Lore – Page 3 – The Parnassus Pen

Harry K. Thaw’s Grave

Grave of Harry K. Thaw. Henry Kendall Thaw. February 12, 1871 - February 22, 1947. Allegheny Cemetery, Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. — Harry K. Thaw’s Grave, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, PA. May, 2019. (Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek)

A few months ago, I blogged about the time that Harry K. Thaw shot Stanford White over White’s relationship with Thaw’s wife, Evelyn Nesbit. (Thaw was from Pittsburgh, and Nesbit was born in Tarentum, PA, although the two of them met in New York City.)

I visited Thaw’s grave in Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh.

I didn’t put the rosary on this grave. I don’t know who put the rosary on the headstone.

Here is the marker for the Thaw family plot:

Thaw Family Plot, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh, PA. May, 2019. (Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek)

If you want to hear a podcast or two about Evelyn Nesbit, “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing,” and Thaw’s murder of White, check out these podcast episodes:

1.) Criminal (hosted by Phoebe Judge), covered this in episode 91, The “It” Girl.

2.) Then, an episode of the podcast My Favorite Murder talked about this in episode 136 and heavily “cited” Criminal. (In my opinion, the bulk of the My Favorite Murder host’s “research” consisted of her listening to the Criminal episode! This is merely my personal opinion, though.)

William Thaw Grave, Allegheny Cemetery, Pittsburgh PA. November 10, 2019. (Photo: Jenny Gaffron Woytek)

Is “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” the Most Pennsylvanian Song Ever?

If you’re not familiar with the the folk song 30,000 Pounds of Bananas by Harry Chapin, then go listen to it before you read the rest of this post. Be sure to listen to Chapin’s live recording on his 1976 album, Greatest Stories Live.

Chapin based 30,000 Pounds on a real tractor-trailer accident in 1965 outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Just as the song claims, the tractor-trailer actually did carry a load of bananas when it wrecked. The wreck actually did kill the truck driver, a real person, Eugene Sesky. Even worse, Chapin himself died in 1981 on the Long Island Expressway. A (supermarket-owned) tractor-trailer collided with the car that he drove. So there you have it: Harry Chapin wrote a song about a fatal truck accident in Pennsylvania, and then he died in a truck accident in New York. (Chapin died on his way to a concert. Did he plan to sing 30,000 Pounds of Bananas that night?)

So now that we are clear about all of that:

The live version of 30,000 Pounds helped me through this week. I listened to it – well, more than once. You see, my Aunt Sue is a Harry Chapin fan. She drove us nieces on road trips through various parts of Pennsylvania. She played her well-loved Harry Chapin cassette when she drove. So when I hear 30,000 Pounds, I think about traveling down the snow-covered Pennsylvania Turnpike in my aunt’s car.

In honor of my aunt’s road trips, here are 7 reasons why I argue that 30,000 Pounds of Bananas is the most Pennsylvanian song ever:

1.) mention of Scranton, Pennsylvania (the future home of Dunder Mifflin, the fictional company in the television show The Office)

2.) reference to a “coal-scarred city”

3.) reference to children playing in slag piles

4.) reference to a curving road on a hill that leads into town

4.) reference to a road sign at the top of a hill that says “shift to low gear”

5.) reference to a “two mile drop”

7.) reference to an old man on a bus who likes to talk

Which song do you consider the “most Pennsylvanian song ever?”

The Day The Johnstown Flood Came To The Allegheny

After the Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889 killed at least 2,209 people, tourists took picnic lunches to Johnstown so that they could sight-see the damage.

People who lived along the Allegheny River (including the people of Parnassus) didn’t have to make this trip, though. The Johnstown Flood came to them.

You see, the South Fork dam upstream from Johnstown failed. The deluge wiped out several communities including downtown Johnstown and its surrounding neighborhoods. The debris washed downstream on the Conemaugh River.

Now, if you look at a map, you will see that we residents of Parnassus actually live downstream from Johnstown. Here’s why:

1.) The Little Conemaugh and Stoneycreek Rivers merge in downtown Johnstown (at Johnstown’s own “Point”) to form the Conemaugh River.

2.) The Conemaugh flows into the Kiski at Saltsburg.

3.) The Kiski flows into the Allegheny.

4.)About ten miles later the Allegheny flows past Parnassus (the city of New Kensington wasn’t founded until 1891), then past numerous other river towns such as Verona.

5.) Eventually the Allegheny meets the Monongahela at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio.

Here’s a passage from Chapter IX of Pulitzer Prize-winning (and Pittsburgh native) David McCullough’s “The Johnstown Flood,” about the aftermath of the flood:

The Allegheny River, with its endless freight of wreckage, also continued to be an immense fascination. Children were brought from miles away to watch the tawny water slip past the shores, so that one day they might be able to say they had seen something of the Johnstown Flood. The most disreputable-looking souvenirs, an old shoe, the side of a packing box with the lettering on it still visible, were fished out, dripping and slimy, to be carried proudly home.

There were accounts of the most unexpected finds, including live animals. But the best of them was the story of a blonde baby found at Verona, a tiny river town about ten miles up the Allegheny from Pittsburgh. According to the Pittsburgh Press, the baby was found floating along in its cradle, having traveled almost eighty miles from Johnstown without suffering even a bruise. Also, oddly enough, the baby was found by a John Fletcher who happened to own and operate a combination wax museum, candy stand, and gift shop at Verona.

Fletcher announced his amazing discovery and the fact that the baby had a small birthmark near its neck. Then he hired a pretty nineteen-year-old, dressed her in a gleaming white nurse’s uniform, and put her and the baby in the front window of his establishment. Within a few days several thousand people had trooped by to look at the Johnstown baby and, it is to be assumed, to make a few small purchases from the smiling Mr. Fletcher. Then, apparently, quite unexpectedly, the baby was no longer available for viewing. The mother, according to Fletcher, had lived through the flood and, having heard the story back in Johnstown, rushed to Verona, identified the birthmark, and went home with her baby.

So if this story is true, in the aftermath of the Johnstown Flood somebody fished a live baby out of the Allegheny River at Verona. (Verona is downstream from Parnassus and upstream from Pittsburgh.)

So, voyeurs may have stood on the ruins of Fort Crawford in Parnassus or on the adjoining grounds of the Presbyterian Church as the debris of demolished towns and demolished lives discharged past them. Perhaps a looky-loo climbed down the river bank here to fish a souvenir out of the Allegheny. Perhaps bodies washed ashore here.

I worked in downtown Johnstown for several years. Buildings there include plaques showing 1889’s high water mark and the downtown park features makers honoring the victims from Johnstown’s three deadliest floods (in 1889, 1936, and 1977). I often drove under the stone bridge that trapped many of the 1889 flood’s victims.

How sobering that the ruins of Johnstown coursed down the Allegheny, past all of these river towns on the way to Pittsburgh, in 1889.