The Strange History of Peddler's Grave

 

In a lonesome spot on North Mahanoy Mountain, near the No. 3 Reservoir on Waste House Run, lies a peculiar grave with a peculiar history. This is the final resting place of Jost Folhaber, a German merchant who became the first known murder victim in Schuylkill County. The spot, known locally as "Peddler's Grave", has been one of the Coal Region's best-kept secrets ever since Folhaber's gruesome death in the summer of 1797.

Before Shenandoah and Mahanoy City became thriving coal towns in the late 19th century, this expanse of rugged terrain was teeming with bear, gray wolves, wildcats, deer and small game. These were the hallowed hunting grounds of Delaware tribe, and through this unspoiled wilderness a road was built by the first European settlers. This highway-- the "old Catawissa road"-- ran through what would later become Mahanoy City, which, at the time, was nothing more than a log tavern erected by an old German immigrant named John Reisch. This cabin stood at the corner of present-day Main and Centre streets, ona spot later occupied by the Merchants' Trust Company building.

On Thursday, August 10, 1797, two travelers spent the night at Reisch's Tavern. One was a hunter from New Jersey by the name of Benjamin Bailey, the other a Jewish merchant named Jost Folhaber (whose name also appears in early records as either Faulhover or Faulhaber). Bailey had already been a guest at the tavern for ten days prior to the day Folhaber arrived on a horse with laden with tin pots, copper utensils, and other wares the itinerant merchant sold to pioneer families. Benjamin Bailey, a native of Morristown, was 31 years of age and had left New Jersey in search of adventure in the Pennsylvania wilderness. Bailey had little money, but Reisch provided room and board in exchange for squirrels, rabbits and other small game Bailey was able to shoot with his rifle. 

The following morning at breakfast, Bailey struck up a conversation with the Jewish peddler after watching him sell several pots and pans to the tavern's proprietor. Realizing that the new arrival was literally jingling with coins, Bailey cozied up to Folhaber and asked him about what route had planned to take. With feigned concern for the peddler's safety, Bailey told him about the best places along the way to stop for water and food, and where he might find customers for his wares. Armed with this information, Folhaber saddled up his horse after breakfast and embarked upon a sales route that would be his last.

 

The Hunter and the Hunted

 

Bailey waited until the peddler was safely out of sight before following his trail on foot through the densely-forested mountains. Sure enough, Folhaber stopped at every spot Bailey had pointed out. When the merchant reached Waste House Run he unpacked his horse to pick whortleberries. Bailey crept through the brush, waiting for his opportunity to ambush the unsuspecting traveler. Several minutes passed, but the hunter crouched in the brush as still as a statue, his rifle steadied. When Folhaber passed through a clearing in the trees, Bailey pulled the trigger and shot the Jewish peddler in the back.

Mortally wounded, the peddler crawled to the roadside, where he writhed in agony, comforted only by the impossible hope that a traveler might hear his dying groans and save him. As slim as this possibility may have been, Bailey wasn't willing to take any chances; he knew that he had to finish the job. Armed with a tomahawk, Bailey approached the dying merchant and dealt him several vicious blows to the head. 

Bailey, now splattered from head to toe with Folhaber's blood, began to panic. He stripped off his clothing and set fire to them, concealing his nakedness with whatever unbloodied garments he could steal from the dead merchant's corpse. He then dragged the body into the woods, out of sight from anyone traveling along the old Catawissa road. Satisfied that he had committed the perfect crime, he eagerly plundered Folhaber's saddlebags. But his high spirits were dashed when he discovered the jingling coins the merchant had carried were not precious silver, but copper! In total, the killer's haul amounted to a mere five pounds. 

Bailey had to suppress the urge to scream out in frustration when he heard the approach of a horse. The rider, a Mr. Clarke, soon passed the killer without batting an eye. A short while later a Mr. Jackson passed by on foot. Neither traveler seemed to have suspected that anything was amiss, but Bailey was afraid that some one might discover the trail of blood left at the scene of the crime. He rode down the mountain on Folhaber's horse and, following a small stream near Reisch's Tavern, he hid the horse deep in the woods and concealed the copper coins in the hollow of a tree. When he returned to the tavern in the peddler's shirtsleeves, Mrs. Reisch asked him where he had left his coat. Bailey explained that he had lost it.

On the following day Bailey went to the spot where he had hidden the horse and the peddler's money, but was unable to find them. He asked Reisch to assist him in his search, which he did, but neither man was successful. On Monday morning, August 14, Bailey located the horse, but the animal was too weak to ride. Bailey  attempted to kill the horse with the same tomahawk he had used to split open Jost Folhaber's skull. when he returned to the site the following day and discovered, to his amazement, that the peddler's horse was still alive, he made up his mind to flee Schuylkill County before something else could go wrong. He headed for Catawissa, twenty-five miles away, on foot.

