If Sir Rider Haggard was a Pennsylvanian he would doubtless lay the scenes of his wonderful mystery stories in Snyder County. It is in that ruggedly picturesque mountainous county where romance has taken its last stand, where the old touches the new, and hosts, goblins and witches and memories of panthers, wolves and Indians linger in cycle after cycle of imaginative reminiscences. Every now and then, even in this dull, unsympathetic age, when the world, as Artist Shearer puts it, “is aesthetically dead”, Snyder County is thrilled by some new ghost, witch, panther or mystery story. The latest of these in the last days of 1920 and the first of 1921–the giant gorilla–has thrilled the entire Commonwealth by its unique horror.

The papers have told us how a gigantic man-ape escaped from a carnival train near Williamsport, and seeking the South, fled over the mountains to Snyder County, where it attacked a small boy, breaking his arm, held up automobiles, rifled smoke houses and the like, and then appeared in Snyder Township, Blair County, still further South, his nocturnal ramblings in that region proving an effective curfew for the young folks of a half-dozen rural communities.

This story sounds thrillingly interesting, but as gorillas live on fruit, and do not eat flesh, the animal in question would have starved or frozen to death at the outset of his career in the Alleghenies, and there the “X”, unknown quantity of the real story begins. The newspapers have only printed the most popular versions of the gorilla mystery, only a fraction of the romance and folk-lore that sprang up mushroom-like around the presence of such an alien monster in our highlands. Already enough has been whispered about to fill a good sized volume, most of it absolutely untrue, yet some of the tales, if they have not hit the real facts, have come dangerously close to it.

Let the readers judge for themselves. Probably one of the most widely circulated versions among the Snyder County mountaineers, the hardy dwellers in the fastnesses of the Shade, Jack’s and White Mountains, is the one about to be related. It is too personal to warrant promiscuous newspapers publication, and even now all names have been changed and localities altered, but to a Snyder County Mountaineer “all things are plain”. This is the “authoritative”, confidential Snyder County version, unabridged:

To begin with, all the mountain people know Hornbostl Pfatteicher, whose log cabin is situated near the heading of Lost Creek, on the borders of Snyder and Juniata Counties. He has never been much of a worker, living mostly by hunting and fishing, prospering greatly during the days when the State raised the bounty on foxes and wild cats to an outrageously extravagant figure–but no one cares; let the hunter’s license fund be plundered and the taxpayers be jammed.

He was also very noticeable during the Spring and Fall forest fires, which never failed to burn some art of his mountain bailiwick annually. He was opposed to Forester Bartschat, regarding him as too alert and intuitive, and made valiant efforts through his political bosses to have him transferred or removed. He was regular in his politics, could always have a hearing at Harrisburg, and though an ardent fisherman, saw no harm in the dynamiting or liming of streams, and upheld the right of “the interests” to pollute the waterways with vile filth from paper mills and tanneries. In other words he was, and probably is, typical of the professional mountaineer that the politicians, through the nefarious bounty laws, have maintained in the forestsforests, to the detriment of reforestation and wild life.

Hornbostl, about 1915, was in love with a comely mountain girl, Beulah Fuchspuhr, the belle of Lost Creek Valley, but he was away from home so much, and so indifferent, and so much in his cups when in the neighborhood that she found time to become enamored of a tie-jobber named Heinie Beery, and ran away with him to Pittsburg.

During the flu epidemic, about the time of the Armistice, she was seized with the dreaded malady, and passed away, aged twenty-eight years.

Hornbostl was in the last draft, but the Armistice was signed before he was called to the colors, much to the regret of the better element, for he was the sole pro-German in the mountains–a snake in a brood of eaglets–and all allowed he should have been given a chance to fight his beloved Kaiser. Though his name had a Teutonic flavor, he was only remotely of German ancestry, and should have known better than to root for a despotism–he, above all others, whose sole creed was personal liberty when it came to interfering with his “vested rights” of hunting and fishing out of season, and all other privileges of a lawless backwoodsman.

