On “Fright Night” Friday between 8 p.m. and midnight on WPSU-FM, we’ll bring you a soundscape of ghost stories and music for Halloween. Some of those stories come from central Pennsylvania. They will be told by Local Historia from Bellefonte.
We’ll bring you one of those chilling tales from Blair County in this story, as produced for Fright Night. So you will want to listen to the audio if you can instead of reading it.
“Local Historia is a passion for local history, community and preservation,” Matt Maris said. He’s the founder of Local Historia and a history teacher in Bellefonte.
“It’s almost like an obsessiveness with finding and researching local history. And that is really rewarding when you do find what your looking for,” Maris said.
Maris always had an interest in history. After all, he has a masters degree in the subject. But he says he feels particularly drawn to local history.
“I loved history growing up, but it took me awhile to realize that I really love local history, and just learning history from the bottom up," Maris said. "And we feel that local history is a great way to connect with it and experience it, and not just read about it in a book — which is great, too — but go to it, explore it.”
One of the ways Local Historia helps locals explore history is by hosting walking tours in many central Pennsylvania communities.
“We span several counties now,” said Dustin Elder, co-owner of Local Historia with Maris.
“We have some folks who work with us and do historical walking tours in Altoona, based on the Civil War and World War II. Some tours in Philipsburg and Boalsburg. Matt is really an expert at the Bellefonte area, and does a lot of walking tours in Bellefonte," Elder said. "I’m from Tyrone, Pennsylvania, so I have a Civil War tour and a Tyrone history tour – general history. So we’ve really tried to gather up as many local history stories as we can possibly remember.”
Elder, like Maris, was a history teacher, and the two once taught high school together in Bellefonte.
“Where we became close friends and associates," Elder said. "And then I went on to teach at Tyrone before leaving the realm of high school education. But it coincided really well with Matt bringing me on to do Local Historia where I can kind of scratch that local history itch.”
Now the two are partners in sharing local history with the public.
“I eventually joined Matt, and we started to collaborate, and create more walking tours," Elder said. "And then we expanded into some media, and some YouTube stuff, ghost tours, and the 'Spooky Speakeasy' type things. All sorts of events. And then into, of course, television.”
Elder and Maris have already filmed two programs with WPSU-TV in a TV series named for their enterprise. The most recent program in "Journeys with Local Historia" focused on a legendary Pennsylvania outlaw named David Lewis.
Last weekend, Local Historia celebrated Halloween with an event in Bellefonte that featured spooky stories from central Pennsylvania. We’ll bring you one of those stories now, as told by Dustin Elder and produced by WPSU. It’s one of the stories that will be featured tonight on WPSU’s Halloween special, “Fright Night.”
“One of the most common tropes in ghost stories, and in local folklore are tales of ladies in white. Many listeners will have stories from their own communities of tragic women who died on their wedding night, in their wedding gown, and never got to see the altar. Or they died on their honeymoon right after their wedding. Some sort of tragedy befalls them, and they, for whatever reason, can’t move on.”
“In the community that I was raised in, I was brought up on this story: the story of Sylvia of Janesville Pike. What’s interesting about Sylvia is that there are many iterations of her story. It almost seems like each generation has their own version of the events. And the more recent generations have ways to potentially summon her, and bring her back.”
“So Sylvia, from what we can gather, was tragically killed on her wedding day. She was on her way up Janesville Pike in Tyrone, Pennsylvania after her wedding. She was traveling up over toward Glendale to go on a honeymoon with her husband when her car careened off the side of a cliff. And when authorities arrived and went down to check the scene of the accident, the husband was gone, as if he’d never been in the car. And Sylvia was there -- dead. With her head clean off.”
“A heartbreaking story: this young life cut off. And we don’t know what happened to her husband. Where did he go?”
“Years later, travelers travelling up over Janesville Pike noticed a figure walking down the side of the road. Some say that the initial traveler stopped and talked to this figure. Others say it would just glide right past your car as you’re driving up over the mountain.”
“But nobody knew where this came from until some locals made the connection of ‘This has to be poor Sylvia, who died on Janesville Pike.'”
“And so, as the years go by, youths, as they do, get curious. ‘You know, we want to see Sylvia. We can’t just have this myth floating around Janesville Pike. We need to get some evidence. We need to go find her.’”
“And so today, you travel to the bottom of Janesville Pike. And you light a candle. And then you drive to the top. And you light another candle. And you say her name three times into the hillside: ‘Sylvia, Sylvia, Sylvia.’ And then you travel back down Janesville Pike and supposedly she’ll make an appearance on her way down, if the light is just right, and you’re by yourself, and it’s dark. But that’s Sylvia. And she’s still there.”
You’ll hear this story and many others, along with an eclectic mix of spooky tunes on WPSU’s Fright Night, Friday from 8 p.m. to midnight on WPSU-FM.
