The Boy Beneath the Ice: Holiday Haunts at Ricketts Glen State Park

[00:00:03] - [Speaker 0]
Hello, and welcome to Citegeist. I'm your host, Joshua Spellman. Today is our holiday special. Look, I even have all of my holiday decorations in frame. All two of them.

[00:00:14] - [Speaker 0]
And one is kinda goth. I'm so festive that way. I would honestly be more festive if we could bring back the Victorian tradition of telling ghost tales around the fire. So I thought, I have a fire. Let's let's do it here.

[00:00:28] - [Speaker 0]
Finding a Christmas ghost story is much harder than you'd think. I know that it is pure evil, but I wanted to illustrate a point, so bear with me. In my hunt for a haunt, I ended up asking Chant GPT just to see what this impish techno ghoul would do. And I was promptly reminded of why, aside from all of the ethical implications, I don't use it. And you shouldn't either.

[00:00:56] - [Speaker 0]
Despite making my prompt very clear that I needed a holiday or winter related ghost story that had some source of historic or cultural origin, meaning not something generated purely by the LLM, Everything it gave me was hallucinated. But the most concerning part was that it was presented to me as if it was real. Some stories it gave me, I would go off to research and come back empty handed. When asked to provide sources, it would cite them and provide links, but it gave me fake books and article titles and some of the links would just be dead links to nowhere. It wasn't all the sources that were faked, but it was enough that if you're using this and you don't actually go and look at the things it's telling you, a lot of them aren't real.

[00:01:41] - [Speaker 0]
When I called it out on all the fake stories and sources it gave me, it essentially said, sorry, I know you only want real folklore and stories, but finding historic ghost stories with holiday ties is really hard, and I just wanted to make you happy. Girl, if I wanted a sycophantic sub, I would look in my DM requests. But also, besides that, chat GPT cannot do historic research. It can give you places to start or lie to you, but it will never replace archivists in what we do. AI is awful and terrible, but it reminds me that despite all its flaws, humanity is a beautiful thing.

[00:02:21] - [Speaker 0]
And lucky for me, I have an ooey gooey human brain that I use to start researching human written sources. And I happened upon today's story by complete accident while looking into some Victorian ice skating ghost in Central Park that had no Christmas ties whatsoever. So sit back, grab some hot cocoa or eggnog or whiskey, and let's learn about the alleged history of the ghosts beneath the ice at Lake Jean. It was Christmas Eve in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and a light blanket of snow had been delicately draped over the glens. A small cabin on the shore of Mud Pond glowed with warm light as puffs of smoke emanated from its chimney.

[00:03:06] - [Speaker 0]
It was like something out of a Kincaid painting, an idyllic Christmas landscape. Inside the cabin lived the Goetz family, German immigrants, a mother, father, and a boy of nine. They carved a life from the wild and lived off the land, which at this point was nothing but untouched forest, not yet ravaged by the logging industry and long before it would be called Ricketts Glen State Park. Tonight, it was only forest, pond, and the promise of magic. Though the woods and water were silent, muffled laughter rose like music through the snow covered glass of the Getz Cabin.

[00:03:45] - [Speaker 0]
Inside was full of merrymaking as the family exchanged their Christmas gifts. Here you are, the mother said handing a box wrapped with large red ribbon to her nine year old boy. I hope you love it. She said knowing full well it would be the highlight of his life. Thank you, mama, he said before anxiously tearing away the wrapping, throwing the lid off the box behind him with childish glee.

[00:04:08] - [Speaker 0]
He lit up and sparkled when the glint of what was inside caught his eyes. Mouth agape, the energetic boy was stunned to silence, rendered mute by his excitement. He managed to eke out a small thank you as he pulled two brand new ice skates from the box. It was all he wanted. Every day since the snow began to fall, he longingly looked over the pond wishing to be able to skate on its frozen waters.

[00:04:35] - [Speaker 0]
And now he could. What a perfect Christmas. He immediately began to wedge his tiny feet into the skates. Now son, his father said, I'm afraid the ice is too thin at present. You'll have to wait a few more days before you can go out into the pond.

[00:04:50] - [Speaker 0]
The boy sighed and let out a small squeal of frustration. But father, he pleaded. But the boy knew his begging wouldn't change a thing, and his father was right. While the shallows of the pond were solid, the deeper parts had not yet frozen thick enough. Resigning himself to defeat, the boy reluctantly placed the skates beneath the tree to be used when his parents deemed the pond safe.