After attending the funeral of his wife in Pittsburg, he took the train to Philadelphia, and while there the news of the Armistice was received, consequently his grief was assuaged by this very satisfying information. He boarded on one of the back streets in the southern part of the Quaker City, in a rear room, which looked out on an alley where there were still a number of private stables or mews, occupied for the most part by the horses and carriages of the aristocracy.

Hornbostl liked to sit at the window after his day’s work at Hog Island, smoking his stogie and watching the handsome equipages coming and going, the liveried colored coachmen, the long-tailed horses, with their showy brass mounted harness, with jingling trappings, the animated groups of grooms, stable boys and hangers-on. Some of the darkies kept game roosters, and these occasionally strutted out into the alley and crowed when there was bright sunshine and the wind came from the “Summer Islands”.

One afternoon he saw a strange spectacle enacted at the stable opposite his window. A large collection of moth-eaten and dusty stuffed animals and birds were unloaded from a dray–stuffed elks, horns and all, several buffalo heads, four timber wolves, with a red bear like they used to have in Snyder County, a golden eagle, with tattered flopping wings and a great black beast that stood upright like a man were the most conspicuous objects. A crowd of mostly Negro children congregated as the half a hundred mangy specimens of this “silent zoo” became too much for Hornbostl, and putting his stogie between his teeth, sallied out the back door, hatless and in his shirt sleeves, a brawny rural giant who towered above the puny citified crowd.

He was greatly interested in that huge black beast which stood upright, and could not quite classify it, though its hair was like that of a black bear in its summer pelage. He sought out the tall Negro coachman who was in charge of the stable, and asked why a museum was being unloaded at that particular moment.

“Yer see its jest dis way”, said the darkey, confidentially, “old Major Ourry have died an’ ’is heirs dey didn’t want de stuff about, so dey sent ’em down to de stable fer me to put in de empty box stalls”.

As the conversation progressed the Negro intimated that the aforementioned heirs would be glad to sell any or all of the specimens at a reasonable figure.

“I’ll give you ten dollars for that big animal that looks like a cross between a Snyder County black bear and a prize fighter”, said Hornbostl.

“The gorilla, you mean”, interposed the darkey.

“Yes, I mean the gorilla”, answered the backwoodsman.

“It’s yours”, said the Negro with a grin, for he was to get half of the proceeds of all sales. He wondered why the uncouth stranger wanted a stuffed gorilla, but of all the animals in the collection, he was most pleased to get rid of that hideous effigy, the man-ape that might come to life some dark cold night and raise ructions with the horses.

Hornbostl offered five dollars more if the Negro would box the monster, and they finally arranged to box it together, and keep it in the stable until he would be let out at Hog Island. Eventually they got it to the freight station, billed to Meiserville.

At the time of the purchase it is doubtful if Hornbostl had any definite idea of what he was going to do with his “find”, all that came later. Hornbostl was glad to return to his mountain home, and sank complacently back in his seat on the 11.30 A. M. train for Selim Grove Junction. It was an uneventful trip, for he was an unimaginative person, taking everything as a matter of course, though he did notice an unusually pretty high school girl with a wonderfully refined face and carriage, who got off the train at Dauphin, and followed her with his eyes as she walked along the street back of the station and across the bridge that spans Stony Creek, until the moving train shut her from view behind Fasig’s Tavern. He thought that he had never seen anything quite so lovely before; if his late sweetheart who had run away had been one quarter as beautiful and elegant she would be worth worrying about.

