JUDY BOLTON & THE HEADLESS FRENCHMAN

JUDY BOLTON:

THE SECRET OF THE HEADLESS FRENCHMAN

Any avid Judy Bolton fan would surely think that author Margaret Sutton had covered all the known mysteries in Potter County PA in her 38-volume Judy Bolton series. But the truth is, she only touched upon the voluminous mythology of what was once known as The Forbidden land, the Pennsylvania Black Forest region that includes Potter County and its bordering neighbor counties. Of the many legends and unsolved mysteries that Judy Bolton never met up with but surely would have, had she the time, one that stands out is the spooky legend of The Headless Frenchman of Twin Sisters Hollow.

Twin Sisters Hollow is located in the Susquehannock State Forest near Cross Forks on route 144, about 25 miles south of Coudersport. This location is only a few miles away from Ole Bull State Park, where a real-life Norwegian violinist built the castle that was Ms. Sutton's inspiration for the book The Clue in the Ruined Castle. In Twin Sisters Hollow on a small lake accessed by a trail that leads from the highway through the woods, stand the ruins of the Twin Sisters silver mine and smelter, built in the early 1600s by Frenchman Etienne Brule. This famed explorer is reputed to be the original coureur de bois, forest runner and fur trader/trapper, who first explored and helped to open up much of the Great Lakes regions of Canada and the USA.

Although Brule was friend and brother to almost all the Indians of the East and Midwest and had lived amongst them peacefully for many years, legend has it that he ran into some serious trouble in Twin Sisters Hollow. He and his band of men had struck silver and sunk a shaft into the hillside by the lonely little lake. They built a smelter and proceeded to mine the precious metal against the wishes of the local Susquehanna Indian tribe, who believed the hollow and its waters to be a sacred place. When the miners refused to stop their work, so goes the tale, the Indians attacked on the night of the October full moon in 1618, wounded and killed many of the men, and beheaded Brule. As a warning against further disturbances in the hollow, they placed his body with its head in its hands at the opening of the mine shaft.

Throughout the many years since then, scores of sightings have been reported of the ghost of Brule seen carrying his head and wandering aimlessly near the mine and along the Twin Sisters Trail leading to it, always and only on the night of the October full moon. Many of those who have seen The Headless Frenchman have sworn in their testimonies of some aspect of the apparition that is so horrible, so unthinkably macabre, so much so that none have ever been able to express this dreadful horror. So now, almost four hundred years later, it remains an unsolved mystery just what is the terrible secret of The Headless Frenchman.

So why didn't Margaret Sutton write a Judy Bolton mystery about this classic Potter County legend? Well, maybe she would have if the series had continued beyond book number 38. And Judy certainly would have solved the mystery, found out the secret of the headless ghost, something supposedly even more horrific than the fact that he carries his own head!

What could it be? Don't you kind of wonder? Darn, why wasn't that book ever written? Why didn't .... hey, why not try it out right here? Can't you just picture Judy and Peter and Honey and Horace when they were still teenagers in the 1930s stealing down the Twin Sisters Trail on the night of the October full moon in search of the ghost of the Headless Frenchman and its sinister secret? Can't you just hear Judy saying:


"  Ooh, this is so spooky! Will we or won't we see the ghost of the Headless Frenchman? I wonder!"

Peter Dobbs watched from behind as Judy led the way down the dark trail, her flashlight beam bobbing ahead. He grinned to himself in amusement. "There she goes again," he said in low tones to Horace and Honey behind him. "Judy, the 'I wonder' girl!" 

Honey sniffed loudly, showing apparent disdain. Her voice was shaky as she responded.  "You're telling me? And she just 'wondered' us into this terrifying place. Oh Horace, let's go back to the highway and sit in the car. I'm scared!"

Horace chuckled lightly. "Nonsense! No old headless ghost is going to scare me away. Don't worry, Peter and I are here to protect you. Besides, I want to get a picture of old Etienne Brule."

He pointed to his camera, slung around his neck with flashbulb in place and ready to pop. "If I get a picture of that old Frenchman, the paper will put it on the front page! Can't you see the headlines: THREE HUNDRED TWENTY YEAR OLD MYSTERY SOLVED? Finding out the Headless Frenchman's secret will be a big feather in my cap."

"If it doesn't scare us to death, you mean,"   Honey grumbled.

"Come on now, Honey," Judy sighed impatiently, playing around the light beam on the trunks of the towering trees. "What could possibly be so horrible? That's just part of the legend, the Secret. These tales get told over and over, generation after generation, and everybody adds their little dramatic touch. A ghost so scary no one can talk about it? If that's really true, wow, I want to see it!"

"Judy's right," Peter agreed. "It's scary enough just being in these woods looking for a ghost who's carrying his head. Surely somebody way-back-when made up the part about the Secret, and since then almost everybody else who claimed to see Brule just went along with it. That's called 'confabulation'."
 

"Humpphh!" snorted Horace. "I'd rather the Secret be real. I need a headline, a front-pager all over Pennsylvania. Maybe it'd even make the papers in Ohio and New York."

