Most folks have heard of historic sites that are supposed to be haunted because of some historic event.  Fort Mifflin and the Jean Bonnet Tavern are two such sites, and so is Captain Phillip’s Monument.  I have long heard the stories, but when the Central Pennsylvania Paranormal Association and I went to this site in August of 2000, I held little hope of finding a spirit.  After all, I had been there countless times through the years. It was an eerie spot admittedly, but I always attributed that to the lonesome location, and to the fact that I knew of the many horrific events that had occurred there. Despite the fact that I love a good ghost story, I am not gullible and I don’t see ghost coming out of the walls everywhere I go.  I really did not believe Captain Phillip’s Monument was haunted, but that was before this visit.  

     Captain William Phillips was a veteran of the American Revolution who had settled upon Clover Creek road in present day Blair County between Williamsburg and Fredericksburg.  In 1780 Indian raids in the area of Bedford County (out which Blair and Huntingdon along with Fulton County were culled) were so numerous as to make even tax collecting impossible.  Travel had virtually come to a standstill, and matters were growing desperate for the farmers who had to harvest their crops in those remote valleys under attack. 

     For their part, the Indians were infuriated and responding to both attacks upon their settlements and violations of the land rights that they had negotiated.  These agreements restricted the areas where Europeans could live so that the natives could keep control of areas where their villages and best hunting lands were.  The way the Indians were being treated by the Europeans was both unfair and deadly. This made the natives extremely angry, and in their culture vengeance was an honored way of dealing with such unscrupulous enemies.  

     Colonel John Piper of Piper’s Fort on Yellow Creek (on Route 26 below Everett, Bedford County) recognized the situation and wrote to the President of Pennsylvania explaining the situation, and asking for arms and militia to put down the natives.  While President Wharton was considering this request, John Piper wrote a letter to Captain William Phillips telling him to muster a force of Rangers and go to Woodcock Valley (near Saxton) to protect the farmers there who had to harvest their crops. 

     John Piper had many reasons for choosing Captain Phillips for this job.  Phillips was a man who was well liked and respected by the other colonial families, and he had a good reputation among the natives for being a fair man.  This reputation, Colonel Piper hoped, would protect Phillips and his Rangers from attack. 

     Captain Phillips left for Woodcock Valley on Saturday, July 15, with ten rangers and his fourteen-year-old son.  Despite his best efforts, Captain Phillips could not convince more of the settlers to accompany him.  These people had their own families to consider and could not be bothered with risking their lives for others.  This might seem selfish in today’s age, but these settlers had to fear that if they left their families and farms unprotected they would be attacked by Indians who also were in the Clover Creek area.  There had already been several massacres there.

     For his part, Captain Phillips must have realized that ten Rangers were not enough to do much with, but he was a man of honor and had given his word to Colonel John Piper that he would do his best to protect the farmers of Woodcock Valley.  He would do so even if it meant his own death.

     Phillips and his men marched over Tussey's Mountain into the valley only to find the first few isolated cabins were already abandoned.  He and his men went further into the valley, but it soon was obvious that the settlers had all abandoned their homes for safety elsewhere.  By the time that they had reconnoitered the valley it was growing late.  The men were all on foot and must have been tired.  Captain Phillips knew a man in the valley named Frederick Keeter well.  He decided that they would spend the night in the Keeter cabin.  So far they had met no one.  Even the Indians were seemingly not in evidence at this point.  Captain Phillips must have truly believed that it was safe to remain in Woodcock Valley or he would not have risked so many lives, including his own son’s life.

     The men put in an uneventful night camped upon the floor of the little cabin.  In the morning, though, matters were taken from Captain Phillip’s hands.  He and his men awoke to find that during the night the cabin had been surrounded by Indians who were seemingly unaware of their presence.  They looked out of little gun slots in the walls, which had been constructed instead of windows, and saw two white men who had “gone native” in the group.  Captain Phillips realized instantly that he and his men were out manned and out gunned.  Their only hope was to pray that the Indians did not realize that the cabin was inhabited and that they would pass on.  He instructed his men to keep a sharp watch and maintain silence at all costs.   

  The day wore on in silence.  The tension within that little cabin must have been unbearable for as the day progressed the Indians were making forays ever nearer.  The men knew that most probably they would be discovered, and that must have made the waiting more terrible.  At last, in the afternoon, two Indians and the two whites with them came very close to the cabin.  One of the Rangers seemed to loose his nerve and began shooting.  He hit one of the Indians with his bullet.  Now the men inside the cabin were committed to a battle.  Within seconds the Indians had taken positions around the cabin and began firing.  A spate of gunfire erupted and lasted for about ten minutes.  Then there was a terrible silence as the two sides regrouped. 