[00:05:15] - [Speaker 0]
However, the boy couldn't rip his attention from the skates. All throughout their dinner and into dessert, he couldn't stop his gaze from drifting over to them, and then out to the window to the pond outside. Eventually, family retired for the night. The mother tucked in her precious baby boy, wished him a Merry Christmas, and kissed him on the forehead. Laying in his bed, the boy could still see the skates under the tree until his mother blew out the candles.

[00:05:44] - [Speaker 0]
In the dark, the boy tossed and turned all night, unable to quiet his excited mind. At some unknown hour, the boy rolled over in bed and looked towards the tree. The light of the full moon outside cascaded through the frosty windows and caught the blade of the skates. The glint shone in his eyes and it was if the skates called to him, as if the reflection of the silver blades in the icy sheen of moonlight had hypnotized him. Transfixed, the boy carefully crept out of bed.

[00:06:17] - [Speaker 0]
He checked to make sure his parents were asleep, quietly slipped on his jacket and gloves, and tied the skates to his feet. As silently as he could, he snuck out the front door and gently shut it behind him. He was immediately met the silence of winter. No longer could he hear the crackling of the fire or the gentle snores of his parents. It was serene.

[00:06:42] - [Speaker 0]
He looked out over mud pond, the full moon shining like a spotlight reflecting off the ice. Filled with anticipation, he rushed towards the pond, snow crunching beneath his feet. Just one little skate his parents will never know. And he'll be careful. He wouldn't go into the middle of the pond.

[00:07:00] - [Speaker 0]
He just wanted to test out the skates. He knew that the edges were safe and solid, and even if they weren't, it was less than a foot deep at the shore. He put his right foot out onto the ice and then his left. He found his balance and began to stride. The brand new skates cut into the ice like butter.

[00:07:19] - [Speaker 0]
It felt like he was gliding on air. Left foot, right foot, left foot. As his pace quickened, the cold December air nipped at his cheeks. It was exhilarating. He felt like he was flying.

[00:07:32] - [Speaker 0]
The silence of the night was filled by the gentle scraping of the skates. And then its symphony was joined by another sound. What was that? The boy stopped on the ice. As the slicing echoes of his skates fell, he could hear it better.

[00:07:49] - [Speaker 0]
A sharp sound, but somehow dull at the same time. As he looked around, his heart caught in his throat. He realized that in his excitement he had skated further than he anticipated. He found himself in the center of the pond. And that sound?

[00:08:06] - [Speaker 0]
He looked down and saw it. Tiny fractures spreading beneath his feet like frigid lightning. His heartbeat quickened and he began to slowly step back. Right foot. Left foot.

[00:08:19] - [Speaker 0]
Right foot. He was careful enough, he could make it back to the shallows. Right foot. Left foot, right, left. Like a maw, the ice opened and swallowed him with teeth like frozen knives.

[00:08:34] - [Speaker 0]
Tiny fingers scrambling at the breaking ice, every piece a blade snapping under the troubling hands of a frightened child. His lungs burned. His throat could barely make a sound. And then it did. A scream.

[00:08:48] - [Speaker 0]
Raw. Animal. Terrified. It was something so primal, his base animal instinct for survival, that he wasn't even aware of the noises he was making. But it was fortunate that he had.

[00:09:00] - [Speaker 0]
His parents heard him. The cabin door burst open only moments later. He could hear his parents calling his name, voices shaking, desperate, panicked. As he bobbed and sank, he could see the silhouette of his parents rushing towards him behind a veil of icy water, reaching across the breaking ice. They were almost to him.

[00:09:20] - [Speaker 0]
He gasped and gulped. Their hands were out stretched towards him. He flailed and reached back to them. Their fingers nearly met. He reached further.

[00:09:30] - [Speaker 0]
His mother let out a shriek. Just as his vision faded to black, the last thing he saw were his parents being swallowed up by the ice. And then there was only wintry silence once again. Moonbeams on snow, pine needles in the wind, fire still crackling softly through the open door of the empty cabin. A perfect winter painting, undisturbed, peaceful.