"You'll get a front-pager all right, Mr. Reporter,"   Honey shot back at him. "  But it'll be more like 'FARRINGDON TEENAGERS FOUND DEAD FROM FRIGHT IN STATE FOREST NEAR TWIN SISTERS HOLLOW'. That's what everybody will be reading!"

Judy smiled as she pulled her sweater closer around her neck. Good thing the night was pleasant, not cold and snowy like it could be in mid-October. It was a perfect night for ghost hunting! But she really didn't expect to see anything, not being a believer in ghosts. She'd already proved out a couple of them to be complete fakes. But this was one of the county's most famous legends and she had promised her friend Yaneeha to look into it. Yaneeha's ancestors were of the Susquehanna tribe and the girl did not believe the legend could be true.They had been peace-loving people and would not have attacked and killed the miners in such a manner, especially to behead a man. Judy had already solved several mysteries on her own, but never one that was three hundred and twenty years old. She was determined to get to the bottom of it!

"Oh lookit!" she suddenly blurted, her free hand clamping down on her chest in surprise as the flashlight beam snapped on to an object in the center of the trail ahead. "My goodness! It's a ... a ... a hand!"

"A man's hand!" Peter gasped, bumping into Judy as she stopped dead in her tracks. "Cut off at the wrist!"

Honey tried to stifle a scream, but it came out anyway sounding like the bleating of a goat.

"Shhhhh!" Horace soothed, placing his arm around her shoulders. "It can't be real. It's just some kind of prop or something."

"Sure looks real to me," Judy mused, training the light beam on the object. And it did indeed look like a real hand, one belonging to a large man.

Peter stooped down to see it better.

"Don't touch it!" Honey warned. "This is way too scary. Gosh, I've gotta ..."

Just then, at that very moment, from above and behind them came a great whooshing of air and a piercing cry that scared the bejabbers out of each one of them. They all gaped up in horror to see a great dark blur and the beating of wings as something, like some evil beast, swooped down to the trail, just missing Peter, and picked up the severed hand in a sharp beak illumined shakily by Judy's flashlight.

Then, with another screech and another swoosh, the dark creature was gone, up into the blackness of the trees.

"An owl!" Judy exclaimed.

"Or an eagle," rapped Horace.

"Right! A bird!" Honey cried. "And that was its food, I'll bet. It wasn't a man's hand, just a joint of some kind that the bird was eating earlier. He thought you were going to take it, Peter, when you stooped down to look."

"Must be," Peter agreed, now back up straight, having jumped up when the bird swooped down. "Maybe it was a coyote's paw. Those big birds can kill wolves and large dogs."

Horace's brows twisted in confusion. "It sure looked like a man's hand to me!"

Judy's heart was thumping from the fright. "I'll say it did!  Whew! That was scarier than seeing the Headless Frenchman himself."

"Oh ... oh ... oh I don't know about that!" Honey croaked out in a terrified voice, pointing ahead down the trail.  "Loooo ... oooo ... ooook!"

The others' eyes shot straight ahead. In the middle of the darkness beyond they could see a figure, like a man's, standing behind one of the trees along the trailside. He was peering at them, or at least it seemed he was trying to. He had no head on his shoulders, so he really couldn't have seen them no matter how hard he tried!

Judy shouted, "Hey you!" And she was off running, pinning the flashlight beam on the ghostly figure.

Horace was right behind her, readying his camera. But Honey was frozen to the spot, too frightened to move. Peter grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along as he rushed ahead.

Judy Bolton was sure the headless man was there. It couldn't be a trick or just her imagination. He was wearing buckskin clothes like Davy Crockett, like a frontiersman, and there definitely was no head on his shoulders. It made her skin prickle and she shivered. It had to be the ghost of the Frenchman Brule! And he was only twenty feet away!

Fifteen!

Now only ten!

And then, suddenly, he was gone.

Just like that, poof, totally gone!

"Where'd he go?" Horace demanded as they arrived at the tree the ghostly figure had been standing by.

Judy frowned in puzzlement, snapping her head this way and that, searching the dark woods with the flashlight beam. She realized she was trembling. This was sure scaring her. But it was exciting, too, and she forced a chuckle.

"He was there, all right," she insisted. "But, poof, then he was gone. These woods sure are haunted. But there has to be a logical explanation!"

"Yeeesh!"   Horace suddenly groaned in an especially grave tone. "I don't know about that, Judy!"   He pointed on down to the base of the tree. "For cryin' out loud, look at that!"

Judy glanced down to where the trunk met the ground and she stepped back in astonishment as the flashlight beam hovered there. She bumped into Peter and Honey who had just appeared.

"Good heavens!" she cried.

"Eeee ... eeeew!" Honey screeched, her eyes popped wide.

"My gosh!" Peter stammered. "It's a ... a ..."

"A heart!" Judy broke in with a gasp. "It's a human heart ... and it's beating!"

"Somebody tell me this isn't happening!" Honey shrilled, burying her face on Peter's shoulder.

Horace's flashbulb popped, its brilliance exploding in the darkness. "We'll find out if it's for real when we develop this picture!"

Judy had seen the end of the trail in the bright flash. "Come on, the hollow is just down there a bit. The ghost must have gone back to the mine. Let's go! We have to find out what's going on here!"

