Downtown Leetonia late 1800's

Leetonia Main St.

Company Store and Office

Leetonia Hotel

The first picture shows a long row of houses leading up the main area of Leetonia. I am thinking the fences around the properties might have been to keep the cows out, which roamed freely though out the town. I don't have any way to know and if any of you have another reason for the fences I would be glad to hear it.

Towards the end of the row sat the company store and office, which was on the property we removed the trailer from last Fall. This store basically used most of the workers wages to buy good and pay rent. There wasn't much left over from your wages when you left and sometimes you might even run into debt to the store. Leetonia was a company town and you didn't fair any better than the servants of the old country did working the land for the Land Barons.

The last picture shows the only picture I know of the Leetonia Hotel. It sat to the South end past the store. That would be right about where Pettites driveway comes up. There were also homes on the other side of the road not visible in this picture. 

Road update: The road is passable without four-wheel drive. There are still icy spots which can last several hundred yards on the North sides of the mountain and in areas shaded by pine trees. Lee came up the road Wednesday with the FJ Cruiser and didn't have it in four-wheel drive. I would still recommend going slow as the icy areas can come up quickly. We have the possibility of new snow(no accumulation) for Saturday evening. Sunday is supposed to be a nice sunny day. 

The bad news is I opened three camps this week and two of them the water would not work due to the very cold weather the ground is still frozen. I chipped four inches of ice off the top of one well. That pipe to house is only 1-2 foot deep and the ground is not unfrozen around it at all. The other camp the pipe is buried much deeper, but I couldn't put anything into the ground more than an inch.  Guess what I am saying is expect problems getting water to run this early in the season. Be prepared and bring your own water with you if you want to stay this weekend. I have hopes this will all change in the next two weeks. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

South End of Leetonia and GPS warning!

South End Leetonia

Tannery Wagon moving bark

Francis/Leetonia Rd. School house row

State House 1910

These are all pictures of the South end of Leetonia from late 1800's through 1910. The first picture(late 1800's) shows all the houses along the road to South of Leetonia, which now has one camp named Cedar Crest in that area. At the upper end of the creek you can see the old tannery building. The stream moves back and forth from the Tannery and makes it way down to Pine Creek.

The second picture shows the a Tannery wagon moving bark as you can see younger children are common place as workers during this period of Leetonia history.  The third picture is a row of houses going up Francis Leetonia Road to the old school house. Behind the school house is where the current Leetonia Cemetery exists. The last picture shows a high view of the same area  and includes the State House(now heliport area), and the Tannery as well as the Schoolhouse area. The lack of trees makes many of the old pictures difficult to orientate since the area doesn't look a thing like it did back then. 

I have a total of eighteen old photos of Leetonia I will post sometime during my next few posts. The riddle of the Indian Post Office has been solved by John Grube. He told me that Red Rock Camp used to be closer to the road or should I say the road was closer to Red Rock. It appear the bridge over Cedar Run washed away in the early 1950's when it was replaced the person in charge of construction stayed at Red Rock to save driving back and forth. As a way of repaying the favor the gave Red Rock a bigger front yard by moving the bridge downstream a bit.  The old road can still be seen as a circular drive in front of the camp. And if you line up the road you can see the old bridge abutments. The old road then would have made a sharp left after the previous bridge and allowed travelers to be sitting in the position of the stage picture. If you look in that area under the brush you will still see the old "Indian Mail Box". Whether or not the Indians used this or it is folklore is still up for debate. But the location of the mailbox is at Red Rock Camp.

Two people have been stuck in the Leetonia area in the last couple days. The first a lumberman who started a skid on Francis Leetonia Rd and ended up in the ditch. He walked a good three miles to our house(the only live people in Leetonia) to call for help. He understood the risks and was prepared to walk. The worst and most dangerous of the stuck people was yesterday. Two women, four children(one only 19 months) in a van followed their GPS up Leetonia Road from Cedar Run. They said they were trying to get to the PA Grand Canyon. If you use GPS up here you better have Good Problem Solving skills cause it will get you deep into trouble. 

