The Mysterious Case of Hannah Shingle

Shenkel Church Cemetery, where Hannah Shingle is buried.

 

In the mid-19th century, an old farmhouse stood along a quaint country road in Chester County's North Coventry Township, about three miles from Pottstown near the Berks County line. This was the home of an eccentric spinster named Hannah Shingle, a 60-year-old woman who had lived alone on her family's 200-acre farm for the better part of her life after being jilted by a suitor as young woman. It was said that her failed romance had caused her to become quite peculiar, but while the local children scared themselves by telling spine-tingling tales about the mysterious spinster, the adults who lived near the Shingle farm knew better; for Hannah was merely a harmless old woman who had never recovered from a broken heart.

If anything, neighbors took pity on Hannah, who rented out her orchards and fields. This provided the old woman with just enough income to obtain the bare necessities of survival. She also supplemented her meager income by selling firewood which she chopped with her ever-present axe. Hannah's house had been broken into on two previous occasions, and, since that time, the axe never left her side; wherever she went, the axe went with her.

On the morning of October 25, 1855, two of Hannah's neighbors, John Miller and his son, had finished picking apples in Hannah's orchard when Mr. Miller sent his son to the farmhouse to check up on the old woman. After his knocks went unanswered, the young boy entered the farmhouse and was surprised to find that Hannah's clock case had been smashed to pieces, as if somebody had been searching for something that was hidden inside. Suspecting a robbery, the boy ran back to his father.

The Millers re-entered the house and went upstairs. At the top of the stairs they found signs of a struggle-- scuff marks on the floor, scratches in the wood, muddy footprints and a trail of blood leading to the bedroom. Inside the bedroom they discovered Hannah Shingle's body, covered in blood and partially sprawled across her bed. The Millers quickly spread the alarm and the farmhouse was soon crowded with concerned neighbors looking for clues. It seemed that Hannah's murderer had entered the house through an upstairs window sometime during the night while Hannah was sleeping downstairs; a ladder was discovered about three hundred yards away near a haystack. A grubbing hoe was also found inside Hannah's bedroom, and marks on the woman's desk indicated the killer had used the farming tool to pry open the locked drawers. This noise must've awakened Hannah, who went upstairs to investigate.

Despite her eccentricities, it was a known fact that Hannah was a strong-willed woman of indomitable courage. Instead of running for help, she had apparently grabbed her favorite axe and confronted the housebreaker, who met her at the top of the stairs. A terrible struggle must've ensued between the mysterious stranger armed with a grubbing hoe and the fearless axe-wielding spinster. The intruder choked Hannah and was able to grab the axe out of her hand. After pushing her onto the bed, he delivered two heavy blows to her forehead, splitting her skull wide open. After slaughtering his victim, the intruder proceeded to ransack the spinster's home for valuables. 

But there was one troubling clue. The intruder failed to find the $50 which Hannah kept in an unlocked dresser drawer. After a previous attempted robbery of her home, Hannah had confided to a small handful of close friends that she kept her money concealed inside her clock case. Was the intruder's decision to smash open the clock purely coincidental? Or did the fact that the killer had failed to find Hannah's money in the first place an ordinary thief would've looked point the finger of guilt not at an outsider, but at somebody whom Hannah had regarded as a trusted friend and neighbor? 

All evidence pointed to a perpetrator familiar with Hannah's property, as the grubbing hoe was later identified as one she had kept in her barn. Undoubtedly, Hannah had recognized the intruder, and the intruder-- in order to conceal his identity-- had no choice but to kill her.

Hannah Shingle was buried at the Shenkel's Church graveyard, within sight of her home, on Saturday, October 27. That same day, District Attorney J. Smith Futhey left his office in Pottstown but arrived after the burial had already taken place, so the body was exhumed the following day and a post-mortem examination was made by Dr. Meredith and Dr. Freas. At the coroner's inquest, it was established that Hannah had been murdered in a botched robbery attempt, though witnesses could provide no information about possible suspects. Two arrests were made on November 1 after concerned citizens procured a warrant and made their own investigations of persons of interest, but both suspects were later released for insufficient evidence. In December, a North Coventry Township farmer was arrested and given a hearing before Justice of the Peace Whitman, but he, too, was able to provide a solid alibi.

An Unsolved Mystery

Despite the best efforts of lawmen and justice-minded private citizens, Hannah's killer was never caught and the Shingle murder became one the of the great unsolved mysteries of its time. In the late 19th century it was reported that a man on his deathbed in Ohio confessed to the crime, but these rumors were never substantiated. Perhaps one reason why the killer remained at large is because Hannah had nothing of value to steal; had she possessed jewelry, gold or silver coins, or large denominations of currency, there's a chance the murderer could have been traced through these items. However, two macabre belongings of Hannah's-- the clock and her beloved axe-- did become highly sought-after relics following the tragedy. 

In April of 1877, an auctioneer named Beekley was selling off items from the Shingle estate when one North Coventry citizen, Aaron H. Focht, recognized the clock from the murder which had taken place twenty-two years earlier. Focht paid $3.50 for the timepiece, and he reported that some interested parties had made him offers as high as fifty dollars to buy the gruesome souvenir of the famous murder-- the equivalent of nearly $1,500 in today's currency. As for Beekley, he kept in his possession the axe, as well as the original door of the clock case, which still featured the smudges of the victim's blood left behind by the killer's hands. As for the Shingle farm, it was purchased by Allen B. Smale.

The Ghost of Hannah Shingle

For decades after the murder, travelers along Temple Road have reported encounters with an apparition believed to be the ghost of Hannah Shingle. this ghost was frequently seen near the bridge crossing the brook just before the intersection of Temple Road and Unionville Road. One person who encountered the apparition in the fall of 1879 was a man named Montgomery Campbell. Campbell was riding home from Bush's cider mill around nine o'clock in the evening. Campbell stopped his horse and approached what appeared to be large, glowing white orb, which he stated was about four feet in height and three feet wide and resting atop a fence. He tried talking to the ball of brilliant white light but received no response.

"Having seen the spook with my own eyes, I am convinced there is such a thing and no matter what others say, I am going to stick to that opinion," declared Campbell. At least a dozen other witnesses reported seeing the same apparition during that same period, and tales of Hannah's wandering ghost continued to be told well into the 20th century.


Sources:

West Chester Jeffersonian, Nov. 3, 1855.
West Chester Record, Nov. 6, 1855.
West Chester Record, Dec. 11, 1855.
West Chester Jeffersonian, April 21, 1877.
West Chester Record, Sept. 27, 1879.