She ran ahead leading the way, the flashlight beam showing the old tree trunks on either side of them. Moments later, huffing and puffing, they ran out into the clearing of the hollow. The brilliant light of the full moon flooded the little valley and glittered off the smooth surface of the lake. The crumbling beams of the old smelter ruins glinted back the light and nearby was the old mine entrance, oddly illuminated by a hazy greenish glow.

Judy stopped and the others huddled around her as they gaped in disbelief at the entrance to the old silver mine. There, a figure began to materialize before their very eyes in the strange greenish glow.

It was a man, the same man they had seen moments ago on the trail, the man wearing the buckskin clothes. The man who didn't have a head. But they could all see clearly now that he was holding it in his arms!

"It's Etienne Brule, the Frenchman!"   Peter cried. "Jeez, he really is holding his head!"

"And just like the legend says,"   Judy put in breathlessly, "the apparition is even more horrible than only that!"

His hands trembling, Horace popped in another flashbulb and raised his camera. "You bet it is! He's missing one of his hands and where his heart should be is a ... a ... oh cripes! ... a ...."

Well, Judy Bolton fans, we'll just have to stop right there. After all, we can't reveal The Secret of the Headless Frenchman if the book was never actually written and Judy never figured out what was really going on in Twin Sisters Hollow on the night of the October full moon.

But it sure couldn't really be a ghost! We all know that, don't we?

Don't we?

JUDY BOLTON AUTHOR IN POTTER COUNTY Part 3

MARGARET SUTTON DAYS 1997 - 1998

Margaret Sutton signing a book for fan Joyce Wallner at the Coudersport
Senior Center in June of 1997.

Joyce Wallner in the country kitchen of the Dry Brook Hollow house, 1997.

One of the bridges over Dry Brook leading to the Dry Brook Hollow house.

In June of 1997 Margaret Sutton had come to Coudersport PA with a family member to speak at the Senior Citizen Center, as related in part 2 of this series of posts. This went over quite well. There was a nice crowd of fans and others who were interested, both children and adults, and Margaret spoke well for a person in her nineties. She talked about family life and her writing career and answered many questions put to her by the crowd. It was a very successful appearance.

After speaking, Margaret signed copies of the Judy Bolton books for fans, but her family member would allow her only to sign copies of the reprinted Applewood Judy Bolton books that were purchased right there at the Center that day. Signing of any other volumes was prohibited. Of course, Margaret did sign other books for fans she knew, but her companion was not happy with this. The push was to sell copies of the Applewood books.


These had been published a few years before and were facsimile copies of the original first editions - the first two books with dust jackets, and the last two books in the series, which were picture covers. I had personally met with Phil Zuckerman of Applewood Books at the Nancy Drew Conference at the University of Iowa in 1993 and planned for these books to be reproduced. I gave him the books to copy and hooked him up with Margaret Sutton to get her okay and take care of the business end of it.

Margaret was very happy to have these books back in print, especially the last two, Glowing Hand and Sand Castle, because they were pretty hard to find at that time and selling for hundreds of dollars each. Here were nice sturdy facsimile copies for under $20! She spoke about liking the new books and she also spoke about the 'illegal' copies printed by Aeonian/Amereon publishers on Long Island. She claimed that this publisher, whom she called 'the mad printer' did not have her permission to print her books. They were nice looking hardcover editions with facsimile interiors and sold for almost $30 each. She also claimed she was getting no royalties for them.


This company had contacted me trying to get copies of certain Chip Hilton books, hard to find and expensive, to reprint for lower priced selling. But I knew that the Chips were still copyright-protected and that the daughter of the author was updating the stories for publishing, and when I talked to her agent about this I was told definitely not to send Aeonian/Amereon copies. So I was not surprised when Margaret's family member said that they would walk to the very end of Long Island (where the publisher was located) to get the royalties due. Apparently they did, or took care of the business without having to do all that walking, because the next year when Margaret came to town again, the Aeonian/Amereon books were available for sale and signing at the library where she spoke. And they are still for sale to this day.


Margaret had been invited for breakfast the following morning at the Kerns' house in Odin PA, which is the Dry Brook Hollow house in the Judy Bolton books. This house sits in a hollow in the lovely PA mountains halfway between Coudersport (Farringdon) and Austin (Roulsville) in Potter County. Margaret was born in this house, built by her father in the 1890s, and she lived in it until she was nine years old. This was the first time she had visited there in all those years.

The Kerns cooked a wonderful breakfast for a select group of fans and friends and my friend Fred and I carried Margaret in a chair made of our linked hands about five-hundred feet from the end of the drive across two bridges that span Dry Brook (Freeman Run) and up the hill to the house. Margaret was in great shape at that time and it was easy to carry her even such a distance as that. She had a great time and enjoyed her visit to her childhood home. We were surprised to learn that Margaret, at her advanced age, had stayed in a campground the night before in a camper! Had we known, we all certainly would have chipped in to get her a nice comfortable motel room.