This could have been worse if I hadn't decided to go to Leetonia to check on a camp and visit some crazy Ruin camp people(you know who you are). On my way back I see three young girls walking down Leetonia Road towards Leetonia about a half mile from my house. I stopped to see where they belonged and they said their van was stuck in the road up a ways. I wondered why they chose to walk away from my house and towards Leetonia until I saw which way the van was pointed as I drove up to it. It was point going to my house, but since they didn't know where they were and were just out of sight of my house they walked toward the only buildings they had seen in Leetonia. They had the van pretty much buried into the ditch and I doubted I could pull it out with my truck, but offered to try. I went home and got the truck and chain, but even in four-wheel drive it was little use as I could get no traction on the 4 to 5 inches of slush snow. It also appear their chassis was hung up. So I took them to the house to call for a tow. There is only one person who will even consider towing anyone back here and that is Wayne of Gaines Garage. It was going to be two hours until he could come so I had a few children visitors for a while. The female adults preferred to stay with their vehicle and wait, so most of my story came from the kids. They told about how they had followed the GPS and gotten stuck a number of times until their mother in an attempt to keep from going off the steep side went into the ditch less than 500 yards from my house. I had gotten enough of a look at the adults to realize they wouldn't have been able to walk the eight to nine miles need to get help. It could have been a long night in the freezing woods or days before anyone would have found them. The sad thing is I don't think they had a clue how serious of a situation they were in. Other then the guys who came up to their camp for the weekend. I was the only person close and they started by walking away from me. I asked if they had seen the sign that said "No winter maintenance". They said they did but they were already in quite a ways. I blame the State for that one as there isn't a sign until you get two miles in where our township starts. That is way too late to help most people if they read it. This accident ended on a good note. The tow truck came and they got out and headed back to the York area. I am sure it didn't turn into the fun day trip to the canyon they had planned on.

The roads are still four-wheel drive only with chains, nerves of steel and the ability to walk out if needed. If you lack any of the above characteristics wait until April 15th., when they plow all of the roads. Mountain girl Paula,logging out.

Leetonia Saw Mill and Giants in the Forest

Leetonia Saw Mill 1882

Here is a nice picture of the Leetonia Saw Mill given to me by the Sigmans. Looks like there isn't a lot of live trees too close. You can see a young lad to front of picture and it makes you understand how early kids worked  back then. I am sure it was a hard, dirty place to earn a few cents.

Last night we got a heck of a thunderstorm. It made me think of an email I received from a blog reader. He told me a story about a time he and his kids were sitting around a campfire and a large tree studdenly fell. The kids ran for safety thinking giants were in the woods. I thought about that vision last night as I listened to one booming thunder noise after another. The woods of Leetonia were full of Giants and they spit out a few quarter inch hail balls at our house just for fun. Last night's giants were merciful and didn't pull the plug on our electric as they often do when they are romping through the woods.
My empty bucket had 2" of water in it this morning. Even with all that our creek didn't rise a bit. The dry ground almost makes a sucking sound when it does rain. Pine Creek did take a quick rise to just under 4 feet, but dropped back down to 2 pretty quickly. So if you wanted a fast canoe ride you had to be on the ball to get it.  Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Christmas present from the past

Stanley Dudkin from Cedar Run Inn gave me this for Christmas. Not many people would be excited about recieving such an object, but I knew a little something perhaps you do not. This object comes from the days of the CCC camps here in Leetonia. Although, I can't be sure this was used in Leetonia there were certainly ones just like it being used. Do you know what it is?

I will tell you what it is not. It is not a shingle spliter, or a cheese slicer. It would make a horrible torture device. Ah but, at last, it is a brush clearer, mostly for overhead small limbs on trails. During the days on non-electric and few gas-powered trimmers this was the tool of the trade. The blades I understand are still available and able to be sharpened over and over.

Stanley picked this up from an Amish man who sells a lot of these old tools. It is quite heavy about 30" long and when you pick it up you have a real desire to take a whack at something. Not a good Christmas present for children. I am not going to leave this hanging on the wall somewhere. It is definately going to come into use clearing some trails in Leetonia again. Thanks to Stanley for the great gift.
Mountain Girl, Paula, logging off.