[00:10:03] - [Speaker 0]
It would be days before anyone realized the Goetz family was missing. Someone would find a set of three footprints leading to the pond and into a large hole in the ice. The bodies of the Goetz family were never found. Their cabin fell into disrepair as the location gained a reputation for being haunted. Screams were heard in the night and fishermen were said to see strange glowing yellow lights just beneath the lake's surface.

[00:10:32] - [Speaker 0]
Those brave enough to investigate and peer down into the waters have seen three pallid ghostly faces staring back at them. The land was eventually bought by loggers and Mud pond was joined with Lake Jean. After the loggers left the area, it was used by hunters who knew of the Ghet's Cabin and would use it as temporary shelter. Either the ghostly reputation was forgotten or the men simply thought themselves too tough to be bothered by spirits Until one of these hunters, who found himself deep in the woods as darkness fell, headed to the cabin to take shelter for the night. When he arrived, he noticed that one of the windows had been smashed in.

[00:11:12] - [Speaker 0]
He tried to find something to block the draft but had no luck. During the night, he heard the sounds of rustling branches, snapping twigs, and scraping coming from the wall near the broken window. He was too exhausted to investigate, but assumed it was the wind or a wild animal. To his astonishment, when he awoke in the morning, the window had been fully repaired. After this hunter's stay, similar accounts had been reported by other woodsmen.

[00:11:39] - [Speaker 0]
Those who stayed at the cabin would find that their dishes had been done and cleaned for them and things they moved would be put back in their places. And they said they could hear foreign sounding voices outside the cabin and in the woods. Eventually, the Guts Cabin was torn down and the land became part of Ricketts Glen State Park's outer camping loop. Some thought that the removal of the cabin would quell the hauntings. But to this day, visitors report foreign voices outside their tents.

[00:12:11] - [Speaker 0]
Sometimes hands are even pressed or slapped against them. But when campers rush outside, they're confronted by nothing but darkness. The eerie lights still shine on the lake in winter where the Goetz family lost their lives. A grim reminder of the tragedy that occurred there on Christmas Eve so many years ago. Ugh.

[00:12:40] - [Speaker 0]
The perfect holiday tale. Three ghostly faces staring at you from beneath the ice. It's chilling. I'll see myself out. This was definitely an interesting story to research.

[00:12:52] - [Speaker 0]
And in doing so, I came across some other bits of folklore for Ricketts Glen State Park, which I'll get to in a little bit. For now, I wanna focus on our holiday haunt because I love the holidays. Where the Getz cabin allegedly stood is now part of Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania. But before the land belonged to anyone, it was home to the Susquehannocks, an Iroquois speaking indigenous nation. Before I go any further, I want to clarify why I'm using the past tense.

[00:13:21] - [Speaker 0]
I'm referring to the political entity which was destroyed through genocide, disease, and intertribal warfare. The Susquehannock are extinct and nothing but a ghost is the myth that the writers of history would like you to believe and that sadly persists in our government today. Why? Because it's convenient. The Susquehannocks lived in the Susquehanna.

[00:13:46] - [Speaker 0]
Susquehanna. I need to adjust my accent. I have to like actively bring back the accent I spent my whole life trying to repress. The Susquehannocks lived in the Susquehanna River Valley and shared many cultural traits with other Iroquois people. They were matrilineal and matrilocal, meaning that lineage and property passed through the mother's line and husbands joined their wives' families in the longhouses after marriage.

[00:14:13] - [Speaker 0]
Susquehanna woman held a large amount of political power in their clans. They shaped community decisions, managed property and resources, and had the power to select, advise, and even remove leaders. They lived in longhouses in large palisaded villages and practiced agriculture, growing the three sisters, corn, beans, and squash, as their main crops. They were also known to be very tall and were described as giants by white settlers. Even though their height probably averaged around five seven or so, it was taller than most colonizers who exaggerated them to be like eight feet tall.

[00:14:49] - [Speaker 0]
The Susquehannocks were first documented by colonizers in sixteen o eight by John Smith, everyone's favorite colonizer. Even at this time, the Susquehannock were at war with the Iroquois who eventually conquered them in 1676 and forcibly relocated them near the Oneida tribe in New York. The five nations of the Iroquois then encouraged other displaced tribes, notably the Lenape and Shawnee to settle in the empty river valley. Eventually, the five nations permitted the Susquehannock to return to their native lands. But epidemics brought on by colonizers substantially reduced the Susquehanna's already dwindled numbers.