In June of 1998, Margaret again returned to Coudersport, this time to speak at the Coudersport library. She was accompanied by all her children, all middle-aged adults. Again she did signing, but only the books that were purchased there at the library that day. Applewood editions and the Aeonian/Amereon editions were available. Beautiful reproduction dust jackets had been added to the Aeonian/Amereon editions, and they were hard to resist. I bought about a dozen of them myself, they were so attractive. These books can still be purchased with the repro DJs through ads in The Whispered Watchword and other series book fanzines.

However, Margaret's speech turned into a disaster. It was apparent almost immediately that her health and mind had failed quite a bit during the year since we had seen her last, and she could not concentrate on the topics she wanted to speak about. She kept going off on strange tangents and had to be prodded back on track by her kids several times. At one point she was particularly addressing a group of children sitting on the floor at her feet, and she was telling them and all the others how she had to entertain her husband's girlfriend at home years ago, and even cook for her. This riled up her kids, of course, and they tried to get her to change the subject, but Margaret was determined to tell everyone about it and continued with some really juicy tidbits until her children actually put an end to her speaking.

It was sad. It was obvious that Margaret was failing and that she was no longer fit to be speaking in public. Her children most probably didn't know this because none of them lived near the PA nursing home and may not have seen much of her in the last year to know that she had gotten so bad. It was the last time she appeared in public. Fans continued to visit her at the nursing home for a couple more years until she got too sick to have visitors, and she then passed away in 2001 at the age of 98. A memorial service was held in Coudersport for her on the Judy Bolton Day that October.

JUDY BOLTON AUTHOR IN POTTER COUNTY Part 2

MARGARET SUTTON DAYS 1996-1997-1998

In June of 1996 the first Margaret Sutton Day was held in Coudersport PA by the Potter County Educational Council in conjunction with Adelphia Communications, at that time the third largest cable company in the country and headquartered in Coudersport. I did not attend this event because I couldn't get away from work, but many members of the Judy Bolton Society and the Phantom Friends did, even though Margaret herself was not in attendance.

The main event was a reenactment of Judy and Peter's 'rainbow' wedding on the lawns of the Judge Lewis house, the Victorian mansion used in the books as the Farringdon-Pett mansion. This was the 50th Anniversary of the wedding which took place in the 1946 book The Rainbow Riddle.
Reverend Bob Merten, Margaret Sutton's friend and personal assistant to John Rigas, the billionaire CEO of Adelphia Communications, officiated at the ceremony. A cast of local young people played Judy and Peter and the members of the bridal party, and the bridesmaids wore gowns representing the colors of the rainbow, as did Judy's bridesmaids in the book.

This was a significant and well-attended event. Judy Bolton had by now become a civic pride icon in Potter County. The annual Judy Bolton Day weekends held in October were reported on in the local newspapers and radio stations; the mural depicting Judy Bolton characters, settings, and the books themselves had been painted in the Austin school cafeteria via a state grant; and all the county students had  been reading the Judy Bolton books as part of their curriculum for several years now. The beautiful mountainous and forested Potter County had been known for decades as God's Country. Now it was also being called 'Judy Bolton Country'.

A similar event was planned for the following year and it was hoped that Margaret herself could come to town to speak. She had come a couple years before to speak at the Austin School (Austin being Roulsville), when the mural had been completed. At the time, the mid-nineties, Margaret was living in a nursery home at nearby Williamsport PA, a couple hours drive away. Reverend Merten and several of the fans visited her there on a regular basis. It was not known if her children, all grown adults who lived at various places around the country, attended to her there. When she came to speak at the school, Adelphia was in charge of it.

Thus, we were happily surprised to hear the following spring of 1997 that Margaret Sutton Day would again be held in June and that Margaret herself would be there to speak at the Senior Citizen Center, accompanied by one of her children. We all looked forward to this because we did not know any of the family.

What a surprise we were in for!

When we met in Coudersport that June of 1997  Margaret Sutton was indeed there, accompanied by her family member. This person's attitude toward us fans was bossy, rude, and obviously with the notion that we were were somehow using Margaret to our advantage. We were told to stay away from Margaret, not to sit at table with her, not to take photos of her while she was drinking (water!). Some of us were also accused of being in cahoots with John Rigas of Adelphia, who had been forbidden by this person to attend any of the events even though his company was helping to sponsor them. Also we learned that Reverend Merten was banned from attending because it was believed that he had been trying to get Margaret to marry him so that he could get control of her copyrights (Judy Bolton and others) for Adelphia.

This was all pretty shocking to us and some of us did not take kindly to this rude treatment and the accusations. We had been good friends to Margaret, promoted the Judy Bolton books at our own expense, and had no iterest in making money from it. Margaret herself did not seem to be aware of any of this going on. She was into her nineties by then and we did not have the close access to her we used to have to quiz her about it. It was like she was being guarded!

We didn't know what her family had heard to give them such ideas. It was true that Adelphia had been looking into making Judy Bolton movies for their cable system, or so they had told us. We had put together two complete sets of Judy Bolton books for Mr. Rigas and his daughter, who ran a family entertainment company in New York City. They received these books at our expense and at that time it was very expensive to put together complete sets of the Judy Bolton books.