Mountain Girl Paula "Early years at Camp"

I longed to live at this cabin for as long as I can remember. My grandparents brought at least one of their five grandchildren with them every summer and being the oldest I came up the most. When grandpa worked second trick at Harvester, grandma would shuffle us off to bed early. He would come home after work Friday and load up the car and carry us out asleep for the twelve-hour drive. Grandma would navigate and keep grandpa awake while we dosed away most of the hours of the trip. By the time we woke they didn’t have to listen to as many, “Are we there yets?”

Grandmother kept us organized. She wrote everything down. Grocery lists. To do lists. Budgets lists. She tracked it all. There weren’t as many fast food places to stop at then and looking back I am thankful. Instead, she packed breakfast and lunches. We would pull over and have the fresh sandwiches, fruit, and desert she prepared. On chilly a thermos of hot chocolate would be part of the treat. It always tasted good and she loved to see us eat her cooking. Grandpa wasn’t a man to linger in fact you were lucky to get him to stop the car at all. A point that made traveling at night easier for kids that demanded frequent potty stops.

Grandpa drove the big old Buick through the 15 miles of narrow back roads to the cabin. Half scared and half in awe we would look over the side of the car to see the dense trees, tight turns and steep drop-offs. Of course grandpa’s speed and tales of how many cars had gone over the side only increased our fears and thrills. Grandma gripped the door handle and prayed silently. The last mountain before we reached the cabin grandpa would proclaim we needed no more gas to get to the cabin still 3 miles away. He would turn off the engine (mind you before power steering and brakes) and coast all the way. He stopped at the bottom opened the gate turned the car back on to climb the driveway.

Then the true order of things began. Grandpa would unlock the cabin and set grandma’s wheelchair near the open car door. He bent over her like a human crane. She held tightly around his neck and he would lift her with one strong swing to the chair. I’d never seen my grandmother walk. She’d been a victim of the Polio epidemics in the 40’s when my mother was nine. Her body confined to a chair she commanded the operation. The battle plan: clean, clean, clean. Our reward would be her cooking when we finished.

Grandpa was the hardest, strongest, working man I know and thought the world of my grandmother. He acted like her legs following every order to the tee for the most part. Grandmother, or Ruth as her friends called her was no stranger to hard work. She had been raised a farm girl in a large family in Indiana and valued a hard work ethic. She was often outside trying to pull weeds with a pair of long wood pinchers grandpa made for her; sometimes getting the narrow tires of her wheelchair stuck in the dirt and needing our rescue. My grandmother lived long before handicap accessible became common, but lack of access never stopped her or dampened her spirit.

Grandpa’s idea of a perfect vacation was to get as many things done as possible outdoors. Grandma’s had a list of indoor projects. Idleness came only after exhaustion from a day’s work. I loved the outdoors and became my grandfather’s shadow helping him to tame the mountain. Grandpa came from a long line of Irish farmers and had particular ideas about how the land should be allowed to develop. Farmers like to clear the land. His theory: “ Conquer by mowing.” Armed with his large Gravely walk behind mower he would head out to conquer new territory.

Like any invader you must plan a rogue to cover your invasion. “Snakes liked tall grass.” He would spout as justification for his mowing; citing the time he had to kill a rattlesnake in front of the house ready to “attack” my mother’s Boston terrier. Grandpa was the mowing master and all weeds would bow to his command. The yard grew larger every year. Until, he was mowing the road back to pond and then to my grandmother’s dismay the side of the mountain. He wanted to make sure she had a good view from her kitchen window. Grandma’s view would have been happier with a few weeds instead of watching her husband try to mow five acres of near vertical terrain. Her complaints fell on deaf ears and she settled with making sure he got plenty of fluids and food to fuel his mission.

One weed evoked a deadly response from my grandfather when he saw it. He called it a dock. It stood about four to five-foot high when mature and had a green spike. Now I know it is called mullein. Turn of the century Leetonia boys used to dry its broad leaves and smoke it in place of tobacco. I think the mere height of the weed taunted him. He would climb half way up the mountain just to chop one on those offending plants down.