[00:15:27] - [Speaker 0]
In 1763, the last remaining Susquehanna town was massacred by a group of violent white settlers known as the Paxton Boys. While there are a significant number of people alive today with Susquehanna ancestry, they've been absorbed into other indigenous groups, including the Seneca Cayuga Nation in Oklahoma and the six nations of the Grand River First Nation in Ontario. However, the Susquehannock as a distinct cultural or political entity are considered extinct by the US government, though that doesn't mean that they are. Descendants are diligently working to preserve their culture, their history, and actively are seeking federal recognition as a tribe from the US government as well as local ones. Sadly, after the events of the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, other Native Americans entirely left Pennsylvania.

[00:16:16] - [Speaker 0]
Meaning they were either forced to relocate, were eliminated, or forced to assimilate with the children being sent to boarding schools, which were nightmarish institutions set up and funded by the United States federal government for the purpose of forced assimilation, sterilization, and cultural genocide. The last one didn't close until 1980. When we say we've come so far and that all the racism happened so long ago, Like, seriously? Part of the boarding school's mission was to eradicate all native American culture and languages, if not the people themselves. Many native Americans today don't know the languages of their culture and even those who live on reservations live far from their ancestral lands due to events like the Trail of Tears.

[00:17:06] - [Speaker 0]
But this got me thinking about today's ghost story in a weird way. In reports of ghostly encounters, there's this repeated mention of foreign sounding voices, and that's not my phrasing. It's a weird way to put it, that are heard around Ricketts Glen State Park. It's attributed to the Goetz as being German, but I'm more inclined to believe that these foreign sounding voices would be those of the Susquehanna people. If only because of the immense suffering inflicted on them and the simple fact that they were real, and we know that they lived there, which cannot confidently be said of the Goetz family.

[00:17:41] - [Speaker 0]
Although many Pennsylvanian settlers spoke German, I feel like most people today would say German sounding voices rather than foreign sounding since most Americans have an idea of German phonetics and language, especially those who live in Pennsylvania near Amish communities. But maybe I'm giving Americans too much credit. Our secretary of education is someone with literally no educational background and is most known for making big dumb men throw chairs at each other, which makes sense that she's in our government now that I think about it. But I digress. Before Ricketts Glen was a state park, the land belonged to colonel r Bruce Ricketts who bought the land between 1851 and 1853.

[00:18:28] - [Speaker 0]
First, it was used for hunting and later for the ice and lumber industry. Now a ghost town, the town of Ricketts is located about four and a half miles north of Rickett Glen State Park's Lake Jean Entrance, which Mud Pond was incorporated to sometime in the nineteen fifties. The town of Rickett served as the central operation for the lumber industry complete with sawmills and logging camps, which is where our other legend comes from. It was said two brothers were felling a large tree in the forest when they misjudged the path and the rate at which it would fall. It crushed the younger brother like an egg, killing him instantly.

[00:19:04] - [Speaker 0]
The older brother let out a shriek of grief that could be heard all the way back at the camp. In that spot where the younger brother was killed, now grows a gnarled and twisted tree. Some say it sprang from the earth after he died, and others say it was planted in memorial. This tree, known as the ghost tree, is ashen white and bears no leaves and no fruit. Those who have visited the tree say you can hear the screams of the older brother on the wind.

[00:19:33] - [Speaker 0]
There's no evidence of these brothers, but many people did die in the logging profession. So whether this was an incident that didn't quite make it into the historic record or a folktale warning of the dangers of the logging industry and to explain the existence of a strange tree remains unseen. I honestly didn't spend much time researching this mostly because it was not my main focus, but also because it feels so much like folklore and not a real event that happened. Plus it's kinda boring. Honestly, it's not the most exciting story.

[00:20:07] - [Speaker 0]
However, I did a brief search and while I didn't find anything about the boys, I did find the unfortunate death of a young girl that reads something like a nursery rhyme. The 08/22/1849 issue of the Lancaster Examiner reads, fatal occurrence. A girl named Catherine Harble, aged 19, living with mister Christian Landis, came to her death in a singular manner on Thursday the ninth of this month. She was in the woods gathering blackberries during a high wind when she was struck on the head by the top of a tree which was torn off by the wind and instantly killed. An inquest was held by f h Carpenter, deputy coroner, which returned a verdict in accordance with the above facts.