We had no one to ask 'What happened?" for we did not see Mr. Rigas that weekend. We did see Reverend Merten, however. He came to visit us at the hotel and showed us the typed letter he had received accusing him of trying to marry Margaret in order to control her copyrights and forbidding him to see her again. He was very upset about it and even he did not know how any of this had come about. All we could figure is that someone had told family members that Adelphia was trying to exploit Margaret, and they had acted upon it by forbidding the company access to her.

This development soured several of the fans in attendance to Judy Bolton collecting, and a couple did not come back ever again. Imagine being bitched at and accused of wrongdoing in front of everyone attending. We had done nothing but positive things for both Judy Bolton and Margaret Sutton, and it cost us money - we did not profit. We donated over 300 Judy Bolton books to the county schools and library so that the students could read them in class and at home. We got the first two and last two Judys back in print by hooking Margaret up with Applewood Books, and supplying them with the books to copy. Thus the Judy Bolton books were back in the bookstores all over the country, Borders and Barnes and Noble among them. This paved the way for the complete series being reprinted recently by Applewood Books.

The whole thing was very annoying, but most of us managed to ignore it as well as we could and enjoy ourselves anyway. More about this memorable weekend in part 3 of this series of posts...

The Judge Lewis house in Coudersport, better known to Judy Bolton fans
as the Farringdon-Pett mansion. It is here that the 50th Anniversary of Judy's
wedding was celebrated. The waterway in the front is the very beginnings of
the Allegheny River.

Click HERE for Part 3

JUDY BOLTON AUTHOR IN POTTER COUNTY Part 1

MARGARET SUTTON RETURNS TO COUDERSPORT PA!

Prosperous and lovely 'Coudy' high in the PA mountains.

Mike's warning on the window to let friends know
he's checked in the motel!

Margaret Sutton first returned to Coudersport in 1986 with some of the
members of the newly formed Phantom Friends.
(Click image to enlarge for reading. Then click URL at bottom left of image to enlarge further.)

Below is a page from Jupiter's Girl, Margaret's unpublished autobiography. It shows the Dry Brook Hollow house, the Smeed farm, as it originally looked with the two front doors. Margaret was born here and she returned for a visit in 1997, which you can read about in part 3 of this series of posts.

Click to enlarge for reading!

click HERE for Part 2

THE SECOND ANNUAL JUDY BOLTON DAY 1992

JUDY BOLTON DAY 1992

The following article about Judy Bolton Day weekend 1992 by Joe Slavin appeared in the December 1993 JUDY BOLTON SOCIETY NEWSLETTER. Click on images to enlarge for reading.

Joyce Wallner, Fred Batich, John Rotello, Mike DeBaptiste, Lorraine Rogers,
Diana McInerney, and Margie and Bob Kerns - 2nd Annual Judy Bolton Day 1992.

The Haunted Attic house in Coudersport PA - Judy's house in Farringdon.

Mike's 1981 El Camino parked on the road in front of the Dry Brook Hollow house
in Odin PA. This here is Dry Brook Hollow!

JUDY BOLTON COUNTRY LEGENDS



Judy Bolton fans at the house on Denton Hill from The Voice in the Suitcase.
Left to right: Isabella Ganz, Eleanor (Margaret Sutton's daughter), Mike DeBaptiste, and Garrett Lothe, publisher of Susabella Passengers and Friends, a popular series books fanzine.



Judy Bolton Country, Kidnapping Mystery:
The Mystery of the Boy from Denton Hill

 
A DEATHBED STORY CLEARS UP MYSTERY AFTER 40 YEARS!

Potter County and its surrounding area, the location of the Judy Bolton mystery stories, located in north-central Pennsylvania, is an area rich in old mysteries and legends. Some were used as themes in the Judy Bolton books, like The Clue in the Ruined Castle, which is based on a real castle built in Potter County by a world-famous Swedish violin player named Ole Bull (that's O-ley). Much of the legend was used in the book as fodder for the story.

But there are hundreds of amazing legends and mysteries from this area that were not used in the Judys, and one of them is this story from an article in a Buffalo NY newspaper from 1919.


MAN SAID TO HAVE CONFESSED TO KIDNAPPING A BOY NEAR COUDERSPORT IN 1878.

Coudersport Pa., January 12, 1919: A mystery of forty years standing that has puzzled succeeding Potter County generations may be cleared up through the story told by Reuben Daniels, a carpenter. Daniels declares that John Nesbit made a deathbed confession to him that he kidnapped Henry Schall, the three-year old son of Mr. and Mrs. John Schall of Denton Hill, near Coudersport, on October 7, 1878 and turned him over to a rich New York man for $500.

John Schall of Bradford, Pa., father of the kidnapped boy, came here yesterday to hear from Daniels' own lips the story of the kidnapping as related to Daniels by Nesbit. Nesbit, it seems, was taken ill several years ago and, thinking he was about to die, told the story to Daniels. However, Nesbit later recovered and sought out Daniels and secured a renewal of the promise that Daniels would not tell what had become of the Schall boy until after Nesbit's death. It was only last week that Daniels learned by chance that Nesbit had died four years ago and thereupon he lost no time in communicating with a friend of the Schall family and through this friend informed Mr. Schall of what he had learned.

