privvydigger
Well-Known Member
A walk through 3 Ghost Towns & couple of finds
I took a walk today and from the time we got out of the truck it was an adventure in time. A place where growing up was hell and living worse, the mid to late 1800s in the coal patch towns of North Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. Pick up a book, hear a story in a bar, the coal regions produced “Coal Crackers†like the mountains of Kentucky and the Hills of Virginia. These stories of the people were mostly scrapped away like the American Indian burial sites of the west and east. Finding them is becoming far and few in between. What were these times, in my eyes it was the birth of this nation. I’m not going to get into what we’re sitting on, the #1 Hardest, Hottest burning coal in the world! 100s of Millions of tons. About a mile and a half in, in an Irish brogue he says see that post? yep! See that one? Yep! We are in the alley between two rows of mid 1800s houses. See that? Holy shit I said yes I’ve seen that! It was the wood walls of a large double sided out house. An outhouse with the ground skimmed off of the top, wood sticking out of the ground. I said looks dug? He said, get this! No they abandoned this town, burned everything to the ground. Out houses too! The holes where never filled in accept for what the bulldozer did to show the wood. So we walked up to the first house foundation I see a large rock cut with two steps in it, to get into the house. You could make out the shape and size, that and one or two large corner stones, some in the middle. You could see how tiny they were and the foundations were only 2 or 3 feet off the natural ground. Broken pottery old pots glass everywhere. We trucked on through foundation after foundation looking at out houses and dammed if there wasn’t an apple tree. They left the apple tree cleared everything else by the growth of the white birch I’d say it was barren for a long time. So about 12 or more doubles up the left side and 15 to 20 up the right, easy! Are trek continues over a hill across two large fields to another Ghost town. But before I get ahead, let me tell you about the walk. It was actually a road. At the top of the last hill In an Irish Brogue he says turn around and look. From our vantage point you could see the town, well the remains and how and why it was there in relation to the vein of coal. Talk about living where you work. Then In an Irish Brogue he says look and clearly you could see another town on the lower right level, then again In an Irish Brogue, turn around again, and there was another small town with about 12 or more houses you could make out. We walked to some that he dug in one area and I looked around at the glass. Its clear 90% of this place is untouched. We walked back a different way and he said In an Irish brogue look at all the fossils and I looked down. They were everywhere you couldn’t walk with out stepping on them. Also, hunks of petrified trees. Then In an Irish Brogue he says look at this?
I was amazed at what I was looking at. It was a snake or lizard skin on the same rocks as the ferns. It was large almost 14 to 18 inches wide and long and some smaller pieces in front and behind. I said that’s a f*#king dinosaur! It was amazing…..Clearly Reptile or Snake Skin fossilized. I’m going back for it. Anyway, my day was a good stretch of the legs, some cool finds and a story In an Irish Brogue worthy of telling. The long drive back to my truck we stopped and he showed me where a row of homes in an old town where torn down and rebuilt on the other side of the town. There’s an outhouse, there’s an out house, there’s an outhouse. And so on. Quite remarkable!
We have two or three ghost towns around us. Ones been found and I’ll bet the others are waiting for someone to come and rediscover them. Opening up the privy’s and the old cellar holes brings life back to their life, back then.
I took a walk today and from the time we got out of the truck it was an adventure in time. A place where growing up was hell and living worse, the mid to late 1800s in the coal patch towns of North Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. Pick up a book, hear a story in a bar, the coal regions produced “Coal Crackers†like the mountains of Kentucky and the Hills of Virginia. These stories of the people were mostly scrapped away like the American Indian burial sites of the west and east. Finding them is becoming far and few in between. What were these times, in my eyes it was the birth of this nation. I’m not going to get into what we’re sitting on, the #1 Hardest, Hottest burning coal in the world! 100s of Millions of tons. About a mile and a half in, in an Irish brogue he says see that post? yep! See that one? Yep! We are in the alley between two rows of mid 1800s houses. See that? Holy shit I said yes I’ve seen that! It was the wood walls of a large double sided out house. An outhouse with the ground skimmed off of the top, wood sticking out of the ground. I said looks dug? He said, get this! No they abandoned this town, burned everything to the ground. Out houses too! The holes where never filled in accept for what the bulldozer did to show the wood. So we walked up to the first house foundation I see a large rock cut with two steps in it, to get into the house. You could make out the shape and size, that and one or two large corner stones, some in the middle. You could see how tiny they were and the foundations were only 2 or 3 feet off the natural ground. Broken pottery old pots glass everywhere. We trucked on through foundation after foundation looking at out houses and dammed if there wasn’t an apple tree. They left the apple tree cleared everything else by the growth of the white birch I’d say it was barren for a long time. So about 12 or more doubles up the left side and 15 to 20 up the right, easy! Are trek continues over a hill across two large fields to another Ghost town. But before I get ahead, let me tell you about the walk. It was actually a road. At the top of the last hill In an Irish Brogue he says turn around and look. From our vantage point you could see the town, well the remains and how and why it was there in relation to the vein of coal. Talk about living where you work. Then In an Irish Brogue he says look and clearly you could see another town on the lower right level, then again In an Irish Brogue, turn around again, and there was another small town with about 12 or more houses you could make out. We walked to some that he dug in one area and I looked around at the glass. Its clear 90% of this place is untouched. We walked back a different way and he said In an Irish brogue look at all the fossils and I looked down. They were everywhere you couldn’t walk with out stepping on them. Also, hunks of petrified trees. Then In an Irish Brogue he says look at this?
I was amazed at what I was looking at. It was a snake or lizard skin on the same rocks as the ferns. It was large almost 14 to 18 inches wide and long and some smaller pieces in front and behind. I said that’s a f*#king dinosaur! It was amazing…..Clearly Reptile or Snake Skin fossilized. I’m going back for it. Anyway, my day was a good stretch of the legs, some cool finds and a story In an Irish Brogue worthy of telling. The long drive back to my truck we stopped and he showed me where a row of homes in an old town where torn down and rebuilt on the other side of the town. There’s an outhouse, there’s an out house, there’s an outhouse. And so on. Quite remarkable!
We have two or three ghost towns around us. Ones been found and I’ll bet the others are waiting for someone to come and rediscover them. Opening up the privy’s and the old cellar holes brings life back to their life, back then.
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