[00:20:49] - [Speaker 0]
M m flip it around. Madame Morrible, is this you? You did this? Truly, it sucks to be Katherine Harbaugh, but what a whimsical way to go. One minute you're picking blackberries and next minute you're in the great beyond.

[00:21:04] - [Speaker 0]
Honestly, it doesn't sound too bad. A death by a tree, but not the one we're looking for. Like I said, the brothers were never identified and probably never will be. But we have some chance at identifying our family beneath the ice at Lake Jean. The Goetz family allegedly lived on Mud Pond before colonel Ricketts purchased the land and while the pond was still its own body of water before it was incorporated into Lake Jean.

[00:21:29] - [Speaker 0]
However, I've not been able to find any record, at least online, that any Getz family in the area matching the one from the story either before or after the purchase ever existed. Honestly, I'm not surprised as it's also my understanding that even the sale of the land to colonel Ricketts isn't well documented and is more of a mythology than a history. For the Goetz family, I checked mortality schedules. I checked federal censuses back to the seventeen hundreds. I looked in state records, local records, cemeteries, and I came up with nothing.

[00:22:06] - [Speaker 0]
Naturally, I moved on to our favorite resource, newspapers, where as usual, I found some very juicy morsels. What I can tell you is that a lot of people died on Mud Pond at all times of the year, not just in winter. I found so many, I could never cover them all in a podcast episode. However, my main focus was on December slash January deaths and falling through the ice. And I am debating right now whether to give you the funny story first or the sadder ones, but I think it's about time for a tee hee hee or maybe it's a ho ho ho because it's Christmas.

[00:22:48] - [Speaker 0]
It's a holiday special. Anyways, the December twenty eighth nineteen o two issue of the Wilkes Barre Times had a litany of wintry deaths. Like all the ones I'm about to tell you are from this one issue. But one story out of New York caught my attention. His last turkey dinner, O'Burne ate too much on Christmas and died.

[00:23:10] - [Speaker 0]
O'Burne lived alone in a four room flat. He had little to do with the other tenants and was known in the house as the hermit. Truly an icon. We love it. We see it.

[00:23:23] - [Speaker 0]
We see ourselves. We're holding space for this gluttonous diva. O'Burne went to a 2nd Avenue restaurant on Christmas day and ate a hearty dinner. Then he returned home and complained of feeling ill. A doctor was called in and O'Burn told him that he thought he had eaten too much turkey.

[00:23:42] - [Speaker 0]
And yeah, I would I would argue that any amount of turkey is too much turkey, but that's neither here nor there. Eventually, was found dead and the cause of death on his death certificate was listed as overeating and gastritis. Honestly, as a single person who overindulges from time to time, this is genuinely a fear of mine, like dying alone in my apartment from eating too much. But we're not here to therapize me. Like I said, this singular newspaper page was a treasure trove for today's episode, and it kept on giving.

[00:24:18] - [Speaker 0]
There was a whole section seemingly solely consisting of winter deaths and I found something that looked really promising. Dog safe's freezing man, master feel exhausted but his faithful friend brought him aid. During Friday night, Peter Goetz was overcome by the cold on the outskirts of town and fell exhausted by the roadside. His faithful dog stood guard and by continuous barking attracted the attention of officer Hahn to the spot. Goetz was already unconscious and was aroused with considerable difficulty.

[00:24:50] - [Speaker 0]
But for the dog, he would have been frozen to death. Naturally, my ears perked up at this especially since the Friday before December 28 was December 26. But aside from the name and the time frame, this clearly isn't our story or even a member of the family. I had actually found this guy in the census records when I was looking through them previously and it's about 75 miles from Mud Pond. But I didn't let this get me upset.

[00:25:15] - [Speaker 0]
The next story that I saw on the page did and that's why I'm not showing it on the screen. I will not read a word of it because the language used was quite frankly absolutely insane even for the time. But I would feel remiss if I were to let this story be forgotten in the archive. People walking down the streets of Susquehanna noticed a large lump in the snow, but most walked right on past it. Once someone actually took the time to look, it was discovered it was a black man by the name of Eucalyptus Bogart, 10 out of 10 name by the way, who had been buried in the snow all night long.