Henry Schall's kidnapping was impressed upon the minds of the people of the country by the fact that for days after the event hundreds of men searched the dense woods in Potter County. It was believed that he might have been carried off by a wild animal. The search proved fruitless and was finally called off, but not until a suspicion had been awakened that John Nesbit knew more than he was willing to tell. Threats were made against Nesbit, but he never admitted knowledge of the boy's disppearance and no crime would ever be traced to his door.

According to Nesbit's alleged confession, however, he was approached early in October, 1878, by a wealthy New York man who offered him $500 if he would sieze the Schall boy and deliver him to the man making the offer at Elkland, Pa., some sixty miles away. Nesbit owed William Perkins $500 at the time, and had no means to pay the sum. He yielded to temptation and consented to the bargain.

The New Yorker had been one of a party of wild pigeon shooters who had come into the vicinity of the Schall home the preceding June. He was struck by the resemblance of the Schall boy to a child of his own who had died. He tried to persuade Mr. Schall to let him have the boy to bring up as his own son. Mr. Schall refused, and the man left. After the kidnapping, Mr. Schall thought of the New York man in connection with the case. He did not know the man's name; there were no railroads within forty miles, and Schall was poor and did not follow up the clue.

Nesbit told Daniels at the time of his confession that he had since seen Henry Schall; that the latter had grown into manhood believing himself to be the son of the wealthy New Yorker, and had inherited a fortune from his supposed father at the latter's death. Nesbit gave Daniels this man's name and Daniels wrote it down in a book, which has now been mislaid, although Daniels believes that he will be able to find it.

The Schalls left their Potter County home on Denton Hill a few years ago for Bradford, Pa., and Mrs. Schall has since died. She believed to the very end that her son was still alive, and that some time she might hear from him. She died with her expectation unsatisfied.

This dramatic story has a particular connection to the Judy Bolton books via the Schall's house on Denton Hill. One of Margaret Sutton's relatives owned a house on Denton Hill, a small mountaintop community near 'Dry Brook Hollow' (Odin, PA), and it was used as Selma Brady's grandmother's house in The Voice in the Suitcase. Judy fans visit the house, which is now used as a hunting lodge, almost every year when they meet in Potter County for Judy Bolton Day.

This story would be a great basis for a Judy Bolton mystery and perhaps Margaret would have eventually used it had the the series been allowed to continue. One can easily picture Judy sifting back through the years for clues to find out what happened to the missing child, perhaps concluding that he was now a grown man she knew in New York from her days spent there with Irene and Dale Meredith.

There are endless possibilities, and there could have been dozens more Judy Bolton books based on Potter County legends and mysteries alone. This is only one of them, The Mystery of the Boy from Denton Hill.



FIRST JUDY BOLTON DAY 1991 *PHOTOS 2*

more JUDY BOLTON DAY PHOTOS 1991

Judy Bolton fans on the North Hollow Road, photographing the meadow that leads to the Dry Brook Hollow house, the old Smeed Farm.

The wall of deer inside the Dry Brook Hollow house.

Mike DeBaptiste in Potter County Courthouse, used as a site in The Pledge of the Twin Knights.

Mike with Ann Creamer and daughter Meg outside the Potter County Courthouse.

The swimming pool in Sizerville State park, used as a site in The Voice in the Suitcase.

Lorraine Rogers with Mike DeBaptiste and Joyce Wallner in Dry Brook Hollow (Odin PA).

Ruins of the Austin Dam, used as the Roulsville Dam in The Vanishing Shadow,

John Rotello and Mike DeBaptiste completing a book sale outside the Laurelwood Motel.

Lorraine Rogers and Mike DeBaptiste speak at assembly in Austin PA (Roulsville) Firehouse.

Lorraine and Mike with Peg Rotello in Austin Firehouse.

Host John Rigas of Adelphia Communications talks to Judy fans Meg Creamer, Lorraine Rogers, Diana McInerney, and Rosemarie DiCristo at Saturday evening banquet at the Crittenden Hotel in Coudersport PA.

FIRST JUDY BOLTON DAY 1991 * PHOTOS*

JUDY BOLTON DAY PHOTOS 1991

• Here are some photos from the first Judy Bolton Day weekend held in Coudersport PA in 1991. You can click on the photos to enlarge.

                                           

Bucolic scene in front of the Dry Brook Hollow house

                                         

The Farringdon -Pett mansion along the banks of the Allegheny River

                                         

Meadows next to the Dry Brook Hollow house, the old Smeed Farm.

                                         

Joe Slavin, Rosemarie DiCristo, Lorraine Rogers, Meg and Ann Creamer, Joyce Wallner, Mike DeBaptiste, and Diana McInerney on the front porch of the Farringdon-Pett mansion (the Judge Lewis house).

                                         

Joyce Wallner and Mike DeBaptiste in front of the Laurelwood Motel.

                                 

Jack Sharpe, Joyce Wallner, Mike DeBaptiste, Lorraine Rogers, and Rosemarie DiCristo gather in front of the Laurelwood Motel on Saturday morning to begin their first annual tour of Judy Bolton sites.

                               



Judy Bolton fans Joe Slavin, Mike DeBaptiste, Ann and Meg Creamer, Lorraine Rogers, and Diana McInerney in Potter County PA for the first annual Judy Bolton Day weekend in October 1991.

