Allegheny Episodes / Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

by Henry W. Shoemaker

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 somehow[somehow], 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.