     Phillips knew that his men were not prepared to face a siege, and that soon the Indians would come again.  He hoped to hold them off long enough to make some sort of arrangement with them.  There was shooting back and forth for a while, but the Indians did not seem to want to waste precious ammunition upon the whites.  They had a better idea.  Suddenly the men inside the cabin saw flaming arrows come in their direction.   The arrows set the little wooden cabin on fire.  Captain Phillip’s time was up.  He now had to surrender or burn to death.

     Captain Phillips called out that he wanted to bargain.  The whites with the Indians interpreted for Phillips and he offered to surrender.  However, he had terms that the Indians had to agree to.  They would surrender and give up their weapons if they would be promised that no physical harm would come to them.

     The Indians agreed to this bargain and Phillips and his men stepped from the burning cabin.  His men were tied up and herded together.   The men began walking in the direction their captors indicated.  They seemed to be going back toward Tussey’s Mountain.  Near the foot of the mountain, however, Phillips and his son were separated and started up the side of the mountain.  Despite his protests his men were left behind with the bulk of the Indians.  Later Captain Phillips would write about how helpless he felt as he and his son trudged on.  Behind him he could hear shooting and screaming and he could well imagine what fate was befalling his men.  He could do nothing to help them.  The Indians had kept him and his son safe, but someone had to pay for shooting and wounding some of their men.  He would never know if any of the wounded died, but something had transpired which had caused the Indians to separate the men and brutally mutilate them.  Phillips and his son would survive.  They were taken to an Indian town near modern day Frankstown in Blair County and then up into New York where they would stay for two years until they were ransomed back to the whites.

     Days later Colonel Piper would bring a force of men with him as he rode into Woodcock Valley in search of Captain Phillips.   What they found near the foot of the mountain was savage enough to sicken the toughest, war hardened veteran among them.  Phillip’s Rangers had all been tied to trees.  Then they had been cut open slowly and mutilated while alive.  The bodies had been left tied where they had suffered so.  Now the corpses were blackened and bloated.  The men ordered to cut them down would be able to tell who died first and who died last.  It seemed that the last man had witnessed so much that he had gone insane with fear.  He had literally tried so hard to pull free of his bonds that the rawhide binding him had cut into his very bones.  It was truly a terrible and pitiful sight.

     Today a monument sits as tribute to the deaths of these men.  It is upon the very site of the massacre and this was confirmed when during the building process for the monument the workers came upon nine of the ten bodies of the murdered Rangers.  The identity of the bodies was confirmed by the age of the bones, and by dating of the buckles and buttons that were on the corpses.  The tenth body was not found for some reason.  The nine corpses now rest in a common grave upon the very monument itself.  It is there as mute testimony to another time when one culture was struggling desperately to keep it’s hold on it’s world, and another society was determined to take the very land the natives needed for existence.

     Through the years a legend has endured that Captain Phillip’s Rangers haunt the site.  It has long been claimed that upon the anniversary of the massacre late at night the brutal murders are relived and the men who died and the Indians who killed them are seen and heard once more.  I have been there several times on that night but have seen and heard nothing.  Of course, I’m about as psychically inclined as a box of rocks most of the time.  However, that seems to be changing, but that is another story...

     When some friends and I started the Central Pennsylvania Paranormal Association, one of the first sites we chose was Captain Phillip’s Monument.  My reasoning for doing so was that I really did not believe it was haunted and I wanted the group members to understand early on that we will have sites like that.  However, I was to be the one surprised.  

     The group met there in August of 2000.  The members were Jim and Carolyn, Jeanette, and myself.  It was a pleasant evening and the site is remote enough that you feel alone there.  A cool evening breeze had sprung up, and as we walked around the site I began to feel watched.  It was a distinct feeling that someone was on the far-left side of the monument just beyond the tree line curiously watching our every move.  Since I was in a group, I went over and looked the area over well.  There were certainly no trees large enough for a man to hide behind, but here the feeling of being watched was even stronger.  Suddenly I was struck by the strong impression of a Native man with rawhide pants and shirt, a hair knot with feathers and shaved sides of his head.  He had a strong hawk face with slashes of paint on his cheeks and under his eyes, but the strongest feeling I had was that he was lonely and afraid of us.

     I decided not to mention the feeling of being watched unless someone else did first.              We pulled up our cameras and kept snapping photos of that area.  (Later one team member would find that of the three rolls of film he had taken only a few photos came out.  The rest were blank.  Another team member had a strange haze appear on all of her photos that obscured the image.  This seemed extremely odd as it was a clear summer night and there was not one tendril of fog in that area.)

      As the evening wore on, Carolyn suddenly had a sensation of cold chills as if something had just passed by her, and she started clicking away.  We saw something shadowy moving toward her, but it disappeared immediately.