My grandfather also had a strange response to heat. He had one uniform, long pants, long sleeve shirts and a baseball cap. The cap was to protect the balding “landing strip” as us kids called it on top his head from the sun. He claimed people didn’t understand proper of heat protection. Since he worked daily around temperatures of thousands of degrees in the heat-treat plant who could argue. “To protect against the heat you must totally cover your body.” He would state, claiming those half naked people where just letting their skin fry. Of course my grandfather’s modesty was so notorious that if you saw him with only a t-shirt on you would be meet with an embarrassed shout and the quick slamming of a door. So we never knew whether it was modesty or truth that shrouded him with a heavy layer of clothes all year round.

The “landing strip” on my grandfather’s head was a thing of great amusement for us kids. It changed colors in response to certain things. When he worked hard it dripped with sweat beads and sometimes turned red. The best were his headstands. Just seeing a man doing a headstand on that bare skin amused us. When he arose it would always be a crimson red. We loved to tease him unmercifully.

Grandmother was the ever-ready guardian of right and wrong had an alarm that went off telling her when fun had gotten carried into hurtful attacks. Her ability to control Grandpa was feat no one else would even attempt. Grandpa had two things that turned on the grandmother alarm. Overheated political debates with my Uncle and the heavy handedness he used on all grandsons. For some reason he thought the three boys were lazy slugs and us two girls were hard working angels. I agreed with him of course. But, even I cringed at some of his attacks. The boys needed to do little to provoke him. If they walked by him at the wrong time a kick would follow. Idleness at work meant a “quick tap” as he called it with the hoe or what ever he had in his hand. None of their protests would stop him but one word from grandmother would. “Now Paul!” she would say disapprovingly and he would stop. This seemed like some sort of magic to me. How could a wheelchair bound woman weld such power over a tough, angry, Irishman? We never knew, but I know the boys were grateful for it.

My grandfather’s philosophy of animal life was very different from mine. He determined there were good animals and bad “varmints” as he called them. Good animals had nothing to fear from grandpa, but the bad ones were destroyed any chance he got. His list was obviously another hand down from farmers trying to protect livestock or poultry. I on the other hand would try to nurse and save any hurt animal wild or tame that I found. Our philosophies were at obvious odds and bound for a collision, which they did on two separate occasions.

I hiked through the woods any chance I could get. One time I found an adult red fox with an injured rear leg. I seemed to have the ability to get away with things others couldn’t. The fox let me pick him up and I carried him back to examine the wound. It was full of maggots and infection. Of course, my grandfather was less than impressed with my efforts. Much to my protest he told me I could not keep the fox. He said he had found someone who would take care of the fox. I relinquished the fox without choice. Foxes were not on my grandfather’s good animal list and though he never told me I am sure it never got the kind of help I wanted to give it.

My next run in with grandpa was over some skunks. He had killed a mother skunk not far from the house and thought he had killed all her babies. He was wrong. I went to the murder scene and found several babies alive. I scooped them up. Determined not to make the same mistake twice. I didn’t tell grandpa. Instead, I took them to my tree house to nurse them back to health. All was going well. I stole food to feed them and they seemed to be doing fine. At some point my grandfather figured out something was going on. He found the babies and callously threw them in a wood fire. I can’t explain the feeling I had seeing my orphans toasted bodies. Even at 50 thinking about it causes me grief. I would not try a rescue another animal again near grandpa.

This didn’t ruin my relationship with grandpa. We didn’t share the same views on animals and from that point on I didn’t subject any animals to his cruelty. His pride in my work made up for his other failures. Once I heard him say, “I rather have Paula work with me then six men.” I was proud to think he valued me so highly that during a time when most women weren’t valued the worth of one man let alone six. I always enjoyed working outdoors and would never let him outlast me in any chore. We had a silent competition of who would quit first. My youth punished his stubborn pride and he suffered more at the end of the day. Looking at him grandma surely thought one more project would put him in a grave. I can’t remember either of us quitting before dinner or dark; the only justifiable reasons to stop work.

Grandmother although impressed with my work ethic was not as impressed with the type of work I was choosing. When I reached puberty this concern developed into a lecture. “Girls shouldn’t do so much lifting and heavy work,” she told me. “You are young now but later you will be sorry.” Both my mother and grandmother had always wished I would show more interest in indoor chores and how I looked. I could have cared less. I could wear the same pair of jeans everyday and barely had time to brush my short hair. Other girls seemed silly wearing dresses, makeup and acting like fools around boys. I loved sports or any activity where I could excel. Acting like a Barbie doll was not one of those activities.

