Lou’s View: “LET DEATH COME”
By Lou Bernard
I’ve had the urge….I think most people have. I’ve had the impulsive thought to just forget everything, take off, and leave my life behind. Start over somewhere else. Generally, it ends with having had the thought; I’m never going to leave Lock Haven, my family, my friends. But the thought has occurred. I think most people would understand.
In 1905, the Clinton Republican ran an article about a guy who seems to have done exactly that.
On December 13, 1905, the headline was “’Let Death Come,’ Says The Man Of Mystery.” A very dramatic headline that led into an intriguing story. Like the Republican did, I’m going to begin at the ending, which happened in Potter County with the death of a man named B.H. McClellan.
McClellan was a lumberman with the Root Brothers lumber camp, and he had been for almost forty years. He had simply shown up one day and been hired, a not uncommon occurrence among the lumber industry at that time. The odd thing was his refusal to discuss his past. McClellan never talked about family, friends, his childhood, or anything previous to his arrival at the camp.
Of course, there were rumors. Many of the woodsmen believed that McClellan had hidden treasure in the woods someplace, which might make another interesting quest for me one day. He was often referred to as “Mystery Man.” But for the most part, he was just a co-worker.
He came down with pneumonia in December of 1905, at age 78, and it was expected he wasn’t going to make it. Though he refused a doctor, the lumbermen called for one anyway, and the local doctor came, asking if there was anyone he should call. The Republican reported,”Even in his weakened condition, his eyes assumed something of the glitter of the eye of hatred, and his pinched lips stretched themselves across his teeth in an expression of anger.”
“Death stands very close to you,” said the doctor.
“Let ‘im come!” replied McClellan.
“Is there not some message you would like to leave for someone before you go?”
McClellan said,”No, there’s no message for anybody. I’m going this trip alone!”
And with that very dramatic exit line, he died seconds later.
Surprisingly, notification of McClellan’s mysterious death went all the way up to the Potter County commissioners, who ordered that his body be carried to a nearby cemetery in Eulalia, and he be buried there. I’ve checked; he doesn’t seem to have a marker.
His few possessions included pension papers that showed he was a Civil War veteran, and they listed his as being married, though he’d never, of course, mentioned a wife. He had served with the Eleventh Pennsylvania Regiment, which is intriguing—The Eleventh was largely Lock Haven men. Which suggests that McClellan could have once been from Lock Haven—In those days, a lumber camp in Potter County was remote enough to disappear into.
John Blair Linn’s “History of Centre and Clinton Counties” has a comprehensive list of soldiers who served with the Eleventh, but McClellan is not listed. This leaves open several possibilities, all equally interesting. Was McClellan simply tired after the war, desiring to retreat into obscurity? Was life in a lumber camp easier than a divorce? Was he someone else, a fugitive from the law perhaps, who switched places when the real McClellan was killed in action?
Nobody knows. Nobody ever found out. Over a century after his death, we still don’t have any answers, and B.H. McClellan remains in death what he was in life: Truly, a man of mystery.
