Paranormal Activities?: Stovepipe Legend Alive in Rices Landing

ObserverReporter.com - On cold, rainy nights after midnight, especially near Halloween, one can drive into the town of Rices Landing and hear shouts of "Stovepipe, Stovepipe, Stovepipe." Legend has it that yelling this at just the right place will bring out an apparition.

The legend of Stovepipe has reportedly been around since the 1800s but it varies in the telling depending on whom one speaks to in the town.

One version takes place at the train tunnel in Rices Landing that is the entrance to Pumpkin Run Park. This version circulates the Internet on a variety of paranormal investigation sites.

It was a dark and rainy night in the 1800s when a young lad was driving a horse and buggy over the railroad tracks at Pumpkin Run. He was believed to be taking a shortcut, perhaps one that he often took, to reach his home.

Quite suddenly a train came barreling in his direction. The young man's horse could not move the buggy over the tracks as quickly as the horsepower of the train.

In a macabre twist the buggy overturned, and the wheels of the train decapitated the boy, leaving his ghost to wander around looking for his head.

The tale concludes with the ghost placing a piece of stovepipe where his head once was and the belief of many was he would return when he heard someone call, "Stovepipe, Stovepipe, Stovepipe" after midnight on rainy nights.

The second version of the story begins on what is known as Horseshoe Bend, named for its perfectly horseshoe-shaped curves.

It was a dark and rainy night, again, and a young man was bringing his buggy around Horseshoe Bend when it suddenly overturned, throwing him out. One of the wheels of the buggy severed his head.
The townspeople who came upon the scene commented that his flattened neck resembled a stovepipe, giving the story a name. About a year later a passerby claimed to see a ghost on the bend fitted with a stovepipe where his head once was.

This version, too, concludes with the claim that shouting "stovepipe" on dark, rainy nights after midnight would make the ghost appear.

But at least three other versions of the story also have been told and two of them have a more sinister twist.

In the first, a man by the name of Stovepipe Kelly was on his way to visit his mistress in his horse-drawn buggy. The woman's husband knew of the affair and he lay in wait for Stovepipe on Horseshoe Bend. The jealous husband caused the buggy Stovepipe was driving to overturn, but it wasn't the buggy that lopped off Stovepipe's head.

"His head was cut off but it wasn't from a horse and buggy accident," said Mary Lewis, who heard this version from her parents and aunt growing up. "It was the woman's husband who cut it off."
An alternate version was told to Lewis' daughter, Judy Armstrong of Carmichaels, by her grandmother, who would be more than 100 if she were still alive today.

"Granny told us the story that it was a coal miner and it was at a time when they were trying to form the unions. A man named Stovepipe Kelly, because he always wore a stovepipe hat, made the mine owners angry and they were waiting for him on Horseshoe Bend to kill him," said the former Dry Tavern resident. "I remember we would go down there to Horseshoe Bend and scare the bejeezus out of other kids at night around Halloween by saying Stovepipe."

The final version came about when a car missed the curve on Horseshoe Bend and went over the hillside. The car sat for many years until it was a rusty pile of junk, but perfect to aid in the spinning of a tall tale.

This version can be found on YouTube by searching Horseshoe Bend, Rices Landing, Pa. Chip Guesman, a native of the town created several videos documenting stories about Rices Landing and the people who live there.

Guesman begins by telling the "true" version as he knows it.When he guides viewers around the bend he points to the spot where the car once sat.

"When we would come up the road in the school bus you could see it (the car). The kids my age always told the story of Stovepipe who wrecked his car and lost his head. It was a good story because of the old car that lay down in there," Guesman narrates.

Regardless of which version of the story one believes in, the result is still the same: If you venture into Rices Landing on a rainy night after dark and have the courage to pause near the Horseshoe Bend while bellowing, "Stovepipe, Stovepipe, Stovepipe," perhaps in the fashion of Ichabod Crane, an apparition missing his head may just appear.

There is just one more thing you should know. The final part of the legend is that Stovepipe returns because he is looking for his head, and yours may do just fine.