#frackville

Contributed by Andrew Gable, Host of Forgotten Darkness Podcast 

In Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, about halfway between Tumbling Run (Episode 55, “The Hex Cat of Tumbling Run”) and Ringtown (Episode 9, “The Murder of Old Suss”), another so-called hex cat put in its appearances in Frackville. Well, it was sort of a hex cat. By sort of, I mean not at all. In fact, I’m not really sure why the “Frackville Hex” was called a hex cat at all. The descriptions ranged from a large bird, to a small kangaroo – in short, something like the most prominent image associated with the Jersey Devil. The stories of the hex began in 1913, four years after the famous “flap” of 1909 when the Jersey Devil became more well- known than it had been.

Around September 4, three girls walking near the newly-built Lincoln High School at Center and Frack Street saw the so-called hex. Their descriptions were “so highly colored that all who heard them attributed the vision to imagination” and they ran the rest of the way home. The next night, a few other people saw the creature a block away, at the corner of Washington and Center Street. The creature was seen squatting on a water trough at an ice house and then at a vacant lot near the Philadelphia Reading Railroad tracks. One man living on Lehigh Avenue who didn’t “indulge in too much hard cider and applejack” claimed two have seen two “hexes.”

One man coming back from a party claimed to have seen the hex. According to him, “it resembled one of the harpies of the antediluvian ages and that it swooped down in front of him, towering above his head with an immense spread of wings.” The “hex” appeared each and every night from its initial appearance at the school until September 11. Its appearances were almost always noted between the hours of 11:00 pm and 12:00 am. People were making silver and gold bullets, having guns blessed by pow-wow doctors.

On the night of September 13, it was seen by several witnesses standing on the porch of a house on Frack Street and making “unearthly” noises while it did so. The resident of the house said he heard the sounds, though he said nothing about the “hex.” Four more girls were frightened by the creature at the corner of Frack and Nice Streets. A group of six young men went out hunting the animal, armed with clubs and other weapons. The monster flew out from behind a brick pile near the Lincoln School and vanished. It was also seen on the Mud Run Dam south of town. The young man who saw it here declared that it had “large wings, long hind legs, short forepaws, and greatly resembling a small kangaroo.”

It may – or may not – have been again seen September 14 at the railroad tracks. By this point, a bus tour was organized taking attendees of the Frackville Carnival around town to the sites of the different sightings of the devilish creature. At least one passenger on the tour claimed to have seen it – once more near the Franklin School. 

It went dormant for a few weeks. On September 26, though, it was back, being seen near one resident’s barn. More hunts were also mounted, with the proprietor of a store in town proclaiming his wish to procure it for purposes of advertising. Soon after this, though, the hex vanished.

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