Date: 2004-05-18
From: Fayetteville, PA

To: Pine Grove Furnace State Park
Miles today: 20.0
Weather: few clouds

I love waking up and wondering what the day will bring because the truth is that for all of my planning, plans change before my very eyes. I'm getting used to it and I like it.The weather was a bit of a downer today - sprinkling by the time we reached the trail around 9am. Made it to the first shelter and stopped for breakfast and chatted with some section hikers. We mostly kept our music in our packs for fear of it getting wet so we just chatted off and on throughout the day. Took a break at a locked cabin and then ran into Boo's-Goose during our lunch break at the next shelter. It was only 1:30 and we were intending to press on to Toms Run Shelter for the night but began to discuss the possibility of hiking an additional 3.7 miles to the Ironmasters Hostel. We had heard this hostel was off the hook - a mansion near the ironworks built around 1830 or so. We were interested in the history and the Companion informed us there was a secret room to inquire about. Old mansions, secret rooms, and ghost stories. We decided to go for it. Hit Toms Run Shelter by 4ish where we stopped and I re-taped my blisters. My feet are really getting banged up this leg of the trip. 10 days at home and they had gotten all soft and now they're tearing up. Between the heat and swelling and sweat I've been patching them up with gauze and duck tape every morning and then hoping they dry out and harden in the night. It's a process but not terribly painful as of yet.Made it to Ironmasters by 5:30 and it was well worth the extra milage. The place was beautiful with a deeply historic feeling - it had been well preserved to mimic the original condition. It was empty except for two other guests and spotlessly clean - unheard of for hostels. The manager, Brad, took the night to fill our heads with the history and the ghosts of the building. The secret room (skip this paragraph if you don't want to know) was an old root cellar that used to be a part of the underground railroad during the 1850's. He told us that this mansion was an active part of the railroad and slaves would be brought into the cellar through an underground tunnel from one side of the house and would hide there for days until it was safe to leave through another underground passage via the other side of the house. The women who lived in the house would weave codes into quilts and hang a particular quilt outside on the line to indicate to the "conductors" whether it was safe to come into the house. We went down into the cellar and it was a tiny, dark, cold, and cramped little room that made my hair stand on end. I couldn't believe people would spend days here. Put a whole new perspective on this trip. I'm privilaged enough to walk through these woods for enjoyment but not 200 years ago people were fleeing north through these woods for thousands of miles for their very lives. No comforts, no modern gear, no guarentee of safety. It was really impactful.Brad then dished out some stories of the spirits that still live in the house. He thinks it could be the original owners - Jackson and Caroline Fuller. He's had too many incidents to list completely here but he did mention some small things. Like he will often be overwhelmed by the smell of perfume when no one else has been in the house for days. Apparently there have also been repeated incidents when the girls dormitory has been full and there has been a knock at the dorm door in the middle of the night only to have no one there. Attic door locks opening and closing by themselves, childrens laughter echoing down from the attic. Bonafide spooks. I love these stories and I was hanging on every word. I woke once in the middle of the night and had a hard time getting back to sleep. I swore if there was a knock on the door I wouldn't answer it.No one knocked. I slept well but felt like I was being watched all of the time.