[00:25:52] - [Speaker 0]
Lucky for him, he was brought home to his wife, Sarah, and he made a full recovery. Sadly, an old man in Allentown could not say the same. The story right below Eucalyptus' tells of a 70 year old man known to be a hermit, Herman Greenwettle, also a banging name, who was found frozen to death in the woods by his house. It was thought that he fell ill and was trying to get help and died on the way of exposure. Then, the story above both of these is about two boys who went to go ice skate on the water, but they actually realized it was too thin to skate on.

[00:26:29] - [Speaker 0]
So it's kind of the exact opposite of the story that we're looking for. And these boys, since they couldn't skate, decided to swim in the frozen water. And they were fine. They were stupid, but fine. But like I said earlier, a lot of people died on Mudpond.

[00:26:46] - [Speaker 0]
The 1914 New Year's Eve issue of the Tribune has a bold title, Mudpond Death Due to Exposure, which again, got my hopes up. You know, it's right on the Christmas New Year's Eve border. Maybe this is when someone found those footsteps leading to the hole in the ice. But it's about a 75 year old man named David Smith who lived on the shores of Mud Pond, and he was found inside of his home allegedly dying of exposure, which is odd. His wife went to see relatives for the holiday and he stayed behind at their house and apparently couldn't survive a couple days without his wife.

[00:27:21] - [Speaker 0]
Was he just like not lighting the fire because he thought his wife would do it? Men. Other interesting deaths on Mud Pond occurred in the summer months as well. One story in the 07/17/1911 issue of the Wilkes Barre Times leader is about finding an unknown man on the shores of Mud Pond without a head. It was sad that when the body was found, that grass which grows in abundance about the pond found fertile soil on the body of the unfortunate.

[00:27:52] - [Speaker 0]
And when discovered, it was growing from different parts of the feet that had extended into the water. There were berry bushes also growing from the feet and those bore small red berries, which is honestly an oddly beautiful picture. The man was never identified despite a few red herrings. There was another murder on Mudpan that's a little bit more well known and I should do my journalistic diligence and cover it, but it's honestly not that exciting. It's about a bunch of men which already tired.

[00:28:26] - [Speaker 0]
The t l d r is that two of them bopped another guy over the head for some booze and let him drown in the pond. But while I won't cover that story, I will cover the story I saw directly below it. In Mal attire, police arrest a woman who was dressed in men's clothing. Scandalous, queer adjacent, juicy. Let's read on.

[00:28:47] - [Speaker 0]
A woman attired in men's clothing was discovered in a boxcar in the Lehigh Valley R R Yard at 08:00 last evening by special officer Joseph Sauerwine. When he approached her, she jumped out of the car and ran down the platform to Northampton Street and over Northampton Street to Pennsylvania Avenue and up South Pennsylvania Avenue. The officer was closely following, finally overtaking her near the depot. He took her in the waiting room and closely questioned her, but she would not tell him anything other than that she was on her way to Lewistown. It goes on to say she was attired in a black suit of clothes and wore a slouch hat.

[00:29:25] - [Speaker 0]
Her hair was cropped short and parted in the middle. She carried a large bundle with her and later when sergeant Hall went to the room, he found that she had changed her clothing to that of female attire. Upon questioning her, she began to cry piteously. She said that she was 35 years of age, that her home was in Taylorville, and her name was Margaret Jenkins. She said she came to Wilkes Bar on the Laurel line and wanted to get to Lewistown where employment was awaiting her.

[00:29:52] - [Speaker 0]
When asked why she traveled in male attire, she said that she thought she could get through cheaper. But further than this, she refused to say anything. These are the things that I love to find in the papers. What's important to note here is that Margaret Jenkins hadn't actually committed a crime, at least not in the way we would think of one today. Though every day it feels like it's getting more more that way.

[00:30:16] - [Speaker 0]
At the time, many cities enforced so called three piece clothing laws, which allowed police to arrest someone if they weren't wearing at least three articles of clothing associated with their assigned sex. These laws were intentionally vague and rarely written down clearly, but the point was that they gave authorities broad power to stop, question, and detain people whose gender presentation didn't conform to societal expectations. It's literal gender policing. So what the newspaper frames this as suspicious behavior, what she was really being policed for wasn't theft or fair evasion. It was crossing a social boundary.

[00:30:54] - [Speaker 0]
Clearly, this woman didn't seem like she was queer, but it even goes to show that the laws that are happening today affect people who are queer and trans, but they also affect people who aren't. It's real messed up out there, y'all. It was always bad. It's still bad. Anyway, does this story have anything to do with our ghosts?

