Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I’ve heard variations on this story repeatedly. Stories of Native Americans having access to a secret stash of silver, far back in the old days. The location changes a bit—I’ve heard this story up in Warren County, in Keating Township, in Pine Creek, and in Sugar Valley.

The most recent variation on the story, though, kind of took me by surprise. It’s as close as I’ve ever found to an eyewitness account, reported in the local newspapers. And the location of this silver mine is, shockingly, Mill Hall.
This story comes from a 1939 article in the newspaper, from W.H. Sanderson as told to Henry Shoemaker.

Sanderson talked about when he was a kid, in the 1830s, and remembered seeing his father invite the local Native Americans in for some food. He described the local Native American path as leading up past the present-day university and out to Mill Hall along Sugar Run. The Sandersons had settled in the area about 1835, and the story he related seems to have happened between 1838 and 1841.

A couple of them showed up at the Sanderson home one afternoon.

“Mother, being very much frightened, left me lying in my cradle and ran out to tell my father, and he came in and found that they were friendly and harmless,” Sanderson explained. “They pointed to their mouths, indicating they wanted something to eat. They seated themselves around the table and ate a hearty supper.”

One of them spoke a bit of English, and Sanderson’s father invited them to spend the night in the kitchen. The Native Americans preferred to sleep outside in the shed, however, and they proceeded to come back occasionally and sleep over later on. One of them brought a string of pink beads on deer sinew for Sanderson, who kept the prize for a number of years.

One night a year later, when the Native Americans came back, one of them was carrying a backpack made of deer skin.

“Father asked him what it contained,” Sanderson said,”And he took from it a piece of pure silver about half the size of a man’s thumb, and when Father asked him where he got it, he made a motion towards his throat, indicating if he told he would be killed.”

After a while, the Native American man loosened up a bit, and described roughly the location of a secret silver mine in Bald Eagle Township.

Sanderson stated,”The silver was gotten between our home and the Maple Grove (There used to be a maple grove where the Condensary now is located.)” Obviously, this leaves the reader with a few questions, including where the hell the Condensary was. (Also what the hell a Condensary was.) A footnote to the article explains that the Condensary had, by 1939, become the Sheffield Farms building, between the two railroad tracks. I don’t know about you, but that answers nothing for me, personally.

Finally I took to the old maps. I’d been looking for an excuse. I located the Sanderson home, which was roughly where Haywood’s On The Green now stands. The Condensary….Well, I still haven’t figured out the Condensary, but I did find two railroad tracks. At any rate, it appears that the Native Americans were getting their silver in the neighborhood of, approximately, Wal-Mart.

As I said, I’ve heard plenty of variations on the “lost silver mine” story before, but never previously in Mill Hall. This is the first time I’d ever heard of the silver mine being in that area. I’d be tempted to blow this off as a stupid rumor, except Sanderson seems to tell a fairly credible story. And this is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to an actual eyewitness account, so if you should happen to see me digging a hole in the Wal-Mart parking lot, mind your own business.