He reached Meiserville well after dark, for it was almost the shortest day of the year, and put up there for the night. In the morning he inquired at the freight office for his consignment, but hardly expected it that soon. He had to wait three days before it arrived, but when it did, he secured a team which hauled it to his mountain retreat, depositing the crate in front of his door. After the teamster with his pair of heavy horses, decked out with jingling bells, departed, Hornbostl unpacked his treasure, and the huge, grinning man-ape stood before him, seven feet tall. It was set up on a platform with castors, so he ran it into the house, leaving it beside the old-fashioned open fireplace, where he used to sit opposite his mother while they both smoked their pipes in the old days.

That night after supper, when the raftered room was dark, save for one small glass kerosene lamp, and the fitful light of the embers, the mountaineer sat and smoked, trying to conjure up the history of the hideous monster facing him across the inglenook. Instead of evolving anything interesting or definite, the evil genius of the man-ape, as the evening progressed, seemed to take complete possession of him. He became filled with vicious, revengeful thoughts; all the hate in his nature was drawn to the surface as the firelight flashed on the glass eyes and grinning teeth of the monstrous jungle king. All at once the maelstrom of nasty thoughts assumed coherent form, and he realized why he had brought the gorilla to Snyder County.

He had heard since going to Philadelphia that the hated Heinie Beery had taken a tie contract on the Blue Knob, the second highest mountain in Pennsylvania, somewhere on the line between Blair and Bedford Counties. He wanted to kill his rival, and now would be a chance to do it and escape detection. He would dress himself up in the hide, and proceed overland to Snyder Township, reconnoitre there, find his victim and choke him to death, which the Negro coachman had told him was the chief pastime of live gorillas in the African wilds.

Suiting the action to the word, he drew his long knife and began cutting the heavy threads which sewed the hide over the manikin. He soon had the hide lying on the deal floor, and a huge white statue of lath and plaster of Paris stood before him, like an archaic ghost. He did not like the looks of the manikin, so pounded it to a pulp with an axe to lime his kitchen garden. The hide was as stiff as a board, but between the heat of the fire and bear’s grease he had it fairly pliable by morning. By the next night it was in still better shape so he donned it and sewed himself in. Physically he was not unlike the man-ape, gross about the abdomen, sloping shouldered and long-armed, while his prognathous jaw and retreating forehead were perfect counterparts of the gorilla’s physiognomy.

Arming himself with a long ironwood staff, he started on his journey towards the Blue Knob country. He had to cross the Christunn Valley in order to get into Jack’s Mountain, which he would follow along the summits to Mount Union. It was a dark, starless night, and all went well until he suddenly came upon the scene of a nocturnal wood chopping operation. The wood-cutter, a railroader, had no other chance to lay in his winter’s fuel supply than after dark, and by the light of a lantern placed on a large stump had already stacked up a goodly lot of cordwood. His son, a boy of fourteen, was ranking the wood. At the moment of the gorilla-man’s appearance in the clearing the man had gone to the house for a cup of hot coffee, leaving the lad alone at his work. The boy heard the heavy footfalls on the chips, and thinking his father was returning, looked up and beheld the most hideous thing that his eyes had ever looked upon. He uttered a shriek of terror, but before he could open his lips a second time the “gorilla” was upon him, slapping his mouth until the blood flowed, with one brawny paw, while he wrenched his arm so severely with the other that he left it limp and broken, hanging by his side. Then the monster, looking back over his shoulder, loped off into the deep forest at the foot of Jack’s Mountain.

The boy, more dead than alive from fright, was found a few minutes later by his father, to whom he described his terrible assailant.

After that the man-ape was more careful when he traveled, although he was seen by half a dozen persons until he got safely to the vicinity of “the Monarch of Mountains”.

Blue Knob is a weird and impressive eminence around which many legends cluster, some of them dating back to Indian days. Its altitude at the new steel forest fire tower is 3,165 feet above tide.“is a beautiful word picture of the disappearance of two little tots on the slopes of Blue Knob, from the gifted pen of Rev. James A. Sell, of Hollidaysburg.