                                

more photos to come..........

FIRST JUDY BOLTON DAY 1991 (Part 2)

THE FIRST ANNUAL JUDY BOLTON DAY WEEKEND 1991


Regardless of what some others may be claiming, this was the first actual Judy Bolton Day weekend get-together in October 1991. Some of us had been there the year before searching out sites and laying the groundwork for future visits, but it was a different time of year and it wasn't an 'official' event. At this point, we were still representing the Phantom Friends, which is why the name is used in the article which appeared in several fanzines in 1992, including The Judy Bolton Society newsletter. Click on the images for reading!

This year's event, 2014, will be the 24th annual Judy Bolton Day weekend, not the 15th, as some are claiming.

JUDY BOLTON-LIKE ADULT MYSTERY SERIES

THE FOXGLOVE CORNERS MYSTERY SERIES
by Dorothy Bodoin


This adult cozy mystery series of sixteen books by Michigan writer Dorothy Bodoin is very much like the Judy Bolton Mystery series by Margaret Sutton; any Judy Bolton fan or juvenile girls mystery fan is sure to love it. The series features Jennet Greenway as its heroine. She is a school teacher in a suburban Detroit high school and lives in a country area an hour north of the city dotted with lovely lakes and forests. Within it lies Foxglove Corners, an out-of-the-way neighborhood of Victorian homes and thick mysterious woods that yields far more than its fair share of mystery and suspense. It's a magical place, like Judy Bolton's Potter County PA, and like Potter County, it has a real-place alter-ego, Metamora, Michigan.

The Judy Bolton books are sometimes mentioned in the Foxglove Corners books. In the first book, Darkness at Foxglove Corners, Jennet moves into her new house at Foxglove Corners and buys herself a housewarming gift - a first edition copy of The Haunted Attic, Judy Bolton #2, at a nearby antique store. In the sixth book in the series, my special favorite, The Snow Dogs of Lost Lake, it is Christmas time, and Jennet buys herself a copy of The Secret of the Musical Tree, Judy Bolton #19, a Christmas mystery, at her favorite antique store.


The books are also similar to the Judy Boltons insofar as the mysteries are very cozy, usually concern friends and acquaintances, and they are constructed with eerie and magical plots, very much like the Judy Bolton books. Jennet also meets the man of her dreams in the series, Deputy Sheriff Crane Ferguson, and a relationship develops with him throughout the books. These books also feature dogs as important characters, usually collies, and Jennet has her own personal pet collie named Halley.


The titles are:


DARKNESS AT FOXGLOVE CORNERS
CRY FOR THE FOX
WINTER'S TALE
A SHORTCUT THROUGH THE SHADOWS
THE WITCHES OF FOXGLOVE CORNERS
THE SNOW DOGS OF LOST LAKE
THE COLLIE CONNECTION
A TIME OF STORMS
THE DOG FROM THE SKY
SPIRIT OF THE SEASON
ANOTHER PART OF THE FOREST
WHERE HAVE ALL THE DOGS GONE?
THE SECRET ROOM OF EIDT HOUSE
FOLLOW A SHADOW
THE SNOW QUEEN'S COLLIE
THE DOOR IN THE FOG

 In this terrific mystery, Jennet's house in town is destroyed by a tornado and she moves into her dream home in Foxglove Corners out in the country an hour north of the suburbs. It offers her bucolic peace and a new romance with a handsome lawman. But there is a secret in the old yellow Victorian house down the lane that threatens her new life when murderous revelations in an old tornado-tossed journal put an evil plan of revenge and terror into motion.

This is my personal favorite and a very special book. It is Christmas time and Jennet is warming up to a happy holiday season, finally meeting her boyfriend Crane's family from down south. But a chance encounter in a snowstorm at nearby Lost Lake with three ghostly white collies pulls her into a mystery about the legend of 'the snow dogs of Lost Lake', ghost dogs whose sightings are said to be harbingers of bad things to come. When murders in the snowy woods begin to accompany the sightings of the ghost dogs, and Jennet stumbles upon a mysterious painting of the very same dogs in an antique shop, she knows she has to get to the bottom of the eerie mystery no matter what dangers she may have to face.


Some of these books were originally published by Hilliard and/or Five Star and are now listed on online sites for very high prices, often $100 or more. Even the current editions by Wings ePress are listed at very high prices on some sites. You don't have to pay the high prices.


All of the Foxglove Corners books are now available directly from the new publisher Wings ePress for a reasonable price ($11.95 or $12.95) plus shipping. They are beautiful trade size paperbacks and promptly arrive in the mail within a few days. They are also available as ebooks in various formats at half the book price.


The website is http://www.wings-press.com/


Ms. Bodoin also has written other mysteries which are not part of the Foxglove Corners series. These are similar cozy mysteries usually set in and around the same Michigan area, often with ties of some sort to the Foxglove Corners stories. One of her specialties is winter cozies and the Foxglove Corners series has a few great ones. Among the standalones, Snowhedge and A Shadow on the Snow will really get you gettin' all comfy and cozy. Others are The Cameo Clue, Love Deadly Love, Ghost Across the Water, and Secret for a Satyr. Most of these titles are available in mass market paperbacks by World (Harlequin mystery) on eBay and Amazon for low reasonable prices.