It was two weeks later, August 26, when the body of Jost Folhaber was discovered. The crushed skull and gunshot wounds told plainly of the manner of foul play, and the state of decomposition offered a clue as to when the crime had been committed. An inquest was empaneled by John Myer, a Justice of the Peace from Hamburg (the locale was then a part of Berks County), and Benjamin Bailey was charged with murder. Investigation revealed that, after arriving in Catawissa, Bailey had proceeded west to Northumbland County, where he had attempted to sell some of the peddler's goods. He was finally tracked to Easton, where he was arrested. He was transported to Reading by John Christ, sheriff of Berks County, and lodged in jail to await trial.

 

Peddler's Grave, as it appeared in 1933.

 

Bailey denied killing the merchant, and fixed the blame on the old German tavern owner, John Reisch. A bench warrant was formally issued for Reisch's arrest, but he was exonerated when Bailey's story began to fall apart. Benjamin Bailey was tried and convicted on November 9. The following day, he was sentenced to death by Judge Jacob Rush. Before a crowded courthouse, Judge Rush pronounced:

"You have had a fair and impartial trial. The witnesses have been examined in your presence. You selected your own jury and have been ably and zealously defended by your counsel. The evidence at the trial made so strong an impression as to combine in one sentiment against you... As you have but a short time to live in this world and there is no hope for pardon from any earthly hand, I urge you to seek a pardon from above.

"You have been found guilty of murder in its most horrid form-- deliberate, cruel and remorseless. You have imbrued your hands in innocent blood for the sake of a little money. And though the water of the mountain hath washed the stain from your garments and from your hands, oceans of water can never wash away the stain of guilt from your conscience. Nothing can possibly do this but the efficacious and all-cleansing blood of the Saviour. 

"To this blood you must apply, as the only remedy for a soul polluted with sin... Weep, I say, over the blood of Folhaber; for, if you go out of this world with his blood on your conscience, it will wring your soul with never-ending agonies and horror."

The death warrant was issued by Governor Mifflin on December 23, and the date of execution was fixed as January 6, 1798.

The record shows that Benjamin Bailey did little weeping over the blood of his victim at first; after attempting to commit suicide by slashing his wrists with a shard of glass in his jail cell, he was chained to the floor. As the day of his execution grew nearer, however, two clergymen persuaded him to make peace with the world he was about to depart. Bailey grew deeply penitent for his crime after he was visited by his wife, Sarah, and shortly before his execution he made out a full confession before Sheriff Christ, in which he expressed regret for fixing the blame on the innocent tavern-keeper. He ended his confession warning others against keeping bad company, and imploring all to resist the temptations of the devil.

 

The Execution of Benjamin Bailey

A crowd of nearly seven thousand braved the wintry chill to witness the hanging of Jost Folhaber's killer in Reading. Among them was Sarah Bailey, who, before the execution, made an unusual, yet understandable, request. She requested that her husband's body be buried deeper than usual to discourage body-snatchers and morbid "souvenir-hunters" from stealing it. It is unclear whether this request was granted, but, according to legend, Sarah sat atop the burial site for days on end until she was satisfied that the grave would be safe from violation.

In time, the murder of the Jewish peddler and the hanging of his killer were forgotten. But a curious footnote was written more than a century after the murder of Jost Folhaber. In August of 1880, a group of boys playing in the vicinity of Lawton's Patch, a short distance from Mahanoy City, discovered a cache of copper coins hidden in the hollow of a tree. In all likelihood, these were the very coins that had once lined the pockets of Jost Folhaber.

 

A bagpiper performs during a 1999 memorial service at Peddler's Grave

 

In the decades that followed, the land upon which the peddler was buried remained undisturbed, even as the surrounding scenery changed. The Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company dammed Waste House Run to supply its collieries with water, forming a reservoir. The peddler's grave is located immediately opposite from the spot where the old Philadelphia and Reading engine house once stood. By the 1930s, the burial site was marked by a mound of white gravel and a decaying stone cross, which was later replaced by the monument which currently marks the site and pays tribute to the victim of Schuylkill County's first known murder.

Ironically, but perhaps fittingly, the final resting place of Benjamin Bailey has been lost to history, and while the bones of the killer were left to rot in a pauper's field which has since been paved over and trampled by the march of progress, the wilderness burial site of Jost Folhaber has been loving preserved and is accessible to this very day.