What do you really know about the Keystone State? William Penn, the Revolutionary figures of Philadelphia, and the strength of Pittsburgh's steel all loom large in Pennsylvania's history, but author Thomas White brings together a collection of tales that have been cast in the shadows of these giant icons. From the 1869 storm that pelted Chester County with snails to the bloody end of the Cooley gang, White selects events with an eye for the humorous and strange. Mostly true accounts of cannibalistic feats, goat-rescuing lawmen, heroic goldfish, the funeral of a gypsy queen, and a Pittsburgh canine whose obituary was featured in the New York Times all leap from the lost pages of history.

Such was the wisdom of the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette and Advertiser in 1866 when describing a railway boss's threat to decapitate a former employee. Pittsburgh has many such stories of strange but mostly true events. Local author Thomas White delves into these lost tales, from Lewis and Clark's inauspicious start involving an intoxicated boat builder to the death ray of inventor Nikola Tesla. A 1907 lion attack at Luna Park, death by spontaneous combustion, Jack the Ripper's rumored visit to the city and an umpire who was rescued from an angry crowd by Pirates players are all part of the forgotten history of the Steel City.

A twelve-foot bull shark in the Delaware, the 1856 tornado that tore through Kensington and the four-elephant battle royal that rolled into Fair Hill Junction are among the bizarre tales that are too often overlooked in the history of Penn's Holy Experiment. Authors Thomas and Edward White have intrepidly stormed the stacks to unearth this offbeat collection of strange stories and weird lore with accounts of body snatchers, witch trials and a snake-wielding lunatic. From the outlawing of tambourine beating to the posse that caught a "ghost" and everything in between, the Brothers White take a wickedly gleeful romp through the freak happenings, dastardly deeds and unbelievable characters that lurk in the lost chronicles of the City of Brotherly Love.

A folklorist chronicles the history and lore of witchcraft in the Keystone State from William Penn’s 17th century witch trial to 20th century occultism. As English and German settlers migrated to Pennsylvania, they brought their beliefs in magic with them from the Old World—sometimes with dangerous consequences. In 1802, for example, an Allegheny County judge helped an accused witch escape an angry mob. But Susan Mummey was not so fortunate. In 1934, she was killed in her home by a young Schuylkill County man who was convinced that she had cursed him. In other regions of the state, views on folk magic were more complex. While hex doctors were feared in the Pennsylvania German tradition, powwowers were and are revered for their abilities to heal, lift curses and find lost objects. In this revealing study, author Thomas White traces the undercurrent of witchcraft and occultism through centuries of Pennsylvania history.

Violent bank heists, bold train robberies and hardened gangs all tear across the history of the wild west--western Pennsylvania, that is. The region played reluctant host to the likes of the infamous Biddle Boys, who escaped Allegheny County Jail by romancing the warden's wife, and the Cooley Gang, which held Fayette County in its violent grip at the close of the nineteenth century. Then there was Pennsylvania's own Bonnie and Clyde--Irene and Glenn--whose murderous misadventures earned the "trigger blonde" and her beau the electric chair in 1931. From the perilous train tracks of Erie to the gritty streets of Pittsburgh, authors Thomas White and Michael Hassett trace the dark history of the crooks, murderers and outlaws who both terrorized and fascinated the citizenry of western Pennsylvania.

Lying at the crucible of Central Europe, the Silesian village of Kupferberg suffered the violence of the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars, the World War I. After Stalin's post-World War II redrawing of Poland's borders, Kupferberg became Miedzianka, a town settled by displaced people from all over Poland and a new center of the Eastern Bloc's uranium-mining industry. Decades of neglect and environmental degradation led to the town being declared uninhabitable, and the population was evacuated. Today, it exists only in ruins, with barely a hundred people living on the unstable ground above its collapsing mines. Springer catalogs the lost human elements: the long-departed tailor and deceased shopkeeper; the parties, now silenced, that used to fill the streets with shouts and laughter, and the once-beautiful cemetery, with gravestones upended by tractors and human bones scattered by dogs. In Miedzianka, Springer sees a microcosm of European history, and a powerful narrative of how the ghosts of the past continue to haunt us in the present--Provided by the publisher.

In the ancient hills and misty hollows of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, generations of locals have passed down stories of a woman with mysterious magical powers. People came from near and far to seek healing and protection through her strange rituals. Some even believed she could fly. Named Moll Derry and nicknamed the Witch of the Monongahela, her legend has been documented by writers and folklorists for more than two hundred years. She is intertwined in many regional tales, such as the Lost Children of the Alleghenies and Polly Williams and the White Rocks. Author Thomas White separates fact from fiction in the many versions of Moll Derry and recounts Western Pennsylvania's folk magic history along the way.

Oppaymolleah's curse. General Braddock's buried gold. The Original Man of Steel, Joe Magarac. Such legends have found a home among the rich folklore of Western Pennsylvania. Thomas White spins a beguiling yarn with tales that reach from the misty hollows of the Alleghenies to the lost islands of Pittsburgh. White invites readers to learn the truth behind the urban legend of the Green Man, speculate on the conspiracy surrounding the lost B-25 bomber of Monongahela and shiver over the ghostly lore of Western Pennsylvania.

Strange creatures and tales of the supernatural thrive in Pennsylvania, from ghostly children who linger by their graves to werewolves that ambush nighttime travelers. Passed down over generations, Keystone State legends and lore provide both thrilling stories and dire warnings. Phantom trains chug down the now removed rails of the P&LE Railroad line on the Great Allegheny Passage. A wild ape boy is said to roam the Chester swamps, while the weeping Squonk wanders the hemlock-shrouded hills of central Pennsylvania, lamenting his hideousness. On dark nights, the ghosts of Betty Knox and her Union soldier beau still search for each other at Dunbar Creek. Join Thomas White and company as they go in search of the truth behind the legends of supernatural Pennsylvania.

"It is offered not as a textbook nor as a scientific discussion, but merely as reading entertainment founded on the life history, social struggle, and customs of a little-known people."—From the Preface C. A. Weslager's Delaware's Forgotten Folk chronicles the history of the Nanticoke Indians and the Cheswold Moors, from John Smith's first encounter with the Nanticokes along the Kuskakarawaok River in 1608, to the struggles faced by these uniquely multiracial communities amid the racial and social tensions of mid-twentieth-century America. It explores the legend surrounding the origin of the two distinct but intricately intertwined groups, focusing on how their uncommon racial heritage—white, black, and Native American—shaped their identity within society and how their traditional culture retained its significance into their present. Weslager's demonstrated command of available information and his familiarity with the people themselves bespeak his deep respect for the Moor and Nanticoke communities. What began as a curious inquiry into the overlooked peoples of the Delaware River Valley developed into an attentive and thoughtful study of a distinct group of people struggling to remain a cultural community in the face of modern opposition. Originally published in 1943, Delaware's Forgotten Folk endures as one of the fundamental volumes on understanding the life and history of the Nanticoke and Moor peoples.