You can read more about Dorothy Bodoin and her books, including complete first chapters, at her website:


www.dorothybodoin.com


Don't miss out on these books! They are terrific!

FIRST JUDY BOLTON DAY 1991

JUDY BOLTON DAY 1991

This is the news article from the local Coudersport newspaper announcing the first annual Judy Bolton Day fan get-together in Coudersport PA in 1991. This year, 2014, will mark the 24th annual convening of fans of the mystery series by Margaret Sutton. Judy Bolton fans have met every year since 1991 in early October for a festive fun-filled weekend in the beautiful PA mountains, visiting Judy Bolton sites and the people who live in and around them.



Judy Bolton Day is a Judy Bolton Fans event. Formal visits and events have taken place each year since 1991, sponsored throughout the 1990s by Adelphia Cable Company, which was headquartered in Coudersport, and the Potter County Chamber of Commerce.

Some of the fans who go there now have taken claim to the inception of the event and count the years only since 2000 when they first came. They claim that nothing had been going on there before they first came. The truth is, everything they do from the hotel they stay in to the places they eat dinner to the sites they visit were in effect long before they ever came. These articles are proof of that. Our visits during the 1990s were real. LOL! Yes, we were really there. We even took Margaret Sutton back to the place of her birth, the Dry Brook Hollow house, in 1998, for a late morning brunch.

The first year this group attended there was a Judy Bolton Day parade in town, and a Halloween-themed square dance sponsored by Adelphia like the one in the Judy Bolton book The Haunted Road. I would call these 'formal' events and there just is no reason for the continual claim that nothing was going on before they came there and started things.

                                  Click on to enlarge for reading.

JUDY BOLTON GRADUATION PHOTOS

Judy Bolton HIGH SCHOOL Graduation Photos

These photographs sit atop a piano in an old farmhouse in Potter County PA near Coudersport, the real location of 'Farringdon' in the Judy Bolton Mystery series books. They are from the early 1940s and highly resemble what the main characters in the books would have looked like in that era - Judy Bolton, the main character, of course, her brother Horace, Arthur Farringdon-Pett, and Peter Dobbs, the fellow Judy eventually marries.

Judy Bolton fans visit this house every year on Judy Bolton Day weekend and marvel over these likenesses, who are family members of those who live in the house. The house itself also has a real Judy Bolton association: the father of Margaret Sutton, author of the Judy Bolton books, helped to build the house and also built some of the furniture still used in the house.

Judy, Horace, Arthur, and Peter!

JUDY BOLTON AUTHOR SHORT STORY

TWICE HAUNTED by Margaret Sutton

This spooky short story was serialized in SWEET SIXTEEN Magazine for Girls in late 1946 and early 1947.


THE COMPLETE TEXT WILL BE POSTED HERE SOON!


 "When the twins planned a vacation to New York, they didn't plan to spend it with a mystery!"

                                  click to enlarge

JUDY BOLTON SNOW MANSION

JUDY BOLTON'S FARRINGDON-PETT MANSION IN WINTER

This shows the Judge Lewis House in Coudersport PA, which was used as the Farringdon-Pett mansion in the Judy Bolton Mystery Series by Margaret Sutton, who grew up in the northern PA town. The house is visited yearly by fans on the annual Judy Bolton Day held in early October, and it is currently being renovated into a Bed and Breakfast Inn, hopefully ready to accomodate guests soon.

This fabulous Victorian red brick home is located on Route 6 North just east of the town center, and it is one of the few remaining homes of its type in the northern tier of the state, most of them built in the late 1800s by the local tycoon lumber barons.

(click on photo to enlarge)

NANCY DREW/JUDY BOLTON CONNECTION

                                 Click on image to enlarge for reading.

Harriet Adams, better known to Nancy Drew fans as Carolyn Keene, is pictured here as one of the founders of The Women's Club of Maplewood NJ being honored at a special luncheon back in 1981. She is posing with Mrs. Alfred Merten, who was the mother of Reverend Bob Merten, a minister in Coudersport PA during the 1990s. Bob became very good friends during those years with Margaret Sutton, author of the Judy Bolton books, a series similar to Nancy Drew. She was living at the time in a nearby retirement/nursing home.



This newspaper article is an example of how oddly people and situations can be connected. Reverend Bob's mother was a friend and associate of Harriet Adams, who was Carolyn Keene and wrote/produced the Nancy Drew books, and Bob himself was a dear friend of Margaret Sutton who wrote the Judy Bolton books.

The Reverend Bob Merten (right) with Mike DeBaptiste, co-founder of the annual Judy Bolton Day in Coudersport PA, on Judy Bolton Day 1998.


(click on photos to enlarge)

Judy Bolton Author Suicide Attempt

Please click on article to enlarge for reading. This June 25, 1934 article about Margaret Sutton's suicide attempt on the Manhattan Bridge is available on the New York Times archives website, and it is on display at the Potter County Historical Society in Coudersport PA, the town in which Margaret Sutton grew up (her real name was Rachel Beebe) and where she placed the setting of the Judy Bolton books, recasting the town as 'Farringdon'.