Allegheny Episodes : Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania

Abstract

Allegheny Episodes is the eleventh of twelve volumes in Henry Shoemaker’s Pennsylvania Folklore Series. Published in 1922—years before Shoemaker’s time as Pennsylvania’s first state folklorist—Allegheny Episodes includes twenty-five stories written in his typical literary style. Some tales recall famous hunters and loggers who made their way through Pennsylvania’s rough country; others center on rivalry and lost love, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena, and the wilderness itself. Shoemaker saw Pennsylvania’s folklore as a melding of Native American and European practices. Though his methods have been contested over the years, Shoemaker’s work as a folklorist stemmed from his deep affinity for Pennsylvania’s fading wilderness and his desire to capture the heart of its people through the spoken and written word.