTERY #4: The Colebrook Cairns. On the mountain in Colebrook Township is a field with several fascinating stone cairns. They were clearly deliberately built, and shaped like cones, domes, or stars. Nobody has any idea how old they are or who built them.

A group of kids called the “Cousin Crew” (which I love) suggested cavemen as the culprits. A woman named Valerie suggested it was aliens, and I’d known someone was going to bring aliens into this somehow. I was surprised it took two hours. Again, Leo Ingram came up with a pretty good theory, suggesting that they were used to mark an important spot. (This is fairly close to my own thinking; there are signs that they were some sort of markers from the Native Americans.)

MYSTERY #5: The Gravestone of Benjamin Perry. Prominent iron furnace builder Benjamin Perry died in 1870, and was buried under a twelve-foot marble stone in Great Island Cemetery. When the cemetery was moved in 1918, the stone vanished—There is no record of what happened to it. It finally turned up behind a State College storage shed in 2014.

Leo Ingram, once again, came through with a pretty good solution, suggesting that someone stole it and hid it behind the shed. Considering the sort of careless way the cemetery was moved, this is not unlikely. A man named Tim, noticing that both communities are college towns, theorized that maybe the stone was stolen as a fraternity prank, and I’m willing to admit that that’s pretty likely, too.

I think I had as much fun as the participants did, on this one. I heard some really good theories, and I really enjoyed watching people try to work these things out. I’m going to have to try more of these.