[00:31:14] - [Speaker 0]
No. Does this have anything to do with the holiday haunt? No. But I find it infinitely more interesting than a bunch of guys bopping each other over the head like drunken little whack a mulls. And I love any opportunity to digress into a discussion of the suppression of queer identities and gender expression throughout our nation's history because queer people have always been here and we always will be, no matter what you try and do.

[00:31:41] - [Speaker 0]
But again, not the topic. I don't know why I'm talking to you. If you're still listening to this podcast, you probably agree with me. And if you don't, I'm sorry. I'm a dirty liberal.

[00:31:52] - [Speaker 0]
But again, as usual, I digress. To really drive home the point I'm going to make about today's ghosts, I have one more news story to share from the 01/23/1850 issue of The Public Ledger. An afflictive event. What a dramatic name. Three young ladies drowned.

[00:32:10] - [Speaker 0]
Three young ladies, one, the daughter of judge Woodward, Ellen, the second, miss Ann Butler, a resident of his family, and the third, a miss Mary r Benner at Belfonte, Pennsylvania, who was visiting for a short time in the family of judge w, left their home in Kingston to walk over to this place, about one mile. The water of the Susquehanna had risen over the flatlands and rendered the road impassable for wagons, and on Friday night, had frozen to the thickness of perhaps two or three inches. They undertook in perfect safety, as they supposed, to walk on the ice from the house to the bridge and amusing themselves and sliding along. But in attempting to cross a small pond of backwater, which had been frozen over, miss Benner broke through, followed immediately by the other two, and all three were drowned, no proper assistance being at hand. The alarm was given by one of two little girls who accompanied them, and to some citizens of Kingston who hastened at the spot, a shawl upon the ice designating it to them.

[00:33:10] - [Speaker 0]
By placing boards, they succeeded in reaching the hole in the ice and bringing up the bodies. But life was extinct and all their efforts to restore it were fruitless, the bodies having been in the water half an hour. This sad event is deeply deplored in the community where the young ladies resided and where they were highly respected. This story and others that I've mentioned are not dissimilar to that of the Goetz family. While most of the ghost stories I cover on this show start as nothing but tales told around the fire, when I dig into the archives, I can usually find something real.

[00:33:46] - [Speaker 0]
For example, reports of the ghost of a nameless man who jumped to his death in a hotel. While paranormal ghost sites and ghost tours don't always have the name of the man, I can usually produce a newspaper clipping or a death certificate or some kind of record. Something that proves that a person died and lived, and their memory can live on and not only be relegated to a nameless ghost on a ghost tour. But when you don't have those verifiable stories, there are stories like this one or the ghost tree at Ricketts Glen. And in cases like these, nothing in the historical record points to a specific person or a specific tragedy.

[00:34:28] - [Speaker 0]
When we have the Getz name in this story, it was collected as a piece of folklore by Jeffrey R. Fraser with no sources. Having a name usually means it's probably not folklore, but not having any dates to attach to it and the vagueness of not having the names of the Goetz family, I don't know. I know from doing other cases that oral histories, even by those that knew the individuals personally, can be mistakenly told or remembered. Hell, even this story was retold wrong on blogs, which is pretty crazy because Frasier's books on Pennsylvanian folklore seem to be the main source of this particular story.

[00:35:06] - [Speaker 0]
I assume it must have had his life in oral tradition and maybe some other books that aren't text indexed that I can't find online. In my experience, the most clear example of a game of telephone with oral tradition is the Winderborn Mansion case that I investigated on the original iteration of this podcast, wherein the whole legend was based off of their neighbor's interview, which had been part of the historic society's oral history initiative. Since it was recorded by the historic society, it had been taken as fact. But when I compared it to the historic documents and death certificates, it was entirely mixed up. They literally gender swapped some of the members of the family and made up a kid that didn't exist.

[00:35:49] - [Speaker 0]
In side note, I am thinking of revisiting that episode since the historic society actually listened to my podcast and said that I was right in my analysis. And I believe that some influencers bought that house and are attempting to fix it up. That's some content right there. But I digress. Instead of a ghost story rooted in real events, these legends around Ricketts Glen feel more like cultural memory.