     When we had first arrived we had set up one cassette recorder on the left rear portion of the monument, one on the left foreground of the monument, and a third voice activated machine on the right side just past the monument.  For some time the machines worked well, but as it grew darker the machines suddenly began to give us trouble.  Our three cassette tape players kept turning themselves off.  The new batteries in each died after only an hour and a half. 

     Our equipment troubles were just beginning.  We had a camera that, though just loaded with film, spontaneously rewound itself.  My digital camera took several good photos, and then one that had supercharged energy in the trees where we felt watched.  After that the rest of the photos became just a jumble of color. 

     At one point we heard a strange animal yell that none of us could identify.  Now most of us have lived in the country all of our lives and at least one member of the group was a hunter, yet no one could recognize that distinctive yelp.  Later Carolyn would confide to me that she thought instantly of all those old movies where an animal call was made by Indians just before they attacked.  She laughed and said about how silly that idea was.  I had not mentioned my Indian to anyone else that night in the group for fear of tainting the observations of the rest of the group. 

     Near ten o’clock the group moved slightly away from the site to the area where the Carolyn had felt the cold spot.  At that time we began chatting as we looked back at the monument to see if the cassette players were working now that we had changed batteries in each of them.  In the darkness we could not see the machines, but we could see the red dot from the record light on two of the machines.  As we watched, we suddenly saw the one machine’s light blink out as if something had come between the machine and our eyes.  Immediately after that the machine appeared to rotate about thirty degrees as if someone had bumped or pushed it slightly.  We hurried back and examined the machine.  It was certainly moved from the position we had left it in.  The new batteries were also drained although they had only been in the machine for less than thirty minutes. 

     After that it was as if whoever had been so curious about the recorders had retreated.  Though we again moved away from the monument and waited, we did not see any further activity.  We finally left before the mosquitoes could finish their dinner of ghost hunter delight.

     A member named *Betty had not been able to go with us for this visit, but a week later *Betty, her husband and I returned to the sight for a second look.  *Betty had always been fascinated by the area and she immediately felt something in the same spot where I had on a previous visit. 

     *Betty snapped several photos and so did I.  Once again I was overwhelmed by that feeling of being watched by a man, but I tried not to say anything.  After walking the site for a while, *Betty and I sat on the steps of the monument and began to talk.  I expressed sympathy for this man whom I believed must be waiting for something.  Perhaps for his fellow Indians to return from wherever they had gone so long ago?  Suddenly *Betty seemed to be looking behind me.  “Patty,” she whispered, “turn around slowly and take a look.” 

     I turned and saw a black shadow that seemed to be hunkered down on one knee watching.  As I turned, it stood up and stepped back into the darkness of the trees.  “Did you see that black shadow?” I asked. 

     “He was watching, listening to us,” Betty replied softly. 

     We resumed our conversation and once more I expressed sympathy for this fellow.  I am part Native American and I have always been conflicted about the struggle that caused America to be born.  I do understand why the Indians did what they did at that spot, even if it seems brutal.  As I spoke, I suddenly felt something cold literally clutch my right hand.  I stopped, startled and looked at *Betty. 

     “Something’s got my hand,” I said softly.  She reached over and felt my hand.  There was a pocket of cold air wrapped around it.  As we sat there, another pocket of cold air slipped around my left hand and again *Betty could feel it.  My fingers were like ice and it was late August.  It had to be at least 72 degrees out that evening.  I felt that this man was holding my hands; it was as if he was drawn by my sympathy for him and his situation.

     After a few seconds the cold let go of my left hand, then my right.  Whatever had touched me had moved back once more.

     Now *Betty was feeling a bit unnerved and the mosquitoes were once again dining on us, so we returned to the van where her husband was waiting.  As we sat there, I kept watching out the van window and several times I saw a dim shadow break away from the trees and pace near the van.  Once it completely circled the van and *Betty felt it, too.  She kept insisting that I pray for protection before I leave this place and that I tell this entity that it must stay there.  She was feeling very protective of me at that moment.  We both saw the shadow as if he was waiting for me to come out of the metal box I was in.

     When I went back to my van, *Betty’s husband made sure it was safe.  I did pray and I spoke softly to this entity and asked it to stay.  I know it must be lonely there, but I knew that I did not want to deal with it coming home with me. 

     I have not been back since that night only because I have been so very busy, but I do plan to go back this at some point.  I was unnerved by what I had experienced, but not truly frightened.  I still feel very sorry for whoever is there.  I pray that he will find his way onward and find peace at last.  He seemed more sad than frightening to me.

     If someone asked me if Capt. Phillip’s monument is haunted, I‘d have to say that personally I believe it is? But I would also add that not all ghosts are fearful and this one could do with some sympathy rather than the fear that has so often greeted it in the past.