Heinie Beery was living alone in a small shack on Poplar Run, a stream which has its heading on the slopes of Blue Knob, not far from the home of the mighty hunter, Peter Leighty. Since the loss of his wife he was gloomy and taciturn, and refused to live with his choppers and teamsters in their big camp further down in the hollow.

While searching for Beery, the man-gorilla was seen by several of the woodsmen, and the lonely camp was almost in a panic by this savage visitation. The man-ape was glad that his outlandish appearance struck terror to all who saw him, else he might have been captured long before. He watched his chance to get Beery where he wanted him, and in the course of several days was rewarded. Meanwhile he had to live somehowsomehow, and at dead of night broke into smoke-houses and cellars, eating raw eggs and butter when hunger pressed him hard. In some ways it was no fun playing gorilla on an empty stomach.

One Sunday afternoon Beery, after eating dinner with his crew at their camp near the mouth of the hollow, started on a solitary ramble up the ravine which led past the small shanty where in the local vernacular, he “bached it” towards the top of the vast and mysterious Blue Knob. Little did he know that the man-ape was waiting behind his cabin, and followed him to the summit, which he reached about dusk, and sat on a flat rock on the brink of a dizzy precipice watching the lights flashing up at Altoona and Johnstown, the long trains winding their way around Horse Shoe Curve. He heard the brush crack behind him, and looking around beheld the hideous monster that he had supposed his workmen had conjured up out of brains addled by too much home-brew.

Heinie Beery was a fighting Dutchman, but on this occasion his curly black hair stood straight on end, and his dark florid face became as ashen as death. He lost his self-control for an instant, and in this fatal moment the giant “gorilla” gripped him behind the shoulders and sent him careening over the precipice “to take a short cut to Altoona”.

With a shout of glee the monster turned on his heel, his mission accomplished, to return along the mountains and through the forests to his cabin near the sources of Lost Creek. He was seen by a number of children at Hollidaysburg and Frankstown, late at night, frightening them almost out of their wits; he terrified several parties of automobilists near Yellow Springs; he had all of Snyder Township in an uproar before he had passed through it, but he eventually got to Shade Mountain safe and sound.

Once on his home mountains, overlooking Lewistown Narrows, a strange remorse overcame him; he began to regret his folly, his odd caprice. He sat on a high rock near the top of the mountain, much in the attitude of Rodin’s famous “Penseur”, and began to sob and moan. It was a still night, and the trackwalkers down in the valley heard him and called to him through their megaphones. But the more they called the worse he groaned and shrieked, as if he liked to mystify the lonely railroad men. At length he got up and started along the mountain top, wailing and screaming like a “Token”, until out of hearing of the trackwalkers and the crews of waiting freight trains. He had played a silly game, made a monkey of himself and was probably now a murderer in the bargain. He could hardly wait until he got to his cabin to rip off the hideous, ill-smelling gorilla’s hide, and make a bonfire of it. He hoped that, if no evil consequence befell him as a result of his mad prank, he would be a better man in the future.

However, as he neared his cabin, all his good resolves began to ooze out of his finger tips. By the time he reached the miserable cabin he decided to stick to his disguise, and continue the adventure to the end, come what may. If he would be shot down like a vile beast, it would only be retribution for Heinie Beery hurled off the crag of Blue Knob, without a chance to defend himself. The night was long; he would travel until morning and hide among the rocks until night, picking up what food he could along the way.

In his northward journey he had many thrilling experiences, such as crossing the covered bridge at Northumberland at midnight, riding on the trucks of a freight train to Jersey Shore and frightening fishermen at Hagerman’s Run. When last seen he was near the flourishing town of Woolrich, frightening old and young, so much so that a young local sportsman offered a reward of “five hundred dollars dead, one thousand dollars alive”, putting the Snyder County gorilla in the same category with the Passenger Pigeon as a natural history curiosity.

And in this terrible disguise Hornbostl Pfatteicher is expiating his sins, black as the satanic form he has assumed, and when his penance is over to be shed for the newer and better life.