For this little foray into SKOOKY THINGS, let’s travel to Mount Carbon Pennsylvania.
The Tumbling Run reservoir, which was created by construction of two dams in 1836, long before Lincoln and the Civil War.
When you travel back in time, you’ll find news stories that the lake was the site of an amusement back and marino from 1890 through 1914. Some will claim that the amusement resort was cursed! They recall fires, strange blazes on boathouses, and even stories of robbers and murders.
Nearby, there was a farm that belonged to a Skook named Howell Thomas..
In 1911, while the park at Tumbling Run was still in operation, the Thomas family seemed to perceive they were under some form of a spell. Perhaps a Hex had come upon them!?
The story goes like this: A local fortune teller, or powwower (cool name) told them they were victims of a curse from a family in Orwigsburg who would send a black cat to the farm as a sign of the final stages of said curse.
Now.. in our modern times, this hex story may have been scoffed at. But we are talking 1911.. Things were different.. We would NEVER believe in this today…….right?
Anyway..
The black cat that was predicted eventually showed up at the farm! And this is where the story goes from weird to crazy.
According to ancient lure of the hex cat incident, Mary Thomas fired a shot at that cat but the bullet missed, and the feline grew 4 feet *(yes feet)* in length. Cows then started dying on the farm. And then Howell Thomas himself died!
His autopsy would reveal it was a stroke.. but people of the time knew better!
Things get went from weird to crazy to … unhinged!
At Howell’s funeral, Mary would recount sulfurous smells at the farm! She would also accuse her own sister of putting the hex on the property. At the funeral in Pottsville, Mary reportedly caused a scene when she ordered her sister to leave.
On October 11, 1911, the ALLENTOWN DEMOCRAT reported,
Since Mary Isabella Thomas made her sensational statement several weeks ago, many farmers have been complaining of hard luck. Crops which have not been successful have been referred to as “fer-hexed,” and not a few have even looked for the presence of an evil “hexmaster: black cat or other uncanny visitors about their premises. In the towns, where people have laughed to derision the strange and weird tales told of happenings on the Thomas Farm, the “hex” cat was a veritable bywordTHE ALLENTOWN DEMOCRAT, October 11, 1911
Charles Lawless apparently was named as the person who captured the hex cat after finding it in a hollow tree on the property. He was horseback riding when he saw the shining eyes. Lawless worked for a furniture store in Pottsville and the owner, only named “Mr Kelliher” claimed to have the cat. When Kelliher took a Pottsville Republican reporter to see the animal, it had escaped the box and bitten another employee.
REALITY BITES
So all of these years.. all of these “hex cat” legends…
But buried in an old newspaper report in 1911 was this:
Miss Thomas after the sensation utterance of herself and uncle, with the fight between herself and her sister, Mrs Potts of Orwigsburg, in the house of death at the funeral services of their late father, now deeply regrets that the “hex” story got such wide publicly. She believes that the numerous mishaps, which have occurred in that section of Schuylkill County, of late, are not ascribed to the hex cat. She says her mind is at rest as to this and she does not want people to attribute their mishaps to this cause as there is no reason for it, she says.THE ALLENTOWN DEMOCRAT OCTOBER 10, 1911
But things seemed to turn more bleak after Miss Thomas’ repudiation of the hex cat in 1911!
By 1912, the hex cat rumor was said to have caused “various kinds of woe in Tumbling Run Valley and Can’t be killed with ordinary ammunition” .. !!
The papers at that time in 1912 report that the Thomas family was “lying in wait for a witchcat with a gun loaded with a solid gold bullet.” Even more confusing, the Perry County DEMOCRAT wrote that the family “put a withcat-eating cat on the trail o the hex, or witchcat.”
Then came some weird tale about the cat being born on the 6th day of the 6th month of 1906.
For decades to come, the hex cat would run wild on the Tumbling Run reservoir, or legend states that…
The Hex Cat became a legend for years after. The Pottsville REPUBLICAN reported on October 29, 1954, that most people made a joke of the incident.. Halloween outifts at the time apparently had people featuring themselves as huge black cats.
The Thomas family did not leave the news in 1911.. By 1912 they were back in headlines.
William Thomas was sentenced to jail for arson in Pottsville.
He attempted to burn down a black of houses, owned by himself, and Third and Race Streets.
Perhaps…the hex cat made him do it……