[00:36:14] - [Speaker 0]
Stories that grow out of a community's fears, the landscape in which they live, and the real dangers of the time. The ghost tree draws on the very real and very deadly logging accidents in the area where young boys died on the job. Similar events likely unfolded and maybe the story was a retelling of a real event at one point, but it quickly changed into a magical tale to explain a strange formation in the forest. The story of the Goetz family's untimely Christmas death echoes the drownings that happened on Mud Pond and other bodies of water in the winter, and it serves as more of a warning. The Goetz tale is also tied a little too neatly in a Christmas ribbon.

[00:36:58] - [Speaker 0]
It seems a little produced. The setting, the after school special lesson that you should heed your parents' advice, and the ghostly piece to scare kids senseless. Instead of remembering one specific event, they remember a pattern, a type of loss, or a danger, or a lesson. And sometimes they may even start from a real event as it's likely the Getz story did, but they get retold so many times that the details warp, events are embellished for dramatic effect or to fit a particular narrative, and they shift into the story no longer resembles whatever actually happened. In other words, some ghost stories come from real, remembered, and traceable people or events.

[00:37:44] - [Speaker 0]
And some come from the stories of survival that are stitched into the fabric of a community in order to make sense of its past and to preserve its future. From an archival perspective, I can't attach the Christmas legend to a documented family or event. But archives can only tell us part of the story. They have biases. They have gaps just like people.

[00:38:07] - [Speaker 0]
But what really lives on is how people continue to experience a story or a place. Even when a ghost can't be verified in the historical record, that doesn't mean that people don't have experiences. Now whether that's because ghosts roam the earthly plane or simply because of the primal unease conjured by a dark forest is almost kind of irrelevant. An experience is an experience. Even if I don't believe in it, I can't take that away from you.

[00:38:37] - [Speaker 0]
That belongs to the person who lived it. And for example, one motorcyclist describes his experience near Lake Jean. Was just there tonight around 3AM on my motorcycle. Stopped on the small bridge in the center of Lake Jean with the little wooden fencing. Completely blackout with velvet black water and silent minus the sounds of the waterfalls in the background.

[00:39:00] - [Speaker 0]
I saw a white figure standing on the non drained portion of the lake that looked to me very distinctly like a woman in a wedding dress. I stayed there for a while to have a cigarette but left halfway through because I heard a few wolves howl not too far away and took that as my cue to bail. Before leaving, I shined my headlight on the spot with the figure thinking it must be something in the water, but nothing was there. Came online looking for a drowned bride of some sort, but nothing's coming up, so I don't know. I will definitely have that image in my head for a long while though.

[00:39:35] - [Speaker 0]
Whether they saw a ghost or whether it was a trick of the light, an animal, a piece of driftwood, or their mind filling in the gaps at a place already heavy with history and a spooky atmosphere, I can't say. I didn't experience it. Their experience is theirs and it's valid. And it's clearly something that they're gonna take with them into their life. And they're gonna tell their friends.

[00:39:59] - [Speaker 0]
And who knows? Maybe this will become a new legend of Lake Jean. Places like Ricketts Glen continue to inspire stories of ghosts and the paranormal, even when the stories attached to them cannot be verified. Humans are storytellers regardless of culture. We rely on story to teach, to warn, to explain, and there's a lot in this world that remains unexplained.

[00:40:27] - [Speaker 0]
And that's it on the boy beneath the ice. There's really no segue here. I'm really bad at segues. Have you noticed that yet? I would have ended the episode there, but I have to do this.

[00:40:39] - [Speaker 0]
If you'd like this episode, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe if you aren't already. For those listening on a podcast platform, thank you so much. If you haven't already, wherever you listen, please give me a like or a star. I think that's what you do on Overcast. Or review if you if you haven't, that would be really great.

[00:40:58] - [Speaker 0]
Every little bit helps. Don't forget that you can leave a voice note or an email at citegiestpod.com to be read on the podcast. Whether you have an encounter you want to share or a suggestion for an episode or investigation, I'm all ears. And I hope that everyone has a lovely holiday season for whatever you celebrate. I'll be back with a new episode next year where I will shift to a biweekly upload schedule.

[00:41:26] - [Speaker 0]
I'm aiming for the first and last Wednesday of every month. That being said, cuddle up with a blanket by the fire. Always listen to your parents unless they give you bad advice. Hi, mom. And I'll see you in the stacks.