Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

It’s my birthday! Actually, it’s either about to be, happening now, or just was my birthday. I’m not sure when exactly you’re reading this column. But, yes, I’m not fifty-two, which felt a lot older when my dad got to be that age.

To celebrate, I wanted to write a column about my favorite parts of local history. I thought repeatedly about what to write. And now I’m dashing this one off at the last possible minute, because I had a tough time deciding what my favorite topic was. (Sorry, editors.)

Maybe my favorite local topic is the early days. Lock Haven was founded by Jeremiah Church on November 4, 1833. Church, who was thrown out of junior high for trying to kiss the teacher, came to this area to visit his brother, just missing a riot between the Irish and German canal workers. Jerry loved the area, and made arrangements to buy two hundred acres of land from Dr. John Henderson, selling lots off in an auction. He sold some to a hotel owner and aspiring actor, and some to a retired pirate. He named a street after himself, alleys after family members, and one alley after the only single woman in town.

Or is my favorite topic Henry Shoemaker? I write about him and his stories a lot. The Wayne Township writer told a lot of neat stories, which he said was old folklore taken from interviews with the locals. There’s been some debate about this, but Shoemaker wrote down some neat local stories. My personal favorite is the one involving a cursed Native American statue buried in the McElhattan area. The curse was said to have eventually killed the Native American chief who had the statue built, and it’s rumored to still be out there.

I suppose you could make a case for East and West Keating Township being my favorite. Settled largely by fugitives on the Underground Railroad, those two townships are remote and fascinating even today, There are entire cemeteries populated by escaped slaves and their families. This led to a lot of interesting local legends, like…

The Giwoggle! The Giwoggle would definitely be a good candidate for my favorite topic. This is one of those Keating legends. The Giwoggle was said to be a sort of wolf-bird-horse hybrid, conjured up by a witch. These things are still seen up in those forests, largely around the Clinton and Clearfield boundary line. Ten years ago, I had the GIwoggle declared the official monster of Clinton County—Around my forty-second birthday, in fact.

Maybe the Hill Section of Lock Haven is my favorite? I’ve lived there for years, after all. The upper part of the city, along Bellefonte Avenue, was settled in the 1870s. It was kind of the second tier of Lock Haven, with somewhat wealthy people building homes there. Most of the wealthy ones built their homes on the uphill side, to enjoy the view. The area contains the home of a prominent soldier and reporter, a house where refugees from the Austin flood lived, at least one haunted house, the one remaining home from a tobacco family, and a moved cemetery.

Yeah, you could definitely make a case that this neighborhood is my favorite.

They’re ALL my favorite, really. I can’t choose. Every topic in Clinton County is my favorite topic, really, including a few I didn’t even mention so far. Piper Aviation, World War II, Zindel Park, the Hynerpeton, Highland Cemetery (plus several other cemeteries), the Twin Box Case….Yeah, at times they’re all my favorite topic. I guess you could say that Clinton County is my favorite topic….I can’t choose just one subject. But I did write a little about many of them! Happy birthday to me.