Ghost Excavator: Unearthing the Drama in the Mine Fields

By John G Sabol Jr.

This book is a ghost story, meant to be read on cold, dark, windy, and snow-covered wintry nights. These are not traditional tales of haunted houses, but rather are personal narratives of cultural hauntings of long forgotten histories of ethnic struggles, and Native American beliefs. It is an image of a landscape (and its people) that goes far deeper than the mere surface manifestations of ruined and abandoned structures, and the bits and pieces of broken dreams and aspirations. This is a different kind of embedded narrative. It is an excavation that penetrates to the very heart of ghostly drama.

Experiences, conceptualized as a form of haunting, provide a framework for the recall of various incidents of personal memory and emotional resonance at specific places. This serves two purposes:

It creates a personal landscape characterized by elements of spookiness (once dense forests, abandoned structures and mineshafts, coal patches); uncertainities that result in episodic haunting dramas (the socioeconomic impact of ethnic migrations); and ghostly presences (interpretations of these ethnic groups as a response to their physical surroundings);

It provides a framework (in the 2nd part) for the analysis of other similiar haunted landscapes. A methodology is used that incorporates techniques derived from archaeology, ethnography, and performance studies. In doing so, it introduces a new multidisciplinary research methodology called Ethnoarchaeoghostology.

This book is a dedicatory salute, however humble, to the achievements and daily struggles of those who came before to inhabit this Mahanoy Area. These hauntings fill-in the blank spaces between the words in historical narratives, and thus gives the reader a different image of events in local and regional social histories. In doing so, they show that greatness is not measured by the content of what we do, but how, on a daily basis, we do it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 22, 2007
• ISBN: 9781467083898

John G Sabol Jr.

Born and raised in Mahanoy City, the “heart” of the Mahanoy Area, John Sabol left for college in the late 1960’s and did not return to the area until 1992. In the interim, he has been participating in, and directing scientific field investigations (in archaeology, ethnography, folklore, historical, and ghost research) since 1969, where he worked at the archaeological excavations at Wolvesey Palace, in Winchester, England. It was at Winchester where he also had his first paranormal experience. He has also been an actor, appearing in more than 35 movies, tv shows, “soaps”, and commercials. He has also taught at various universities in Mexico for more than 11 years. He has written numerous articles, and has published in various scientific journals, among them Tennessee Anthropologist, and the Ft. Meade Archaeological Research Center. He has a M.A. in Anthropology, and a B.A. in Sociology. He is currently approved as an adjunct professor of Anthropology at Harrisburg Area Community College in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He currently resides in Mahanoy City with his daughter Melissa, and his two lady friends, Lacy (a dog), and Tazia (a cat).

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© 2009 John G Sabol Jr.. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 1/7/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4343-0783-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-8389-8 (e)

Cover photograph by Troy M. Hunter

Library of Congress Control Number: 2007902870

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Contents

Preamble to a Trek Through a Landscape of Symbolic Imagery

Dedication

The Wilderness of Excavated Haunted Landscapes

Ghosts and Haunting Phenomena: A Review and Analysis

The Archaeology of Hauntings

The Excavation of the Drama (Enclosed Space Application)

The Ethnography of Haunting Phenomena

Appendix I: Evidential Protocols

Appendix II: Typology of

Ethnoarchaeoghostological Sites

Appendix III: Levels of Morphic Resonance (Contextual Discontinuity)

Bibliography

Ghost Excavator: Unearthing the Drama of Life

About the Author

Preamble to a Trek Through a Landscape of Symbolic Imagery

In this region of black and grey, amid the grime of coal dust, soot, culm banks, and abandoned skeletal structures, the ghosts stand out, especially in the snow. There is a certain transparency here. Everything is black and white, a reversed haunted universe: these ghosts are darkened shapes, the product of underground struggles brought to light at the surface. Here, they are easily seen, and distinguishable. Their routes and roots are clearly marked. Blood-stained pathways, leading from the daily toils in the mines, are visible throughout the region. They make no color distinctions. In this liminal world, they are all variations of an ethnic red. This

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Mahanoy Area Pennsylvania

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Old Patches of Mahanoy Township

Walter L. Dinteman, in his

Viewing these decaying ruins, isolated in their tranquil mountain surroundings, one can easily visualize the activity in a not too distant past, of the hard lives of the men, their families, the stables of mules spending their entire lives underground, the legend of the Molly Maguires, the strikebreakers, and people really getting their heads bashed in. (1995:5)

These visual elements, framed in historical context, are the very essence of traditional ghost stories, and they form the basis for this excavation of the Mahanoy Area haunted landscape, one that begins in the mines, and continues into the mind….and back to the past.

Yet, the Mahanoy Area landscape had, long before the great migrations brought on by the European discovery of coal, two elements that contributed to the spookiness of the area, and the basis for these ghost stories. It was the unspoken silences of the natural soundscapes in the then virgin forests, and the recurring winter snows.

Though the quiet deep of solitude reigned in that vast and nearly boundless forest, nature was speaking with her thousand tongues, in the eloquent language of night in a wilderness. The air sighed through ten thousand trees, the water rippled….and now and then was heard the creaking of a branch, or a trunk, as it rubbed against some object similar to itself….

Did the forest create sounds that later were interpreted as forest spirits?

When winter came, these forests were transformed into still more ghost-like images, sounds, and forms:

In wintertime, the stillness, the absence of life or sound is weird and oppressive. When the snow is on the ground, you may perceive the footprints of animals, of birds, of deer….but you hear no sound, not a cry, not a whisper, not a rustle of a leaf.