Try as they might neither mother or grandmother could change me and they felt a sense of accomplishment to get me to attend my high school proms wearing a dress and feeling like I couldn’t move or breathe. Not surprising my adult life has been filled with training animals, carpentry and my love of outdoors. My grandmother might be surprised to find out her granddaughter is still nailing on shingles at fifty and hates to wear dresses.

This is a reprint from an article I had published in the Pennsylvania Reader in the fall of 2002.

Capt. Lawrence J. Ritter....P47 crash of 1946

A picture of a P47







Cold Springs Camp








Long Shot of gate to road.








Close shot of gate to road

GPS location of site is: N 41 degrees 33.646 minutes

W 77 degrees 35.184 minutes

elevation 1804 ft. This is the center of the circle about 75 feet from crash site.

Plane crash location from Leetonia Road:

Take Cushman Road to Francias Leetonia Rd. from this point you will go 3.1 miles to the right on Francias Leetonia. About 100 yds past Cold Springs Camp (picture 1) on the right you will see a logging road gate that has fluorescent green paint on it. (Pictures 2 & 3) From this point you will go about 1.5 to 1.75 miles up to the end of the logging road. The first half a mile is between a 10-20% upgrade after that it is not too bad. At the turnaround at the end of the logging road at about eleven o’clock you will walk about 75’ to the crash site and memorial. The whole walk at a fair pace takes about forty minutes one way.

There isn’t a lot left of the wreckage, which has been pillaged by souvenir hunters. I took a picture of the twisted aluminum body still sitting at the site. Lee Anne said she heard the propeller to the plane was once hanging on a camp in Slate Run, a fact that needs further investigation.

Lee Anne stood in the crater made by the plane’s impact and you can see it is about as tall as she is and about 10 foot wide. The stone is very nice and the flag in good repair. I am going to check with the Boy Scout Troup that put the stone there and see if there is more information about Lawrence J Ritter’s family.

As I lay in the crater looking up through the trees I thought about the cold snowy day the P47 crashed into the hill. You can almost hear the sound of the engine as it became one with the mountain. I wondered if the pilot knew he was going down much before impact. Just from the looks of things I am certain he did not survive the impact. It took seven months before they found the plane and not much of the pilot remained. It was November so it was probably during deer hunting season when someone came across the wreckage. The site reminds you how quickly life can be taken. Captain Lawrence Ritter died at the age of 27, not a long time to spend on this earth.

I am continuing to look for more information about Captain Ritter his family and the accident. For now enjoy the pictures and for those of you capable of walking at least 4 miles go up and see the site. It is a bit of history so easily forgotten it seems few people in this area even know it exists. A great walk for memorial weekend!

Mountain Girl, Paula, logging out.

Camp Stories "Stetztown"

Here are some of the boys of Stetztown, back row: Barry Stickler, David Anspach, Keven Tobias; front row: Richard Fortuna and John Tobias.

The next two pictures are from inside the camp.

The following information was relayed to me mostly by John Tobias.

In 1939, my dad, Edgar S. Tobias, stayed first at Junction Hotel at 414, then at Cedar Run Inn when he came up hunting. Then he decided to build a place of his own. At that time you could pick out a piece of property to lease from the State and build a camp on it. Edgar picked out two places and the State wouldn’t let him build there. Then he came up this Painter Leetonia Road and staked out this place with a 99 year lease.

When the camp started there were seven members. They contacted a log building company in Maine, called Shaw and order a $2400 log cabin kit. The logs came down by rail from Jersey Shore, loaded on two big trucks. When they reached the first steel bridge it wouldn’t hold the weight in one of the trucks and it had to be unloaded and reloaded on the other side. The trucks dumped everything at the road. A contractor from Wellsboro laid block foundation for the camp; and a man and two sons from Maine came down to erect it.

