In the Seven Mountains
Legends Collected in Central Pennsylvania
Henry W. Shoemaker
Originally published in 1913 by the Bright Printing Company, In the Seven Mountains belongs to Henry Shoemaker’s robust corpus of tales and legends based on the folklore of Pennsylvania. This volume presents stories from the Seven Mountains, located in Mifflin, Centre, and Juniata Counties, through which Shoemaker traveled by carriage in 1912, stopping to speak with local residents and visit “scores of localities of historic and legendary” importance. In his distinctive literary voice, Shoemaker recounts colorful legends—tales of ghosts and hauntings, of elusive mountain lions and their “celebrity” hunters—as well as human interest stories, many of which feature central Pennsylvania landmarks such as Tussey Mountain and Bald Mountain. Weaving narratives of the supernatural, local history, wildlife, and Native American lore, Shoemaker preserves the region’s unique cultural heritage in a series of fantastical stories that blur the lines between truth and fiction. The text, reproduced in facsimile for the first time since its original printing, includes illustrations by S. W. Smith and W. W. Sholl.
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An Open Access edition of In the Seven Mountains is available through PSU Press Unlocked. To access this free electronic edition click here. Print editions are also available.
Originally published in 1913 by the Bright Printing Company, In the Seven Mountains belongs to Henry Shoemaker’s robust corpus of tales and legends based on the folklore of Pennsylvania. This volume presents stories from the Seven Mountains, located in Mifflin, Centre, and Juniata Counties, through which Shoemaker traveled by carriage in 1912, stopping to speak with local residents and visit “scores of localities of historic and legendary” importance. In his distinctive literary voice, Shoemaker recounts colorful legends—tales of ghosts and hauntings, of elusive mountain lions and their “celebrity” hunters—as well as human interest stories, many of which feature central Pennsylvania landmarks such as Tussey Mountain and Bald Mountain. Weaving narratives of the supernatural, local history, wildlife, and Native American lore, Shoemaker preserves the region’s unique cultural heritage in a series of fantastical stories that blur the lines between truth and fiction. The text, reproduced in facsimile for the first time since its original printing, includes illustrations by S. W. Smith and W. W. Sholl.
Henry W. Shoemaker (1880–1958) was the author of more than twenty volumes of popular Pennsylvania literary folklore and numerous narratives about Pennsylvania’s disappearing wildlife during the first half of the twentieth century. He also served as Pennsylvania’s first state folklorist from 1948 to 1956.
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