The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1882-06-23
Old Mag. The Hag.
sAvAGEs IN SULLIVAN COUNTY,
NEW YORK.

Just across the Delaware river from
here, report the finding of the body of
woman who has been missing from
her home at Mongaup Valley for sew
eral months. Her death was most
horrible tragic one and fitting end to
strange life. Her name was Marga-
ret Conkling and she was known
throughout the country as "Old Mag,
the hag.' She was one of a large
family of halfsavage people known as
the DE Groatses, the Hinkses, the
Henions and the Conklings. This
family is said to number about three
hundred and fifty men, women and
children, than whom more degraded
lot of people it would be hard to find
in the United States. They dwell in
small caves and cabins in the wooded
bills of Sullivan county and on the
semi cultivated slopes of Orange coun-
! ty. Their living is made principally
| by stealing, hunting and fishing with
nets in forbidden streams. Some few
OF them are expert weavers of willow
baskets, which they carry to the near,
by towns and sell. These pariahs
frequently visited Pennsylvania with
loads of baskets, which they sold to
the farmers and country merchants at
the crossroads stores. The cash pro
ceeds of these sales were invariably
turned into whiskey and tobacco and
the women were as dissipated and
abandoned to vice as the men, They
also planned robberies and depreda
tions of all kinds, and every basket
selling tour is sure to be followed by a
raid upon barns, chicken-coops and
cellars. The people are familiar with
every inch of ground in the Delaware
Valley and they can easily hide them
selves in the mountains and manage
to escape the officers of the law.
The Conklings are of Indian de.
scent-the Seneca breed, they claim
and they bear all the facial marks of
their ancestors, while, ;heir habits
are even more indecent and less cleanly
than those of their savage ancestors.
They inter-marry exclusively and no
divorce is necessary to separate man
and wife if either party desires such
separation. The results of this def
ance of the laws of physiology are
evident in the forms OF their children.
Many of them are idiots, some are
born without ears, some without limbs,
and there is one singular being, now
living, it is said, in a lonely hut near a
lake on the western edge of Sullivan
county, that would be more of an &C
QUESTION to Barnum's show than "Jum-
DO" was. This being has neither nose,
eyes nor ears, and only two teeth can
be found in its head, while its feet are
clubbed and its hands resemble the fins
of big fish more than human men,
bers. Yet this singular creature lives
and seems to enjoy life. A Monticello
hunter, David Boyle, who often goes
to that part of the county fishing, has
seen this "what-s it eat raw fish, raw
potatoes and even raw skunk meat
with evident relish. The mother of
this monstrosity is woman six feet
seven inches in height, and her hus-
band is her own uncle The mother
has quite decided moustache and
beard, while the father is but three
feet eight inches high, hair-lipped and
a hunchback dwarf
THE QUEEN OF TIE GANG.
Such is the race or family to which
"Old Mag, the hag," belonged, and
among this tribe of savages she was
regarded as a sort of queen and
treated with as much Difference as
gypsies pay to their sovereign. She
was reputed to have been the seventh
daughter of a seventh daughter and
was, in consequence, believed to be en-
dewed with the magic power of curing
all sorts of diseases and bone fractures
She was also a fortune teller of great
skill. Her appearance was very sin-
gular. She was nearly six feet nine
inches in height, her skin was saffron
yellow, her hair long, coarse and black
as a ravens wing, aud her chin was
covered with beard at least three
inches in length. She adopted a reg
ular Indian costume and lived alone
in her small cabin on the shore of Big
Pond, just on the edge of the great
cranberry marshes of Sullivan county
Her house was constantly besieged by
city people from New York and Phila-
delphia, who were summering in
Sullivan and who came to have the
future revealed to them by this Won
derful fortune teller. She made lots of
money and knew how to save it. She
never spent cent, except for liquor,
and one of her peculiarities was that
she would never allow any human
being to sleep in her cabin, not even
one of her own kindred, and those of
the "tribe' who visited her always
went prepared to sleep out of doors.
There was annually II gathering of the
whole family and these conversations
were the widest orgies imaginable and
more than one member OF the great
family has been missing after the long
debauches in some lonely cabin or cave
in the rocks.
sold Mag was last seen alive sew
eral months ago, and was then a,
frisky as ever and as full of whiske,
as usual. One or two weeks after
that one OF the Hinkses remarked il
the county post office near where Ma!
lived, Mag haint t hum no more, an
| shudn't wonder ef she was dead
One OF the bystanders afterwards mad
auip TO her cabiu and found it deserted
On the earthern floor in ore corner o
the room lay half bushel of walnut
and chestnuts, a smoked ham and
string of red peppers, while near a
: hand hung the dead and decayed bod
of a fox with the skin still on. n
signs of old Mag" were to be fouu
anywhere and search was made ever,
t where, but without success.
! OLD MACS pRATH.
) Some time atterward the three hun
ers first referred to were chasing
bear through swamp about two mil,
4, from the old cabin where "Mag" fo
II merly lived, One of the hunters sli
ped on what he supposed at first TO |
It a round stone, but which proved to |