Edgar S. Tobias, John’s father, had clothing store come up after supper on Friday, an 8 hour drive, from Williamsport. At that time the roads were dirt all the way up from Williamsport. The streets in Williamsport were brick or wood block at that time.

Lowe lived down the road in Leetonia and had four boys helped with cabin. The Lowes used to guide hunters through the mountains. It took a lot of help to get the purlins up on the camp. It took them a year and a half to get the roof on. They had enough lumber left to put the front porch on and build the log outhouse, which was demolished 14 years ago. During the early year they had a Heatrola in the middle of the camp to heat the camp. They had electric from the beginning by using a generator and 24 12-volt car batteries. They affectionately called this the Delco System. In the fifties electric came to the Leetonia area by pole.

Stetztown started with seven members then went to nine members until Edgar died in 1960. John Tobias just turned 18 and got his father’s share in the camp. Then members went up to 20, which is the number they have today.

Some of their favorite memories are:

For John at six…riding his tricycle down the stairs and into the coal bin where he bit is tongue in two. They drove him unconscious from the pain to Wellboro were a doctor clamped it together and saved his tongue.

The deer drive in the Fahneystock area: A six-point deer was spotted a long distance away near a birch tree. Thirty-five shots were fired and on the thirty-sixth shot the deer dropped. The guides weren’t happy since they were sent to climb up and down the steep cliffs to retrieve the deer

David Anspach’s favorite memory is hunting with his Grandfather the year before his grandfather died of cancer. His grandfather shot a buck that was flanking down the hill in 3 shots as it crossed the road. David remarks, “Man that was a hell of a shot, but he didn’t want a fuss made over him.”

The last memory involves a drive at my cabin. Where part of the hunting party waited on the porch for the rain to stopped while the others drove the deer. It never stopped raining and the ones under the porch were always envied for their dry position. And to this day they know which hunter’s got the porch and which ones got wet. As far as I know no deer were injured in the porch drive.

John Tobias said the most deer we ever shot were fifteen and seven of them were on the hill behind my house. I can like them remember seeing fifty to a hundred deer on my hill in the evenings. Now we are lucky to see two or three.

I asked why they think the deer population is down so much? The Stetztown boys blame the Game Commission for giving out doe licenses up here and too many licenses for the area. They said the first year this happened we believe around 1968 there was a deer slaughter and the deer have never come back from that day.

Mountain Girl, Paula, logging out.

Love Dies Hard in Leetonia

The following story is a reprint of a story I had published in the "Pennsylvania Reader."

The setting is during a time in Leetonia's history when over 500 people lived and worked in the company owned town.

In the spring of 1878, the tannery whistle at Leetonia blew. “Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!” Renaldo shouted with every pull on the stout cord. Townspeople fearing fire, injury, or some unknown accident dropped everything and ran to Renaldo’s aid. Ready for action and breathing hard they surrounded Renaldo and demanded the news.

Renaldo shouted,” Maria in Italy has agreed to come here and marry me!

“Renaldo you idiot,” one of the men exclaimed, “I dropped everything and ran a half mile to your wedding announcement.”

Not seeing the look of shared enthusiasm for his announcement, but of an imminent beating, Renaldo shrank back and tried to make an escape. Two husky woodsmen grabbed the large man and hauled him like a sack of grain to Cedar Run Creek for a proper head clearing. They hurled him in the spring cold water and watched with satisfaction as he bobbed up gasping for air.

Anyone else would have faired worse, but Renaldo was a valued machinist, a hard worker and had come with the Lees to establish Leetonia and help with the tannery operation. Renaldo was known as a strong man, quick with a temper, and short on looks.

Many years ago Renaldo had courted Maria in Italy unsuccessfully. Time and lack of other marriage proposals softened Maria towards Renaldo and she agreed to marry him if he would pay her way to America. Maria also longed to leave Italy and Renaldo would give her a way to escape.

Maria was five-foot tall of average features with long flowing black hair. After sending Maria a ticket Renaldo thought of her daily coming to be his bride. The people of Leetonia would no longer mock his looks for all eyes would be on Maria. They would admire him for his ability to get such a woman as his wife. He would be the envy of every man. Not the brunt of their jokes.

