Cursed in Pennsylvania by Nesbitt Mark;Wilson Patty A.; & Patty A. Wilson

Author:Nesbitt, Mark;Wilson, Patty A.; & Patty A. Wilson [Nesbitt, Mark & Wilson, Patty A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Globe Pequot
Published: 2016-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

The Serial Killer’s Curse

There are places that just seem to bring out the worst in people. Places where bad things just seem to happen over and over again. At first glance the Hawk Mountain Raptor Sanctuary in Kempton, Berks County, seems like a peaceful place. It is a world-class facility that deals primarily with raptors such as hawks and other birds of prey.

But the history of that ground is dark with evil that stretches back in time. Hawk Mountain is perhaps the darkest mountain in the Blue Mountain range, and it seems to have always been cursed.

Before white people ever arrived on Hawk Mountain, it was known as a sacred place. The Native Americans held ceremonies on the other side of the mountain, and they said that spirits walked there. It was a place that was shunned.

White settlers were not so superstitious, and they began to build upon Hawk Mountain. Among the settlers was the Gerhardt family. They built a cabin and began to clear the land for a farm. French and Indian incursions were raging across Pennsylvania at the time, and the Lenni-Lenape who lived in the area sided with the French. They hoped to drive the hated British from their land.

During February 1756, eleven-year-old Jacob Gerhardt was outside in the woods when the Native Americans attacked the family cabin. The boy watched from the forest as his five brothers and sisters and his parents were brutally murdered and scalped and the family cabin was burned. Jacob fled the land in search of help and would go to live with family elsewhere. But as an adult Jacob would return to the land where his family was murdered. He built a stone house that sits upon the mountain to this very day. He lived in the house and raised his family. He began taking in travelers, and the place earned a reputation for hospitality and good food.

In his later years Jacob sold the stone house to Matthias Schambacher and his wife, Margaret. The couple worked to increase the popularity of the inn. During the years that the Schambachers owned the inn, some of the locals began to whisper about strange goings-on there. They talked about travelers who stayed at the inn and were never seen again. The rumors picked up at the end of the Civil War when a peddler stopped at the inn for the night. The peddler was selling Union forces uniforms. A few days after the peddler disappeared, Matthias was seen in a nearby town selling the uniforms.

Schambacher and his wife were not friendly to the locals and so tongues wagged on, whispering rumors and hearsay. They kept to themselves and disdained to socialize with their neighbors. But standoffishness alone would not have alienated all their neighbors. Those disappearing boarders made more of an impression. Many area folks suspected that the Schambachers got guests drunk, murdered them, and then sold off their goods in nearby towns.

Then there were stories of the strange and delicious sausages that the Schambachers were selling.

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