Pennsylvania Oddities

Welcome to Natalie (pop. 371): A small town with a big murder problem.

Of the hundreds of murderers who have hanged for their crimes in Pennsylvania, only a handful have been female. Lena Miller, who was one of these women, also holds the distinction of being the first person sentenced to death in Clearfield County. This is the story of one pioneer woman who went to considerable lengths to kill her seemingly destructible husband. 

Once a thriving lumber camp on the banks of Potato Creek in McKean County, the village of Betula lies halfway between Smethport and  Emporium. The few people who call this backwoods location home are friendly folks, who are likely to point you to the best fishing spots or give you directions to nearest gas station. However, during the height of the lumber boom in the early 20th century, Betula was known around the region as home to some of the meanest characters who ever wielded an axe-- and home to the ghost of a murder victim named Edward Ralph.

On a sunny Sunday in June, 1907, a pretty little girl with golden hair walked the short distance home from her grandfather's farm near the  village of Avondale in Chester County. Accompanying five-year-old Mary Robbins Newlin was her little sister, Fannie. At a fork in the road where an old, abandoned church stood, the sisters parted and it was at this lonesome spot where Mary was last seen alive.

The history of the Pennsylvania Coal Region wouldn't be complete without one, or several, chapters devoted to organized crime. During the Prohibition Era, crime rings could be found in just about every nook and cranny of the anthracite region. The nefarious plots of many mobsters were hatched in dozens of area "houses of ill repute", such as the notorious Sunset Inn in Numidia, which was just one of the many seedy establishments owned by Louis Moff, who met his death in a hail of gunshots outside his Atlas home in 1931.  

Somewhere in the historic Cross Creek Cemetery in Washington County, about thirty miles west of Pittsburgh, there is a lost grave that holds the dust of a frontier wife named Mary Wallace, whose death in 1782 led to one of the most famous, and horrific, massacres in American history.

This is the story of famed balloonist Wash Donaldson and how he came to be buried thousands of miles away from home, in a graveyard north of the Arctic Circle. It is also a tale of unsolved murder; many believe that Donaldson intentionally "disappeared" after throwing a passenger from the basket of his hot air balloon in 1875.

Seventy-five years before the Wright Brothers flew into the history books, a pair of eccentric brothers from Dauphin County built a flying machine.

On a hot July evening in 1921, a mysterious fire claimed the lives of Reverend Felix Nowak, his wife, and their three children. Was this a case of arson or a tragic accident? Those who encountered the ghost of the dead preacher are likely to say it must have been a case of cold, premeditated murder.

On the cold, dreary Monday morning of January 10, 1916, two sets of parents awoke to discover their children were missing. Those who knew Clayton Mengle and Helen Hepler insisted they had gone to Maryland, where Helen's tender age wouldn't be a deterrent in obtaining a marriage license. Whether they ever reached Maryland is unknown; for three months no one saw or heard a thing from either Clayton or Helen. Whatever events took place during that time remain a mystery, but when the young lovers were finally found, many believed that Clayton and Helen had never made it out of sight of their Schuylkill County homes.