The day Maria was to arrive in Wellsboro, Renaldo a dedicated worker didn’t take time off. He decided to send his cousin, Antonio who didn’t work to pick up Maria. Antonio always anxious for an adventure and time away from Leetonia eagerly accepted. Antonio was everything Renaldo was not, handsome, charming, and lazy. Antonio spotted Maria in front of the hotel in Wellsboro and she spotted him.

“Are you Maria?” Antonio asked.

“Yes.” Maria said. “Where is Renaldo?”

“He had to work and asked me to escort you to Leetonia.”

“Well thank you,” Maria said her eyes sparkling at him. “My bags are over there. Is it a long trip to Leetonia from here? “

“It is a long day’s ride, maam.” Antonio said as he hoisted her bags into the buggy.

The first ten miles of the trip pleasantries were exchanged about the weather, Italy, and the area. Then the road changed it got smaller and steeper and Maria’s expression changed with it.

Antonio noticing the change asked. “Are you alright?”

“I didn’t realize there were so many mountains here.” She said looking around. “Italy is full of mountains and I thought I’d left them behind.”

“Didn’t Renaldo tell you anything about Leetonia?” Antonio asked.

“Not really.” She said. “Just that he had a good job and would take good care of me.”

“Renaldo has a good job, but life in Leetonia is far from easy. Not a lot to do if you ask me. I prefer the city, the good life, and the fast pace. I plan on leaving Leetonia soon.” Antonio looked at her with one of those hard to resist smiles.

She instinctively reached for his hand. “Would you take me with?” She said in half desperation and half hope. “I don’t think I could bear living in another small town.”

“What are you going to tell Renaldo?” Antonio asked.

“I’ll tell him the truth, I don’t love him.” She gave Antonio a half-child, half-woman look that melted him. “Renaldo courted me in Italy and I never liked him. I just jumped at the chance to come to America when he offered.”

He felt an urge to place his arm around her to save her from Leetonia and steal her from Renaldo. How could he fall for her so quickly? Girls adored him before and he dismissed them so easily? But Maria somehow challenged him to be a hero. Save her from the ugly Renaldo and the little mountain town. Could he be her hero? He placed his arm around her.

“I think we would make a great team.” He told her. “We will escape Leetonia together.”

They laughed and planned the rest of the trip. Talking as though they had been friends forever. “We are just about there.” Antonio told Maria.

Maria reached over and lightly kissed Antonio. “I think I am falling in love with you Antonio.”

Antonio felt the rush of similar feelings. “You must move away from me. We are too close to town and people might see.”

Maria moved a proper distance away, but the seed had been planted.

It was getting dark as they entered Leetonia; Renaldo’s strong figure sat near the edge of town on a bark pile and he rose to greet the carriage. Antonio noticed Renaldo had bathed and shaved and was wearing his best clothes to greet Maria. Antonio wondered how well he would take Maria’s announcement. Renaldo helped Maria down from the carriage and embraced her warmly but gently.

“Mr. Lee has offered let you stay at their place tonight and rest. I am sure you are tired from your long drive. Antonio can drive you up to his house and I will meet you there in the morning to discuss our plans.” Renaldo helped Maria back up in the carriage and watched Antonio drive her up to the big house. Maria had chosen to say nothing.

As they drove up the Lee house, Maria said, “You must help me Antonio. Talk to Renaldo for me tomorrow morning I cannot face him. I am afraid of him.”

“What will I tell him, Maria?

“Tell him I don’t love him. Tell him I love you.”

“Do you…love me?”

“With all my heart.” Maria said stealing his heart with her eyes.

In the morning when Renaldo went up to meet Maria he saw Antonio sitting outside the house. Love must be blind for Antonio was outmatched by Renaldo’s size, reputation and strength, yet there he was ready to take a beating for a woman he had known for only one day.

“What are you doing here cousin?” Renaldo asked curiously.

“Renaldo.” Antonio started nervously. “Maria doesn’t want to marry you.”

“What!” Renaldo couldn’t believe his ears.

“Why? Where is she? Let me talk to her. This must be a mistake.” Renaldo spewed out words faster then Antonio could answer.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Antonio responded.

“She has decided to marry me.”

