All's Well At Penn Wells

“See the green house down the street, Paul?” I asked my son as we stood in our front yard. “That has a connection to where we’re going today.”

“Really?” seven-year-old Paul asked.

“Yeah. We’re taking a trip to the Austin Dam Ruins in Potter County. That’s where a dam burst in 1911, and it flooded the community. The pieces of the dam are still up there, in a kind of park. After it happened, Lock Haven got some flood refugees looking for places to live. One family moved into that house.”

“I’ll tell Mom,” he said.

The Austin Dam Ruins are along Route 872, in Potter County just north of Austin. You see them from above before you actually reach them, looking down the hill from the road. I told Paul,”Keep your eyes open, little man. The ruins are on your side of the car.”

In a minute, we saw the ruins, standing below. There is something chilling and fascinating about your first sight of the Austin Dam Ruins, which are enormous and still standing where they were when the dam broke over a century ago. 

“Daaaam,” said Paul.

"When that dam broke, it flooded the town of Austin," I said. "A lot of the survivors came down to Renovo and Lock Haven, and moved into houses there. It caused quite a few hauntings; I've looked into some."

"Cool," said Paul.

"So Paul liked the Austin Dam Ruins," said Tif.

"He did." I was cooking dinner in the kitchen. Tif was keeping me company while Paul was out playing with his friends. "We walked around the ruins some, and took some photos. He had a good day. We're looking at Wellsboro and Cook Forest next."

'What's with all the family trips?"

"Work for the Pennsylvania Wilds," I said. "Hannah assigned me some themes this year, and I'm doing them once a month. For June's articles, the theme is family trips."

"Hannah actually contacted you?" Tif asked.

"Well, briefly," I said. "Actually I'm getting a new editor named Britt. Hannah got promoted. She sent me an e-mail informing me, and included Britt on it. I responded and welcomed Britt, and told her to let me know if she had any questions. That was a week ago, and she hasn't replied yet. I think we're gonna get along."

Tif laughed. "So what's in these other places you have planned?"

"Cook Forest had some of the oldest trees in the state and a swinging bridge. Wellsboro has shops, the PA Grand Canyon, and a haunted hotel. Britt hasn't commented on any of it."

"So what's the notebook for?" I asked Paul as we sat in the Wellsboro Diner.

"I'm taking notes," he said. "I can write about this."
"Okay, that works," I said. "Maybe you can submit stuff to the Pennsylvania Wilds." I turned to Michelle. "So, what do you want to see after lunch?"

"I noticed a lot of nice shops on the way over here," she said. "We can do some window shopping."

"Sounds good. There's also a haunted hotel."

"Because of course there would have to be a haunted hotel."

"I figure if I get enough material, I can get two columns out of this," I said. "I can write about our trip to Wellsboro, and get a bunch of photos. And then in October, when my editors want haunted stories, I can write about the hotel and pretend I did it in two trips."

"Ready to go check out the haunted hotel, little man?" I asked.

Paul nodded. "There it is, right across the street."
"Hold my hand."
We crossed the street together, and walked into the Penn Wells Hotel in Wellsboro, Tioga County. My wife followed along behind, looking at the shops. It was a big, grand hotel that dated back to 1869. Inside was a nice lobby area with a guy sitting at the desk.

"Hello," he greeted us.

"Hi," I said. "So....Is this place haunted?"

He laughed. "Well, I've never seen anything. I've heard stories, but I'm kind of a skeptic."

Behind my back, I slipped Paul my EMF detector. He knew what to do.

"There was a fire here in 1906," the desk guy continued. "Nobody died, but it did take off the top floor. People have reported hearing piano music at night, but I've never heard anything."

"How old is this place, exactly?" I asked.

"It was built in 1869," he said. "Albert Pitkin Cone opened the place. I don't know who would be haunting it; there's never been a death in here or anything."

By which he definitely meant that there had never been a dramatic murder or suicide that was publicized. There's no way a hotel that old would never have had someone die in bed of a heart attack or something.
A maid was walking through the lobby, toward the elevator. "How about you?" I asked her. "Have you ever seen any ghosts in here?"
"Nope," she said, and got on the elevator fast in case I turned out to be a lunatic.

"Daddy, I have a yellow light," said Paul.

I looked over. The EMF detector had spiked to yellow up against one of the support beams. "Good work, little man."

Paul passed out on the couch immediately after getting home---Trips wear him out. With her boy asleep, Rosie followed me into the kitchen and curled up under the table while I got on my laptop. She was waiting for me to drop some food, even though I didn't have any. Rosie is not exactly Lassie, if you get my drift.

I checked my e-mail----Still nothing from Britt. She was more absent than Hannah; I figured we were going to get along. I checked out the history of the Penn Wells Hotel. I hate doing research online, but sometimes when you need to fill in the blanks in a different county, it was helpful.

I got on Findagrave and ran the name of Albert Pitkin Cone. He was buried in the Wellsboro Cemetery and not hard to find. 

Michelle was in the other room, watching TV. I walked in, followed by the dog.

"You remember how the desk guy at the hotel said nobody had died in the hotel?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, okay, there were no high-profile deaths in there that I can find. But the owner, Albert Pitkin Cone, lost a daughter in a fire before he bought the place. She was four. His wife died later at age thirty-seven. It's not too much of a stretch to figure they could have followed him, and be haunting the place right now."

"That makes sense," she said.

"That's why we get our information from the paranormal investigators, instead of the random public," I said.

"The Austin Dam article ran the other day," I said. "Britt contacted me about it, but as she said she liked it, I think I'll forgive her."

We were sitting in Doolittle Station, a neat little diner and attraction in Clearfield County. Paul and I had gotten our photo taken with Bigfoot and a dinosaur outside, and the little guy was now coloring a page with some intensity, aware they'd put it on the wall afterward. 

"We should take more of those family trips," Michelle said.

I nodded. "Remember when we were first married, and we'd just take off someplace for no reason? We oughta start doing that again."

The waitress came with the food. I asked,"Do you mind if I ask your name? I'm a freelance writer with the PA Wilds, and I'd like to mention you in my article."

She smiled. "My name is Kristen, and it'll be on the receipt, too. I think I've seen some of your articles. My boyfriend and I are really into Bigfoot."

I will never get used to that.

I walked across the road on Route 36, snapping photos of the "Jefferson County" sign. Then I went around to the other side, and got a picture of Clarion County across the border. Right across the street was Forest County, and I got a couple of pictures of that, too, making it three counties within thirty seconds.

Then I walked up and joined Michelle and Paul in Cook Forest, and we walked down the trail.

"Some of these trees are hundreds of years old," I said. "I'm always a little light on ghost stories out here, but the trees are cool. It's a great state park."

Paul was running ahead a little.

"Yay!" he said. "The swinging bridge!"