And you don’t hear the ghosts walking out of the mines. Only their blood-stained prints, a memory of their passing, is visible in the snow. And that is the reason why the ghosts are more visible here. It is because they are dark shapes, in contrast to the white snow, coming from the coal dust in the mines.

Finally, the last natural ingredient for these ghost stories was the nighttime in this landscape, and experiences at night are two major themes of my childhood excursions into this haunted landscape. It is at night that our other senses become more acute, as our visual perception diminishes. Hearing awareness is particularly amplified. The perceptual night of working in the mines, with the odd sounds coming out of the darkness just beyond the miner’s oil lamp, contributed to the growth of these ghost stories. Ghosts are also natural inhabitants of the nocturnal environment on the surface, since they are accoustomed to the darkness, as they venture forth from the mine shafts. Night is when we remember those who are no longer physically here, and what we have lost and forgotten. This anthracite region of the Mahanoy Area is one such night country, where many of the events and activities of the past have been lost by many who live here.

Perhaps, these ghosts represent the sum of all our lost memories and personal histories, those things replaced, because we are now so preoccupied with our own individual struggles; or because we are not fully attentive to what’s in front of us and still visible to the naked eye (if only we would look). Perhaps by not living fully our lives and remembering the lessons of the past, we lose a bit of our heritage, adding deposits (at the same time) to a culm bank of wasted opportunities. Are these sad skeletal frames we see in the contemporary landscape our discarded and abandoned dreams and hopes? Is this really, then, a haunted landscape or a night country of daydreams left untapped?

Let us explore this landscape together, you and I. Only then can we see for ourselves the reality behind these abandoned structures. But, if you choose to join me and explore this night country, be fore-warned. As Loren Eiseley once said:

If you cannot bear the silence and the darkness, do not go there; if you dislike black night and yawning chasms, never make them your profession.

What follows is a summary, however brief, of what I encountered in this night country. It is a pilgrimage into my own forgotten past, memories that have been struggling , for many long years inside of me, waiting to be excavated, mined, and exposed to the light of the surface:

Sir, in my heart there was a kinde of fighting, that Would not let me sleepe

William Shakespeare

These days, my nights are peaceful, and filled with sleep…..

You, dear reader, will have to make your own personal journey into this night country. If you chose to go, please remember the following warning:

Those as hunts treasure (like the black diamonds of the old miners) must go alone, at night, and when they find it, they have to leave a little of their blood behind them

(quoted in Loren Eiseley,

These droplets of

This is a sensible account of the development, and growth, of a sensory sensitivity, in a non-sensitive who, in the absence of psychic abilities and skills, took a different route through the wilderness on the road of discovery….back to the past. This is

We construct a sense of who we are, what our identity is, through recollections of places and peoples – ghosts and symbols from the past which haunt us both in the present and the future

Pam Shelton, Ground Plans

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring, will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time

T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there

L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

I may truly say my soul hath been a stranger in the course of my pilgrimage. I seem to have conversation among the ancients more than among those with whom I live

Francis Bacon

"The alternative days of a life stretch almost to infinity and are different in years and episodes. Which one is real, and the other remain mere unexplored potential, no one knows….

Loren Eiseley, Other Dimensions

The past is but the beginning of a beginning and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn

H.G. Wells

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St. Nicholas

Dedication

To Baba, her simple life, so full of complexity interwoven into a gentle, expressive, yet firm tone, is only now being fully appreciated, a translation that took me many years to unearth and decipher.

To the recurring spirit of the Mahanoy Area, lost and forgotten by many today, still echoes through the empty mine shafts, and the deserted, motionless structures. Yet, the voices of these miners, and their families, can

As I write these lines, in the dim light at night, there is a faint shadow, forgotten and lonely, abandoned on the wall before me, keeping me company. Its silence speaks to an empty corridor. Whether this is my own, or that of another….returning, I do not know. Faint sounds echo through the hallway, a product of row house construction. Yet another reminder that I am not alone in these houses. Tomorrow, that shadow may be that of another, a recurring resonance to the recall of a memory, shared; and of a past, present still….

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The wilderness path back….

to the Mahanoy area past

The Wilderness of Excavated Haunted Landscapes

Introduction

All beginnings contain an element of the recollection of experiences and memories. Some label this element, nostalgia. I prefer the term hauntings. A true paradise of mind, heart, and spirit can be situated in unlikely settings. To me, this is the culm waste, abandoned breakers and collieries, and the ghost patches of the Mahanoy Area. It is a haunted landscape of fields of ghostly remembrances and interactive apparitional shapes. I am on a ghost hunt for these lingering memories of the past and I ask you, the reader to share this adventure with me. At the same time, think of this journey as the past of us all, those who have come before, and for those yet to be born here.

What follows is a series of images from disparate moments of personal history, yet, also containing a collective and ethnic memory. Through these stories, I hope to materialize and illustrate how memory is a series of events and activities, recalled in the present, that cross temporal divides to reveal a cultural past that is still very much alive. This sojourn is largely autobiographical since I chose to focus on how understandings came about, agreements between my analytical mind and the emotional memory of landscape escapades that occurred during this ghost hunt. It is both the rationale of how one person’s puzzle was put together and the excitement of the ride, as I recall the reality of these ghostly manifestations. This is a haunted history full of the ghostly memories of spectral encounters. It is also a history that many, who live here, have forgotten. It is the story of a still-inhabited ghost town. Both the prominence and importance of Mahanoy City, and its coal rush, intertwined in an historical helix, have faded. The traditional haunts of forest spirits have been supplanted by more powerful forces that echo from the mines, floating up and through the surface decay of that expired industry. It is the story of the neglected and haunted St. Joseph’s Cemetery. Like