Renaldo started to smile thinking Antonio was playing some sort of joke on him. But upon noticing the serious look in Antonio’s face, Renaldo’s face reddened.

“She can’t do that. She promised to marry me. I paid for her to come and marry me.” Renaldo so hurt and confused instead of pounding Antonio to a pulp he walked off in a daze.

Leetonia in the late 1800’s was a company town. Everything was owned by the Tannery. Housing, food and other necessities of life were deducted from your meager pay and it was a hard life. No real government existed in Leetonia. However there was an unofficial town council that decided matters of importance to the people of Leetonia. Three old “wise men” of Leetonia called Maria in front of them to question her.

The council informed Maria that her parents had signed a contract for her to marry Renaldo and she must do so or else. Maria in an unprecedented move flatly refused, saying she never loved Renaldo and had no intention of living in Leetonia. She had lived in the mountains of Italy and had no intention of living in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The council realized they were in a difficult position decided she could marry Antonio provided Antonio pay back Renaldo the money he had spent getting her here or Maria must leave town at once.

Everyone knew Antonio didn’t have a dime much less the $50 needed to pay Renaldo back so they thought they had her. An immigrant girl without friends or family ended up entertaining drunken lumberjacks in saloons and brothels in the small sawmill towns. She equal to the challenge stalled long enough to get an uncle of Antonio’s in Jersey Shore to come to Leetonia. Then using the same charm that had captured Antonio persuaded his uncle to pay off Renaldo and give her the freedom to marry Antonio.

The wedding was as small as the support for Maria’s deception of Renaldo in Leetonia. One large figure sulked outside the church cursing its occupants under his breath. Two weeks after the wedding, Maria and Antonio headed to Jersey Shore to work for the same uncle who had paid off Maria’s contract.

The payment had not eased the pain or embarrassment in Renaldo. He pulled the crumpled letter from his pocket the same one he had held so high the first day he’d read it to his fellow workers. The same one he had taken a dunking for in Cedar Run Creek using the tannery horn to announce.

“Lies all lies.” He said to himself as he rolled the paper thin soaking it kerosene and walked heavily down the road to a rock ledge overhanging the road. He climbed up the rock face hand over hand often slipping on the loose shale and finally pulling him self over the top. Then he pulled a sack of black powder from his back and began pouring it into a deep crack in the rocks. When the crack filled with powder he pulled a large rock over it and waited.

Maria and Antonia headed toward Jersey Shore in their buggy on the narrow winding mountain roads. Passing each mountain she vowed never to see another mountain again after she left this place. Some of the places they passed had vertical rock faces dangerously overhanging the road. These often fell and blocked the road during spring thaws or rains, but they had nothing to fear today the weather was sunny and warm on the two newly wedded faces.

A shadowed figure sat looking at the oil soaked promise; hearing the hoof beats of an approaching horse; he shoved the letter under the rock he sat on touching the black powder and lit up a store bought cigar. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enough money to buy a cigar and enjoyed puffing it in rhythm to the sound of the approaching horse. This would be a sweet day. He saw the two sitting close in the buggy as it passed under him and yelled as he touched the cigar to the oil soaked letter:

“You should have been my wife!” The quiet mountain day erupted with a blast, rock and dust rained from the sky.

The sound echoed up the valley and reached Leetonia to be met only with slightly curious ears. Was someone blasting a stump or rock out of the way? Only when a scared, bruised and tired horse appeared in town dragging pieces of a carriage did an alarm go up.

Men mounted up their horses and raced up the road finding tons of rock covering the road. They heard Antonio’s cries and saw him caught in a tree halfway down the mountain. They pulled him out but he was badly injured and died the next day. Maria died instantly crushed in a pile of rocks from the mountains she hated so much.

Renaldo missing from work that day along with some blasting powder never came back to work. Strangely a foot appeared in a leather boot drug home by some town dogs. The boot was identified as Renaldo and what was left of the foot given a proper burial.

Maria and Antonio Andrezzi are buried in an old Catholic Cemetery in Avis, Pa July 17^th, 1878.

Based on a true story from the account of William H. Plank former superintendent of the Leetonia tannery.

Mountain Girl, Paula, Logging Out!